A pair of Medium Drive Suits (read: mecha) driven by a male and female character are selectable at the outset of the game - the M.D.S. Five Ascetics which is driven by Kei and the M.D.S. Maitreya which is manned by Yuhei. New to the Psyvariar series is the "Rolling Input System" where the mechs "twirl" in the direction that the joystick is pointed in continuous fashion and special attacks may be blasted out by spinning the mechs.

Nary a month since release however, Success has announced plans for DC and PS2 versions of the game - with the DC version taking the lead for release on February 26, 2003. Arcade operators in Japan may curse the company for announcing so early but fans will appreciate the sudden love.

Impressions
Upon starting the game, a zooming short cinema shows the M.D.S. flying into view and settling nicely against a 2-D vertical backdrop. The first area is called Weak Boson and it's a fitting name. Three attackers immediately appear and shoot a lazy patter of fire to show that they're no threat. The rest of the level is simple as well and helps a player to acquaint oneself to the buzz perimeter that surrounds your ship. It's fairly wide and allows for comfortable buzzing of enemy shots. Satisfying grating sound effects and sparks accompany the buzzes. Since the shots are slow on this level, one may buzz a single shot multiple times for some nice chains. In level one, we recommend concentrating on buzzing the red warrior for a couple of hundred buzzes. One of our max buzz chains was 965 on level four - there's a point where you can grab about 220 buzzes from one of the long laser shots.

Tapping the shot button blows out a steady stream of fire but once some buzz points are under your belt, continually tap it in rapid staccato and the M.D.S. fires out a machine gun volley of shots into the air while spinning like a gatling gun. Continual shooting also creates a purple or blue lightning spark around the M.D.S. which shoots bolts into the local vicinity.

One of the unique aspects of Psyvariar 2 is the ability to go through the entire game (with the exception of the boss encounters) without firing a single shot. One may concentrate only on obtaining as many buzzes as possible. For example, one may buzz shots as well as enemy ships to bump up your chain. The first part of Level 1 isn't a great area for building up a high buzz chain but with the proper amount of concentration, one could probably get a 300 or thereabouts by buzzing everything in Weak Boson. The Red Warrior that appears midlevel alone gives up about 250 as long as you stay close to it and buzz all of it's rapid fire shots.

Control
The control scheme in Psyvariar 2 is simple. Use the D-Pad or the Analog thumbstick to guide the M.D.S. through the levels and shoot or bomb with the A or B buttons. We prefer the analog thumbstick over the D-Pad but old schoolers may tend towards the D-Pad for it's tighter control. One may make the M.D.S. twirl in the air by performing a quarter-circle move on the D-pad or analog pad. Success calls this the "Rolling Input System" and it's a neat trick when catching buzzes or avoiding shots.

Configuration
Checking out the Config Menu, we see a host of options and selections as follows:

Player - Select from 3 to 5 ships
Bomb - Give yourself 3 to 5 bombs
Difficulty - Very Easy, Easy, Normal, Hard, Very Hard
Sound - Mono or Stereo
Continue - On or Off
Buzz Area - On or Off
Monitor Type - Four Horizontal arrangements and Five Vertical ones
Controller - Set buttons for bomb and shot
Reset Ranking - Erase previous high scores and rankings
Reset Setting - Revert to default factory settings

Psyvariar 2 gives players the option of saving any of the configuration settings to memory card if one desires.

Conclusion
We love Psyvariar 2 mainly for the Buzz System. It's elegant, unique, and a thing of beauty to behold when wielded by an adept. The game itself is fine and offers plenty of eye candy, chipper music, and shooting action but we find staffers at NCS going through the levels trying to create the longest buzz chains. This means never shooting at anything except bosses. As mentioned earlier, the highest chain saved to our VMU is 965 but that probably won't last long as the otaku in the office become fanatical and go for broke.

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