Custom Robo Arena is the “latest” entry in the custom robo games where the player is a student working their way into the championship and also uncovering a criminal conspiracy so it’s the typical shounen story of catching em all to be the best.
The series was inspired by the developers childhood fantasies of playing with mechs and seeing it being able to come to life.
This was initially Japanese only but like many of the obscure and admitedly underutilzed Nintendo games, it has developed a cult following through the super smash series and has since been released to the west.
in the custom robo series you use a mecha to fight battles against the opponent and also have a variety of customization options to help you in battle with a variety of abilties to use and how you land also depends on the status of your mech in battle.
Lose a battle too many times you can turn a health handicap on which boosts your health which could be helpful.
Even though, it wasn’t in the game, I still personally think Bayonette’s design in Custom Robo has to be one of the best looking mechs in series.
I had to use a walkthrough to help me with the game as there is admitedly no way to remember where you are supposed to go.
the art design was pretty decent and so were the designs of the robots. The graphics on the otherside haven’t exactly aged the best.
The music was generally fine too.
The dialogue in this game its cheesy even by mid 2000s standards.
The multiplayer feature its not going to be availble since its long since discontinued.
Overall this was a pretty decent entry.
It gets 4 out of 5 stars.
Its really strange especially considering the growing popularity of e-sports that Nintendo hasn’t given something else other than Smash or maybe Pokken Tournament a new Custom Robo game because it could really work and Astral Chain has proven that there is still demand for sci fi robot/mech themed games out there and maybe it could come back one day.
In fact, its also strange too how gogo cosmo cops also by noise isn’t even released in the west or Japan of all places either but again maybe it could be brought over to international audicenes one day too. Given the popularity of Luluco i also think it could work too.