If you've played any game in this series, then the title should have given away the game I'm reviewing.
Custom Robo Arena
Although it's a first party series, it rarely leaves Japan and I think that this and the Gamecube game are the only ones available to us.
Which is a shame because it's a very good game and I'm disappointed we haven't been able to play it as long as Japan has.
Anyway, you play as a kid who moves into a town called Midheart. His Dad gives him a Custom Robo, which are toy robots that are controlled with your mind by "diving" into it. I'm pretty sure that whether the controller sees from a first person or third person perspective is up for debate. Disappointingly, unlike the rest of the characters in the game, the character you play as is very disappointing. He's completely silent, which is usually ok, but in a game like this, you need your own character to be involved. A huge disappointment. Anyway, the story at first is the stereotypical becoming champion of Custom Robo (sound familiar?) but it transpires into an evil organization creating an almighty powerful robo to dominate the world with (sound familiar?).
The characters are brilliant, unlike yourself, and are really well thought out, from the sleepy Solax from an enemy team, to your hilarious teacher who's trying to hide the fact he plays Custom Robo from his wife (and fails to do so). The more important characters have pictures that pop up when you talk to them which are drawn in a very good animé style.
The gameplay is split into two types. One is your average RPG "Walk to next destination" area which reminds me of a certain other first party RPG, and the other is the battling section. Basically, when Robos aren't battling, they stay in a cube form. When the battle starts, both your Robo and your opponent's robo are placed in two cannons, in a holographic arena that changes depending on your opponent, that you can aim. After three seconds, the cannons fire, starting the battle. Once the cube lands, your Robo starts to transform and depending on which way it lands up, it will either get up quickly or slowly. For instance, if it lands on it's head, it will take about five seconds to get up and if you land on its head, it will only take less than a second or so. If you land on anything but your head, you can mash the buttons to help your Robo get up faster.
Robos are split into several different parts that you can change to whatever you feel like.
The first is the Robo itself. For a while, when the game starts, you'll only have access to one Robo, but eventually you'll be able to buy them.
This is really crucial because your entire strategy is built around the strengths and weaknesses of the Robo you pick. Bigger Robos usually do more damage but are a lot slower than others, while smaller ones are more suited for rush in, attack, get the hell out of there.
Guns are almost as crucial because you need to pick the right gun to fit with your Robo. Long range are better for the larger Robos while Short range do better for smaller ones. There's a lot of different imaginative guns to choose from but you need to practice in order to use most of them correctly.
Then there's bombs and pods. Both create explosions which stay on the field for a short while, and with the frenzied fight going on, it's quite easy to dash into one by mistake.
Finally, there's the legs. There aren't many to choose from, but most revolve around speeding you up or allowing you to air dash across the arena a lot faster.
You need to create a perfect battle strategy for you if you want to win online (it's not too hard to win story mode without doing so).
The arenas are very well designed. There's just so many to choose from and most are very creative, like a large arena that breaks apart. The only disappointing thing is that the effects happen too quickly and for too long. Take the space area for example. It says that it disappears over time, but what it really means is five seconds. It would have been a lot more fun for it to stay visible for at least half a minute before disappearing.
The battle formula is very unique as well. After getting hit a certain number of times, your robot collapses to the floor for a few seconds (which is called "down") where your defense is strengthened but you can't move. In this time a few more hits can be landed upon a robo before it gets back up and is invincible (in a mode called "rebirth"
Another element that's important is cleaning your robo. Before a battle you get to make changes to your Robo before you start and in this time, you should make sure your Robo is clean, otherwise you don't do as much damange or get as many points when you win.
Also, halfway through the game, you learn how to do a soul boost. Basically, your Robo turns gold for a while and does more damage and has a higher defense. Unfortunately, you can only do this if your soul gauge is full, so I barely used it because it takes a while to refill it
Balancing your strategy and these down and rebirth times is tricky, but once you get the hang of it, no CPU stands a chance.
During the battle you jump with A (you can tap it again to air dash across the arena) fire your gun with B, regular dash with X, fire pods with L and fire bombs with R. You can also activate Soul boost by tapping the touch screen.
The controls are very fluent and are not clunky in the slightest
The visuals are very nicely done and barely look blocky at all; there's not even any slow down (except maybe on wifi)
The music isn't very spectacular or catchy, except for a few battle themes, though, which is disappointing
Unfortunately, once the story mode ends, you're not given any goals except to defeat forty people who won't fight you unless you meet a specific requirement, so unless you have friends with it, it will soon end up getting left on a shelf forgotten, unless you can be bothered hunting all those people down.
But it's still a fluent game and deserve
86%
Thanks for reading ^^
