Playing the subject of my last post brought to mind another, much older Capcom game, whose cartoonish charms and rogueish outcasts I swear must have come from the same minds as Zack and Wiki. Albeit one part free-for-all, arcade beat-em-up, one part zany action-platformer, and no parts puzzle, I’m convinced this is Zack’s next-of-kin, and I should notify him - and all of you - that it’s in seriously neglected condition.

Power Stone was a series of two on Dreamcast plus one on PSP, which was just a remake of the first. The original Power Stone was only two-player and lacked many of the crazy locals and locales of the second game, but I couldn’t find it from any sellers, so with the first you must settle with the game shown adjacent.

Good in their own right, its arenas, including scalable bamboo gazebos, Mexican mineshafts, the city of ‘Londo’ and yes, a pirate ship, set the stage for hand-to-hand combat, with the occasional appearance of a 100-ton hammer and the like. But the real key to victory lay in collecting three of the titular stones and turning into your character into his or her raving lunatic Power Stone form, and for as long as your power should last, pummeling the living sin out of
your opponent.

Power Stone was a hallmark of graphical and gameplay achievement in its day, and reminds us why so many crazies have lobbied for a Dreamcast revival in 2009, year of its 10th anniversary. Personally, I’ll always like 2 better, and could do very well with a third. Cause let’s face it - at this rate, that’s going to happen before Smash Bros. Brawl ever gets released!