Beyblade Metal Download
Klaudia Aricas
I admit I have a fondness of Japanese shows based on children's games such as Yu-Gi-Oh and Bakugan because of how charmingly whimsical they can be. Beyblade is part of this prestigious group of children's series, seeing birth as a manga by Takao Aoki in 2000 and spawning an anime series and a line of toys. So you can bet that I was looking forward to playing Beyblade: Metal Fusion for the Wii and experience all the ridiculousness my competently thinking mind could handle. But, unfortunately, both story and gameplay manage to disappoint in a big way.
Much like in other series of its kind, Beyblade: Metal Fusion is about children engaging themselves in battles using fighting tops. The game's story follows a similar story as the manga and anime. In this game, the plot is focused on a mysterious fortress in the shape of a beyblade that is invading Bey City. The nefarious fortress is kidnapping the best beybladers. Series hero Ginkga Hagane, along with his friends, must then do battle with other characters and uncover the mystery behind its existence.
My problem with the story doesn't lie in how stupid it is but how it is told. Rather than featuring in-game cut scenes or footage from the anime series, Beyblade: Metal Fusion opted to tell its story using character cutouts with flapping mouths and plenty of text boxes. Because of this lackluster presentation, it fails to engage you in its narrative.
There are some features that help in creating a slightly deeper challenge. Beyblades come equipped with various powers aided by the different animals and zodiac symbols, such as the lion, the snake, and the swan. When you press the A button while shaking the Wii Remote, you unlock one power, such as a longer spin time. The B button unleashes your secondary attack. Finally, when your power bar is full, you can unleash a devastating attack in which the players involved must shake the Wii Remote in order to be successful in unleashing or evading the attack.
You can upgrade your beyblades using the aptly named Beyblade points that you earn during battles. The parts beef up your Beyblade, though with the lack of challenge it might even be needed. Unfortunately, the game seems to shortchange you with the amount of points it gives you, as the parts are overpriced. You are encouraged to buy new parts, and it is disheartening to deal with this uneven system.
The controls prove to be cumbersome in this game. The amount of control given to your Beyblade is very limited, as you can't really guide it during the heat of battle. In order to attack the other Beyblades, you must shake the Wii Remote and bump into them. This is done a lot, and in order to complete a special attack you must vigorously shake the controller to win. By the time a match ends, your hand and wrist will hurt thanks to the repetitive motions.
The graphical presentation is passable for a licensed game. The beyblades are very detailed, and battles, even when they get hectic, present very little slowdown. The graphical prowess lie in the special attacks, thanks to explosions and grand visions of creatures in outer space. As I mentioned before, the presentation of the storyline is pathetic and easily the worst part of the game. The sound is just as forgettable, as the characters lack any voices, and the upbeat techno tracks are constantly used and annoying.
As a bonus, the special release Wii version comes with a DVD featuring one episode of the series. As expected it is cheesy, but it is far more enjoyable that the game's own storyline.
Overall, Beyblade: Metal Fusion is a big disappointment for me. The extremely ridiculous storyline is just uninspired, and the battles get monotonous. Fans of the franchise may gain something out of it, but everyone else should stay away.
On a trip to Taiwan a few years ago, I was lazing around after a too-good-to-be-true meal when one of my younger cousins brought out a circular piece of plastic. Built with raised edges and steep curves, it resembled the Colosseum in all but its bright yellow plastic, which admittedly made it a great deal less daunting. Expecting some action figures to come out any second now, I asked my cousin what he was up to. In response, he took out a pencil box full of metal and plastic, and after a few seconds of rummaging through them, came up with just four pieces, which he crafted easily into a top. Then he made another one. And after giving that one to me, he attached his top to a launcher, pulled a long string of plastic, and fired his top into the arena. What could I do but accept his challenge?
Beyblade is a Japanese anime, game, and manga series created by Takafumi Adachi, Katsumi Hasegawa, Kunihisa Sugishima, Takao Aoki and published by Shogakukan Inc and produced by TV Tokyo and Nelvana. The series centers on kids and teenagers, called "bladers", who use powerful spinning tops called Beyblades to battle each other and aim to become the strongest blader ever. The main protagonists differ in each respective series following their own separate story-lines, such as Tyson from the original series or Gingka Hagane from the metal series, eventually proceeded by Zyro Kurogane from Shogun Steel and the current series protagonist, Valt Aoi.
The characters themselves are not too strong, but not too weak. While normal humans in the series are just that, normal humans, they have survived some suspiciously lethal falls and shrugged off blunt force trauma from time to time. In addition, there are also some bladers who individually are superhumans, putting themselves above the rest. But of course, the main focus of this verse are the beyblades themselves, most notably from the Metal Series. While the main average bladers are nothing really special, besides having Multi-City Block level power through normal beys creating lightning, the special beyblades owned by world-class bladers are all far above the average scope in power. This is due to beys, like Storm Pegasus, Galaxy Pegasus, Dark Wolf, and Twisted Tempo performing feats capable of creating and manipulating entire stars from constellations with great ease, creation of galaxies, and even universes. The same treatment would also be given to the speed of beyblades, all of them capable of MFTL+ speed through battling beys that can travel to other galaxies in no time at all. They also have a lot of other special abilities.
But the true power of this verse comes from special bladers who are above everyone else completely, whether by a lot or to an extent, called the Legendary Bladers gifted with incredible power and skill. Among them are Rago, the child of the Black Sun who owns Diablo Nemesis, the God of Destruction, being the most powerful enemy in the series with the power of all beyblades, and Gingka Hagane, the most powerful in the Metal Series even by the time of Shogun Steel who defeated Rago and Nemesis.
c80f0f1006