Custom Robo V2 is the second game in the Custom Robo series. It is similar to the first, but it features tag teaming. The player travels an overworld, and participates in Custom Robo battles. The goal of the game is to win every battle of the storyline while collecting every Robo, battle part, and item.
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This is a game I bought aaages ago after I beat the first game, but just never got around to finishing. I had a ton of fun playing the first game on Twitch a couple years back, but I got about halfway through this one on stream before I put it down and just never picked it back up. This game doesn’t record playtime, but I reckon that it took me at least a total 15 hours to play through the normal story mode until I hit credits and then play through nearly all of the post-game stuff. I also played the Japanese version of the game on real hardware.
V2 is a direct sequel to the original Custom Robo that takes place about a year after the events of the first game. Though it takes place in a new town with a new non-verbal player avatar at the helm, the formula is still very similar (and we even have some returning characters from the first game who get new and expanded roles here). You’re going out and starting to play Custom Robo in the new town you just moved to with the help of your new friends, and you get wrapped up in some shady plots by evil figures along the way. It’s still very much of the style of “anime based around a toy” of the time, where everyone just accepts the fact that their world is totally based around these toys and plays it completely straight, which is very fun, so that’s not a problem.
Overall, I’d say this game’s campaign mode is easily weaker than the first. It gets into the Mysterious Evil Plot stuff a lot faster, and while it does a better job establishing that overall mystery, it does a far worse job setting up the characters within it (despite the far larger amount of dialogue this game has overall compared to the first game). The conclusion to the story comes VERY fast, and the overall pacing is just really all over the place. It’s certainly neat that this story is trying to be something greater and grander than the first, and the way that it shakes up the pacing of the first by getting to the evil organization stuff so much quicker does show that they’re genuinely trying here. However, it really just isn’t enough at the end of the day, and while the story here isn’t a burden or bad, it doesn’t surpass the first game’s story for me.
Mechanically however, that’s another story. To put it simply, V2 is a very accurate way to describe this game, because it really is just the first game with more content. It’s still a one-on-one arena fighter where you fight to reduce the other robo’s health to zero first, but just with more stuff. In addition to finally being able to swap bodies/frames in story mode (whereas in the first game you HAD to use your normal all-arounder Ray body the whole time) so you have a lot more builds actually viable, they’ve also added two new body types as well. This comes along with the new blink system (where old frames only had the ability to do extra jumps or dashes in the air, the two new frames can blink around the map instead), as well as a smattering of fun, new weapons and even a ton of new arenas to fight in as well. The fact that you can still so easily test builds after you customize them makes engaging with these new weapons and experimenting with new builds all the easier too, and that feature is just as appreciated here as it was in the first game.
This ultimately does make for a much easier experience in the story mode as a result (which extends into the post-game which is just a massive series of tournaments with a bit of little story attached to each), but I feel like that comes more from the fact you just have so many more tools available to you rather than a “dumbing down” of the mechanics or difficulty or whatever. The post-game is also neat in that it’s not only where you unlock a large amount of the weapons and almost all of the frame variants, but it also really pushes you to learn new builds and not stick with what’s comfortable, which is a neat feature to make it good fun worth playing beyond just being new robo fights. While it may not replace the first game narratively, Custom Robo V2 lives up to its title and is absolutely just a flat upgrade on the first game mechanically.
Aesthetically, the game is basically just a continuation of the first game (which makes sense, as it reuses the same engine). We have very nice 3D battle arenas and well modeled and designed robos among them, and the game almost never has any slowdown as well, though that is indeed almost as some of the more texture-heavy battle arenas do get a bit of slowdown unfortunately. The game world is still 2D character sprites in 3D areas, and the character portraits and models are all very fun and cute with great Nintendo-y music on top of it all. As shouldn’t be surprising from a Nintendo-published N64 game, it aesthetically really knocks it out of the park and uses the hardware just about as well as it possibly could.
Verdict: Recommended. If you’re a fan of the first game (or even the GameCube game), this is a game well worth checking out. It’s not the most terribly import-friendly title, unfortunately, as it’d make customizing your robot quite difficult, so that’s one thing to keep in mind. However, on its own merits and ignoring the language barrier, Custom Robo V2 absolutely succeeds at being an unconventional fighting game that is a very worthy successor to its predecessor. If you like robot stuff and/or 3D arena fighters, this is absolutely one worth checking out~.
V2 is a direct sequel to the original Custom Robo that takes place about a year after the events of the first game. Though it takes place in a new town with a new non-verbal player avatar at the helm, the formula is still very similar (and we even have some returning characters from the first game who get new and expanded roles here). You’re going out and starting to play Custom Robo in the new town you just moved to with the help of your new friends, and you get wrapped up in some shady plots by evil figures along the way. It’s still very much of the style of “anime based around a toy” of the time, where everyone just accepts the fact that their world is totally based around these toys and plays it completely straight, which is very fun, so that’s not a problem.
Overall, I’d say this game’s campaign mode is easily weaker than the first. It gets into the Mysterious Evil Plot stuff a lot faster, and while it does a better job establishing that overall mystery, it does a far worse job setting up the characters within it (despite the far larger amount of dialogue this game has overall compared to the first game). The conclusion to the story comes VERY fast, and the overall pacing is just really all over the place. It’s certainly neat that this story is trying to be something greater and grander than the first, and the way that it shakes up the pacing of the first by getting to the evil organization stuff so much quicker does show that they’re genuinely trying here. However, it really just isn’t enough at the end of the day, and while the story here isn’t a burden or bad, it doesn’t surpass the first game’s story for me.
Mechanically however, that’s another story. To put it simply, V2 is a very accurate way to describe this game, because it really is just the first game with more content. It’s still a one-on-one arena fighter where you fight to reduce the other robo’s health to zero first, but just with more stuff. In addition to finally being able to swap bodies/frames in story mode (whereas in the first game you HAD to use your normal all-arounder Ray body the whole time) so you have a lot more builds actually viable, they’ve also added two new body types as well. This comes along with the new blink system (where old frames only had the ability to do extra jumps or dashes in the air, the two new frames can blink around the map instead), as well as a smattering of fun, new weapons and even a ton of new arenas to fight in as well. The fact that you can still so easily test builds after you customize them makes engaging with these new weapons and experimenting with new builds all the easier too, and that feature is just as appreciated here as it was in the first game.
This ultimately does make for a much easier experience in the story mode as a result (which extends into the post-game which is just a massive series of tournaments with a bit of little story attached to each), but I feel like that comes more from the fact you just have so many more tools available to you rather than a “dumbing down” of the mechanics or difficulty or whatever. The post-game is also neat in that it’s not only where you unlock a large amount of the weapons and almost all of the frame variants, but it also really pushes you to learn new builds and not stick with what’s comfortable, which is a neat feature to make it good fun worth playing beyond just being new robo fights. While it may not replace the first game narratively, Custom Robo V2 lives up to its title and is absolutely just a flat upgrade on the first game mechanically.
Aesthetically, the game is basically just a continuation of the first game (which makes sense, as it reuses the same engine). We have very nice 3D battle arenas and well modeled and designed robos among them, and the game almost never has any slowdown as well, though that is indeed almost as some of the more texture-heavy battle arenas do get a bit of slowdown unfortunately. The game world is still 2D character sprites in 3D areas, and the character portraits and models are all very fun and cute with great Nintendo-y music on top of it all. As shouldn’t be surprising from a Nintendo-published N64 game, it aesthetically really knocks it out of the park and uses the hardware just about as well as it possibly could.
Verdict: Recommended. If you’re a fan of the first game (or even the GameCube game), this is a game well worth checking out. It’s not the most terribly import-friendly title, unfortunately, as it’d make customizing your robot quite difficult, so that’s one thing to keep in mind. However, on its own merits and ignoring the language barrier, Custom Robo V2 absolutely succeeds at being an unconventional fighting game that is a very worthy successor to its predecessor. If you like robot stuff and/or 3D arena fighters, this is absolutely one worth checking out~.
Good art
Won't be a long review this time. I played Custom Robo last year and it was a pretty enjoyable game. One of the few N64 games I really enjoy. I remember wanting to play V2 sometime in 2023 and now I finally got to it.
It wasn't as unique as I wanted it to be since it's more just the story itself that's new. There is a 2 v 2 mode but it's more like a tag battle and it's never in the story mode sadly. This game as of writing lacks a fan translation so the best you have is the GameFAQs guide that gives you a decent idea of what's going on.
So you might be wondering why is this rated higher? Well there is one thing they updated, you can now play as other characters in the battles. This means the small type I loved playing in the VS mode is now possible here and omg it makes the game so much fun. Being able to camp all the AI out is so satisfying and it makes me now wish the first game did this.
Overall Custom Robo V2 is just a great time all around. It's got pretty much all of what made the first game good with some improvements and very small QoL changes. If you wanted something that wasn't similar to the first then this isn't for you. Would love to someday come back and do more of the game as there is a 2nd scenario you can do but it seems to be mostly just battles. Still wish Nintendo actually brought these games over back in the day.
It wasn't as unique as I wanted it to be since it's more just the story itself that's new. There is a 2 v 2 mode but it's more like a tag battle and it's never in the story mode sadly. This game as of writing lacks a fan translation so the best you have is the GameFAQs guide that gives you a decent idea of what's going on.
So you might be wondering why is this rated higher? Well there is one thing they updated, you can now play as other characters in the battles. This means the small type I loved playing in the VS mode is now possible here and omg it makes the game so much fun. Being able to camp all the AI out is so satisfying and it makes me now wish the first game did this.
Overall Custom Robo V2 is just a great time all around. It's got pretty much all of what made the first game good with some improvements and very small QoL changes. If you wanted something that wasn't similar to the first then this isn't for you. Would love to someday come back and do more of the game as there is a 2nd scenario you can do but it seems to be mostly just battles. Still wish Nintendo actually brought these games over back in the day.
Tried playing this with a beta patch that I found but unfortunately the game crashed whenever the textbox would shake from a character expressing shock (and that happened a lot)
That said, I did beat the main story and had a great time with it. It's what you would expect from a quick follow up game: builds and improves upon the original in everyway.
V2 makes it kinda sound like "Version 2" rather than a full sequel but this is a proper sequel with it's own story taking place a year after the events of the first game and while you play as a new protagonist with a new group of friends, you'll bump into a few familiar faces from the first game along the way.
There's a huge post game to dig into after beating the story and multiplayer now supports 2V2 matches. Single player adds the ability to swap out your Robos main body now so you don't have to stick with Ray and there's a few new arenas to fight in as well as a bunch of returning ones.
Great follow up to the original game, hopefully a fully working English patch gets done some day
That said, I did beat the main story and had a great time with it. It's what you would expect from a quick follow up game: builds and improves upon the original in everyway.
V2 makes it kinda sound like "Version 2" rather than a full sequel but this is a proper sequel with it's own story taking place a year after the events of the first game and while you play as a new protagonist with a new group of friends, you'll bump into a few familiar faces from the first game along the way.
There's a huge post game to dig into after beating the story and multiplayer now supports 2V2 matches. Single player adds the ability to swap out your Robos main body now so you don't have to stick with Ray and there's a few new arenas to fight in as well as a bunch of returning ones.
Great follow up to the original game, hopefully a fully working English patch gets done some day