The tournament progresses and Yoh gathers his friends around him. The battles become more and more intense, as you'll soon be taking on multiple enemies at a time, sometimes even battling a shaman and its spirit separately. When these battles arise, you'll generally have a friend or two in tow to help you along. Should they be in close enough proximity when battle is initiated, they'll jump in as a computer-controlled second player to help you out. Should you be out of attack range when a friend jumps in to battle, the fight is simulated quickly on the main game board and then control is quickly passed back to you. While it would have been nice to be able to have a friend pick up a second controller to battle evil with, sadly, Power of Spirit doesn't come equipped with any sort of two-player component.
The game is a little bit of both, but not enough of either.
While the bulk of the story may be told by way of rather bland 2D cutscenes, the strategy and action portions of the game are all 3D. Yoh, his friends, and his enemies are all rendered well, staying faithful to what you might expect them to look like. During the action sequences, animations are somewhat lacking, to the point that after just a few battles you've seen just about every move in the book. On the other hand, when you merge with your spirit, your character takes on an impressive, colorful glow with a number of nice effects, truly bringing your shaman to life. Graphically, though, this is just about the only area where the game stands out. The arenas in which battle takes place are also somewhat boring, flat, and generally uninspired. While great lengths were taken to preserve the same artistic feel of the series, there just simply isn't enough to make the game anything more than average. The same can also be said about the game's audio. You've got a standard assortment of music that fits well within the game, but certainly nothing that will inspire you to rush out and buy the soundtrack. To its credit, the voice acting in the game is well done, and it definitely helps to make the lengthy story sequences livelier.
As you might imagine, Power of Spirit tries hard to stay faithful to the source material, and it does a fine job in that respect. The game is a combination of two vastly different genres, executed in a stripped down, sloppy manner, and it ultimately results in a package that isn't held together well. Fans of the series will jump for joy at the chance to be able to win the title of Shaman King for themselves, but those looking for a thrilling combination of strategy and fight will be disappointed at the results. In the end, Shaman King falls short in nearly every aspect.
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