Robotrek

"Danger! Danger Johnny Five!"

Robotrek has perhaps one of the greatest background ideas for a roleplaying game - have a customizable fighting robot, and even have a system where you can combine items to create equipment for it. Unfortunately, it butchers this great idea with a presentation values that could appeal only to a seven year old.

The butchering starts with the story. You play the role of a young boy (you supply the name) against an evil syndicate known as the Hackers. Yeah, I know, a nice original name. Anyways, these ''Hackers'' have an evil plan to, of course, take over the world. Only you and your helper robots can save the day! Yeay! Then you can have milk and cookies!

Gameplay-wise, it's a role playing game with ACTION elements throw in. Rapidly slamming the B button between attacks will hasten the time needed. You also must put your character in position on the screen to launch an effective attack with your melee weapon or range weapon.

The entire gameplay system feels gimmicky and out of place. To add to this feeling, weird things like items and experiences boosts are coupled with a timer in battles; beat the enemies quick and you get more experience. Almost every battle in the game falls into a pattern of actions, due to only having one character and the tediousness of the fighting.

All these negatives take away from a character customization system which is excellent. Quite simply, you have total control over your robot. You can customize strength, agility, hit points, equipment used, even the color and name of your robot.

Also revolutionary is the item system. In Robotrek, you can take various items and combine them to make brand new items. This leads to plenty of experimenting to find some of the game's cooler equipment. Unfortunately, this system leads you to getting some equipment that you really shouldn't have at points in the game; it makes it far too easy.

Of course, easiness is a theme corsing throughout Robotrek. When playing it, it definately feels like this is a role playing game in the vein of Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, i.e. one for the beginning crowd. Enemies are beaten easily, and even if you lose, you can just try again from that point. Even bosses fall into simple patterns that can be exploited.

Graphically, Robotrek is bright and cheerful. And it looks like all the graphics were drawn by a six year old who only had access to eight Crayola crayons. It sounds like the same six year old banged out the game's soundtrack on a Fisher Price keyboard. Everything about the graphics and sound scream ''KIDDIE GAME'', a definite problem.

Overall, Robotrek takes a great idea and runs it into the ground. Because the robot system is so fun, it lifts the game's store from the dismal three that it deserves into the average range. Give it a whirl if the system sounds entertaining, but trust me, everything else in the game will repulse you.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 10/22/01, Updated 10/22/01