Beyblade G-Revolution (Game Boy Advance) Review

The game starts in the worst way it possibly could, it puts you off playing before you even start. You may well ask how, logically thinking it should be impossible to put an open minded person off playing a game they know nothing about, but this game succeeds. Switch on your GBA and you are greeted by the traditional Nintendo loading screen, couple of seconds long; no problem. Next up is a screen full of copyright for various people, a few more seconds; all is well so far. Then things go down hill, and subsequently don't get any better until you turn the game off again. After these you are treated to four company's logos, slogans, whatever floats their boat, and certainly not ours. Each of these lasts for a good five seconds, and as far as we can tell its not loading anything, it's just trying to irritate you. Now you may accuse us of unfairly focusing on a completely irrelevant point, but this is not the case. We hoped that at least after a wait like that, they're might be something worth waiting for on the other side. But you guessed it, that is not the case, and so we begin the torture that is, Beyblades...

Pick a language, select new game from the menu, and you're in. Kick starting the game is a brief and not very explanatory introduction to the main character and his granddad. In usual RPG format, storytelling and conversation is achieved via a box that fills the bottom third of the screen. Full of text and a little character head above it, so you know who's annoying you at that particular moment. You can't skip any necessary conversation, or even leave a conversation you start with an NPC; at least not without pressing A lots, which trust us, you will be doing. There is an option to change the speed of how quickly text appears on screen, which you are always going to want set to fast, so makes little difference anyway. After some furious tapping of A, and a little 'cut scene', using in-game graphics you are finally free to leave your home and go wandering, looking for battles with your Beyblade. Moving to new areas is achieved by an over world map that appears every time you leave a designated area. Alas, it is as poorly designed as the rest of the game, locations that you can visit are connected by roads, when you reach a certain point in the game, a new road is opened and you can go there freely, it really is one of the most linear games we have ever played.

The first place you're going to want to go after leaving your house is the place you are told to go to. Sure you could explore the few other areas you can get to at this stage, but they won't get you anywhere, and you will eventually be forced back to where the game wants you to go. There is a plot, but its poor and not really worth mentioning, heaven forbid we ruin it for anyone 'lucky' enough to have got this little 'beauty' as a Christmas present. Now, onto the battles, which of course no RPG would be without, again you would have thought such a crucial element to the game would have warranted some effort in its construction. Yet we once again find our self trapped in another scene where all we can do is press A so as to get it out of the way quickly. The combat system is a mix of simplicity and annoyance, we won't bore you with the details, but if you want a hint for getting through the game press A, lots; with some occasional direction from the D-Pad, get that right, and you'll do just fine, we guarantee it. Seeing as the game consists entirely of going from place to place, talking to people and imitating battles, all of which we have already revealed takes more patience then any kind of skill, it doesn't bode well for the score of the game, now does it?

So what do we have left? Let's talk about the presentation of the game; well we call it a game, when in fact futile torture is closer to the truth. But wait, perhaps the developers have put in double effort on the graphics and sound front to give the game some worth? Sorry, we should have known no-one would fall for that. To summarise the overall graphical presentation of the game, we have just two words for you; GameBoy Colour, and a poorly made one at that. Animation is existent, but really doesn't have to be, uninspiring would be a compliment here. Sure it doesn't look that bad, but the fact it probably could have been done on the NES shows you why we're not impressed. Sound wise, we have yet more of the same. Most of the time spent on the game, will consists of pitting your Beyblade against someone else in a deatmatch of sorts. As such this entails a whole lot of the same battle tune used over and over again, and sound effects which sound bad enough the first time, used over and over again. There really is no need to have the sound on at all, it adds next to nothing to the game. In fact seeing as the same could be said about the graphics and gameplay, well you get the idea...