After getting to play Little Battlers eXperience (or LBX for short) at a Nintendo press event recently, I’m on board with the Level 5-developed 3DS game that is focused on building and customizing your own little robot battlers over the course of a single-player adventure and multiplayer fighting. However, all I was able to play was a few one-on-one multiplayer matches against my cohort Justin Berube. I could likely sum up my playtime in a sentence: “The combat was fast-paced and fun with a lot of nuances that I want to dig deeper into.” Instead of just leaving it at that, here’s a blow-by-blow of my thoughts during the fight I had against Justin.

The match starts. We’re playing a three-stock match, so you need to defeat the other robot three times to win. The setting is some spacey moon environment with a crater or something in the middle, though the jumping didn’t seem to be affected by the location. Justin’s robot (or LBX as they are called in the game) has a ranged weapon by default. Mine has a melee weapon, so I dashed across the stage by holding down a button so I could try to pummel him. In the process, he landed a few shots on me but he had to go through a reload sequence on his gun. The reload sequence seems to make the ranged play super weak. While he reloads, I spam my main attack. However, I had to be wary of attacking too much. Each LBX has a “tension” meter that runs out when you attack a lot. When the meter runs out, your attacks do virtually no damage.

After bringing the hurt to Justin’s LBX, I retreated so my tension meter can build up. As I got away, Justin tapped the D-pad to switch to his other weapon, which is a melee one. He got some attacks in on me but I used my character’s shield (by pressing the R button) to deflect some of the damage. When his tension ran out, I brought the pain, successfully taking out one of his stock.

Scoreboard: Neal 3, Justin 2

Before Justin’s LBX respawned, I took the time to use of my healing items to repair my robot. When he finally came back into the fray after a few seconds, I sprung another attack. This time, I used my special attack. Quite honestly, I don’t really know what the heck happened during the special attack. It seems like they are all different, and this one that I used required Justin to guess where I was going to aim the attack. He guessed wrong and I laid his LBX butt out.

However, he fired back with a special attack. Fortunately, I guessed right and dodged his attack. He ran out of tension shortly after and I went in for the attack. We brawled back and forth for a while until I built up another special attack. I tried using something different (you can equip up to four specials at once), which I think was some sort of counter attack. So, Justin attacked me and my little robot went HAM on him. He dropped like a fly.

Scoreboard: Neal 3, Justin 1

I didn’t have any more healing items left, so I couldn’t repair before Justin’s LBX came back. He volleyed a few ranged attacks at me and then followed it up with a smattering of melee attacks. I was weak, so I fell pretty quickly. Fortunately, I whittled his health down in the process.

Scoreboard: Neal 2, Justin 1

Justin had backed away with his LBX in an attempt to heal, so when I spawned, I went to seek him out. Switching to my ranged weapon, I attacked him from afar, interrupting his healing process. To fight back, he tried to attack me with his gun, but he had to reload. I noticed this and then dashed in for some close-range hurt. Game. Set. Match.

Scoreboard: Neal 2, Justin 0

Naturally, Justin wanted a rematch. Unfortunately (for him), we had to move on, but we both had the same realization that, when Little Battlers eXperience launches on August 21, we would have to meet up in person to fight again. The version of LBX coming to 3DS in North America has no online play. It will support up to six players locally (in a variety of configurations, including 3 vs. 3 and 2 vs. 2 vs. 2), which is nice, but I know the only time I’ll ever potentially play locally is at a press event or a video game convention.

Still, I went from having little-to-no knowledge in Little Battlers eXperience to being very intrigued after playing the multiplayer and seeing a little bit of the deep customization options for the robots. While I expect it’ll be a single-player experience for me primarily, I’m very interested in seeing how the final game turns out.