Power Stone

[JaySevenZero]

Here's where you can contribute your thoughts and opinions for Power Stone for potential inclusion in the forthcoming podcast.

A friendly reminder that where the feedback for the podcast is concerned, we love it - but keeping it brief is appreciated. We do want to include a breadth of opinions where appropriate, but no-one wants a discussion podcast that’s mostly reading out essays. Better to save yourself time and cut to the chase if you can.

[DaMonth]

I would actually have a heart attack if a third game was ever announced, but Capcom would never so I'm glad to be guaranteed such a long fulfilling life. A fun little party fighter from the times where you didn't think too hard about how half the cast was packed with borderline-uncomfortable stereotypes, including legally-distinct Goku. The sound clip "OH NO" has never left my head.

Shoutout to the Power Stone anime, if anyone actually bothered to watch through that.

[Wesali1996]

I was surprised to see Power Stone on the podcast list, as it seems to be one of those games no-one I know has ever heard of. My brothers and I were playing this constantly on the Dreamcast (usually the console was placed upside down as it had a bad habit of not reading the discs). To this day I remember every character as well as both of their special attacks. It goes to show how unique the characters were, Wang Tang was the favourite followed closely by Ryoma. My strongest memory of the game is booting it up one day and seeing the Valgas monster form on the character selection screen.. I could not believe my eyes. An amazing game and I think a reboot could be very successful.

[Rhaegyr]

Scandalous comments from Leon regarding Power Stone 2.

[RexBizzy]

I was hoping to see a lot more love in the forum for Power Stone. It was a great game that brought new and exciting elements into the fighter genre. But I guess I'm not surprised at the cool response. Growing up i had a difficult time convincing any of my gaming friends to spend more than a few minutes playing it.

I think the look of the game might have turned off more serious gamers since it looked more goofy and animated than the likes of Soul Calibur and Dead or Alive. While i loved the playable characters, they didn't stand a chance against the recognizable faces in Super Smash Bros... and being released weeks apart from each other meant that convincing anyone to trade in their Marios and Pikachus for Wang-Tang and Jack was a loosing argument at every gaming get-together.

[RexBizzy]

I mostly love the characters available in the original Power Stone. While some of them appear to be repackaged from other pop culture sources, i still loved the design of Wang-Tang and Ryoma and felt powerful whenever they transformed and went on the offensive. Falcon the 1903 fighter pilot was unique and had a Slick ironman-esque transformation, despite being lifted from the Disney movie "the rocketeer". Of course the overtly sexualized Rouge falls into the same trap as many Female characters. But the Pink Bunny Suit of Ayame seemed fun and powerful, her quick ninja moves a great counter to the mostly heavy and slow cast... but still a pink bunny on one of the only 2 women in the game seems like they didn't try hard enough to think of an alternative.

Galuda is an interesting choice to include in the roster. My first instinct is to say that this is a horrible stereotyping effort to include a Native American character. But on the other hand, there are not many Native American characters in video games. And Galuda is hella fun to play with, with super strength, a great fighting style, a stoic wood armor transformation that is more detailed than many of the others, and that epic body slam power move. I'm not sure where the verdict falls on his depiction in the game, but it reminds me how much i want to see more indigenous stories and characters included in the industry.

And we have to talk about Jack, who is possibly the most unique videogame character ever created (Voldo from Soul Calibur doesn't even compare). Jack is an upbeat and childlike caricature of Jack the Ripper (yes the 19th century serial killer) who likes 3 things: stabbing things with his knife, collecting shiny things, and assaulting women (presumably to kill them and take their jewelry). Pretty intense for a children's Anime (however the game was rated T for Teen).
So what does Jack look like? A 4,000 year old Mummy wearing a trench coat, exactly like you would expect! I suppose this is a nod to the stolen Egyptian artifacts housed in British museums. So to avoid that little culturally sensitive conundrum, they just refer to him as a mad clown in the character notes, because, why not?
But wait! What's this ? After collecting all 3 Power Stones and transforming, Jack gains super mummy rubber-band buzzsaw arms and the ability to shoot flying lighting swords. Classic Jack-the-Ripper-Mummy crossover stuff. I still laugh thinking of how the development team came up with that character and consider it a great candidate for a live-action film-Noir netflix series.

[RexBizzy]

I know a lot of people will disagree with me on this, but i think Power Stone has some of the most diverse and interesting combat of a fighter in its time. Of course it is missing deep move lists and combos. There is no secret button pattern to unlock a super final move (that i know about). But there is a little bit of EVERYTHING here. No other game before it has mixed button mashing combat, item usage, destructive and interactive environments, and super powered ultimate moves in the same game.

I love the variety of combat here. You can start out in a bar room brawl, just smashing your opponent with simple and satisfying blows that can send them flying across the stage. Then you can get more creative, pulling out moves like a Jackie Chan movie, rolling across tables, kicking chairs, doing backflips off walls to keep everyone guessing at your next offensive maneuver. When items start dropping, the game takes a turn into a guns blazing Rambo tribute, shooting bazookas and machine guns until your opponent is running in fear. Then, when you get all 3 power stones, you are unstoppable! unleashing super moves of lightning bolts and lighting quick punches. Even the Arena seems to tremble as you rip up lamp posts and wield structural beams to knock the stuffing out of your cowering foes. The transformations are reminiscent of the fatalities of mortal combat, all but guaranteeing a KO. But here, instead of a repetitive fatality animation, you have control unleash your power as you see fit. The dramatic camera angles and slowed down time help to make these finishing moves feel immense and supremely cool.

This style of fighter, which has so many avenues to develop and change the combat, would have been a great foundation to build off of for a whole string of sequels. We could have seen the development of deep move lists, more combos and even more interaction with the environment. This same foundation could have been channeled into a side scrolling brawler allowing you to unleash your super abilities against waves of enemies. or alternatively a mini RPG with 8 different storylines to literally play through and explore the environments before you tear them apart looking for those ever enviable little glowing gems. Power stone 2 fell short of my hopes in this respect, but i do appreciate the effort made to create new and dynamic environments and a crazy big item system.

[Wuqinglong]

I had the opportunity to first play Power Stone and Power Stone 2 on a friend's Dreamcast in the early 2000s. It instantly left a strong impression that has stayed with me to this day. Aside from the Super Smash Bros. series it is the only "party fighter" that I would mentally put at the same level of fun. I prefer the wider cast and locations of the sequel but the original has its own distinct charm. It's a shame the games are stuck on the dreamcast and PSP as I would love a port to modern machines with online play. Speaking wishfully a new title would be even better. It's a video game series where you can play as character that can shoot ki beams from their hands, throw spirit bombs, and is free of the cut corners and dubious quality that many other games with the ability to do so often suffer from. What more could you ask for?

3 word review: Another Entry Please

[Rhaegyr]

Anyone know if this is a podcast on the series as a whole or just the original?

[ratsoalbion]

We're really focusing on the first game, but we will probably talk about the sequel, and it's less likely to get its own show.

[dtrixwaff]

Power Stone was a title that I only had fleeting contact with as an adolescent. My best friends inexplicably had Dreamcasts while what seemed like the rest of the world had PS1s and N64s. That, of course, isn't a knock against Dreamcast or Sega at all; the Dreamcast may, to this day, have been the most unique and creative console ever conceived. Criminally underrated as a console, the Dreamcast of course had tragically overlooked titles among them and in my eyes, Power Stone was chief among them.

I mentioned earlier that I didn't have a Dreamcast myself growing up, but those rare opportunities that I got to play at my friends' houses were ones that I'll never forget. I still often remember the quirky, chaotic, strategic combat now when I daydream of funky games that I'd like to create. Somehow, the combat here felt more involved and varied than that of Smash (heresy to Nintendo fans I'm sure) with it's reliance on environmental-manipulation and resource-management that seemed negligible in Smash in casual play. There also seemed to be more character in the movesets; the roster relied more on the actual animations and less on nostalgia. The 3D arenas also added....depth... to matches without feeling like it bogged down the pace of skirmishes. To use an overused word, it was: frenetic. And in the best possible way.

Power Stone owns little actual real estate in my chronological youth, but the impact that it left on a young gamer is irrefutable. Though the similarities are only skin-deep, I absolutely love silly fighting, party games (think Gang Beasts) because of the foundations of Power Stone. I love tactically complex, semi-fixed camera ARPGs (Transistor, Hades) in part because of the depth of Power Stone.

Power Stone was a great title that didn't need to lean on the familiarity of its roster to be great.

[psychohype]

Power Stone was the third game I got for the Sega Dreamcast shortly after Christmas of 1999. If I remember correctly, my mom had picked it up for me, completely on a whim. I didn’t even have to ask for it!

While the game was clearly designed for a proper two-player head-to-head experience, I had a blast just going up against the computer opponent again and again on my quest to unlock the storybook ending for each character.

I still love the concept for the game, how every character has a super-powered alter ego just waiting to be unlocked with the aid of magical gems.

Each match was like a game of chicken. What was your first move going to be? What would they throw your way? There were so many options at your disposal. You could chuck the nearest furniture item at your opponent to knock their gems loose. You could try to land the first surprise jump kick. Eventually, after circling around the arena, you might as well pick up that nearby item spawn, be it a gatling machine gun or an old-timey bomb, just to try something new.

Of course, it usually came down to whoever managed to scramble the fastest by collecting those three colored gems in order to unleash their character’s most devastating special attacks.

It was just a few weeks ago that I decided to bring my Dreamcast unit out of storage and hook it up to an old-school TV in my upstairs bedroom. The first game disc I popped in was Power Stone. It had been maybe 15 years or more since the last time I played it, but the mechanics came back to me fairly quickly.

I suppose it’s not a deep game, mechanically speaking, but it’s still dripping with charm and character all these years later. It still feels good to land that opening blow to your opponent, the one that jars their starting gem loose.

After choosing to play as the female character Rouge, it didn’t take long to arrive at my first Power Stone transformation. The strategy and muscle memory came back to me immediately. Soon I was knocking every one of my computer opponents around the room with my rapid fireball attacks, capped out by a huge area-of-effect heat blast finisher.

I’m so happy to still have my Dreamcast and the Power Stone games in my collection almost 25 years later. Thanks, mom!

[Alex79]

Power Stone 1 and 2 coming to Switch (and presumably other consoles) via the Capcom Fighting Collection 2! Interesting news!

[ratsoalbion]

We did it again.

[Alex79]

Haha yeah, shame the Cane and Rinse blessing didn't stretch to Viewtiful Joe! I can only assume they can't have sold all that well as it does seem odd they've never gone back to the games.

[Harkatim]

Power Stone 1 and 2 coming to Switch (and presumably other consoles) via the Capcom Fighting Collection 2! Interesting news!

Online Power stone could be a wonderful thing! Capcom are cookin'!

[Alex79]

And Rollback netcode to boot!