Power Quest - A.K.A "Spam AXE's low kick to win the game" game!

Fighting games on portable handhelds were something of an oddity back then. On the Gameboy, you only had 2 buttons and the D-pad to do all of your actions, and for most fighting games back then it simply wasn't enough. How can you keep a fighting game interesting if you could only use two buttons? It's a legitimate technological limitation, but Power Quest stood rose to the challenge, and gave us handheld fanatics a fighting game worth talking about today.

You can't hear it, but "1995" is playing right now.

Power Quest was released in the U.S in 1998 by Sunsoft for the Gameboy Color. Looking at the box art and super generic (but awesome sounding) title gives you the impression that this is an action game rather than something that belongs in the fighting genre. In fact, in Japan it went by the much more unique name "Gekitō Power Modeler" and it was published by Capcom! I decided to talk about this game today after talking about Gotcha Force as this game features a similar premise. The entire setting is that there's a new craze in town where every kid had miniature remote control robots that would battle with one another. As a kid in town, you win a contest for a free power model which you then use to fight your way to the top of social ladder and become world champion. Along the way, you take out a gang of cheating punks, put a misandrist girl in her place, and tragically part ways with a life-long friend. Not nearly as dramatic as I like to put it, but the game's story mode definitely tried to make things interesting for people who crave a single player experience.

There are only 6 playable characters that you get to choose from in this game. MAX is great for his punching power, GONG is the brutal-but-slow power house, LON is the Chinese martial artist, AXE is an alien-type who is also known as one of the cheapest characters in the game, SPEED is your speedy quick girl who specializes in kicks, and BOROT is just laughably useless as he only has one punch and can't block or jump. The names aren't the most creative, but they're just remote control models and don't really have personalities of their own. In the story mode, you buy parts to upgrade the attack power of your model and help enable it to pull off super combos. There's a surprisingly amount of variety in the moves for only two buttons, you'll find the fighting system to be very fun with it if you can find a friend who also has the cartridge, but that was impossible for me as a kid back then. The story mode has some cheap A.I but if you stick with Axe and use his low sliding kick, you'll be breezing right through it. AXE would probably be banned from tournaments because he is totally broken.

AXE's low kick is devastating.

Graphics are nicely animated for a Gameboy color game, which is great because each character has a surprising amount of moves they can use. AXE has a particularly notable victory animation where he lashes out his alien tongue which is pretty cool. Most of the story is carried out by goofy looking portraits of the kids and various adults you run across during the events of the game. A lot of them look like borderline Asian stereotypes, which I find a bit surprising as this game was made in Japan. They changed Louis's sprite to look more "American" in the international version, but he still looks like a jackass in both, so nothing to rage about here. The music is actually pretty great though, filled with many upbeat chip-tunes. The best song, according to many, happens to be "1995". Why the song is called "1995" is anyone's guess, but it's a great thing that they let you listen to the game's tunes at anytime via the sound test!

I never met a single human being who has played this game, as a I kid I would ask everyone if they had this, and they would assume I'm talking about something else like Quest 64. I know I'm not the only one who enjoyed this game though, as someone even went through the trouble of ripping the game's soundtrack which is a very noble endeavor indeed!  Even if you factor in the fact that AXE is overpowered, this game is still a lot of fun and it's one of the better fighting games you can find on the Gameboy Color.  Be sure to check out the video as "1995" plays right through it!

Rage of the Dragons - A fighting game inspired by Double Dragon.

Rage of the Dragons has some rather unusual origins. This game was released on the NeoGeo in 2002 (yes, they were still making games for a system that made it's debut in 1990!) and it was a collaborative effort between a Mexican game company named "Evoga" and the Japanese company "Noise Factory". Yes, you read that right:  Mexico teamed up with Japan to make this game.  When was the last time the Mexicans and the Japanese ever teamed up for ANYTHING?! This must be the first of it's kind! Not only that, but it's a great game too! I bet nobody saw this game coming for sure. I certainly didn't.

Originally, this game was intended to be a sequel to the "Double Dragon" fighting game that was released on NeoGeo in 1995. Of course, with Technos going bankrupt, Evoga couldn't acquire the intellectual property rights before Million did. So this game became a homage to the franchise with a few of it's characters. Just like there was a Billy and Jimmy Lee in Double Dragon, you get a Billy and Jimmy LEWIS in Rage of the Dragons, same goes for popular boss character Abobo, he is referenced with Rage of the Dragon's own sub-boss Abubo! Aside from similar names and designs, this is still a game that stands on it's own.

Rage of the Dragons is a 2 vs 2 tag-team fighting game with a few tweaks. You can tag in and out with your partner at anytime, and combo like you would in a game like Marvel vs Capcom. What makes this a bit different is that you can surrender one of your characters to forfeit the match transferring his/her health to their partner. This is great if you are good with one character but suck with the other! There is also a combo system that sends your opponent into the air and you have to enter in a specific button command to unleash a string of attacks to capitalize on the situation. All-in-all, it's a very fun and fast paced fighting system.

Graphics are well animated and nicely detailed for a game made in 2002. NeoGeo truly was a 2D powerhouse to still have games made for it a decade since it's launch! All characters in-game dialogue is a mixture of Japanese or very funny sounding Engrish. Billy and Jimmy try their best English language impersonations but you can still hear the accent!

Funny voices not-withstanding, this game is a solid piece of work that is well worth a look. I honestly find it's quality to be quite surprising given that there aren't many Mexican video game companies out there. And, sadly, things didn't turn out well for Evoga either as they went bankrupt in 2004. Still, they helped make one hell of a game, and I applaud them for that.  Be sure to think about checking this one out.

Deadly Arts - Smooth beats for a mediocre fighter

To anyone that isn't me, this is a very mediocre fighter that isn't worth anyone's time. Now that I got that statement out of the way, I played this title quite a bit as a kid and I dare say that I still have fun with it even now. Remember folks, I was born with bad taste in video games, and with what I written about in this blog it clearly shows.

Deadly Arts (Known in Japan as "G.A.S.P!! Fighters' NEXTream", which is admittedly a SUPERIOR TITLE NAME) was a game I bought purely on the box-art alone. This was before I was even into anything "anime", I just enjoyed the character designs and the art. The characters are what I remember fondly about this game, a good number are pretty generic as far as in-game modeling goes, but the concept art was fantastic. Supposedly, there's a story to this game but American players will never know it because it removed from the instruction manuals for a silly reason. And since the game doesn't have cut-scenes, it just makes the final boss fight all the more confusing. "Why am I fighting a guy with a hat? Why is he-OH GOD WHAT THE F*** IS THAT?! Oh I won. Is that it?" Yes, this game is also very easy to win. So those looking for a challenge would probably be better off playing against a friend.

The fighting system is pretty simplistic, but also very sluggish. Fighters move pretty slow, but it features a juggling system similar to Tekken, but nowhere near as fun or useful. You're much better off mashing the punch button. That said, there's one cool aspect to the fighting system. In most fighting games whenever the clock runs out the person with the most health is determined as the victor. That isn't the case in Deadly Arts, when time is up your fighting ability is all tallied up into a score, with the highest score being the victor. Score based judgement actually punishes you for turtling so get in there! There is also a nifty create-a-fighter mode which is pretty fun but there isn't much there to spend all your time on it.

If there's one thing the makers of this game did well, it's the music. While it's not the best the video game music scene has to offer, the sound for this game is really smooth. Each character has their own stage and theme which are generally fitting for the atmosphere. The music is clear and sounds great which is backed up with an announcer who speaks perfect English, even in the Japanese version! He'll comment on combos simply going "Cool." or "Very good.", his voice gives off the impression that he isn't easily impressed so it feels reassuring to have him compliment you.

I suppose N64 fighters, aside from a select few, aren't all that great. This game was considered pretty bad, even in Japan. Did I have fun with it? Yes, but even I am aware of it's flaws. If you're a forgiving person, you might enjoy it a bit too. But I shouldn't expect my readers to be as tolerant of a game as I am, so I ultimately wouldn't recommend this game to anybody. Nice beats though.  FIST PUMP!

Psychic Force 2012 - EXTRA: Richard Wong is a Bastard.

 Man, it's Sunday and I've been pretty busy today.  Busy doing absolutely nothing!  I've actually been playing Psychic Force 2012 this whole weekend and I honestly didn't feel like playing anything else, especially when this game is so dear to me.  So let's talk about it some more, shall we?  I'm that one guy who gives a lot of love to games that were tragically overlooked.  You probably picked up that hint if you looked at my previous blog entries and you couldn't recognize half of what I am even talking about.  But this game, I would have to say it's easily in my top 10 favorite games of all time.  I don't really HAVE a top 10, but if I did you can be sure this game would be in it!

He always has that grin on his face.

The music your typical Japanese synth, but I haven't forgot a single tune in this game.  Both the original arcade tunes and the special arranged versions, I enjoy them both!  Each character has their own theme song that plays when you fight them.  The cyborg GATES features an appropriately mechanical beat, the cool-headed water-focused Carlo got a smooth jazzy tune, and the fiery Regina having an appropriately hot guitar lick.  Though my favorite theme belongs to the glorious bastard of the series: Richard Wong.  This guy is one evil very EVIL man.  With the powers to manipulate time, he can easily ruin your day, his song is titled "Perfect World".  He considers himself to be a chess-master with everyone else in the world his unwitting pawns.  He has used and abused countless people to meet his own ends and he does it all with a mocking smile on face.  His theme song only amplifies his character, playing very elegant piano mixed in with a sense of animosity.  He's a guy with class, but he wouldn't mind stabbing you with hundreds of swords and this song proves that.

Yes, he's flipping you off in this game cover.

Oh wow, this suddenly became about Richard Wong!  Funny what happens when you start writing!  This guy is so badass, that even if you beat him in one of the many story modes, HE WILL STILL WIN!  Even if you kill him, he'll have one last ace up his sleeve to screw you over in your ending.  Play as him in the story mode, and you'll be so badass, that you don't have to GO anywhere!  All your opponents come to you looking for revenge so no traveling is necessary.  Just sit back in your mansion, and be the asshole that ruins so many lives!  In the end, Wong kills everyone on the roster and the world is his.  No screwjob.  No justice.  Nothing.  The bad guy WINS!  And all the good guys get horrible endings, but this bastard gets what he wants in his end!  ISN'T THAT WONDERFULLY HORRIBLE?!

And I'll end this weekend's post with Wong's theme song.  I picked up a new game today, and I'll talk about that in the coming days.  Until then, I hope you have a good evening.

Psychic Force 2012 - Fight for your beliefs! Kill those that you love! Be F***ED no matter what you do!

This game was my entire 6th grade. When I got a Dreamcast back when it came out, my parents bought Psychic Force 2012 as a random Christmas present. I wonder what was their logic for picking this game, especially when it has a particularly busty woman on the front of it but boy AM I GLAD that they got me something unlike anything I ever played before! I've played the hell out of it, and  I'M STILL PLAYING IT!

This game is all about aerial combat.

Psychic Force 2012 is a 3D-style Fighting game but with a unique system all it's own. You and your opponent are psychiccers who fight it out in a three dimensional cube hurling elemental projectiles at each other or engaging in close quarters combat. You could consider it a precursor to games like "Dragonball Z Budokai Tenkaichi". The style of gameplay might not be for everyone but for me, it just CLICKED. The fighting was fast paced and chaotic coupled with an energetic soundtrack that have tunes still stuck in my head even today!

Even when you beat the game.  You lose.

Replaying this game, the impact of the story hasn't fully hit me until now. More often than not, it's depressing as hell. You choose one character and watch his or her story unfold through dialogue with the games other psychic powered fighters. Sadly, due to two warring factions, characters will refuse to listen to reason and you end up killing most of those people you encountered throughout the story. And when you reach the end, and beat the final boss (which also varies depending on who you are playing as), then ending you get will often be very bitter, tragic, or just a downright evil ending. The strength of the Japanese voice acting really drives home the point that not everyone in this game is going to have a happy ending. This is a testament to how strong the characters are, their interactions with each other bring out their best and worst of their emotions. I really loved the characters in this game, even the incredibly evil ones. It's just a shame that a lot of them will die, even for the most petty of reasons.

I just loved this game. I played it for hours upon hours until my Dreamcast finally died on me. But my love for Psychic Force 2012 lives on in my fond memories...oh and emulation! Truly, it's not a game for everyone, especially those who are put off by Japanese style games. I never met anybody in public who has even tried let alone HEARD of this game aside from my friends (but they don't count as I was the one who introduced it to them). There's also a Playstation version of the game known as "Psychic Force 2", so if you don't have a Dreamcast you can check out that version instead. As usual, I will leave you guys with a video of the game in action, have a good weekend everybody.