Do you remember when Street Fighter 2 first came out?  Remember how everyone wanted to play that game and it practically created the fighting game genre?  Power Stone 2 is like that.  It’s the first of its kind and it has successfully combined multiple genres to create an all-new experience.  Sporting 4-player simultaneous play, stages that change during fights, and the most insane amount of action this side of Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Power Stone 2 is a sign of what could be the future of fighting games.

So what is it all about?  All the heroes from the first Power Stone game are back, along with 4 new characters and 2 secret ones.  For unexplained reasons, the heroes find themselves trapped inside an enormous castle and the only way out is to pulverize everyone else.  Huh?  Well, nobody plays fighting games for their storylines anyway, right?  What’s important here is that the game is so much fun to play, you won’t care about the details.  Besides, the real stars of the game aren’t the characters at all.  That honor goes to the stages!  Each stage changes during the fight to the point where it almost feels like you’re playing an adventure game instead of a fighting game.  In reality, you’re playing both.  

For example, one of my favorite stages is the Airship stage.  Players start off on top of a flying ship where they can grab all sorts of items, or even control one of the gun-turrets located there.  After literally tearing the ship apart while fighting, the whole ship explodes in air and everyone starts to freefall.  Keep in mind that you’re still fighting and grabbing power-ups.  About halfway down, a couple of umbrellas appear.  Now everyone is bashing into each other and trying to grab one of the umbrellas.  Whoever gets one and manages to hold onto it gets to slowly float to the ground while the rest of the group comes crashing down hard.  Once you hit ground, you keep fighting with more items, power-ups, a tank, and even some catapults that toss rocks onto the players down below.  And don’t forget the Power Stones.  Grab three powerstones and you transform into a super-being that basically rains death on everyone else.  Yes, this is Power Stone 2 and it is incredible.

Power Stone 2 features three modes of play.  First, there’s “Arcade” mode, which is the original arcade game ported to perfection:  Three stages of four-player frenzied action with two stages of boss battles.  Then there’s “Original” mode that lets you choose your stage, number of players (human or CPU), and what team you want everyone on.  Finally, there’s “Adventure” mode where you play the arcade game, but the focus is on collecting items so you can go to the item shop and use what you've collected to create new items not normally found in the game. 

Not only is Power Stone 2 full of options and different play modes, it’s a beautiful game!  Everything in the game is vibrant with color and heavily detailed.  There have been some great looking games on the Dreamcast before, but none of them ever had as much going on at one time like Power Stone 2.  It's simply amazing that Capcom managed not only to make Power Stone 2 better looking than the original, but also doubling the onscreen action with absolutely no slowdown at all.  This game is a shining example of Capcom’s talent and the Dreamcast’s power.

And what a soundtrack!  Normally, music this good isn’t found outside of an RPG.  Some of the tracks in Power Stone 2 are comparable to some of Squaresoft’s best work and that is quite a compliment for a fighting game.  Throw in all your favorite voices and sounds from the original Power Stone along with some new ones and you’ve got the best sounding Dreamcast game next to Soul Calibur. 

If you’re still reading this, go out and buy Power Stone 2.  If you have four friends to play it with, there is no better party game out there.  Even without them, you can still have loads of fun as a single player.  Games like this are the reason you bought your Dreamcast in the first place.