I always wanted a robotic minion. Something that was a cross between Transformers and a gladiator. It seems like someone from Nintendo and Noise were listening in on my mumblings to myself when Custom Robo was released for the Gamecube in 2004.
The game's story takes place in an alternate reality Earth where technology has progressed rapidly. The game centers around our hero receiving a special watch from his father on his birthday. He leaves and returns to his place of employment and that is the last our hero hears from him. Fast - forward a couple years ahead and we find out that our hero's father has died. His last wish is for you to become a Custom Robo commander. Our hero goes out and finds a local bounty hunter headquarters called Steel Hearts. When the hero is being interviewed by the leader named Ernest, a call from a nearby lab interrupts the interview and Ernest sends you on your first job with someone named Harry. The lab is being burglarized and the police are having trouble with the burglars. It is there our hero finds his first robo. He swiftly dispatches his opponents and completes his first job. Life is quiet and uneventful for the next few days. The calm is interrupted by the discovery of an autonomous robo creating havoc in an illegal battle room in back of a bar. The robo is quickly dealt with but escapes capture. The story speeds up a little bit after that but still has a few more twists here and there. The writing is smart and characters will frequently give tips and the writing is humorous. More than once has the dialogue caused me to chuckle. The story structure feels episodic, solving the cliffhangers of the other episode, or mission, but leaving off with another one to deal with the next day. It all finishes with an ending that exciting and ultimately satisfying.
The gameplay is spilt in numerous modes like Story mode and Versus mode. Story mode is called A New Journey, which follows the story outline printed above. Versus mode allows two to four players to fight each other in free-for-alls, Tag Battles, and Handicap matches. There might be other modes and options once players complete A New Journey.
Gameplay in A New Journey is divided into two parts: Exploration and battle. The exploration is what your character is doing outside of a fight. Customizing your robo, interacting with NPCs, objects, and the environment, collecting earned parts, and story advancement are all here. At multiple times in the story, the hero is given some dialogue prompts, but choosing one choice or the other has little impact. It is nice feature, though. Pressing the Start will bring up the main menu. From here, it possible to customize your robo, tweak some of the options, or quit the game. Battles are set, which causes this game to become linear, but that is not much of a bad thing. Before battles begin, you can customize your robo, check you opponent's customization, and check the holosseum (basically the stage of the fight). When it comes to customization, there are five different pieces of a robo. The first is the body. The body index is made up of eight different styles of robos, which each style is divided in three different types: Normal, Defense, and Speed. Normal robos are the balanced fighters of the style, Defense robos usually have a higher defense and down (how much punishment a robo can sustain in a short amount of time.) at the cost of some speed and sky (how well the robo jumps and how well it air dashes), while Speed robos usually have higher sky and speed at the cost of some down and defense. All robos have something called a charge, which is like a tackle and causes an automatic down. Like the robos, the charges all function differently.
The next part is the Gun part, the robo's primary weapon. The guns have much more variation and all have different handling. For example, the Shotgun is brutal at close range, but a large stage will call for the Afterburner. This is your robo's primary weapon, so getting used to different guns in different situations is imperative.
Next is the bomb part. Bombs are secondary weapons that good at setting traps for your opponent. The different variety of bombs launches opponents in different directions. I would use these to make opponents step in your gun shots. Nailing someone with these are very hard as most of them are slow when compared to most gun shots.
Next are the pod parts. Pods are hunter-like weapons that can be very devastating or a profound waste of space. It is how you use them. The best way (in my opinion) is to cover you tracks. Another smart way is push your opponent in oncoming bombs or gun shots. Just releasing them in the hopes of hitting your opponents will not do anything.
Finally, there are the legs. These parts affect how your robo will move on the ground and in the air. Adding the Formula Legs, which increase speed but causes turns to become wider, to a tank robo is a good idea and so is adding these to a speed demon. Adding the Ground Legs, which help robos make sharp turns and make them fall faster, to an aerial model is not a good idea.
Players can practice whenever by have the customization screen up with the simple tap of the R button. Players will be facing a basic CPU with an average robo with Standard weapons. The practice stage is nothing to brag about, but it helps players out as the stage is medium size with a handy counter displaying the number of hits and damage the CPU is currently taking.
When in a fight, a counter will count down and when the counter hits zero, the direction the holocannons, which hold the custom robo cubes (the untransformed state of Custom Robos) will launch the cubes in the pointed direction. Another timer will appear on the cube, but the timer can be sped by pressing the face buttons. When the counter hits zero it?s time to fight! All robos have 100.0HP, and find any way to reduce that to zero before the opponent does that to you. In story mode, you have no choice in what holosseum is selected, so use that time to get acquainted to them the first time you in battle them and destroy your opponents the next time your in the same stage. In Versus mode, you can use any stage that was previously fought in Story mode. Versus mode has two bonus stages that can be accessed by tapping the Z button, but which ones? I am not telling
.
Graphics are beautiful, with some awe inspiring gun shots and explosions. The game shows its age with character faces being completely immobile, but the portraits in the lower left hand corner, show the emotion as the characters are talking. They complement the dialogue quite well. The sound is hit or miss, with the background music is quite pleasing, as well as the gun shots, explosions, falls, and crashes. The dialogue, when it appears on-screen, the game simulates a voice, which the easiest way to describe it. Some the ?voices? sound quite annoying. The difficulty is strange. Some fights you'll breeze through, completely and utterly destroying your foe, but other times the game will punish you for the slightest miss or not taking better cover. Some robos perform better some stages than in others. Picking the wrong model will culminate into a swift destruction.
Bottom Line: Fun, but I can understand why some people may not like it.
Gameplay in A New Journey is divided into two parts: Exploration and battle. The exploration is what your character is doing outside of a fight. Customizing your robo, interacting with NPCs, objects, and the environment, collecting earned parts, and story advancement are all here. At multiple times in the story, the hero is given some dialogue prompts, but choosing one choice or the other has little impact. It is nice feature, though. Pressing the Start will bring up the main menu. From here, it possible to customize your robo, tweak some of the options, or quit the game. Battles are set, which causes this game to become linear, but that is not much of a bad thing. Before battles begin, you can customize your robo, check you opponent's customization, and check the holosseum (basically the stage of the fight). When it comes to customization, there are five different pieces of a robo. The first is the body. The body index is made up of eight different styles of robos, which each style is divided in three different types: Normal, Defense, and Speed. Normal robos are the balanced fighters of the style, Defense robos usually have a higher defense and down (how much punishment a robo can sustain in a short amount of time.) at the cost of some speed and sky (how well the robo jumps and how well it air dashes), while Speed robos usually have higher sky and speed at the cost of some down and defense. All robos have something called a charge, which is like a tackle and causes an automatic down. Like the robos, the charges all function differently.
The next part is the Gun part, the robo's primary weapon. The guns have much more variation and all have different handling. For example, the Shotgun is brutal at close range, but a large stage will call for the Afterburner. This is your robo's primary weapon, so getting used to different guns in different situations is imperative.
Next is the bomb part. Bombs are secondary weapons that good at setting traps for your opponent. The different variety of bombs launches opponents in different directions. I would use these to make opponents step in your gun shots. Nailing someone with these are very hard as most of them are slow when compared to most gun shots.
Next are the pod parts. Pods are hunter-like weapons that can be very devastating or a profound waste of space. It is how you use them. The best way (in my opinion) is to cover you tracks. Another smart way is push your opponent in oncoming bombs or gun shots. Just releasing them in the hopes of hitting your opponents will not do anything.
Finally, there are the legs. These parts affect how your robo will move on the ground and in the air. Adding the Formula Legs, which increase speed but causes turns to become wider, to a tank robo is a good idea and so is adding these to a speed demon. Adding the Ground Legs, which help robos make sharp turns and make them fall faster, to an aerial model is not a good idea.
When in a fight, a counter will count down and when the counter hits zero, the direction the holocannons, which hold the custom robo cubes (the untransformed state of Custom Robos) will launch the cubes in the pointed direction. Another timer will appear on the cube, but the timer can be sped by pressing the face buttons. When the counter hits zero it?s time to fight! All robos have 100.0HP, and find any way to reduce that to zero before the opponent does that to you. In story mode, you have no choice in what holosseum is selected, so use that time to get acquainted to them the first time you in battle them and destroy your opponents the next time your in the same stage. In Versus mode, you can use any stage that was previously fought in Story mode. Versus mode has two bonus stages that can be accessed by tapping the Z button, but which ones? I am not telling
.Graphics are beautiful, with some awe inspiring gun shots and explosions. The game shows its age with character faces being completely immobile, but the portraits in the lower left hand corner, show the emotion as the characters are talking. They complement the dialogue quite well. The sound is hit or miss, with the background music is quite pleasing, as well as the gun shots, explosions, falls, and crashes. The dialogue, when it appears on-screen, the game simulates a voice, which the easiest way to describe it. Some the ?voices? sound quite annoying. The difficulty is strange. Some fights you'll breeze through, completely and utterly destroying your foe, but other times the game will punish you for the slightest miss or not taking better cover. Some robos perform better some stages than in others. Picking the wrong model will culminate into a swift destruction.
Bottom Line: Fun, but I can understand why some people may not like it.
