You wouldn’t know it but Custom Robo is a franchise that’s been around since the N64 days, and has already made an appearance on the GameCube. The reason you wouldn’t know this is because Custom Robo up until now has been a Japan only franchise. Nintendo plans on changing that by releasing the title on the GameCube this May. We had an opportunity to sit down and play the multiplayer version of the game, and watch a little of the single player mode.

We were limited to a version that let us test out the multiplayer but unfortunately didn’t allow us to customize our robots at all before battle. It would have been nice to at least get a little test out of this feature, because it is the most important part of the game.

Even though we didn’t get to edit our Robots we do have information on what you’ll be able to do in the final game. You’ll have 5 areas you can customize your robot: gun, body, bomb, legs, and pod, each change impacting your ability to move, and attack.

Enough of what we didn’t get to do – we WERE able to sit down and have some 4 player mayhem. Custom Robo appears to be a title that will be very easy to pick up and play, but will require extensive work defining your robots body and characteristics before going into battle. Essentially things break down into a whole lot of button mashing, while jumping around and dashing. You can use walls within the level as cover, which does add a cool element of gameplay. In the short time I had with Custom Robo I learned rather quickly to hide behind a wall, jump up, dash forward, and rain certain death down on an opponent who was on the ground and unable to hit me because his attacks were bouncing off walls.

We also had an opportunity to watch a little of the single player game. It was pretty standard RPG stuff, which is just a front for allowing you to obtain and edit more Robots. Nothing really special about it, and the only thing that really stood out was the sounds that were used to represent speech: Think Charlie Brown’s teachers – but far more annoying.

Custom Robo is scheduled for a May 10th release (right before E3), and it definitely fits the current Nintendo trend of creating games very easy to pick up and play while still offering plenty of hardcore experience for those willing to invest the time. We had very limited time with the game, but it does look like Custom Robo will be a fun throw away title for the GameCube.