What helped Power Stone stand out from the crowd originally was the 3D space in which you fought other players and the use of an interactive environment. The format is simple – punch, kick and slap around everyone else to be the last man standing. There are also Power Stones scattered around, and if you pick up three of them you juice up your character and really beat down the rest. And the terrain is available to throw at each other to inflict more damage, as are weapons, some of which are new for the collection.

You can play the game alone, which consists of a string of fights with a boss battle at the end. Up to four people can play at the same time in Original mode, where you can customize the rules for head to head, one vs. three, two vs. two or tag teams. You can also play Adventure mode to collect items and gold to use in the item shop.

The fights with multiple players are good fun. The animation is still smooth enough and detailed enough to offer satisfying results when the action gets tight and only occasionally will you see boxy or pixelated items that remind you it's an old game. The single player mode is fun for a while, but even before you've tried all the weapons (guns, hammers, bazookas, etc.) and different characters (there are 12), you've seen more than enough. Power Stone suffers from the same thing most fighting games do – they are really meant for at least two live players. Unfortunately, every player needs their own copy of the game and getting four people together might not happen often enough. The only game sharing available is a single player demo. There's no online option, either.

Power Stone is quick, mindless fun for short periods of time, and it's always nice to have the comfort of games from the past when a quick diversion is in order. But this game depends on multiple players for it to have any long term value. Without either online play or game sharing, Power Stone Collection has trouble living up to its roots or potential.