Custom Robo

To be honest, when I first heard about Custom Robo, I questioned its potential for greatness with much skepticism. I didn’t think it was going to be very good. Earlier this week, my brother, who is into Japanese anime, gundams and other things of the sort, bought the game. The following day I found myself bored out of my mind, so I decided to take Custom Robo for a spin.

Custom Robo features a unique single-player adventure mode called "A New Journey." A New Journey is a lot more fun than it might appear to be or than the name implies. It has an entertaining story, and it’s not overly complicated. A New Journey really uses the combat aspect of Custom Robo's game-play very well. Also, most of the extra parts you can unlock in the game are acquired by advancing in the story. It even has a nice plot twist and is pretty long; I would say that the average player would beat the adventure mode, "a new journey", in about eight to ten hours.

Now, there’s more to the single-player experience than just A New Journey. After you beat A New Journey mode, you can unlock a new adventure called Grand Battle. Basically, Grand Battle continues the story where A New Journey left off. Through completion of Grand Battle, new levels and parts can be unlocked, which is a great way to keep the game alive longer.

You also unlock arcade mode after you complete A New Journey. Arcade mode takes you through various stages in which you battle computers using any robo/robo parts you have unlocked. You can choose between hard and normal difficulty settings and select from several different styles of battle for the levels. For example, you can choose to have all two-on-two matches or tag-team events.

Custom Robo has relatively nice graphics. The graphics match the game's distinct style but are not outstanding. What surprises me about the graphics is that they show more detail on the robos than a person would expect. I was surprised to see certain details in the various parts when I was using them to make my robo. The graphics also run very smoothly in four-player battles. They don’t slow down or get very pixilated; in other words, Custom Robo consists of a solid, smooth frame rate even through all the mayhem of four-player battles.

Custom Robo features dozens of levels as well. Each level is unique and different from the next in some way, big or small. The levels were apparently designed with visual presentation in mind over functionality because many of the level designs are fairly generic; but they are fun to play in, and they always have some element like a moving toy train or pits of lava to keep them relatively exciting. Like I previously stated, visuals were put into more consideration when it came to the level designs; the levels look good and sometimes have parts like cans or containers that can be destroyed, which comes in handy when an enemy hides behind a destructible obstacle of some sort. My only complaint is that they should be more interactive, but this isn’t a major drawback.

Custom Robo handles far better then I had imagined. The controls are easy to get used to and are adjustable. You can change the control scheme if it doesn’t satisfy you. The robos do everything from run to fly, and each robo has its own stats that will be displayed as you look through them. Another satisfying aspect of this game is that you don’t save your robot. Each time you play you build it again, but it’s not a bad idea at all; you will most likely find yourself changing things here and there according to your opponent, and you won't have to be scrambling over the memory space your robos might otherwise clog on your memory card. Because you choose from a selection of bodies, guns, bombs, legs, and pods (It’s like a jetpack on your back that launches bombs.), robo construction, despite some necessary tweaking, is easy and not very time consuming.

After you beat A New Journey but before you complete The Grand Battle, you unlock the ability to challenge computers in the versus mode. You can combat computer-controlled opponents on your own or use them to fill in for absent friends and fill the arenas to capacity. The computers can also be set to a certain difficulty level to make them difficult or easy, meaning combating them can be enjoyed by players of different levels of skill and experience, obviously. You can also pick from twenty different combinations of A.I.-adversaries for each difficulty. The versus mode also contains various modes to fight in, which adds more variety to the multi-player experience.

The sound in this game isn’t a big deal. You will never find yourself with songs from the game stuck in your head or humming any of them. But don’t let this alter the odds of your purchasing the game if you liked what you have read up to this point. Quite simply, the music isn’t something you’re going to focus on. I seriously don’t remember any of the songs, and I don’t mind because that’s the last thing I was thinking about while flying around in my robo blasting one enemy with a homing missile and dismantling another with an arm-equipped chain gun.

Aside from offering a fun experience in the game-play department, the best part of Custom Robo is the replay value; Custom Robo performs great in this department. If you finish Grand Battle, you will find yourself playing the versus mode and arcade mode over and over, battling computers.

Custom Robo is a great game; fans of Super Smash Bros. Melee will probably enjoy this game most, like me. Custom Robo may suffer slightly with its level design, level interaction and music; but Gamecube owners should consider checking this game out if they like multiplayer experiences or are just looking for something new for their purple lunchboxes at home.