"Pokemon: Pong Version"

You can't judge a book by its cover. Sometimes the story inside is much more interesting that you first thought. Such is the case with Capcom's Metal Walker. I came in thinking that I'd be playing another rehashed Poke-knock-off. Surprise, surprise……

Story: 8/10
Fifty some-odd years ago, a scientific experiment with intelligent metals went wrong. Bad stuff went down and the land went to hell. That land, now called Rusted Land, is home to powerful objects called Cores, which have the ability to make metal evolve or...whatever. Anyway, your job is to collect all the Cores, find your father and kick some ass along the way.

Game Play: 9/10
Many people seem to think this is a direct rip-off of Pokemon, but that's far, far from the truth. If anything, this is a look at what Pokemon could have been.

A great portion of the game is traveling from point A to point B with a lot of battles in between. Capcom came out with a hell of a battle system, called a Flip Battle. The idea is to point your robot in a direction, time your power meter and slam your robot into the enemy. Throughout the course of battle, items will be thrown onto the field, which can be used for attacking and healing. This may all seem a bit overcomplicated, if not a bit silly, but battles tend to roll by quickly and I'd be lying if I said is wasn't fun.

Now, here's the fun part. There is no ‘catch'em and train'em' aspects to be found. You start with one robot and that's all you get (although, it will evolve into new forms through the course of the game). Instead, you get portable satellites. Yes, satellites. The idea is to, during battle, knock the offending robot into a satellite so that you can scan its data. The data can then be used to make new items (such as the ever important healing items).

Free of problems? Nope. For one thing, battles pop-up FAR to frequently and healing items can only be used during battle, which kind of defeats the purpose of having them.

Graphics: 7/10
Nicely detailed backgrounds, brightly colored characters and bland robot designs. Two out of three, not bad. It doesn't seem like a lot of thought was put into the robots, as they all kinda look the same: Just a bunch of vehicles and appliances with eyes.

Aside from that, there are quite a few human characters to interact with, the important ones having small anime drawn pictures along with their names.

Sound: 2/10
Well, as far as setting the mood goes, this music does it's job. The overall score reflects that Rusted Land is a twisted, broken place. But.....there is just no other way to put this. The sound (and I mean every sound) is annoying. There seems to be this irritating backbeat in every track.

Replay Value:
Limited. Unlike a Pokemon game, there isn't a whole lot to do after beating the final bosses. You might want to go back and get any scan data you missed, but that's next to impossible, as the game doesn't accurately list which robots you've scanned and which you haven't.

Final Recommendation:
Rent first, no two ways about it. I won't lie to you, this is a Pokemon rip-off, but it adds new twists and flavor to an old, overdone idea. If you're a Pokemon fan, then this might keep you busy for a while. If not, I'd still recommend that you give it a try.

Overall score (not an average): 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/23/05