I picked up Custom Robo for the Gamecube on Friday, and it's pretty much all I've done this weekend. I've played through the entire single-player A New Journey storyline, and have cut a good swath out of The Grand Battle tournament mode, to boot. I recall that Gamespot didn't give this game a particularly great score (somewhere in the mid-six range), but for the amount I paid, it's been very fun, and a nice cool down from my RPG overdose as of late. Despite the fact that the single-player storyline is really only a way to teach the player game mechanics and strategies, there's a bit of depth to the plot that's roughly equivalent to an Angelic Layer / G Gundam amalgamation. Not pariticularly original, but it has some hilarious moments.

Naturally, by playing through the single-player game, I've already unlocked a large number of parts for use in the Arcade and Vs. modes, which I've spent very little time in thus far. I doubt that I'll get much use out of the game's multiplayer features, but on the rare occasions when I have two or three people visiting my tiny apartment, it might be a nice change of pace from SSMB. The robo combat is very simple to pick up and very arcade-like, and the level of customization that the various parts provide (once they've been unlocked, of course) is surprisingly deep. There's no real set combination of invincible parts, at least as far as I know, and the variety of bodies, guns, bombs, pods and legs mean that four people can play however they like and never be forced to use identical setups.

Even the credits are pretty amusing, as they hold a playable minigame much like SSBM. In it, you control a custom robo from a first person view and battle an opponent. After beating story mode I even unlocked a first person view mode in the option menu, but I haven't bothered trying it out yet.

I imagine that it won't be too long before I switch Custom Robo out for another game, but it's been fun, and I'm liking it enough that I'll probably pop it back in from time to time to wind down on stressful days. If you're looking for an older Gamecube game to fill a gap in your library, you might give this game a try.