For starters, the visuals are so-so and not as great as the original Sharp X68000 version or its later ports; the mechas' sprites look good, they have some nicer details than the previous versions, and decently animated, however we're treated some static and sub-par scenery. The original version had some very nice scrolling backgrounds that drew you into the action, the first stage especially as you can see the police offers trying to fight off the Slave Gears and pedestrians fleeing from the scene. In the remake, there's none of that and it feels barren. The other issue I have with the graphics is the UI, it's very cheap-looking and looks like they only spend an hour designing it, and it's kind of an eye-sore.
Audio-wise, it decent. The music has been nicely arranged, and the techno soundtrack fits well with the cyberpunk future setting with the game, although it sometimes feels mellow compared to the original which can take away some of the excitement out of the action. The big improvement on music front is new boss music that are unique to each boss. Sound effects are spot-on. Now for the gameplay, it has its ups and downs. Throwing an enemy was something that bothered me in the original, as it sometimes it wouldn't work despite that I'm performing the right command, but in the remake it's much more responsive.
Unfortunately, the difficulty is rather unbalanced, although what might be the biggest deal-breaker is the A.I. which took a nasty dive in this version, especially bosses; in the originals, the bosses would do everything that their CPU can process to destroy you (then again, I'm not great at fighting games), here they're dumb as bricks and it's entirely possible to spam projectiles and win. There's also the introduction of an Overdrive Meter that, when fully charged, allows you to spam Hyper moves non-stop for a short time. Combine this with your ability of crowd control and spamming Hypers then it makes the game really easy. Also the lack of actual unlockables (not the cheat codes) really sucks.
The PlayStation remake could have been something...
For starters, the visuals are so-so and not as great as the original Sharp X68000 version or its later ports; the mechas' sprites look good, they have some nicer details than the previous versions, and decently animated, however we're treated some static and sub-par scenery. The original version had some very nice scrolling backgrounds that drew you into the action, the first stage especially as you can see the police offers trying to fight off the Slave Gears and pedestrians fleeing from the scene. In the remake, there's none of that and it feels barren. The other issue I have with the graphics is the UI, it's very cheap-looking and looks like they only spend an hour designing it, and it's kind of an eye-sore.
Audio-wise, it decent. The music has been nicely arranged, and the techno soundtrack fits well with the cyberpunk future setting with the game, although it sometimes feels mellow compared to the original which can take away some of the excitement out of the action. The big improvement on music front is new boss music that are unique to each boss. Sound effects are spot-on. Now for the gameplay, it has its ups and downs. Throwing an enemy was something that bothered me in the original, as it sometimes it wouldn't work despite that I'm performing the right command, but in the remake it's much more responsive.
Unfortunately, the difficulty is rather unbalanced, although what might be the biggest deal-breaker is the A.I. which took a nasty dive in this version, especially bosses; in the originals, the bosses would do everything that their CPU can process to destroy you (then again, I'm not great at fighting games), here they're dumb as bricks and it's entirely possible to spam projectiles and win. There's also the introduction of an Overdrive Meter that, when fully charged, allows you to spam Hyper moves non-stop for a short time. Combine this with your ability of crowd control and spamming Hypers then it makes the game really easy. Also the lack of actual unlockables (not the cheat codes) really sucks.
If there's any version of Mad Stalker worth playing, you're better off with the Sharp X68000 version or the PC Engine CD port. It seemed like that Fill-in Café wanted to capitalize on the PlayStation crowd with this overlooked gem, but the unbalanced difficulty and generally cheap feel of this remake is middling at best.