When you think of arcade machine dominants such as Capcom and Namco you think of the Street Fighter and Tekken series. But what you would never think of is Taito catching up to the big boys. Not many people may know the game that Taito (who are the creators of the Bust a Move series) have had their very own fighting series in Japan. Their series entitled Psychic Force is a very unique one, you don't fight in common areas such as streets or arenas, but instead you fight in a cube. The fighting motion is full 360°, giving the player a lot of freedom. Taito really accomplished something great, although I'm not too sure about the money making and the sales of the home conversions, the series is still a great one and in this article I will review the import version of Psychic Force 2.

      I haven't experienced the arcade version of the game so I don't know really know if the PS version is comparable or not, but I will talk about the its visual power on how far it pushes the PSX. To start out, the character detail is very in-depth, although the characters may not be as smooth as they are in Street Fighter EX2 they are still closely equivalent. The players move fluidly through out the whole screen, they never tend to jerk and neither does the animation. The backgrounds are all very detailed, and match the atmosphere of each stage. As for the detail in each locale, it is very sharp and smooth, judging from my point of view the backgrounds are 2D but unlike fighters such as Street Fighter EX2 have, PF2 has vastly detailed backgrounds that have moving objects in them as well. All that and the game never manages to skip or drop a frame. And finally, the special effects are also very sharp looking in addition to being bright as well. So the game packs a hefty punch in the graphics section, let's see if it's any good in the gameplay.

      What matters more than gameplay? The soul of a game lies in the gameplay department. If ya' got no gameplay, you got no game. But Psychic Force 2 has some great gameplay, as I said before the way of movement is in a invisible cube. Freedom of movement is definitely available in the game, and that provides the gamer with more tactical attacks. Moving and dodging your opponents moves is very easy, pressing R2 will make your character soar to the side and avoid the move but don't get too cocky because some special moves may be pretty fast and hard to evade. Fighting is very entertaining in PF2, all the moves and the motion almost feels as if you are playing Dragon Ball-Z on your PSX (the way it was meant to be played). The game features blazing fast action, great movement (which also resembles movement from DBZ) and excellent gameplay overall to make PF2 one of the more enjoyable fighters out there.

      Now what about the replay value of the game? PF2 has a ton of modes to be played on. You have your average, Arcade Mode, VS Mode, and Group Battle. But then you have something like PsyExpand mode, which is a mode where you pick a character, raise his exp. and build him up. That mode can be closely represented to Street Fighter Alpha 3's World Tour mode. Then the game has Psychiccers Network, which I presume is for the Pocketstation, which by the way is also compatible with Psychic Force 2. And then you have the Story Mode, Training, Survival, and Album Mode, which is a mode where you take a look at artwork of a character and more. The game does feature 10 characters and presumably it should have at least 2 or 3 secret ones. The gameplay definitely gets the job done and it gets it done great.

      The sound is something that you may think isn't very important in a fighting game but in PF2 there is voice acting involved. During the story mode not only is their written dialogue involved but the title also has voice acting. The voice acting although in Japanese still proves itself to be precise and flowing with clarity. The songs are taken straight out of the arcade port I assume and all of them sound very good as a matter of fact. The sound quality is all here and it doesn't disappoint at all.

      Remember again this is 360 degrees of movement but the control is still no predicament. You use the control pad to move forward, backward, up, and down. While the side buttons are used for blocking and attacking the top buttons are used for charging up, dashing, evading and barrier breaking. The Dual Shock is supported nicely but the analog isn't. There is no analog support and that is kind of depressing, the game runs on such a fluid 3D engine and I have to use the digital pad in order to navigate it. I'm used to the digital pad with the game but I would have been used to the analog sticks if the game supported any. Not supporting analog is a shame the game would have felt much better with it.

      In conclusion Psychic Force 2 is a tremendously great game that shouldn't be missed by any fighting fan. The action is faced paced and the game action reminds me of action that takes place in Dragon Ball Z. The graphics and especially the gameplay make purchasing the game a no hesitation. One thing on my mind though, will we ever see this great title in the US? Dreamcast saw Psychic Force 2012 and so there may be hope.

02/07/00  SolidSnake

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Graphics: 8.0
Gameplay: 8.6
Sound: 8.8
Control: 8.0
Replay Value: 8.5

Rating: 8.4