Beyblade is a franchise that’s somehow managed to exist for a little over a decade, and of course there are many a Beyblade videogame. While some might see older titles being better than others, you could hardly tell that this game was supposed to be a successor in any shape or form. This is because Beyblade Evolution is anything but evolved.

Beyblade Evolution is the latest in the games based on the manga, TV, and toy line series. And despite its namesake, the game feels more like an evolutionary dead end. The game is set up as a very basic Bey simulator. Beys are the ridiculous looking Battle Tops that the characters use to battle each other with. But in this game, the story mode is nothing more than a simulator where the ultimate goal is to win the Championship and become a Beyblade Champion. But it’s funny that the game calls it a story mode, as there is no story to speak of outside of a few dialog exchanges between Beybladers from the show. You will do battle with them or play mini-games to earn money that can be spent buying new bey parts. New parts can increase the three stats to take into consideration for battling. Attack increases the damage you can do, defense reduces damage, and stamina increases the health of the Bey. There are also different arenas based on these stats as well. Battling trainers exists basically just for practice, as the game operates on a turn system. After a certain number of turns, the Championship opens up on the map. So depending on your luck, you could beat the game in 15 minutes. If this game didn’t already sound bad or boring to you, it gets worse.

You have absolutely no control of how battles play out, and the matches are practically random, save for you the little bit of influence you can do. You can increase your chances of winning by charging up Spirit power up to a maximum level of three. Then once you have collected enough power, you can unleash it, and with the right timing, it will hit your bey and give it an increase in power. Victory is achieved with either a ring out or a sleep out, which happens once the bey runs out of stamina. Before the battle even starts though, the idea is to use the gyroscope to choose an angle, and then to rev the 3ds back like a cord and then thrust forward. The idea behind this is to simulate the ripcord like action in the manner that the Beybladers use for their Bey Launchers. But due to the poor implementation of the gyroscopic controls in addition to the randomness of battle top gaming, It feels like it doesn’t really matter in the end. The decision to use touch and stylus only controls is baffling. Buttons are used only to advance dialog in the story portion. But, at least there is a local only multiplayer mode, although you might be hard pressed to find local players, let alone have fun.

The presentation for the game is also equally lacking. Graphics look like they are from a post-production DS game which was refitted for the 3DS, and even then aren’t that great to begin with. No voice acting and music that’s also not taking advantage of the hardware, and the music is also not particularly well done. This game is totally the epitome of the Bait and Switch, and the bait was the free Bey toy that came with the Collector’s Edition of the game. The original company behind this game should be ashamed to exploit children’s love of the series, as it is severely lacking in all aspects. Take all of the drama and excitement from the TV and Manga series, and you have an extremely shallow product. Avoid this title at all costs.

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