All that glitters isn't gold. In Power Stone, our heroes were looking for a shiny wish granting gemstone in fact. This time around, the old cast is joined by four new regulars as they battle their way though a mysterious floating castle that appeared one day. Some combatants were captured, others went out of their way to get onboard, but the only goal now is to escape.

Four is an important number in this sequel. Not only are four new characters added to the roster, but the action has been expanded to encompass four-player simultaneous battling as well. Indeed, you'll have to put the kibosh on two of your opponents to advance to the next level with the other character left standing in tow. This can come in handy against the two boss characters since it's two-on-one rather than one-on-one in the default mode.

The levels have been enlarged to make the four-player action more smoothly flowing and spread out. Extra elements like falling away floors, elevators, raging fires, and more weapon emplacements and items to use in your fight has been stuffed into Power Stone 2 for the sake of the extra players as well. The added space and increased variety of levels available also has the extra side effect of toning down the powered-up state in Power Stone. The tracking jump kick from Power Stone is gone in Power Stone 2.

In versus mode, the players can pick teams and duke it out between each other. This also introduces the concept of team attacks. Two players on the same side can team up to do a dangerous attack kind of like the attacks you get from bouncing off a wall. The other new fighting feature is the ability to give any fallen character CPR if you act within a set amount of time. This option lets you trade a bit of your life with the downed player so you both can get back to fighting for a little while longer at the
least.

Capcom has included several modes in Power Stone 2. You have the four-player battle Arcade mode (which is the default), One-on-One mode, and Original
mode that lets you select various multi-player match ups like three-on-one for multiple players. Then there's Adventure mode which takes advantage of Capcom's desire to plug extra replay into their games. In Adventure mode, what you find, you keep. You can earn money and items to buy, sell, or combine at the store that allows you to create or gain new items. When you earn an item, you can keep it; and in the case of some special items, you can use them to customize your character's
appearance.

Power Stone 2 (Sega Dreamcast, 2000)