Biomotor Unitron

• Genre: Turn-Based RPG
• Time Played: >15 Hours
• Too Short/Long: About right, some time could have been cut from grinding.
• Pleased/Disappointed: Pleased
• Why I played: Build a robot/mech and cute character portraits.
• Recommend to others: Not really, unless you really like playing old games.

Biomotor Unitron was originally a Neo Geo Pocket game, I never had a Neo Geo Pocket, the US only got 31 games so it's about as justifiable as a Virtual Boy, it has a few more games, but no gimmick. Thankfully they released a bunch in collections for the Switch, I love the NGP style fighting games, and the Card Fighter games.

Biomotor Unitron has an artstyle that I love and miss. It's the perfect 90's anime RPG style art. It's got that aesthetic that makes me and all those vaporwave lovers love PC-98 art, regardless of some of it's questionable origins.

That's the main draw for me, other than customizable robots/mechs. I'm still not sure which they specifically are, I THINK they are being piloted, the first time they really address it is in a story beat where you don't realize someone you know is controlling one until they talk to you. It implies they are inside the robot, right? Anyway...

It's far from perfect. It's more about the ride of going out beating up stuff and then coming back to upgrade things. The game is far from balanced and don't give you many options of things to do within combat. So it's more about what you have set up. This results in combat being mostly a slap fight. Weakness comes into play, but the goal is almost exclusively to hit the enemies weakness and not be weak to their attack - so you customize your mech to do so and you either end up going out into dungeons to lose terribly or obliterate all that oppose you, until you progress far enough you get beat up and come back and upgrade.

The colors reflect their current type. I started out as the elves, which are called like woodlings or something, but basically because you pretty much only see your partner, so I picked the one that was the cutest to be my partner, which is also why my Unitron is usually green/red. It defaults to the wood type unless I take up a valuable accessory slot to change my type.

There is some great stuff in this game though. They probably pushed it out quick to have some variety for Neo Geo Pocket since it was it's first RPG, but it would have been cool to see this series evolve as it has some really cool ideas. There is a JP only sequel, but those who have played seem imply some things are better and some not as good.

I enjoyed playing it though. It was nostalgic even though I never played it before. If I got it when it came out in 1999, I would have played it countless hours and tried to make my friends get it too, to trade items or battle or whatever multiplayer features are available.