DJ Sacks weekly appreciation thread: Power Stone 1+2

[DJ Sack]

3, 2, 1, Click
In the 19th century
People are strong believers of supision and legend.
Adventures seek the world for fortune and glory.
And a legendary treasure which has the power to make dreams come true.
That treasure is known as the Power Stone

Welcome to Power Stone War!

Power Stone

Power Stone is the game which helped sell the Dreamcast to all the early adopters. A 3D fighting game where you dont just punch people but throw stuff at them, push stuff at them, swing round poles at them, fire guns at them and also turn into a super being and unlease huge attacks.

The graphics are big and bold with a nice close up view of all the action. The areas are pretty tiny, but allow you to jump off walls and grab chairs and throw them across the room, every thing is so sharp and detailed, and the textures really shine compared to the PSOne.

The sound is nice and authentic for each level, if a little oriental, but it all adds to the charm, sound effects are loud and brash, when you get a powerstone, you know it, each hit has weight to it too.

The one player game is quiet limiting and the final boss is far too difficult, but in multiplayer the game shines, some characters can pick up poles and smash the whole screen with them, whist lighter ones can bounce off walls. Objects are being thrown all over the shop, powerstones are flying and everyone is racing to them to get all 3.

Powerstones? Ah yes, both players start with one each, and a 3rd enters into the area a few seconds after, get all 3 by beating your opponeant and getting him to drop it and you transform, attacks are weak against you, whist you can pull off power moves, but only for a few seconds. The game does revolve around collecting the power stones to win, but hitting someone with a stick whist they are charged up and getting a KO is pretty sweet.

Multi player is just halarious though, with everything flying about, including your character, it is just a fun fighting game that anyone can enjoy. Theres a lot of subtlety to it too concerning weapons and the escape move where you can dodge attacks when timed right.

Theres also the 3 VMU games which showed what the VMU could do and how it could be used.

A great game!

Power Stone 2

Pretty much like Power Stone 1, but made more for multiplayer gaming.

4 Players are always on screen at once, so the view is often zoomed out. Personally i prefer the levels in this game, they are just much more fun. You might start on an air ship which explodes, fall through the air, still fighting, and land on the ground to finish anyone off. Or you may be on a sub which goes under water, crashes into ice burgs. Anything can happen.

Theres a LOT more weapons on offer too, hundreds and hundreds, and you can even create your own in the games editor. The game here once again really shines in multiplayer, especially with 3 mates, its even more hectic with the amount of weapons, vehicals and fighting going on, and with 7 power stones on screen at anyone time, two people can be fully charged.

I couldnt recomend either game over the over, they complement each other and are both top fun if slightly different and have differences you'll love and hate. Get Both, like i did!

Capcom, please make another Power Stone game!

[Kron]

I can still remember the first time I loaded Powerstone on my Japanese DC about a week after it came out, Utterly stunned in everyway.

The fluidity of the game mixed with the design and the definition and colour was a really an eye opener at the start of 99, Nothing compared at all and its a memory im glad to have

Got to give mad props to Capcom for the fantastic character design that shone with character and charm.

A perfect example of an arcade videogame and surely some of Capcoms best work.

Absolutely love the first game.

[TEZBEK]

Powerstone Good
Powerstone 2 bad. VERY BAD!

[Shimmyhill]

I was at work the day Edge reviewed powerstone (i litterally got it off the postman as i got in the car) i remember reading the review, i wanted it but had literally swapped my whole Pc for a jap gc (remember that one gizze) and funds where not there to risk on a unknown game to me.

I remember being totally blown away by the screenshots alone and on reading the review i was sold. We where not allowed to use the work phone for non work related business but i didnt care, i rang Madeira and ordered it with a extra pad. When it arrived i was stunned, it surpassed all my expectations and remains one of my fav games ever. It cost me several shoulder buttons on the ol DC pad but who cares !!
Truly a great game and a absolute classic.

Powerstone 2 was **** tho.

[Fuddle]

powerstone is why i got a dreamcast....i was amazed by it, and played it to death.
the graphics had such a great style to them, fokers english pub courtyard was excellent and the characters looked really solid and unique.
also loved the mini vmu games, spending quite a long time playing the vertical flying game in fokers plane.
its one of the things i was stupid enough to sell, and i really want to get it back again now.
never played no2, but it never looked as nice in pictures.

[Fuddle]

The one player game is quiet limiting and the final boss is far too difficult,

really???...i always thought that was pretty easy.

[taurusnipple]

Yeah I'm another one who read EDGE's review and had to have the game imported ASAP. I was hooked on it for ages, brilliant game. The sequel was great I thought, and really added to the experiance. The shop where you experimented to create new items was fab. I must have spent 40+ hours doing that alone, had to have every item in the log book, and of course only the best items created would appear on the harder difficulties. Great games, hope a 3rd comes out.

[Vaipon]

Why all the hating on Powerstone2? I have both games for my Jap DC, and I think they are each worthy of their merits. Powerstone2 is a riot on 4 player, total madness and carnage. It suffers from slowdown quite badly, but it's never unplayable. I do probably prefer Powerstone 1 as a single player experience, but the second game is still great.

[Firsty]

Hahah Valgas hard?
He was so bleedin' easy!!! Fighting the CPU wasn't challenging at all. It demanded multiplayer!!! It got to the point where I actually began to feel guilty for the CPU, it being so easy to destroy.

PS2, I remember that one fondly. Used to play that in 3 or 4 player quite quite quite regularly, and it was hilarious. But now it just seems....stupid? No skill. Just button mashing really. And WangTang isn't so good in it. Oh, and the music was ****ed in the eye.

[Supergoal]

I loved P2 more than 1, though both were played in equal amounts overall. Before buying the game, and seeing it running at my local import shop I was not actually fussed about it, then I made myself buy it and totally loved it!

[C']

I remember being told that the original Power Stone wouldn't appeal to me, as it lacked depth. Thank **** I ignored that person as I found Power Stone to be one of the greatest 3D beat em ups ever devised (and easily Capcom's best take on the sub-genre).

Whilst it's 3 button control scheme may hint at simplicity, there is a ton of techniques in there to learn. Triange jumps, chain attacks, mid air throws, pole techniques. And that's even before you get to use of weapons (each is brilliantly implemented) and the actual Power Stones themselves. Personally, I always liked the game's dodge technique. It required months of practice to get the timing just right, but once you nailed it your game took on a new level. Spinning to the side of your enemy and launching a 4 hit punch-kick chain, or darting between your opponents legs launching them into the wall with a rear throw are marvelous moments. Like any good fighter, a match between two equally skilled opponents can be a thing of beauty, and whilst, to a casual observer, the on screen results look a tad chaotic, the players will be extremely focussed and always aware of what they are doing.

Which is where I feel Power Stone 2 falls down. 4 Player Power Stone sounded like a thing of beauty when it was first announced yet Capcom altered so much that the sequel always fell short of the original. The zoomed out view led to a more detatched view of the action. Also, there was too great a focus on weapons in the sequel that was detrimental to the game. Whereas Power Stone was a fighting game, with weapons, PS2 had the balance more skewed on weapon combat, and the fighting took a back seat as players moved from one weapon to the next. This was further compounded with Capcom messing about with the control system, removing the perfect Punch, Kick, Jump controls and replacing them with a much worse Attack, Jump, Action layout which didn't seem to offer the same degree of flexibility to play.

Perhaps the greatest failing of the sequel was that it simply felt too random, with the perfect control and response of PS1 seemingly lacking.

Still it's a testament to the original game's greatness that no game has come close to replicating the original Power Stone. It was the first to try something new in 3D fighters and it has yet to be matched almost 5 years on.

[Judge]

I'm going to have to jump in on the side of people defending the sequel. It was the multiplayer game of choice for me and my mates for well over a year, something that even four-player Halo coudn't manage...

[Smeghead]

PowerStone blew me away, can't believe so much goodness was crammed into such a small GD ROM, they had so much to unlock too includin sweet little VMU games an it was jus nice to have a title that was so deep, yet at the same time incredibly shallow