Bombastic 3, 2, 1, Let It Rip, Spinning Top Action!
I have never played a Beyblade game before or watched any of the anime. I’ve gone into BeybladeX: Xone completely blind to the nuances of the history of Beyblade, both in real life and in the game format and how to play it. Despite all of that, this game, even for complete novices to the franchise in any shape or form, is still excellent fun to play.
It didn’t start that way though. When playing the game for the first time, its tutorials did all they could to hinder and frustrate me. The first match used for the tutorial kept pausing to show screens of information. You don’t mind a few breaks, but there were a total of 38 pages of screens and text to read through before moving on. The game literally has one of the most obtuse learning curves of any video game.
Thankfully, however, because of the nature of the game, there isn’t a huge amount of depth thereafter, so it doesn’t take too long to pick up. There’s one other thing the game does an extremely poor job with. Although it explains the controls and what’s currently happening on-screen, it doesn’t explain how to play the game at all. It would be like telling someone how all the pieces on a chess board can move, then told to get on and have a game with no idea of openings or how to checkmate someone.
But, once you get past all of this and get into the flow of the game, it does really shine.
The game has a story that I believe is separate from the anime but consists of nothing more than your character battling their way to the 100th floor of an X competition to be the best Beyblader. Along the way, you meet a great and diverse cast of characters but with a narrative no deeper than “We must train harder and do our best”. It’s a pretty basic and simple story.
As well as the story mode, there are exhibition matches against other key Beyblader characters, a practice area, challenge matches to defeat for loot and XP at a location called BeyBattle Net, and a shop to buy and upgrade your Beyblades.
You move your character around inside the X building to approach people, items, or where you want to battle, but there’s also a world map of a town to quickly travel to various locations.
The presentation of the game is of a decent standard, but the game suffered from frame rate issues while moving around the world on the Switch, so it looked and felt a little clunky. However, this is not really important as it’s just a means of navigating the game.
The real meat and potatoes are in the arena with your Beyblades, and this is the best aspect of the game. The developers have completely nailed the experience of battling Beyblades.
You start a simple one-on-one battle by adjusting your launching angle, hitting the right point for a better launch, and 3, 2, 1, let it rip! This then begins the “auto-chase” sequence of the Beyblades randomly spinning around the arena. You can do two things in this phase: attack or evade, or you can simply just leave the blade completely until a gauge has been filled called the X gauge.
Once one of the players’ X gauges has filled, this then means both players enter the tactical second stage called X Phase. If you are the first to enter the X Phase, then you get a bonus of extra attack power and defense. Using attack or evade during the auto-chase sequence drains your X gauge quite rapidly, however, so you have to decide based on the build of your Beyblade whether to do nothing during the auto-chase sequence to get the most powerful abilities of the X phase or not.
X phase is where the game slows down for you to use three skill-based attacks each Beyblade has. Each skill is assigned to a blue, green, or yellow button. In a rock, paper, scissors way, a yellow skill beats green, green beats blue, and blue beats yellow. Each choice is random, so you can, for example, win or lose all three rounds of this section.
Once the three rounds are up, you carry on with an auto-chase sequence until someone’s X gauge has filled up again. Rinse repeat.
If you defeat an opponent by them simply running out of power in the auto-chase phase, you get one point. If you reduce an opponent’s spin to 0 directly from an attack in the auto-chase phase, you get a knockout win of 2 points. Defeating an enemy with an extreme dash (build-up of energy from around the edge of the arena) or during an attack from an X Skill in the X Phase, that results in a short cinematic and an extreme finish worth 3 points.
Matches can vary in the number of points you need to get to win, and indeed how many Beyblades you can use per match. You could have a 2-on-2 battle and the first to 5 points.
It sounds a little more complicated than it is, but in essence, half the match is hands-on, and half of it is choosing a skill.
What is completely “hands-on” is the building of your Beyblade. You can hold up to 6 complete units. One unit will consist of the “Blade”, “Ratchet” and “Bit”. Each of these items will vary between 4 attributes: attack, defense, stamina, or balance. There are other attributes to consider in a build, those being X dash power, burst resistance, and burst ability.
As you play the game and win battles, you acquire new parts that can also be found around the world map, and of course, bought in the shop. The game says that there are quote “over 100 million” different combinations of builds in the game. That may be true as I spent as much time tinkering with builds trying to maximize my usable Beyblades as much as actually playing matches.
All in all, Beyblade X: Xone is simple on a lot of levels, but what it does do is create a very simple hook that is addictive and exciting to play in. Some matches I’ve won with ease, only for the next to be on the rails, 3 nil down, but come back for the win. There have been quite a few exhilarating in-game moments. Winning by the tiniest of margins resulted in me literally fist pumping a “yesss!” out loud.
Where the game truly excels is in the unpredictability of the matches, due in part to the rock, paper, scissors randomness of the skills section and in the presentation of the fights as they happen. Couple that with the constant upgrades to tinker with as you progress, and I found myself playing the game for quite long periods in one sitting more often than I thought I would.
Even though there is an unpredictability to each match, there is also skill involved in the design of your build and how to use it. For example, building an all-out heavy attack Bey but being reserved in using it won’t succeed. The game doesn’t tell you the nuances of how to play the game, but it is relaxed enough for you to figure it out as you go. I started building all-out stamina Beys, but at one point I started to lose as my builds just weren’t powerful enough. You could make builds that are weak to all but super powerful in the X phase. There really are multiple ways in which to play, which makes it all the more fun to keep playing.
One other great aspect of Beyblade X: Xone is the audio that accompanies all this. There is a background of exciting hard rock music throughout the game that is literally in your face and ears so much that I’ve had to turn it way down in the settings. The over-the-top visual excitement of Beys clashing together in the arena, coupled with the clashing sound they make also adds to the experience.
The last point is probably the most disappointing. The game does have an online section where you can battle other players worldwide. I, however, cannot try this as I just keep getting this message: “The connection has been lost. Returning to the Online Menu”. I don’t know if this is a game issue or that there are only servers in Japan, but I hope at some point as a Western player, I can take my battles online.
Summary
Beyblade X: Xone is a game that is rough around the edges but superb where it counts. Anyone with even the slightest interest in Beyblades, either the game, the video games, or the anime, will enjoy the exciting battles here in their quest to reach the top of the X building!
Developer: Groove Box Japan
Publisher: Furyu
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC
Release Date: 14th November 2024
