Biomotor Unitron sounds like a lost Super Sentai or knockoff Gundam show. It’s got a colorful cast of young people who jump into giant mechs to battle it out to become the best around and bring down a big-baddie. The reality is that Biomotor Unitron is a JRPG that dropped on the Neo Geo Pocket back when we were partying like it was 1999. The Neo Geo Pocket was a wonderful little device, and we’ve covered a number of the releases on the Nintendo Switch, but we’ve never seen a JRPG on the device before. Heck, I didn’t even know the genre existed on the platform.

But having a JRPG on a portable is a tough task, especially when you will always be in the shadow of Nintendo’s Pokemon. Thankfully, Biomotor Unitron mixes things up in some interesting ways. In the game you take on the role of a new mecha (Unitron) master. As a pilot you play Gundam against other pilots inside an arena in a turn-based setting in order to be the best like no one ever was. The trick is that enemies come in waves. You have to fight a series of opponents in a row, your health not regenerating even if you beat an opposing pilot.

This is a really fun take on the JRPG gameplay as you will have to really weigh when to bump your health or when to let it ride. You also have to account for not having enough juice in the HP tank when you reach the boss of a given wave. It’s incredibly simple yet a lot of fun to play with and battles move at a good pace. On top of that Biomotor Unitron takes from Pokemon by having each type of Unitron being strong or weak against a given type. Fire beats Wood, Water beat Fire, and so on.

If that wasn’t enough, you will also be able to outfit your Unitron with different parts that you can buy with your winnings. Add an arm from a Air Unitron, legs from a Water Unitron, and so on. Instead of collecting monsters like in Pokemon you are essentially collecting new parts for your hooptie-mobile. The game features an arena in the center of a town map that you can travel through. Different characters you meet will offer you various goods and/or services. A shop to buy parts and items, an old hermit to teach you and give you hints, a bar to hear stories from losers, a fan-club of kids, and so on. The game will make you visit and talk to everyone before opening up the arena as you grow. This is important because the game gives very little story and the townspeople serve to move it forward.

That’s not a lot of content, sure, but you have to remember we are working with a small portable console from the late 90s. It would be enough if the game stopped there. Maybe not great, but certainly a good experience on the go with some fun quick battles. But Biomotor Unitron has one more tick up its very long sleeve. The game also features a full world map that you can take your Unitorn out into to explore and fight. Here you’ll face traditional JRPG enemies and work your way down through dungeons collecting treasure chests that hide new parts, items, and money.

And because you’ll need to pay to enter the Arena, you’ll often need to go hunting for treasure chests, especially if you lose matches and end up broke. The world is broken up into the nations from Avatar and, like the combat, each area is strong or weak against a certain type. This means collecting parts from other types with certain affinity is important to survive in the wilds. That said, even if you have the correct type and the first floor monsters only do a couple of points of damage per strike, the deeper you go the harder it will be. And you’ll have to contend with getting out alive as everything in the world map is random encounters.

Yeah, it’s a lot of content but it’s not very deep content. That’s not a knock against the game in any way considering it came out on a handheld when handhelds were still in black and white. To the games credit, those first few Pokemon games weren’t very deep and a lot of those mechanics were broken. Biomotor Unitron feels a lot more stable and complete when looking at it against Pokemon. The real problem with the game is something that Pokenmon, and other JRPGs for that mater, don’t face and that is that Biomotor Unitron feels small. The world is small, the story is tiny, and once you understand the affinity mechanics battles are pretty easy. It feels more like a testbed for something much bigger, much like those first Pokemon games were.

Biomotor Unitorn is still a lot of fun in short bursts but will leave you wanting something deeper, something with more freedom. It’s a charming adventure that you’ll be able to get through in a short amount of time. I’d say the game is perfect if you are new to JRPGs or having been wanting to get into them but don’t care for the time sink or flipping through hundreds and hundreds of menus. For the price, I’d say it’s still worth it to experience a mech-based JRPG on the go.

Final Score:

About Author

J. Luis

J. Luis is the current Editor-In-Chief here at GAMbIT. With a background in investigative journalism his work encompasses the pop-culture spectrum here, but he also works in the political spectrum for other organizations.

See author's posts