Beyblade is a popular line of toys geared toward boys that puts a new spin (pun intended) on a classic plaything: tops. Players put two tops in a ‘battle arena’ and let them spin and bash each other. Whoever’s top spins the longest and doesn’t get knocked out wins. The toy line is so famous that it has spawned a long-running cartoon series and several video games. And you can play the newest one on the Nintendo DS.

In Beyblade: Metal Masters, you can choose Story Mode and select a leader character and two team members from the cartoon. Only three ‘Bladers’ are available from the outset, but as you play, you’ll unlock dozens more. Although the story mode is really nothing more than a string of battles.

To play, you first rapidly press the A, B, or Y buttons to beef up your top’s speed, power, and timing. But there is no way to press all the buttons to max out your stats, so you have to choose which attributes you want wisely. Then you control your top in a round battlefield and press buttons to unleash special attacks against your opponent’s top. Deplete their top’s energy or push it out of the battle arena to win. Victories earn you extra parts to modify your tops with.

You can also try various quick battles against the CPU or local wireless in Arcade mode. In Download Mode, you can use a WiFi connection to download more tops and parts, or net goodies by entering passwords (presumably from the actual toys). Finally, in the Garage, you can view and modify your tops and parts.

The only problem with this title, aside from the lack of content, is that the instructions on how to play the game are extremely limited. The manual is only one page and barely shows you the controls in teeny tiny letters. And the game itself doesn’t have a tutorial mode or anything. So it’s hard to know what you’re supposed to be doing at first. Probably only seasoned Beyblade fans will enjoy this DS game.

Kid Factor:

Beyblade: Metal Masters is rated E for Everyone with ESRB descriptors of Fantasy Violence and Mild Language. You’re really only smashing tops into each other, so I don’t think it’s that violent. The mild language must be used sparingly in the text, as I haven’t come across any yet. Beyblade experts will be able to get into this pretty easily I bet, but newcomers may not know what to do at first due to the poor instructions.

Tags: Game Reviews