Taito's first foray into 3-D fighting games is an interesting attempt by a company that is probably best known for their Puzzle Bobble and Darius video games (at least in the past few months). I think there were three versions of Puzzle Bobble on the Saturn and Sony Playstation in the past 6 months. There were two versions of Darius on the Saturn although one of them, Darius 2 was a re-release of the Sega MegaDrive version of Darius. Psychic Force starts the game off with a fine animation that introduces the player to all of the nine characters in the game. The character designs in Psychic Force are very good though admittedly not as well thought out as Street Fighter's blend of balanced and rounded characters. I will briefly mention each of the nine characters in the game: Burn Gliffis is a flaming pyromaniac whose psychic force is fire; He is capable of throwing streams and balls of flames at his opponents. Burn can be thought of as the 'Ryu' in Psychic Force. He is well balanced in terms of his speed and his power level. Then there is Wendy Ryan who could be thought of as 'Sakura', the young female in this fighting game. Wendy's power is wind and speed is her strong point. Her attacks are not as powerful as Burn's but they are nevertheless effective against the other characters in the game. Wendy can launch spinning columnar whirlwinds at her enemies which do moderate damage. Emilio Michaelov is seemingly an angel because of the wings that protrude from his back and flap to and fro as he stays aloft. Emilio is very dramatic looking and his attacks are flaming arrows that he launches with a bow. He can also unleash some outrageous blasts that light up the entire screen. I would have expected the blasts to do more damage than they did but each of the characters have protective fields and objects that shield them from attacks. Sonia is an air sprite(?) who wields bolts of lightning which strike with stunning effect. Sonia's blue hair and costume enhance the electrical effect of her personality. Gates Oltman is a cyborg with a powerful punch that his opponents should try to avoid. His punches will literally cause sparks to fly whenever they connect. He has a powerful close attack but his long range attacks are fairly weak. Richard Wong is attired in what looks like a ceremonial white butler's uniform. His battle arena offense is a blue, hazy flame attack; he also has a move where he flings a sword at his opponent. Brad Kirsten is an armor bound evil looking maniac whose costume has huge shoulder pads. He throws boulders and flaming boulders at you which can surround you and hit from all sides if you're not quick to blast them from the air or dodge them. Genma Rikudoh looks like a cross between a medieval warrior and a viking. He emanates Japanese characters that go forth and attack his opponents. Weird but effective attack. Finally we have Keith Evans who wears a ship captain's uniform. Like Brad Kirsten, whom he looks like, his shoulder pads are abnormally large. Keith's attack is a bluish-white light that flicker from his hands. Keith can fashion the light into rings, arrows or explosive spheres which are devastating in close attacks.

Psychic Force is a good looking game that animates smoothly and is technically on par with some of the top fighting games in the market today. The attacks and super combinations which the characters can pull off are stunning to look at. Burn's flaming super combination is particularly impressive which surrounds the opponent in a flaming wheel that is criss-crossed like a pentagram. The fighting is always done in the air so there is a 360 degree battlefield in which you can maneuver and attack from. This adds another dimension (literally) to fighting games where you can fly around the screen and attack from near and far. This would have been a nice new feature had it been done properly but as it stands, Psychic Force's near unlimited mobility and distant attacks can make for some frustrating and drawn out battles. I think that is why Taito added Super Combinations in the game which will end a battle rather quickly if your opponent's energy level is low. There were more than a couple of battles where I stayed on one corner of the battlefield and my opponent stayed on the other end. We shot projectiles at each other for a few minutes and got nowhere. You can cancel out each other's projectile attacks if they hit each other which only helps to prolong the battles. The poor design here is evident when you try to get a bit closer for some heavy punching and general brawling; the opponent can either evade you by moving away or decimate your energy level by blasting at you with bolts of energy. The Playstation will play more aggressively than human players so the frustration level was not as pronounced when playing against internal logic in Psychic Force but when playing against a cheesy human player, watch out. I can recommend Psychic Force as a fun, true 3-D fighting game that is both interesting to look at and explore. The characters are 'classic' designs that should prove to be enduring and Taito will be well served to refine and update them for the inevitable sequel to Psychic Force next year. Click here to look at the cover of the Psychic Force CD. Click here to look at the Psychic Force back cover.

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