Psychic Force 2012, the sequel to Psychic Force, is a one-on-one fighting game with a twist. The matches take place inside a giant floating cube. You are able to fly, using your psychic abilities, around a 3D arena with six walls. Each of the ten available characters, Might, Regina, Wendy, Emilio, Setsuna, Patty, Gudeath, Genshin, Carlo, and Gates, are controlled with three buttons: guard, weak attack and strong attack. The effect varies with the distance. Next to the regular life meter, there is also a power meter. By using special moves, the meter is drained and your moves are limited. It is possible to recharge, and the capacity of the power meter expands when you lose a lot of health. Additionally, each fighter has its own unique moves, energy attacks and a weapon, which they use, mid-flight, to pummel their opponent. There are three main game modes: training, versus and a story mode using static anime-inspired images and in-engine cut scenes to tell the story. The story centers around two groups of psychics with differing ideals about co-existence with humans. In the middle of this are several neutral psychics with ties to members in either group.
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Okay, saying they're just energy blasts is slightly underselling it. You'll be fighting in a cubical arena far above ground, being able to fly around in both X and Y axis. Your basic moves are a light attack, strong attack, charging your psychic meter, guard/block, and dash. At long range, each attack button will execute a ranged attack, but at close range you'll do melee instead. You can also grab them. Most attacks will drain your psychic meter, which can be recharged but will leave an opening for your enemy. Your psychic meter also gets bigger as your health gets lower, which means you can be more aggressive, although with greater risk. You can bounce enemies towards the level's borders and "freeze" them for a very short period, which seems to be the main way to unleash a longer string of attacks.
There seems to be a bunch more universal advanced moves but I'll be honest, I'm a very casual fighting game enjoyer, I read the manual and I didn't understand the advanced stuff lol. Either way, I had quite a blast with the knowledge I had gained so far, and was able to go through the story modes for all 10 characters with relative ease at the "default" difficulty level (apparently it's Easy? There's 8 levels). Obviously it depends on your chosen character's play style, but the fundamentals of keeping your distance, punishing missed attacks and minding your psychic meter seems to be the most basic skills to have. It results in a slower paced, tactical fighting gameplay that I really enjoy.
As I hinted before, there's 10 available characters at the start. In terms of gameplay, I particularly enjoy Setsuna (great variety of hard hitting attacks, especially the one that unleashes arrows in a wide spread), Carlo (I really like the Aqua Javelin move, which can bounce your enemy towards you for an intimate ass-kicking), and Might (seems like the most noob-friendly character). Maybe the only one that I actively hate using is Patty, her trap-placing (?) moves didn't click with me at all.
I find the Story Mode to be quite satisfying. It's the traditional individual-story-arc-each-character structure, and I liked the overall setup of the game's world. It's very much in the vein of a 90s anime: two warring factions, one of them far shadier than the other. It's a story where nobody seems to have a fully happy ending, and it always leaves a trail of dead bodies. I particularly enjoy Emilio and Wendy's story arc, which features my two favorite character endings so far. I also enjoyed Setsuna's drunk-with-power story quite a bit, mostly because of how unhinged he is.
Other than that, there's pretty bangin' soundtrack to look forward to. I also love the 90s anime visual style, the engine they used seems to be perfect for the job, and the character designs and portraits are beautiful. I can't exactly say the same for the level backgrounds, they're just okay and could have been better.
As it stands, PF2012 is a cool-as-heck fighting game. It might not be the most competitive fighting game, but nobody can claim that it's not unique. I look forward to unlocking the secret characters hopefully pretty soon.