A few weekends ago during one of the many lulls in between Soccer Saturday and the evening pub trip, I took it upon myself to root all my old Sega stuff out of its storage spot at the bottom of my wardrobe. Quite why I suddenly decided upon this was never quite clear, but a good two hours later I was so engrossed that I had no other solution to my impending social crisis than to throw open my living room and allow the pub to come to me.

It was all Power Stone 2’s fault. Seriously, after a good half hour running around like a lunatic on Capcom’s classic slant on the rather full beat-‘em-up genre the prospect of an icy cold pint was the last thing on my mind. If a game comes between a man and his beer it must be something special (well, that’s how I summarised it) and it inevitably ended up with the kinds of semi-drunken multiplayer sessions that leave your stomach strained through sheer amount of laughter. Shenmue, Chu Chu Rocket and Virtua Tennis never even got look-in. Good times indeed.

It was therefore with much anticipation that Capcom’s Power Stone Collection UMD was slotted into my PSP. I may have not had the prospect of alcohol to weigh it all up against (a bottle of water and some couscous had to make do), but my expectations were still high enough for me to completely ignore Jay and anything he was trying to say to me as the PSP screen faded from black to the colourful, oh-so-excited blast of noise which is the opening menu. It’s like firing up your Dreamcast all over again.

What you’re getting with the collection is Power Stone 1 and 2, as well as a collection of mini games that you had to play on one of those ruddy VMU things for back in the day. For those not initiated with the general idea of the series, fighters are given a three-dimensional arena filled with items and weapons with which to pummel your opponent. During battling, three differently coloured Power Stones appear, and if they are all collected by a single jouster it temporarily boosts them up to a super powered form.

This obviously leads to hugely hectic battles. The first Power Stone game concentrates on one-on-one fighting in relatively cramped arenas, which means that everything and anything that pops up is frantically purloined and used against the enemy. Seen a particularly chunky chair knocking about? Make a dash for it, pick it up and lob it at your opponent. When you’re done, why not make use of the flagpole in the centre to swing around and launch a nasty dropkick? Such things are all part of the battle plan, and the beautiful thing is that it’s all so natural and easy to achieve. Control of your fighter is tight and responsive, and if you lose you never end up shouting at the game; you end up shouting at bemused office folk who have no idea what you’re going on about.

Whilst the cramped, claustrophobic nature of the first game allows for all kinds of silliness, it’s with the larger, changeable arenas of Power Stone 2 that the series really kicks into gear. Along with boosting the number of combatants from two to four, environments change as battles go on, leading to a whole host of situations for you to cater for whilst you fight. One of the best examples of the way things unfold is a level that begins on a plane up in the sky, moves on to the fighters plunging downwards through the air and culminates on top of some sort of ancient temple – all of which is tremendously fun, as you can imagine.

Each game offers the usual staples of a beat-‘em-up diet: versus mode, story mode and multiplayer mode. The second game caters for all possibilities with the option to have either simple one-on-one fights or the full compliment of four fighters duking it out during story mode. Whilst the first game keeps things fairly simple in that respect and gives the player a fairly traditional run through a number of stages, the sequel attempts to spice things up a little by padding the storyline out a little and introducing more boss stages.

As good as the single player modes are, though, they’re not going to last forever. Beating the games and unlocking the additional mini games, artwork and music will keep you plugging away for a time, but the strongest asset to any beat-‘em-up is the multiplayer mode, and it’s on this point that Power Stone Collection runs up against a brick wall. The chances of you ever being able to gather with four other PSP owners, each with their own copy of the game are a little on the slim side, means that there’s a high chance you’ll never be able to take the wraps off the series’ most beautiful mode.

It’s a true shame, as without the ability to easily pummel your mates the game will fall short of the experience that most of us enjoyed on our Dreamcasts a number of years back. There’s a heck of a lot that Power Stone Collection does right; the visuals are crisp and adapted to widescreen to suit the PSP screen, whilst the sound is clear and full of the ridiculously over-the-top Japanese battle tunes that we’ve all come to know and love.

Hence, scoring it is somewhat a tricky proposition. In all likelihood most players are going to miss out on being able to use the multiplay modes, and when it comes to a game like Power Stone that is quite a big miss. For everything it does right – the music, the crisp visuals and the hectic action – playing it all through on your lonesome means it isn’t going to have much longevity. If you’ve got a like-minded chum with a PSP and a spare bit of cash then Power Stone Collection is a very viable purchase indeed, but if not then this will probably have a short but sweet stay in your PSP UMD tray before returning to the shelf to collect dust.