An altogether short and sweet mario 64 romhack. I would say that some of the stars were unbalanced but I realized that most of them came from me overanalyzing what I was supposed to do and trying to do more work than I actually needed to. There are only 30 stars, a decent-but-not-evil level of challenge, and the whole thing even runs pretty damn solidly on the actual N64 itself! No real reason NOT to give it a go if you are into mario 64 tbh. there's also mean bean machine music used for some reason

For the record, if I could go back in time to my gamecube-playing kid self and get him to buy two games that I otherwise wouldn't have, I would 1000% pick this game and gotcha force. The 2000's hit the Custom Robo IP like a bulldozer, as the poppy colorful 90's pokemon-leaning vibes of the N64 game have been replaced with gritter, darker, cyber-coded aesthetics of the grand purple lunchbox. The character designs have gone from your cast of typical plucky pokekids to a bunch of adults that came straight out of a how to draw manga book. Luckily for me, I eat both 90's and 2000's vibes like breakfast so I win both ways, HAH.

The plot definitely has a bit of a different tone compared to the N64 original, but it still feels like custom robo all things throughout. Like the original game, there's a pretty tight-knit cast of characters that you will keep bumping into time and time again, and many robo-battling tournament arcs, but the actual contents of the story differ drastically. Since the cast isn't a group of kids fucking around with toys, the main cast all works for a bounty hunting agency that fights petty crimes the police can't be assed to work on themselves for meager pay. And the crimes are solved by means of fighting childrens toys-turned psychic cyber warriors, obviously. It's a pretty ridiculous plot and frankly the shit that happens at the end went absolutely NOT as I expected. The actual localization and writing of the game is really goddamn good too, I could tell that the treehouse guys were having a blast with the character writing as there's plenty of funny moments and running gags throughout the game. There's gotta be at least like one kid out there that was changed by playing this, I feel.

As for the gameplay, I'm pleased to say that it's much more polished and balanced than it's ever been. The core gameplay of having a customizable robo with 4 different methods of attack and combo between is intact here, as are the 4-player fights from V2. It really felt like the OP weapons in the N64 game such as the homing missiles and dragon shot were sufficiently nerfed to the point of making most weapons viable. I didn't do the (pretty substantial) postgame stuff so there might be some absolutely busted drops that I am unaware of, but at least doing the main campaign it didn't really feel like I was sticking to the same weapons because they were inherently better than the rest but rather they were the most fluid with my playstyle, and that's a pretty good mark of customizable balance imo.

It's both a good single-player adventure plus an awesome party game. I'm still absolutely baffled how custom robo didn't catch on because this series is like some of the coolest shit dude! I can only imagine the kinds of sleepovers or get-together nights I could have had back in the day if I had this game... Alas, as much as I wish I could say that changes now as I invite all my homies for weekly custom robo nights, adult life don't exactly be that way... Maybe there's a competitive tournament scene out there or something (apparently CEO had a tournament in 2018 at least?) Perhaps in another timeline I could have had this game in its time, but hey man better late than never, yanno?

what in the fuck is nintendo doing by not making new custom robo games

It's a reasonably ambitious attempt to make an on-rails 3D space game on the atari, and for the most part it works. There are 3 different game modes at play:

1. The main game mode involves flying in a pseudo 3D space where you try to shoot enemy ships for points and see how many you can earn in the arbitrarily-set time limit of 2 minutes and 16 seconds. The enemies scale in size depending on your distance in a choppy-yet-still-understandable way, and there are asteroids that can't be shot and you just gotta dodge em. There are no lives, so your punishment for running into an enemy is getting stunned for a second or two as the game flashbangs you with blinking lights. You can change how quickly the enemies fly into you as well as whether or not they come one at a time or in pairs. It's okay!

2. There's a variant of the main mode where instead of shooting enemies the button speeds you up, and the aim of the game is to see how far into space you can go. The only enemies are the invincible asteroids so it's just a matter of dodging. I found it reasonably cheesable to just hold diagonally in one direction and only change if something comes directly your way.

3. There's a bonus game mode called "Lunar Lander" which takes place entirely in 2D. I thought at first this would be a conversion of the arcade game of the same title, but it's actually more just a game where you play as a moon lander and chase the moon itself around a blank empty space, and if you manage to tag it you get a point. Though with the atari graphics and tag-like gameplay it really feels less like you are a moon rover trying to make contact and more like you are a blue horse trying to take a piss on a giant cookie. You can toggle these moving squares that the lander needs to avoid if you want there to be a little extra sauce, I guess.

It's a pretty decent game, I can appreciate the ambition for the kind of perspective that they were going for which atari hardware generally doesn't lend itself towards. The gameplay even feels decent enough with the stiff-ass joystick controller as well, I didn't have to do the ol' mega drive controller trick to make it more playable. There are two player modes for the main game and the moon lander game (the moon lander version seems like one person gets to control the moon which could honestly be a fun time), but I wasn't able to try those modes out. And this game is a launch title?!?!? The only real thing is that the time-based nature makes it seem more like RNG to get a good score as you just gotta hope for as many high-ranking enemies to spawn as close to you as possible to get an impressive score, and even then generally your score will be the same throughout as the time limit and spawn rates for things are generally the same. They could have made it a lot more competitive if they stuck to the ol' life system and had the time mode as a side thing or something. Regardless, I really can't fault the ambition at play here nawsay, shoutouts to atari