Psychic Force 2012 Game Sample - Dreamcast
73Psychic Force 2012 is the third entry in the Psychic Force series and the second to come to the states. Developed by Taito and published outside Japan by Acclaim Entertainment (of all groups), the game is a fast-paced anime-style fighting game and proper sequel to the original Psychic Force (Dubbed "Psychic Force 2010"). Taking place two years after the original, the Psychiccers are once again drawn into battle against each other and have their own reasons for fighting based on personal alliances and affiliations. The game is one of the few "360 Degree" fighters as players fly around the battlefield and while moves are basic to perform, they constantly change based on your screen orientation.
Acclaim was an interesting and controversial studio that had a dubious reputation for being a prolific publisher of a lot of licensed and, sometimes, truly awful games. Of course, history tells us they had some notable exceptions (picking up a lot of Taito's catalog in the mid 90s such as "Galactic Attack", "Darius Gaiden", "Bubble Bobble", "Bust-A-Move", "Psychic Force", etc., as well as the odd gem here and there such as "Myst", "D", "Tee Off", "Shadow Man... avoid the PS1 version", "Vanishing Point", "X-Men: Children of the Atom", "No One Can Stop Mr. Domino", etc.). They are perhaps best known for publishing the earlier Mortal Kombat games, but their core studio eventually closed up shop in 2004 after more than seventeen years. They experienced a mild (failed) rebranding attempt for a few intermittent years and finally went under in 2010.
Enough about Acclaim though, you wanna know a little more about this game. In basic terms, we can look at the game a bit as "Virtual-On" and the later released "Senko no Ronde"-- the combat is primarily based on mid-to-long range tactics mostly consisting of projectiles, but your options change when you get close enough for close quarters combat with basic grapples and melee attacks. The game is easy to learn but hard to master as characters have a variety of attacks that consume different amounts of psychic power which will quickly recharge over time. By default, characters have access to 100% of the psycho meter gauge, but as they take damage, this pool grows to allow you to fire off more powerful attacks more often. Players can also utilize the risky "Hyper Charge" which increases your power beyond its normal limits and forcefully gives you more access to your psycho meter, but at the expense of your own health. In this way, a player can gain access to as much as a 100% attack boost (or 200% power, at the risk of being defeated in a single hit). Most people will opt for a 30-50% power boost which gives you a notable attack boost without being killed in a single blow, but it's a fun risks/rewards system.
It's worth noting that the game is not remotely balanced; some characters are clearly more powerful or deadly than others and there's a great sense of satisfaction in winning with a low-tier character, but this can only be done with a full understanding of the systems. There is a standard dash as well as a homing dash that deflects weaker incoming projectiles, several guards which are suited for different situations, the Kekkai (or Psy-Arena tactic) measure of knocking opponents into walls for added damage and stun capabilities, weight characteristics, and the ability to knock opponents clear out of the Psy-Arena. The game has a few QoL improvements from the original Arcade release and, while not overly impressive by Dreamcast standards, is still another title that showed the system was ahead of its time. The game is often a smooth 60FPS, has a few nice illustrations for the various characters in Story Mode, is done in an episodic fashion similarly to an anime (although I still think "Evil Zone" takes the crown for this outside of a pure anime-licensed game) and features more of that great ear-therapy from Zuntata (there are actually two soundtracks for the game, this video uses the arranged tracks). Besides that, there's a training mode and a few unlockable characters.
Mechanically, this game is more of a "Psychic Force 1.5", as a full sequel was developed a few months later for the original PlayStation (which was released in Europe with additional game modes and is probably the most "complete" version of the game). A final revision to the game, "Psychic Force Complete", is a combination of PF1&2 with a few bells and whistles minus the "Psy-Expand" RPG-esque mode, and worth tracking down for completionists who want the very best of PF2012. Overall, the game is interesting and stands out among the DC's already eclectic library of fighters.
This is a basic video of the game in action testing out the RGB scaler. OBS is pushed to the extremes for some reason with slight overscan. Enjoy.
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