Review #465: Psychic Force 2

 As 90s anime as you can get.

Look at those 90s animu character designs!

 The Psychic Force franchise was a two game oddity that was born in the Arcades but made its way to the PS1, Dreamcast and PS2. It's a fighting game unlike any other, well, at the time anyways, that pits two different Psychiccers against each other inside a floating cube of energy. It translates into a 2-D Fighter with a twist: Characters are flying at all times, and you get to move in 8 different directions.

 The game offers Arcade Mode, an 8 opponent ladder, Story, another 8 opponent ladder but with dialogue and a few stills, Rraining, VS CPU, VS Player, Group versus, Survival and Psy Expand, a mode in which you can customize a character with moves from the rest of the cast. It's a decent selection of modes complimented by 16 different characters who are very different from each other. Some lay out traps, some have special grabs, some can stop time, some can teleport, etc. That said, the game certainly makes it a grind to unlock every character, you must finish both Story and Arcade mode with every character to unlock everything, which will take a while and feels like a grind.

There's a lot of flying, projectiles and anime hair in this game.

 Characters have both weak and strong attacks, depending on the distance between you and your opponent, this will either be projectiles or punches and kicks. There're plenty of super moves performed a la Street Fighter, with directional inputs, but these consume energy that must be recharged by holding L1. As for defense, you've got barriers or high-speed dodges. As you get hit your maximum total energy increases for the round, or you can charge energy and mash the analog stick/digital pad to sacrifice your health to increase your maximum energy. It works pretty well, but I felt like sometimes I wouldn't get the special moves I wanted to do, probably a side-effect of the 360 degrees of movement and positioning allowed.

 Fast-paced, easy to learn but with enough depth to keep casuals entertained, Psychic Force 2 is a rather fun offering. The combo system is a bit limited, but it's fun to try out new and different things. You have to keep in mind that combos aren't the bread and butter of this game, but rather positioning, energy management and learning when to dodge and how to respond to projectiles. It's a very different kind of fighting game, but a fun one if you give it the chance.
 8.0 out of 10