OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Psychic Force

We've all seen our share of anime based on video games, and the ones based on fighting games can be particularly wretched. Psychic Force was a game for the original Playstation in the mid-90s by Taito Corp. who also famously created Space Invaders. The video game itself was another standard fighting scenario taking place in a 3D environment even though the playing engaged was in 2D with each character having their own specific ability. Most of these fighters had either psychic, mystical, or cybernetic powers, as well as sometimes a combination of them. Triangle Staff created a 2-episode OVA adaptation in 1998 that was localized into English as one of the few anime titles distributed exclusively by Image Entertainment.

Happening in a world similar to X-Men, psychics are people with powerful abilities, usually telepathy, but every psychic has their own significant trait like elemental powers. The majority of the first episode takes place in the far-off future of 2007 where a rogue young psychic named Keith who is on the run from shady agents when he runs across local farm boy Burn. The agents eventually capture Keith, and then the plot shifts ahead to 2010 where Burn is searching for Keith and finds he is now the head of a sealed off nation for psychics called Noah, even though Keith is secretly being coerced by the time-manipulating Wong. Noah has several psychic soldiers under its wing, including a bionic bimbo with huge shoulder pads and a bipolar psychopath armed with sharp claws. Burn makes his way to Keith who awakens his own pyrokinetic prowess which he immediately gains control over when trying to free Keith from his crusade against the world. Wong decides to take out all the other psychics in Noah's base so he can be the only powerful esper in the world, which interrupts Keith and Burn's duel despite them both making it out alive.

Psychic Force came out after the backwash of X/1999 movie hit the pavement, so it's another epser epic that just got lost in the shuffle of late 90's OVAs. The anime is excessively rushed with the first episode being a flashback and the second being slightly longer trying to catch up by tying together all the dangling plot threads while making time for all the other characters from the video game, some of which are barely featured in the anime. That's the problem with taking a fighting game and turning it into a limited animation project, even if the game itself didn't have much of a rich storyline to begin with. The animation itself isn't all that potent either with obvious budget cuts in the first episode. You're not missing much if you toss this in the bin with the Samurai Showdown or Art Of Fighting anime.