The first true 3D fighting game where players can move about in a real 3D environment. Players can move in any direction without any limitation at all. Furthermore, it’s possible to climb trees and the sides of buildings as well as being able to jump up on ledges and even onto the roofs of buildings. Players can also vault off the side of buildings to launch themselves at their opponents, landing with flying kicks or weapon attacks.

10 characters (2 hidden) who use different fighting styles from around the world. These include: Samurai, karate, wrestling, ninjitsu, kung fu and more.

Fighters have the ability to pick up and use a wide variety of weapons. These include: guns, large mallets, swords, poles, bombs, molotov cocktails, bazookas, flamethrowers. These weapons appear in chests that are scattered around the 3D arena.

Players can pick up almost anything in the 3D arena and use it to beat their opponent senseless. Objects that the player can move include rocks, barrels, such as chairs, tables, benches, and crates. Larger and more powerful characters can pick up bigger objects like tables, and even uproot beam supports and use them to smash their opponents!

Players are manipulated around the 3D environment with the analogue pad and there are four buttons to use in the game: punch, kick, jump and throw. Their uses are:

Punch - the basic attack. Pressing the punch attack in sequence can attain up to 5 hit combos. Punch will also throw any item that has been picked up. Simply aim in the general direction and press the button to let go!

Kick - like the punch button, the kick button has different movements for each character (some kick fast yet are weak, others slow yet powerful). Pressing the kick button in mid air and pointing towards your opponent will result in flying kicks. Kicks can also be added to the end of a punch combo.

Throw - Throw will pick up objects (with punch actually throwing them) and allow you to throw opponents. It also allows you to grab hold of the sides of buildings, poles or trees and climb walls to get out of tight circumstances, like when your opponent is shooting a bazooka at you in the corner. Also, when an object, like a table, chair or crate is throw at you, you can catch it by pressing the throw button at the exact time when the object is just about to hit you. Quick reflexes and this ability can often turn a match around.

Jump - The jump button basically jumps, which can get you out of all manner of nasty situations!

Apart from being a 3D fighting game, Power Stone has another new addition to the genre in the form of the Power Gems. There are three Power Gems; red, blue and yellow, and player one starts a match with the red and player two with the blue. Fighters can knock the Power stones off their opponent and when all three are collected the fighter transforms into a ‘Power Fusion’ mode. In this mode the fighter has new, more powerful moves, including super moves that do large amounts of damage. These super moves are performed by holding combinations of the four main buttons. The standard punch and kick moves are also significantly upgraded, with players throwing fireballs, bolts of electricity, huge boulders and other nasty projectiles.

These Powerstones and their inclusion within the game add a whole new level of strategy to this 3D fighting game. Not only do players have to punch and kick their opponents senseless, they have to stop them from attaining all three Powersones and transforming into the more powerful ‘Fusion’ mode. Also, rather than concentrating on the close combat theme of fighting, like VF3 and Soul Calibur, Power Stone is more a game about fighting within a 3D environment and using every part of it to your advantage; weapons, objects and of course the Power Stones!

Upon completion of the game, players uncover additional modes, weapons and hidden characters. There are also mini games that can be downloaded into the VMU.

Graphics

Power Stone runs in the Dreamcast’s high resolution mode of 640 by 480 pixels at a constant 60 frames per second. This gives the game super-sharp clarity and also makes it look incredibly smooth.

Power Stone takes full advantage of the Dreamcast’s superior 3D hardware in displaying awesome 3D effects, like lighting, and transparency. The screen is often filled with explosions, fire and incredible graphic effects that are a sight to behold. Power Stone continues Capcom’s tradition of complex and often ‘over the top’ graphics in their fighting games, and as their first 3D fighting game, Power Stone pushes the Dreamcast harder than most games have done so far.

All of the 3D environments are incredibly detailed. These include:

London: A small courtyard complete with water fountain, park benches, light poles, potplants, and trashcans. An English restaurant has tables and chairs outside as well as a blackboard that has the day’s specials written on it. There are also plenty of pigeons that constantly fly about as if they are looking for scraps from the restaurant!

China: A typical Chinese restaurant that is filled with chairs and tables. Open louvres that are covered with Chinese patterns peer into a neighbouring Chinese garden and a shelf full of large black Chinese pots align the sides of the far wall. The wooden ceiling is covered in wooden rails that have Chinese lanterns hanging from them. An iron ore manufacturing factory is filled with large wooden crates and a furnace that sits in the middle of the room and constantly erupts during battles. A conveyer belt is situated near the top of the room and leads to a giant crushing machine, which must be avoided at all costs. Another danger is the huge circular fan that is used to blow hot air out of the smelting plant. There are a few large poles that the bigger players can pick up and belt their opponents about the head with.

Mexico: An old styled Bar and Saloon is filled with Crotchety old stools, chairs and tables as well as a number of wooden barrels that sit near the windows. Large streams of sunlight beam across the room and rotating fans are mounted on the ceiling and constantly rotate. There’s even a moose’s head that sits above the bar in the saloon.

Japan: This level is in a Japanese garden in the middle of winter. Snow overs the outside of the house, which has typical Japanese imagery and paintings covering its walls. A small flowing river runs through the centre of the area which is filled with small stone statues and players can even climb up onto the roof to continue the fighting action on its snow-covered top.

All of the environments feature incredibly detailed texture mapping which gives them an almost cartoonish appearance. Wooden floors, brick pathways, windows, doors, cupboards, and just about every part of the scenery is immaculately detailed using the Dreamcast’s texture compression techniques. The smallest details in the 3D environments are also painstakingly recreated: tables and chairs at a coffee shop, pigeons who drink at water fountains… Mind you, you can pick up any of these objects and bludgeon your opponent with them (bar the pigeons!).

Sound

Power Stone has high quality sound effects that are used for the punches, kick special moves and other attacks in the game. A real sense of satisfaction can be gained from the bassy-sounding effects used for all of the characters’ attacks.

Music and backing sound effects for each of the game’s stages are suitable fitting. The china stage has backing Chinese wind instruments and a strong oriental theme, while the Mexican stage has maracas and castanets playing in the background along with trumpets.

Gameplay

Although utilising a simplified version of the fighting system seen in games like Virtua Fighter 3 and Soul Calibur, Power Stone’s merits lay in the interaction of the characters within their environments and the Power Gems. The fact that Power Stone does not have the standard ‘block’ feature that most other fighting games have means that it must be approached in a totally different manner to traditional fighting games.

Players have 4 health bars that slowly replenish during the battles. Again, combined with the Power Gems, this adds a new level of depth to the game. The winner of a match will be the one who masters priority in action: Do you collect the power Stones as quickly as possible and annihilate your opponent with your new-found super powers or do you use every object within the 3D world to smash them senseless and stop them from attaining the Power Stones.