FIGHT-U-ARY C’est Ne Pas Power Stone Avec LASTFIGHT
Power Stone was an interesting experiment for Capcom. Coming at the end of the 90’s, it was a 3D arena based fighter that focused on being simple and casual, but still having deep fighting underneath its eye catching style. The game proved popular, garnering a sequel, manga, and even an anime in a very short time. Too short as the series was pretty much abandoned after none of its media outings made any lasting effect. Yet, the game stuck with people and even developers too, as its style game was the go to approach to a lot of games. Today, Capcom has no real concrete plans to resurrect the series at any point.
This is where LASTFIGHT comes in. It’s the closest, certainly the French-est, thing to a Power Stone 3.
While the game is based upon the French comic series LASTMAN, LASTFIGHT doesn’t expect you to know anything about it to get into the game. Do you like 90’s arcade game? Yes? That’s all LASTFIGHT is asking from you. The story is simple, the graphics are simple (though heavy cel-shading style make them really pop out), and the controls are simple. LASTFIGHT was not designed to be headliner for an e-sports tournament. LASTFIGHT’s was designed to evoke the charm of Power Stone’s simple style. You have two attacks (light and Special), a jump button, throw, and block. LASTFIGHT was designed to be picked up and played with friends on a couch, drunk on beer. It can be game for just having stupid fun with little effort. Make no mistake though, LASTFIGHT has very beefy legs to stand on when it comes down to gameplay.
LASTFIGHT’s combat is where the parallels between it and Power Stone shine. Much of the core flow of the combat comes from bouncing between using your character’s some basic combos with their specials, using items that spawn around the map, and trying to collect the 3 drugs to power up. The ebb and flow of combat feels really good. Items don’t feel too over powered nor do character specials dominate. Where LASTFIGHT expands on Power Stone’s combat is comes with its specials. Each character has two buttons for combat, a normal attack and special attack ability. Each can be paired for basic chain combos and set ups, however, you can get stronger version of the moves by building a meter located under each character. Duke, LASTFIGHT’s resident boxing bro for example, special skill is extending juggles on a combo to lay down serious damage. Think of it like Barlog’s/Boxer’s V-Trigger Skill (KBB) from Street Fighter V. At full meter, a simple light chain into full special chain can easily do 35% damage and clench out rounds. Each character has their own unique special ability that makes them threat when it’s fully charged and unique abilities or possibilities for set ups from that.
Of course, like Power Stone, the ultimate end game in LASTFIGHT comes with transformations. After collecting 3 ston…er, “drugs”, your character will turn into a powerful monster will powerful attacks that will practically end rounds. However, while the setup is the same to Power Stone, LASTFIGHT’s transformations are a bit different. First difference is that the stones are universally the same for all players. Meaning no one has a unique transformation. That being said, each stage has different “drugs” with different transformations. There are at least 4 different transformations spread across the games 8 different stages. Some of them are really fun, reminiscent of things from Power Stone. Others, not so much. Finally unlike Power Stone, many attacks are easily avoided making the over-the-top powers not too imbalanced with proper jumps, blocks, dashes, and well timed item attack/projectile. The reality is there is enough fun combat without the “drug” transformation to make it a priority to grab all of the “drugs”.
LASTFIGHT definitely is a tribute to Power Stone and even expands on its fundamentals. It also shares its central failing as well: repetitiveness. With a small cast, smaller selection of stages, and even smaller selection of transformations that repeat throughout out the stages, LASTFIGHT can get old quickly. A feeling that gets extremely tested once you realize the few modes LASTFIGHT has. True, LASTFIGHT has the standards (Story, Survival, versus), but it lacks online multiplayer. A bizarre omission for a game that is best played avec vos aimes (with your friends). The game also has a Ranked and Endless modes, that simulates an online gameplay, but it’s with CPUs. With emphasis on a more technical style to Power Stone’s fighting game, though, it seems odd that some sort of ranked mode, or any online mode if you don’t have local people to play with, wasn’t a major priority for the game.
LASTFIGHT is a tribute to a bygone era in fighting games. It’s also brilliant modern expansion of Power Stone. We will never know when, if ever, Capcom will revisit Power Stone. Till then, LASTFIGHT has plenty personality (and “drugs”) to fill the void.
