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By Contributing Writer Jimmy Payne Rating: Good After buying a Dreamcast, my long-lost love of fighting games has been restored. Much of the credit for this goes to Power Stone, but unfortunately it still wasn't everything I thought and hoped it would be. It was a great idea to put special stones in the game that give your character super-human powers, but it really disrupts the game's balance. The chase for the stones is too easy because most of the time you're only a couple of steps away from one of them. If you get lucky and collect all the stones before your opponent does, you're transformed into a nearly invincible being who will more than likely kill your opponent in a matter of seconds before they have a chance to fight back or defend themselves. This kind of gameplay is sure to have friends hating each other for days because one of them kept using "cheap" attacks. And the sad thing is, the person who is accused of "being cheap" can't really help it because the game is so unbalanced when one player collects all the stones. Power Stone's relatively small selection of moves is one of its biggest downfalls. Hand-to-hand combat is a pretty rare thing in Power Stone, and what it usually consists of when it does happen is about three punches being exchanged before one fighter falls over and loses a stone. Also, the gameplay is fast-paced to the point that it's almost too fast. It can be very hard to keep up with your opponent at times, although this does get easier the more you play the game. On the bright side, not only can you run around in the full 3D arenas, but the environments are completely interactive as well. You can cut a rope and make a whole bunch of barrels come crashing down on your opponent, you can hang from monkey bars and try to kick your opponent from above, and you can even pull light-poles out of the ground and use them as weapons if you're playing as a strong character like Gun Rock. The character animations aren't just fun to look at, but they also serve real purposes in the gameplay. For instance, if you're trying to run towards a power stone and there are a bunch of tables in your way, your character will roll over them, not slowing you down one bit. This is something that is greatly appreciated, and it makes me shiver to think of how frustrating it would be if this function weren't in the game. There are plenty of other cool animations as well, such as a character's body flying backward and smacking up against a wall after they've been hit particularly hard. It’s great fun to feel like you're inflicting that sort of pain on your opponent, and it will make you think "Ouch!" when you're on the receiving end. The sound effects of different weapons clashing together are nice, and the catchy music tracks are some of the best I've ever heard in a fighting game. Graphically, it looks as though Capcom's transition from 2D to 3D in their fighting games was a success. Both the characters and the environments have quite a lot of detail, and there's no pixelation to be seen. This game is probably one of the smartest rental choices you can make for the Dreamcast. It has enough depth to keep you thoroughly entertained for the duration of the rental period, but the single-player game gets old just a little bit too quickly for me to recommend that you buy it without thinking twice. Overall, Power Stone is nowhere near as fun as Soul Calibur, but it's still a great game in its own right. Send your thoughts on this review to jimmy@mastergamer.com
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