hell yea, i finally got around to playing this
it's a short and sweet lil robo-battlin part-swappin action game. It certainly has those monster collecting genre vibes as it stars a cast of plucky elementary schoolers with their cool robots that they duel for sport; there are tournaments to compete in and a shady underground gang to mess things up. Definitely standard stuff, but comfy nonetheless. The game also runs really damn smoothly on the ol' N64. It ain't the smooth consistent 60 FPS of something like F-zero X or whatever, but it's usually in the 30 and above zone which is honestly an accomplishment on that hardware.
The actual mech combat is pretty cool too! It's like a 3D arena fighter where you got 4 different methods of attack as well as a jump and airdash. The game likes to constantly hammer into you that the ideal playstyle is to use all 4 attacks in conjunction with one another to box in your opponents movement and take them out that way, but I found there's definitely enough variety in parts and customization to suit all sorts of playstyles. The game also has a knockdown mechanic where mechs go into a downed state after taking a large enough hit depending on the mech, and when they get up they have a period of invincibility to back away from. It pretty much exists as a way to prevent infinites as the combo potential this game has is really busted. It do make battles have a more stop-and-go pace because of it, but what can ya do i guess. You can also obviously duel a friend in multiplayer with each player making a custom mech, and I'd imagine theres a solid amount of depth to be had against another human, though also I feel like there would definitely be a "best" combination if you were to develop an actual meta.
It's just an honest fun game from that experimental 5th generation of systems. I'm honestly surprised that it never got an official localization given how strapped for games the N64 library was and its popularity in the west. Especially given how it was at the peak of pokemania, I feel like this game could have been a huge cult classic of the N64 library had they brought it overseas. What is it with mech collecting/customizing games that always makes them remain obscure? Every time I play something like this, gotcha force, LBX, etc, I always think to myself "how didn't this catch on?" There is a fan translation which I used and the translation quality was okay. Sometimes the text would corrupt and be unreadable though so it's certainly not the BEST way to play the game, but it's better than nothing for all you english-only gamers out there. Definitely a fun time and I'd recommend checking it out if you can do so.
it's a short and sweet lil robo-battlin part-swappin action game. It certainly has those monster collecting genre vibes as it stars a cast of plucky elementary schoolers with their cool robots that they duel for sport; there are tournaments to compete in and a shady underground gang to mess things up. Definitely standard stuff, but comfy nonetheless. The game also runs really damn smoothly on the ol' N64. It ain't the smooth consistent 60 FPS of something like F-zero X or whatever, but it's usually in the 30 and above zone which is honestly an accomplishment on that hardware.
The actual mech combat is pretty cool too! It's like a 3D arena fighter where you got 4 different methods of attack as well as a jump and airdash. The game likes to constantly hammer into you that the ideal playstyle is to use all 4 attacks in conjunction with one another to box in your opponents movement and take them out that way, but I found there's definitely enough variety in parts and customization to suit all sorts of playstyles. The game also has a knockdown mechanic where mechs go into a downed state after taking a large enough hit depending on the mech, and when they get up they have a period of invincibility to back away from. It pretty much exists as a way to prevent infinites as the combo potential this game has is really busted. It do make battles have a more stop-and-go pace because of it, but what can ya do i guess. You can also obviously duel a friend in multiplayer with each player making a custom mech, and I'd imagine theres a solid amount of depth to be had against another human, though also I feel like there would definitely be a "best" combination if you were to develop an actual meta.
It's just an honest fun game from that experimental 5th generation of systems. I'm honestly surprised that it never got an official localization given how strapped for games the N64 library was and its popularity in the west. Especially given how it was at the peak of pokemania, I feel like this game could have been a huge cult classic of the N64 library had they brought it overseas. What is it with mech collecting/customizing games that always makes them remain obscure? Every time I play something like this, gotcha force, LBX, etc, I always think to myself "how didn't this catch on?" There is a fan translation which I used and the translation quality was okay. Sometimes the text would corrupt and be unreadable though so it's certainly not the BEST way to play the game, but it's better than nothing for all you english-only gamers out there. Definitely a fun time and I'd recommend checking it out if you can do so.