Power Stone Review

From the start, Powerstone's sheer arcade quality is uncanny. The title sequence the character select screen and the front-end presentation have that arcade, and Capcom quality dripping from them. But all that's nothing to prepare you for the stunning in-game action.

Starting with the in-game graphics, the textures are very detailed, big and colourful. The hi-res, 60fps display is expected, but always stunning. The characters are rounded, their clothes, animation and image all unique and attractively designed. There is no clipping, pop-up, glitching or any dodginess whatsoever; this is pure Capcom quality. It's possibly the first Dreamcast game that isn't rushed - and it shows.

Onto the gameplay! When you begin play, you feel like you've played the game before, such is the instinctive, responsive control of the game. With buttons for punching, kicking, grabbing and jumping, it doesn't take long to learn them and you'll soon be stringing them together in adventurous and innovative ways. But although you can use the usual array of martial arts techniques, there's more to it than that.

The camera movements are well-realised; it rotates around the screen quickly, but never loses sight of you. There is a small map at the bottom of the screen that shows you where Power Stones (see later!) are located, so you know what's going on instantly.

Like Spikeout, you have near total freedom, and that's what makes this so great. It's taken this long for a good 'Streets of Rage in 3D' title to appear, mainly because of hardware restrictions to date, but now Dreamcast is here, it's been more then amenable. There are four outer walls in each area that isolate you somewhat, but you've got enough space to run around, defensively a lot of the time, or to pick up new weapons a la Spikeout. The ledges, shelves and multi-level platforms you can jump onto give a 3D feel that Streets of Rage never had. Unlike said game and Die Hard Arcade, this is truly 128 BIT!

Levels contain objects, weapons and bad guys scattered cunningly. Their positioning within each area is tactically well thought-out, meaning you actually have to think about where you're headed, what your next move will be. The weapons range from a simple iron pipe to huge missile launchers, but can also use objects such as boxes, tables, chairs, trashcans, plants, guns, flamethrowers, statues, time-bombs, bottle bombs, pipes and so much more, before hurling them with the punch button at your hapless foe.

This game innovates as well though. "Power Stones" appear randomly in different places, at different times. The first fighter to collect all three of the Power Stones is super powered-up for a limited amount of time, in which they can launch utilise powerful weapons and abilities. This is god news for your fighter, should you get there first. If it's an enemy, be prepared to run! Once their super power has ended, the three stones scatter across the area again, and characters rush to get the stones.

This is what makes the game so fun. It's almost a race, in that you NEED the stones, and can even knock them out of an enemy's possession to regain control. There are so many tactics introduced at this feature - for example, long distance object-throwing to regain the stone - that the game induces brilliant levels of diversity that have always been absent in this type of game before. Even though the matches are timed, they last a very long time. It takes around 45 minutes to fight seven characters and two bosses, just about the right amount of time for a good arcade bash.

The presentation, as previously mentioned, is great. All fighters have proper Capcom endings, music and sound effects are good (although not outstanding) and it all comes together very well indeed. As far as options are concerned, you have the ability to adjust the difficulty from one to eight stars, controller set-up, match time, speed and some other cool stuff.

There's also a second option screen that appears after you complete the game the first time. I have not yet used it, but it seems that you can play around with numbers of Power Stones in the different levels. There's even a Power Stone Collection screen that shows you a book with 15 pages. Each page has a question mark, and each page is revealed when you complete the game in certain ways, with different fighters.

Although some areas do seem a little 'small', they're all much bigger than the average VF3 arena, but it would have been nice to have even more room than there already is (roll on Shenmue) as well as more characters and enemies. But what is in there will certainly suffice, that's nitpicking.

What we have here is a brilliant and original fighting game, different enough from everything else you'll ever have played, including AM2's Spikeout. The first major thirdparty Dreamcast game is certainly the triple-A monster it was hyped up to be - it's just so good. And on that note, I'm off to play it again.