Power Stone
Reviewed by Clement Chan Zhi Li
If you have played Marvel vs Capcom 2, Power Stone may not
really be the best fighting game ever created as Power Stone
only have a measly number of either characters while Marvel
vs Capcom 2 has a whooping 56 characters. But this game has
a unique type of battle system, that will simply engross you
in the game for hours! Added to that, the extremely simple
controls as well as the incredible graphics made this game
shines its light in the day.
Graphics - 9
The characters models are recreated perfectly and looked
tremendously great with its cartoon looks stayed in. As
usual, Power Stone and several other games like Soul Calibur
are already in the Sega's Naomi arcade board so the full
conversion is definitely not surprising with the graphics
more enhanced, brighter and with stunning high-resolution
picture. Even the stages have been designed enough with its
cool and adventurous looks to make you feel better about
them. The animations are done so fluent and efficient that
the frames are all steady without a single flaw in them!
Nevertheless, Capcom has not yet passed out and leave us
with dull and unentertaining graphics, despite many more
games the big company has to create for different platforms.
The great flashing light sources and are also one of the
cool graphics features that are added, and can be seen when
your character shoots out his or her magical powers.
Mixtures of different millions of colours made this game
looks brighter and cheerful and never a character or a stage
will look down and dull (with the exception of Jack's stage,
of course). The background itself in ten various stages have
their own unique appearances from different cultures of
different countries.
Music - 9
With ten different stages for you to play, there are
different background music for you to hear with their own
different rhythm and style in it. Each of them have all
sorts of musical beat, especially quick and rapid rhythm
when your character transformed after collecting the three
magical Power Stones. Moreover, there are also different
voices used for optional characters that appeared from time
to time to fit in the ending. Even the sound effects on how
you draw out a sword and slash your enemy or grab Sun Wu
Kong's powerful stick will have their own sound effects.
Even the way you punch your enemy will have the effect and
even better sound effects will appear when you transform
into a powerful form.
Gameplay - 9
Power Stone is definitely an interesting and unique game to
be played on cards, and it was a relief after Capcom
literally spends its time creating dozens of Capcom versus
series and the totally repetitive and uninteresting Street
Fighter series for almost all platforms. So all we want is a
guaranteed original and fun game and finally, Capcom
answered our prayers by releasing Power Stone, which is also
included as the first batch of release games for Dreamcast.
The battle system does not only include button-mashing and
releasing power or execute whatever sort of moves the
character have. In fact, you'll need to collect three Power
Stones which one of them are already collected by you, one
of them at the hands of the enemy and the last will appear
after you start fighting with the enemy. Getting hold the
three of them will transform you into a much powerful form
(sort of Ultraman and Power Rangers to me). And on that
time, you'll be given a short span of time and power for you
to hit and kill your enemy with your own strategy.
Indeed, each of your characters have different advantages as
well as disadvantages. Ayame, for example, is very quick and
fast but have a not-so powerful attacks while Gunrock, which
is very powerful but incredibly slow because of his fat. You
can easily try out every character as there are only eight
of them but remember, there are no Training Mode. Yup, no
kidding. I don't know Capcom has successfully released this
game without one single Training Mode to practice.
Arcade Mode, of course, will be what you had expected. Fight
all characters till the three last bosses and you'll be
stunned with its hardness. Remember, three bosses are simply
crazy to play that it will take one hour to complete only
one character's adventure. So, add up the seven more up and
you'll get eight hours of gameplay. It may be difficult but
simply addicting as you can also play a versus mode against
one of your friends.
The Versus Mode has not much difference but just as every
fighting games that you have played, have a friend to fight
against (or three friends to fight against, as a case of
some games allowing them). As you progress along and used a
few characters in the Arcade Mode already, you'll unlock a
few modes which will unlock the Extra Items mode. In there,
you can easily select whether you want to collect 3 or 5
Power Stones to transform, have extra items for you to
choose while you fight and other useful modes. You can even
choose whether to make your transforming attack to 200%
which, in this case, you can kill an enemy immediately while
the enemy can do the same to you, so be careful what you choose.
You can take lots of items while fighting in the stage, and
lots of obstacles which can easily knock out a few health
bars from your life. You can take out a sword after
destroying a treasure box and slash the enemy to make him
throw out all the Power Stones he have. Or you can climb up
the net on Ayame's stage and throw down lanterns that are
hanging on top, acting like flying bombs. Or even a flame
thrower which can reduce your enemy to ashes (well, not
really). You can even kick a box or throw it towards the
enemy to knock him out! All together, you can find a nice
collection of items to use, if you don't fancy all the
kicking and punches all about.
The whole stage is your whole fighting battle. You can
continue your fight against your enemy even up on the
rooftop, or climbing up on a net or even at the side of a
ship! That's the coolest thing about playing in Power
Stone's stages, you have complete freedom and style on the
way of defeating your enemies. You can choose to use the
various items that appear from time to time or just jump,
attack, kick, attack, jump and use whatever moves that
pleases you. You can also throw your enemies if you like but
this move are unlikely to be used as it will only consider
that you are going to be beaten. One more thing, you can't
even defend yourself. Run and avoid it. Remember, run and
avoid.
After you have played for a long time, you can download
three VMU mini-games (which cost a whole memory card!). To
download them, you'll need to progress through the game and
the mini-games will allow you to open more extra pages to
the Power Stone book. You can play Falcon's airplane game
which is basically shooting and more shooting, Gunrock's
slots and lastly, Ayame's ninja star throws. All of them
exciting and addicting, which allows more replay value.
Controls - 10
Actually, there are not really many buttons for you to press
so it's pretty easy, really. Let's count: One jump button,
one kick button, one grab button and one punch button. One L
Button for executing the Jump and Punch move, one R button
for executing the Jump and Kick move and a totally full 360
degrees analog stick. So actually, there are not really many
combos and moves to remember so it's just a matter of
winning in this game.
Replay Value - 9
With lots of mini-games to play, this game should get you up
and running for days, or weeks. Three exciting mini-games
for you to download and play should last you for a long time
and getting them are even difficult as you need to do
something special (no spoilers!) in order to get them.
Honestly, the Arcade Mode is a real tough one and what's
really going to be tough is Capcom does not include a
Training Mode which makes life difficult. The versus mode
will already be one game that should let you fight against
your friends for hours without giving up. Just remember,
Power Stone is one of the games that has tons of replay value.
Overall - 9 out of 10
Power Stone is one cool, addicting game but honestly, I feel
that it's still not complete because it has only very few
and limited modes for you to play. With the unique fighting
style and the cool idea of collecting three Power Stones,
you can't simply dished this game away. One word to say,
simply addicting.
Heroes
-----
+ A simply addicting game!
+ Flawless, stunning, brighter and cooler graphics!
+ Mini-games to get you entertained!
Pillows
-----
- Very limited modes, especially that there are no Training
Mode. Bugger.
- Tough enemies as they have very high artificial
intelligence.
- An addicting game that will make you lose sleep!
OR
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