Medabots 8 : Time for the world to Robattle!

Stuart is missing the gaming series, but the news of Medabots 8 should be a glimmer of hope.

As a huge fan of the anime. The news of Medabots 8 being set for release in late August has my mouth watering. There isn’t much information just now, but with such the release date approaching soon, we can expect to see gameplay trailers and snippets to entice us further. I still play the original Medabots: Metabee to this day so a few months wait is not going to kill me.

The real question though, is will it be localised? Medabots 7, the Medabots game for the original DS, was only released in Japan to the dismay of all Medabots fans around the world. Most fans started their journey with the release of the original Medabots RPG for the Game Boy Advance, a game I preferred over Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire at the time. This was due to the fighting animations in the game. They were just more impressive and were not condescending to the player. As a result, many wanted to get a further taste of the series in gaming. This is not to say that the original Medabots game was without fault, the fact you could not target whichever opponent you wanted was extremely annoying.

The next major step for medabots was 3D. We were tested over our allegiance to the franchise with Medabots Infinity for the Game Cube. I personally really enjoyed the game as I had watched some of the Kilobot season and I understood part of the story. The game was a fully 3D RPG, which forced you to battle around a Theme Park in different environmentally based areas. Utilising your Robattle ability, and also your know how of customisation and the Medabots Universe you would soon be beating opponents with ease. The main let down for the game was that it tried to incorporate the Kilobot season instead of sticking with the original series.

Infinity was the last game to be released outside of Japan. I have to say for most fans, it would have been parting on a low note. The anime was strong enough to hold their fans imagination, even still there is a yearning to play the new games. Alas, we have to watch from afar as Medabots is solely enjoyed in it’s home country.

So will this new Medabots 8 be confined to Japan or will we get to participate in the sweet symphony of robattling? The game is going to use online play again, allowing you to trade parts as well as robattle. The current information we have been privy to has also stated that this game will be easier for new-comers to pickup. I can see how that is necessary, and as long as you are able to skip the intro tutorial I am all for it. With online play, I think the whole world should be able to play.Even though with Medabots 7 we were not able to. It should be finally time for the world to robattle.

There are currently online petitions and websites looking to get the Medabots games localised. They haven’t been successful in the past with Medabots 7, but maybe the attention they brought will see the localisation of 8. One such website is Project Rising Beetle. This website is not only concerned with the localisation of Medabots games but also in bringing the latest Medabots news to your attention. It was there that I had learned that Natsume’s reason for not releasing to the rest of the world might not actually be a financial one.

Hopefully with enough attention Natsume will localise the game, allowing for Western audiences to finally be able to play the latest Medabots games. Without the need to have a Japanese phrase book at hand.