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Custom Robo (GC)

• Developer:
• Publisher: Nintendo
• Genre:
• Official Website: http://www.customrobo.com
• Score: 2 of 5: Strictly Rental

Being a fan of Nintendo games (and gaming hardware) often requires a player to make suspensions of disbelief that other, more realistic (or more accurately, less imaginative), games/consoles don't. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the occasional stumbling block arises that just requires an outright "ok, whatever". For example: the world of the Pokémon games revolves completely around these few hundred different varieties of trainable fauna and technology that seemingly hasn't perfected any vehicular transportation that isn't a bicycle, boat, or train (and if you want to be picky, ski lift) has somehow managed to devise a way to miniaturize and contain living, nearly sentient animals in hollowed-out softballs that may or may not be made of some sort of nut.

If you don't have a problem with that, Custom Robo should be right up your alley.

In the world of Custom Robo (which I believe is never properly named, at least in this edition), all conflicts are settled with a sort of virtual Rock-'em, Sock-'em Robot battles, except using guns, missiles ("pods") and bombs instead of fisticuffs (unless you use the Knuckle gun, but that's splitting hairs). These robots, as indicated by the title, are highly customizable once you acquire various parts. These parts come in five flavors: body, gun, pod, bomb, and legs; each section has anywhere from twenty to fifty individual parts, making for a theoretically staggering number of possible combinations. In reality the number is just a little shy of staggering, as several of the parts have only slight differences between them that would require someone much more obsessive than I to dissect, but it's still impressive. Oh, and instead of the Robos fighting in the open, they fight in "Holosseums" that are either generated by the mind of the "commander" (not all commanders can do this, like your character), pre-programmed into the robo, or manifested by a deck (sort of like a public chess table, but for Holosseums).

As you progress through the "A New Journey" solo mode, you'll receive a battling tip before just about every fight, much like a Microsoft Office application. And, like the Office tips, most of them are extraneous trivia that really won't affect you on a regular basis. The first handful will give you the basics, but the true learning comes from experience as always. As you win battles, you unlock new parts that you need to first activate at a Parts Generator, which are nearly omnipresent. Thankfully there is a practice mode that lets you experiment with your various parts (ok, that sounded wrong), but while useful it isn't really necessary, as the only way you can "lose" is to give up. If you fall in battle, the game starts right back at the beginning of the challenge without any penalty (... in "A New Journey". I'll get to "The Great Battle" in a minute). The game automatically saves at regularly-placed intervals, so you'll never lose too much ground if you do decide to call it a night; other than the one that ends every "day", you can't control when these saves happen, however, so you sacrifice a little bit of control for this security.

Once you clear "A New Journey", several things are unlocked, including Arcade Mode and "The Great Battle". The latter is sort of "Chapter Two" to "A New Journey", picking up where the first mode left off, but with less story. Basically, it's a series of tournaments with varying rules, such as tag battle (you control two robos and switch between them), various handicap fights (both in your favor and not), and the soul-sucking Single Use rules, which prohibit you from using any non-leg parts twice in the series (leg parts get a pass because there are so few of them and they don't make major contributions to the robo's performance). This mode features a scoring system, and if you achieve a set total for a tournament, you get an award; these awards are necessary to enter the final three tournaments. Arcade mode is essentially "The Great Battle" without the tacked-on story.

While I'm on the subject of the story, I have only two things to say about the actual plotline. The story itself is fluff, mostly existing as space filler between battles much like Pokémon Colosseum's. There are no puzzles (except for one maze at the end of the game) or anything even remotely RPG-like in the way of character development; the entirety of the gameplay is the robot battles in the Holosseums, which can get old fast. Fortunately, the writing is humorous (especially in the otherwise plotless "Great Battle") and the story is coherent enough to keep things entertaining without really getting in the way. There didn't seem to be any Engrish problems, although I thought naming one character "Evil" (who -- and I'm hope I'm not spoiling anything here -- turns out to be a bad guy!) was a bit odd.

The only other significant mode is the obvious Vs. Mode, in which up to four robos -- some of which can be CPU bots once you clear "A New Journey" -- can engage in combat using any part unlocked in Solo Mode (and possibly Aracde Mode; there are a few parts I haven't found yet, and I've cleared "A Great Battle" completely save for two gold tropies); in the options menu you have the option of disallowing the high-powered "illegal" parts in both Arcde and Vs. Mode, which is probably a good idea if you want fair fights. In addition to the hundreds of robo parts, there are also about twenty different Holosseums that offer varying degrees of cover, moving obstacles, and terrain to further complicate matters; in both Solo modes these Holosseums are predetermined, but in Vs. mode it's up to you.

Graphically, the best way to describe Custom Robo is "eclectic". The various Robo models are well-done (and each features two different victory dances/poses) and the Holosseums are surprisingly diverse, ranging from wire-frame "Tron" levels to lush parks (plus the obligatory ice levels and all the traction fun they provide). In Story mode, the lack of interactivity can hurt if you let it. Perhaps the most bizzare graphical aspect of Story mode, however, is the way characters show expression: the polygon models themselves don't do anything (except perhaps a gesture here and there), but the anime-styled pictures of them change accordingly. If you've watched Teen Titans (or any non-serious anime), you'll probably understand. Normally I would think this a cool little feature, except I've played Skies of Arcadia Legends, which put the animexpressions ON the models, so no Nintendo gets no bonus point here. They also get no points for the agonizingly small text used to describe the various robo parts, which had me squinting to read them from ten feet away.

Like the graphics, the game's sounds show where all the focus in the game went. In the Holosseum, the sounds are awesome; each gun has its own unique flavor, from the rat-tat-tat of the Gatling Gun to the roar of the Dragon gun or the shriek of the Phoenix gun; the only time this fails is when one gun is a mirror image of another (for example, there are "Right Pulse" and "Left Pulse" guns that are identical in every way except for which way the bullets turn). Explosions kaboom satisfyingly, and the BGM is just where it should be: in the background. Outside of the Holosseums, however... oy. The BGM in each area is fine, but this being a Nintendo game we of course don't get any voice work; while this doesn't usually affect my enjoyment of a game one way or the other, what we DO get is a kind of Banjo-Kazooie "sound effect" voice that gets obnoxious insanely quickly. If you think that turning the message speed to "fastest" will get you past this, then you made the same mistake I did -- the sounds are triggered by each syllable as it appears on the screen, so all this does is mean that you create a constant stream of noise instead of regularly-spaced noise. What you'll want to do is put the message speed on SLOWEST, then hit the A button immediately when you hear the first "beep" to cause the whole dialog to pop up at once; this will save you a lot of aggravation.

Because of the way different weapons behave (including whether or not they're fired form the air!) and the varing ways each robo body handles (especially when you compound the matter with the leg parts), control is a bit difficult to gague. Fortunately, they're pretty uncomplicated and -- of course -- fully customizable, so it shouldn't be much of a problem. Navigating the overworld in Story mode isn't too hard once you realize that you need to stay on the paths provided and can't cut corners or take shortcuts; this is only a problem toward the end of each mode (I can't get into specifics without revealing a major plot twist, but you'll recognize it without trouble once you find it).

At the end of the day, Story and Arcade Modes are just excuses to put a metric ton of toys at the disposal of yourself and your friends in order to unleash havoc upon each other in Vs. Mode. Four-way free-for-alls lose some of the strategy inherent in two-player skirmishes, but are by no means any less fun. While some may deride Nintendo for releasing yet another Party Game with an afterthought of a solo player mode (and/or no online capability), I say that fun is fun, and not every game can be a single-player orgasm, nor do they need to be. For me, the greatest failing of Custom Robo is that the battles are usually too frantic for any serious strategy, which takes some of the shine off the deep customization possibilities; however, since only tactical games and RPGs can get away with being turn-based, I'm not sure how this could be corrected.

Jan 29, 2006 | 0 comments
Chris Ingersoll