What G Revolution for the GBA offers is a Solid Battle System but lacking moments from the series and boring Tourna.....
Game Title: Beyblade G Revolution
Platform: Game Boy Advance
Developer: Full Fat
Publisher: Atari
Genre: Action/Adventure
Age Rating: PEGI: 3+, ESRB: E for Everyone
Release Date: 18th November 2004 (North America), 26th November 2004 (Europe)
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Game Score: 4.1/10
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Summery:
What G Revolution for the GBA offers is a Solid Battle System but lacking moments from the series and boring Tournament battles.
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Beyblade got up to it's third season which is G Revolution and has introduced re-releases of the oldest spinning tops as well as introducing a new Beyblade Type called the Engine gear. These make the new Beyblades extra faster and can slam most of the old Beyblade out in seconds. Developer Full Fat attempts to bring the experience of the show to the GBA in their own perspective. It has some ideas but like most other Beyblade video games it doesn't always work out.
The game itself takes on the story of G Revolution where the Tag Team rules were introduced and this forced the Bladebreakers to split up and are forced to their hometowns and represent their own teams. This game's story mode (which is a breath of fresh air from it's console releases) goes from Tyson playing with a group of kids, meeting a boy with one leg of his jeans ripped off named Daichi and also a guy named Jin of the Gale towards the ending of the BBA Tag Team Tournament. If you've watched the show you'll notice that some of the dialogue is intact but however not all of the events like when Tyson (the main character of the show) gives slight disregards to his former team-mates or when Kenny goes into a desperate battle against Tala aren't recreated here which is very sad and on top of that it has some minor liberalities on the storyline. Still the way that it attempts to bring together it's story to the game is almost solid enough.
In the game you play as Tyson in a RPG like adventure game where you explore fields, forests and buildings to find various Beyblade parts and money laying around. There's people you can interact with and also Beybladers that you challenge against. You can also visit the Shop and purchase various Beyblading equipment and extra Beyblades. I'd like to point out that even though Tyson sticks to his Dragoon Beyblades you can actually use any Beyblade of any kind from Seasons 1 to 3 of the show which is pretty cool for hardcore Beyblade collectors especially if you love all the original tops.
G Revolution on the GBA has minor RPG elements involved such as EXP, Level ups and also a Strength meter which help effect your character's power for his Beyblade. Like the TV series you can use various parts you find to customize your Beyblade in the Customization Menu, it doesn't affect appearance but however effects the blade's Attack, Defence and Endurance attributes. All the different parts like Attack Rings, Weight Disks, Blade Bases and Bit Chips have their own unique strengths and weaknesses, mostly of what stats they have when equipped. You also have an inventory screen which serves no purpose at all as you only get three items through the whole game and you have your Beyblade collection of which Beyblades you have and finally a Beybladers screen which shows all the various Beybladers you have beaten.
When you enter areas that have Beybladers you can see their stats pop up on the screen indicating that you challenge him. Once he/she excepts your challenge you can choose what Beyblade you want to use as well as the type of Launcher and Ripcord.
One of the most redeeming qualities of this game is the games battle system which is very different and more complex from the console counterparts. First up is launching, when the counter hits "Let it Rip"you press the A Button to slide the launcher into the Ripcord and with timing press the button again to stop, you'll also have a boost that will give you a percentage boost to your RPM to keep your Beyblade spinning longer.
Once the Beyblade enters the BeyStadium you and your opponents Beyblade battle it out till either the opponent's Beyblade stops spinning, it lands out of the dish (which is caused by jumping off by stupidity as you can't actually get the opponent's out of the stadium by force) or by destroying their Beyblade (which is difficult to do). You use the D-Pad to move your Beyblade around then you can simply collide with the other Beyblade to damage him the system goes a little deeper then that. Pressing the A button can make your blade perform a attack and holding it down does a charge attack, B defends and holding that down makes your defend barrier stronger and whatever attack and defend fields are the strongest does damage, L makes your Beyblade jump which seems a little stupid considering in real life only Kenny and Michael's Beyblades have the abilities to do that. You can also dodge incoming attacks with the R Button which is useful when you got to watch the enemy's attack. When the blade's have collided with each other you can perform different short combinations using the D-pad and the A Button and simply that one Combo that I used over and over again and I won every fight in the game. But that all together then you'll have a building blocks for a solid battle system.
While the battle system has plenty of depth including Beyblade HP alongside Launcher and Ripcord having only a few uses before they brake apart so you'll need to change those from time to time and be sure to repair your Beyblade otherwise it breaks. Winning battles will earn you EXP when you have enough you'll grow a level increase in power but however the system has it's flaws. First up when you lose in a battle you'll lose your Beyblade that you were losing which is very stupid, why would you want to give out your Beyblade to a regular kid? It just doesn't make any sense.
That's not all, when you go into the tournament battles the rules change your forced to battle at least 3 rounds to get the highest victory points then your opponent. Did the designers watch the show properly. Even worse is when you're competing against another team, The Tournament goes like this, instead of best of threes in Tag Team fashion you're given a option where you can pick two of three Beybladers in your team and then it goes round one for one player to get the highest points and then the next player does the same thing and do you think that you've won right. No! Because the game repeats the next two rounds that makes the Tournament fights extremely boring and repetitive. At least when you win the Tournament you beat the game which takes about nine hours to complete but an extra two hours to collect all the extra Beyblades. Sadly though I checked the entire high and low and there doesn't seem to any sidequests in the game at all so possibly you'll beat the game in a single setting (that is you can.) Hey at least it's longer then Legacy of Goku I.
I would also like to mention some glitches I discovered playing it. When you beat the game and return to the Tokyo Tournament to face the Blitzkrieg Boys again your stuck forever in endless battles you can't leave the stadium at all. Saving the game will just trap you there forever. I'm not sure if you call actually it a glitch as it is to terrible programming. I would like to point out that when you finish a round you'd want to move down a few pixels to get the next round starting as the game doesn't advance it automatically, at least it lets you save your game.
Another glitch I got but probably a fatal one is that I had a Bit Beast with 285 EXP when I was close to finishing the game. So when I saved the game, turned it off and then turned the game on the next day all that Experience I earned was all gone.
The GBA graphics are decent for the sprites on the field and mostly rain effects, but you'll get most of the graphics during battles where it shows off Mode 7 and colour inversion as you pull of simple combos. It's bogged down when you summon your Bit Beast, there's no Bit Beast animation shown like in the 3rd TV show as far I know and in this game all you'll see is the Beyblade perform a series of attacks depending on if the Beyblade's SP is either 1/3, 2/3 or 3/3 full. There's also an annoying black bar that for some reason the Beyblade can actually go over it which I find just weird.
As for the audio it doesn't have the music from the show aside from the opening theme, instead it has plain generic action music which mostly consist of short loops. I think also that those tracks were taken from Ultimate Blade Jam as well. The sound effects are the only saving grace to the audio and thankfully you can turn the music off or change the window as you see fit.
If you've played the other games on the PSOne and the Gamecube and felt disappointed by all of that then I'll say this. What G Revolution for the GBA offers is a Solid Battle System but lacking moments from the series and boring Tournament battles. At least it's a decent idea for a video game based on the series but that could have been achieved by ironing out the issues.
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The Good Points:
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1. Solid Battle system with a deep learning curve involved
2. You can use any possible Beyblade in the series
The Bad Points:
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1. Awful Soundtrack with the exception of the main theme
2. Tournament Battles can get really boring
3. Still lacking some moments of the TV series
4. You can lose your Beyblade by losing a battle which is stupid
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Reviewed by: Anthony Hayball (AQWBlaZer91)
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