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Taito, in cooperation with developer Cosmo Machina, announced that Dreamcast arena fighter Psychic Force 2012 will be making a grand return in 2027 via a rerelease on modern platforms. The legendary publisher revealed the port as part of Tokyo Game Show (TGS), which kicked off yesterday.
Originally released in Japanese arcades in 1998, before making its way worldwide on Dreamcast and PlayStation, Psychic Force 2012 is the sequel to Taito's own Psychic Force - a anti0gravity arena fighter with a highly stylised anime aesthetic. The battles in Psychic Force are entirely airborne, with fighters occupying a 3D floating space, throwing down with an array of punches, kicks and powerful special attacks.
The action is clearly styled after the highly dramatic encounters in anime series such as Dragon Ball Z, where heroes and villains would frequently take to the air for hours in explosive, destructive combat. The Psychic Force titles don't quite capture the all-consuming, apocalyptic vision of those sequences, instead offering up a middling, somewhat sluggish take on the trope. Despite this, Psychic Force does have its cabal of fans, nostalgic for its cast of hip young thangs and penchant for dramatic storytelling.
The concept is sound, but perhaps the technology just wasn't quite there. One can only imagine what a modern studio could do with the franchise if a new game were built from the ground up. Still, this modern rerelease will allow the series' dedicated fans and new generations of players the opportunity to experience this quiet piece of fighting game history once again.
Psychic Force 2012 is coming to PlayStation, PC, and Nintendo Switch platforms in 2027.