Beyblade V-Force: Super Tournament Battle is a game where you spin tops. Yes, that’s correct. The point of the game is to become the ultimate “Beyblader” which is really just a snazzy way of saying you’re the ultimate “top spinner.” It’s also based on a popular children’s anime show in which the characters also spin tops. There are also actual Beyblade tops that you can play with.

When starting, the game will ask you to pick a top, or “Beyblade” as they’re called in the game. From there you can free battle, enter into the tournament, or go into multiplayer. Once in a tournament you face off against a series of battles that get more difficult as you go. The start of a battle begins with both players launching their tops. A meter moves across the screen and pressing the button at the last possible second before the meter fills up will keep the top spinning as long as possible. After the launch the battle begins. Players can exert a small amount of force on their Beyblades to move them around, but it’s not incredibly helpful because the amount of control is so small. As the tops clash they build up super meters which can be charged to three levels. Unleashing a super attack at the right time is the key to victory.

There are three ways to win a match. First, if the opponent’s top stops spinning the round ends and the player left standing is rewarded one point. Knocking a top out of the ring also ends the round and earns the winner two points. Depleting the other top’s hit points will cause a crash. This is worth four points. The winner of the match is the first player to earn a total of four points. Most matches are won by ring-outs.

In action, Beyblade is incredibly boring. The difficulty barely scales up at all. Winning battles is a simple matter of waiting until your opponent is near the edge of the arena and unleashing a super attack. If the attack doesn’t knock them out then it’s a simple matter of repeating the process until it works. The gameplay is amazingly repetitive. The game can barely remain enjoyable throughout the tournament mode.

The multiplayer is about just as fun. The battles are the same as single player, only now up to four players can compete. To make everything worse, once you make it to the finals of the tournament mode the multiplayer features of the game become completely unavailable until the finals are over. The tournament director gives some excuse about “needing to concentrate on the finals.” Concentrate on what? This is a video game. There is nothing at stake and there is an infinite amount of time to complete. There’s no reason to turn off the multiplayer.

Beyblades can be upgraded and repaired by using Bey Points, which are earned by competing in the tournament. If the game is proving too difficult the best way to even out the difficulty is to buy a bunch of new parts. Of course, after buying new parts the game becomes incredibly easy.

Beyblade is a complete bore of a videogame. It’s one of the most repetitive games ever designed, not to mention it has a horrible concept. Gamers interested in the Beyblade franchise would probably be better off going down to the toy store and picking up some actual Beyblade tops. Why settle for a simulation of spinning tops when it’s actually possible to go out and spin tops?

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