Power Stone is one of the many, many great Capcom Arcade games that never saw a port outside the Dreamcast... until the PSP Collection. Collecting everything Power Stone, Capcom yet again delivers a fantastic PSP package. Power Stone Collection includes Power Stone 1, Power Stone 2 and the three VMU mini-games in one neat package, alongside a couple of extras in the form of official art.
Power Stone is an Arena based 1-on-1 fighting game. As with most games of its ilk, there's a bunch of weapons that you can collect in order to defeat your opponent, but the game's main feature are the Power Stones. Defaulting at three(5 on the Sequel, but you can change it in the options menu), gathering these stones will temporarily transform your character into a super version of him or herself. It's not as simple as it sounds, as getting knocked down will make one of your stones fall down, allowing your enemy to grab it. All in all, it's a fairly fun game, and the version featured in this Collection allows you to unlock the new comers from Power Stone 2, which sounds awesome until you play as them. Y'see, these 4 unlockable characters play just as they do in Power Stone 2, with a simplified control scheme, which translates to less moves, and they are much, much slower than the other characters. Basically, they are completely outclassed, making them a pretty worthless extra. As for ways to play it, there's Arcade, Versus, Training, Ad-Hoc Vs, Training and an unlockable 'rear view' Arcade Run.
Power Stone 2 builds upon Power Stone 1, now you can play with up to three other players/CPUs, it features even more items and weapons, more characters(Kind of a null point since you can unlock them in this PSP port on the prequel!) alongside interactive stages that feature transitions into other areas and even vehicles and turrets! The controls have been simplified, reducing attacks to just one button and removing one of the two normal attacks of a character's super form. While characters move a bit slower, when playing with 3 other enemies, it's barely noticeable, and that's how you should be playing the game this time around. Weapons are more prominent than before, as even gems will appear inside chests instead of simply spawning on the ground, unlike the first game. As for Modes, there's a 1-on-1 Arcade run, 1-on-3 Arcade run, Versus, Adventure(A slightly altered 1-on-1 run, Ad Hoc, Training and a Network-only Bomber battle).
Power Stone 2 only has five stages, which as fun and multi-tiered as they are, they can eventually get old, but you can unlock four other stages(Only for use in Vs or Practice) for a total of 9, which isn't so bad. You can also unlock the two Power Stone 1 bosses, and they are much faster than the characters in this game, plus, they have more moves, kinda making them a bit too good when compared to the rest of the cast. All things considered, I think I like Power Stone one a little bit better, but I'm sure Power Stone 2 is the better multi-player game.
As much as I enjoyed both games, I had a couple of gripes. First of all, the loading times are a bit long, particularly on Power Stone 2. And the other one, which I thought was worse, is that they didn't rework the 'guest' characters to fit the other game. Power Stone 2 characters in Power Stone 1 are useless, they are too slow to even stand a chance, and their reduced movesets make them not as fun to use. Capcom should've, at least, increase their movement speed. The same goes for the Power Stone 1 characters in Power Stone 2, they are much faster than the others, with more moves, was it too much of a bother to put them in line with the rest of the cast? These features could've been a really cool bonus, but as it stands, they are a very disappointing extra.
Both games use the same engine, as far as I could tell, which means that they look the same. Not that it's a bad thing, as both games are very colorful and good looking. Stages are pretty creative, specially Power Stone 2's with their multiple transitions. The characters, sadly, aren't very creative, they are fairly generic, and slightly uninspired, their super transformations are much, much better though, still, let's just say that there's a reason they never made it to Capcom's VS games. Music, while hardly Capcom's finest, is pretty good and upbeat, very fitting of the games.
Power Stone Collection is a great way to get to play the Power Stone games, you even get official art and the VMU mini-games. Still, it doesn't necessarily make the Dreamcast ports obsolete, as the new unlockable characters are fairly disappointing and not worth double dipping into the series.
8.0 out of 10
No comments:
Post a Comment