Source of gamer shame #3,191: being unaware of some crappy franchise that is obviously crappy, but you should have cared about it back in the day.
Psychic Force 2012 is a fighting game. There are a dozen or so fighters, they all have their own special moves and motivations (“I’ve got to find and/or kill my sister! Still debating!”), and everybody gets a cinematic “story mode” that allows for some angst and hijinks. However, unlike the Tekkens or Street Fighters of the day, PF2012 leans heavily into the gameplay we’d see again in the PS2 Dragonball Z games. Both fighters are contained to a large, boxy arena, and everyone is allowed to fly around and shoot fireballs to their heart’s content. Combos are generally simple punch-kick-punch affairs, and a lot of strategy relies on properly charging your “psychic meter” for gigantic psychic attacks. This fighting game ain’t exactly a cerebral playground, but it’s slightly more tactical than Streets of Rage.
And I didn’t play the game until about 2015, when I picked up the 1999 Dreamcast title on a lark while mocking the concept of “the future of 2012”. Ha ha! Silly game designers of the late 20th Century, why did you think we’d have psychic powers inside of a decade? Everybody knows we have to spend all our time inventing super fighting robots for everlasting peace!
But I quickly learned the kicker of Psychic Force 2012: this is a game I would have loved in 1999.
I am a nerd, and I have always been a nerd. I was weaned on Voltron, and I grew up on Transformers. I remember the first time I played Super Mario Bros. more vividly than my first kiss. I’m never going to admit that I may have been mentally running through Super Metroid during one of my first sexual encounters (there were circumstances!). 1999 may have technically been one of the least nerdy years of my life (mainly because I let my Nintendo Power subscription lapse), but I was still watching a bootleg version of Princess Mononoke with my significant other (side note: it was the Japanese dub, but with Chinese subtitles. There was no way to understand anything). I might have been trying my best to be cool at the time (this involved joining drama club… oh man I think I might have been even nerdier than I thought), but I still knew damn well what I liked. I still played Soulcalibur until my Dreamcast self-destructed, and I still secretly watched Pokémon every morning because when is Ash finally gonna catch ‘em all!? I was a sucker for my geeky interests, always have been and always will be, and 1999 was just another year where that was accurate.
And Psychic Force 2012? PF2012 is anime as hell.
Look at those characters! Look at those archetypes! The icy cop! The spiky haired protagonist! The walking school uniform with a short skirt despite flight being involved! The person of color that has somehow been transformed into a living gun! It’s all anime from the very start, and it continues to be anime through every moment. Characters blab on about missing siblings and departed masters. There’s an evil megacorp that wants to use magical powers for dirty reasons. I’m pretty sure the hero winds up with a harem by the end (this is a lie). And this isn’t some “abstract” anime like Kendo Rage or other older, more conceptual games. The graphics here are on point, and it’s likely as close as a Teenage Goggle Bob was ever going to get to playing a “real life” Dragon Ball game.
But Teenage Goggle Bob did not play Psychic Force 2012. Somehow, Psychic Force 2012 completely flew off the radar. And we can’t blame the Dreamcast exclusively for this one, either, as Psychic Force 1 and Psychic Force 2 were both available on the Playstation. They were probably sitting on the rental shelf right next to Monster Rancher, but, no, they were utterly ignored. Maybe I missed seeing it, maybe I thought the protagonist’s hair was too spiky, maybe it was just a matter of Microplay never wound up stocking a game with such a generic title. Whatever the case, Psychic Force was never on my radar, and, thus, it was never played when it could have been relevant.
And it’s not just about the anime. Maybe I’m getting nostalgic for a time that was practically nonexistent from the start. Fighting games were initially huge in the arcades, and, if you lived in an area with a good number of coin-options, you could be pummeled by all sorts of interesting people. Then, the arcades began to wither and die at the advent of consoles that could actually render a proper jab, and all the fighting games moved home. And, for a period that could not have been longer than two years, those fighting games led to fun times on the couch with friends. SoulCalibur, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Street Fighter 3… it was all over by about the time Capcom was fighting SNK, but man was it fun to piledrive each other for days with a spinning Russian man. Soon enough, clicking plastic guitars (of all things) would be dominating the living room, and local battles would give way to online matchups that guaranteed no one ever had to go outside again. Yes, I realize I’m selfishly attributing some global fighting game domination to my late high school/early college years, a time when I had very little responsibility and a lot of free time, but, dammit, this is my website, and I’m going to imagine the past how I want!
So I’m sorry I never hooked up with Psychic Force 2012. It’s not a great game, and playing it today is like licking a fire poker (ill-advised), but it certainly could have found a place in my life back at the turn of the millennium. We needed a breather from SoulCalibur once in a while, right? Psychic Force 2012 could have been that anime game we’d all be anxious to play right after the latest Cowboy Bebop.
Sorry, Psychic Force 2012. You never got a fair shake.
FGC #361 Psychic Force 2012
- System: Sega Dreamcast. This game is also basically the same, give or take, as Psychic Force 2 for the Playstation.
- Number of players: Is fighting game.
- What’s in a name: The original Psychic Force takes place in the distant future of 2010 AD. The sequel takes place two years later, so I suppose that’s how we got the odd (still even) year/title of 2012. This bit of dating was dropped for the Playstation version, because 2012 had become just that much closer.
- Favorite fighter: This cast is anime as hell… and also pretty damn shallow. Maybe it’s because I found the game as an adult, but these archetypes really aren’t doing it for me. Let’s go with Genshin Kenjoh, the rare anime old man that isn’t perving on all the women at all times.
Watch and Learn: Like many fighting games of the era, there is a “watch” mode that allows you to sit back and check out an exhibition between computer opponents. If you set the AI down to the lowest level, however, there are good odds both combatants will never, ever throw a punch. This is not very exciting!- Did you know? Patty is wearing a typical anime schoolgirl uniform, but her skirt is coded like shorts. This means you never get a “panty shot”, as, despite all the flying around, the skirt sticks to her legs. This is amazing! We had the technology in 1999, and we lost it! Modesty could return!
- Would I play again: If it were 2000 or so, yes. In a post-2012 world, though, we’re done. Sorry again, Psychic Force.
What’s next? Random ROB…. Is taking a backseat to a recent release. Kinda. I never got over Breath of the Wild, so we’re going to review the recently released DLC chapter. Please look forward to it!
