"Fun, for some time."

While I never played any of the previous "Custom Robo" games, I had high hopes for this game. While it features some good and bad points, it eventually turns out being nothing more than a random game with some interesting features.

The story, as almost everything in the game, is pretty generic: you're a kid who just moved to a new town, meet some kids in school and they all play with their Custom Robos, mostly for battles. Appears that your soon-to-be best friends are being bullied by another folks, and after the usual saving sequence you join their team. Alongside with these two other folks (who you never get to play with), you'll later win the usual school tournament and start flying in higher skies. Oh, and your father works for a Custom Robo related company. Medabots, anyone?

When it comes to game play, it's easy to talk about the game, as it can be split into two different sequences, one where you hang around in the map (like in most RPGs) and travel from place to place, and another where you're taken to battles.

Appearing when two character confront each other, a small arcade-like machine is seen between the two and a quickly battle occurs. Your two robots are thrown from a strange machine and, in a field that resembles certain "bomber man" maps, you fight each other until one of the two is destroyed. In case it's unfortunately yours, you can restart the battle without losing anything at all, until you beat your adversary. Such events are faced in real time, with specific keys of your console triggering a certain attack, with its power depending on the way you customize your robot, and that's where this game gets interesting.

As the name of the product may induce you to think, you are able to customize your robot. By beating enemies, collecting money and later spending it in stores, you are able to buy new parts to improve your robot, which may grant it better firepower, make it faster or just give it a really cool look. Unfortunately, there's no way to compare two pieces that fit in the same place, making it hard to perform your final choice.

You can then use your customized robot for not only in-game battles, but you are even given the chance to play against other people who have the game, by taking advantage of the Wi-fi feature available in the game. Such feature doesn't seem to allow you to trade parts or anything along those lines, limiting the replay value only to acquiring new parts or some background images that you can see besides your robot, in certain menus.

Sometimes, those very same menus also enable you to manipulate your robot and put it in different positions, mostly for the looks, but this is a small feature that some people may disregard, since it doesn't seem to affect the offline gameplay in any way.

The graphics seen when you're in the field are usually normal, with a quality that resembles something just a little bit more improved than the latest GBA titles, where the characters are given a cute anime look. However, everything seems to change during the battles, where each robot is quite detailed, shown fully in 3D and doesn't usually have pixels out of their proper place. The special effects of each robot's moves are also quite nice, and so are the (very rare, I must say) video scenes, generally shown in 3D.

The sound, oddly, doesn't even seem to fit each of the scenarios you face in your adventure, while fitting perfectly in the battles.

So, who should get this game? Mostly, people who were fans of the previous titles, or those who want a game that can be interesting, at least for a couple hours.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 10/25/06, Updated 10/30/06