Rave Master

"Just think of this as Power Stone 3 with a block button!"

Rave Groove Adventure is a Power-Stone style fighter game based on the Anime series of the same name, brought to the GameCube by good-old Konami (whom I love for their other great franchises, such as Metal Gear Solid and Dance Dance Revolution). However, Rave Groove Adventure is far more than just a-Power-Stone rip off (oddly enough, Power Stone was later turned into an Anime!), and is in my opinion, even better than either the first or second Power Stone.

The game features 8 default characters, with 5 more to unlock to bring the total to 13. Also, the game features 10 (very cool) different weapons, as well as 9 different arenas to fight in. The first thing you'll notice is that, unlike Power Stone, the arenas are basically just flat squares with some very cool backgrounds, as well as little things such as jets flying in shooting machine-guns to add to the mayhem. Rave focuses more on actual combat between the characters, rather than just running around grabbing 3 jewels to transform into some super-cheap-fire-wielding beast (like in Power Stone). Also, you can't hit some magic button on the level to have missiles rain down on your opponents, or jump into some large canon or gun to waste your enemies, you're going to need to get down there and beat them up yourself, no cheap tricks allowed in this game!

One of the first significant gameplay differences you'll find is the addition of a strategic block-button, which adds a whole new dimension to the game. Furthermore, if you press the button at the right time, you can evade attacks. Also, you have a punch button (for hitting consecutively), and a hit button (for just nailing the enemy once). You can also perform a special attack if your Groove meter (basically a special meter) is high enough, you can do some stuff such as summon a purple-dragon to damage your enemies, shoot blasts of energy at your opponents, or create giant typhoons. If you can manage to get your character's main weapon, a full groove meter, and the right combination of Rave stones, you'll be able to pull off an Ultra Groove attack, which usually consists of some very cool in-game attack animation, and giant explosions which take up the entire screen, dealing massive damage to everyone.

There are 3 colors for Rave Stones, Red for offense, blue for defense, and yellow for extra. With different Rave Stones (or orbs) you'll be able to set your opponents on fire, electrocute them, turn yourself into steal, or spray goo all over the place to trap your opponents. Grabbing items as they appear is a very important part of the strategy in the game.

Overall, Rave Groove Adventure is a tighter, better-balanced, more combat-oriented 4-player fighter game. The character designs are also noticeably a good head or two above the likes of Power Stone or most fighter games for that matter.

Rave Groove Adventure has pretty good graphics, nothing mind-blowingly impressive, but pretty good. The characters are highly detailed, and move fluidly. Plus the game runs at an almost constant 60fps even with 4 players on the screen at once raising some major ''heck'' on the arena floor.

The game doesn't have to many extras, unfortunately. The game consists mostly of a Story Mode, V.S. Mode, Free Mode (allows you to fight against computers, arcade style, not with a Story), and Options. Options EX is a nice bonus feature though, which has hundreds of images, animations, voice samples, and promotional CGI artwork for the game and the Anime series. It'll take a while to unlock everything, and it's a real treat for hardcore fans of the series. Finally, you can unlock Story Edit Mode, a novel little feature which actually allows you to write your own storyline dialogue between characters. You can pick the animation and the background too, and save your customized story to the memory card! Hopefully more fighters will a knock-off of this feature in the future, or at least a cohesive storyline overall (something which is very rare in even the best fighter games). More modes, such as survival or Time Attack modes would've been nice too...

Power Stone's weapons were just down right silly, but this game has some pretty darn cool weapons. Such as the TOC (Ten Commandments) blade, the Matter is Void sword, or the Heaven's Justice saber, the weapons just don't get much cooler than this. I just wish Konami had added larger arenas, or maybe the ability to break through walls or have multi-layered arenas could've really added to the game.

I really hope Capcom brings Power Stone 3, or at least some Power Stone at all, to the Gamecube in the near future. Even so, Rave Groove Adventure is a superb Power-Stone alternative game, which fans should definitely consider worth the import, even if it is a bit short lived and uses up quite a bit of memory space (14 blocks?!). Just about any game that Capcom can come up with will have quite a hard time matching Rave Groove Adventure. A solid 9 out of 10 game, with the Versus mode making you come back to this game for months, even after Super Smash Bros Melee has gotten boring.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 05/01/02, Updated 07/19/02