Occasionally, the boys and I watch the Saturday morning cartoon show, Medabots. It's another Japanese import where young kids build and train robots to ro-battle in arenas for sport and fame. Recently, figures of the various robots from the show, went on sale at a local Dollar Tree store. After a few visits, between my two sons, we had one of every character available (8 each), almost the entire line shown on the packaging. The reason we went back for more was the game rules we discovered in our first purchases and the fun my 10 and 8 year old had ro-battling with them.

The figures come apart, into 5 pieces; head, body, legs, right arm, and left arm. Each part, except the body and leg, has a point value printed on it and each figure comes with a card that provides the body part point values too. A hexagonal cylinder type die is provided with each as well, with the faces showing the following; blue 10 with a head icon, red 20 with a left arm icon, blue 30 with a right arm icon, red 55 with a head icon again, blue 75 with a left arm icon again, and red 100 with a right arm icon again. The parts are interchangeable between figures, so that they can swap arms, legs and heads, creating original looking robots.

The battling rules come in basic and advanced versions. In the basic game, both players roll their die simultaneously. A red color wins, a blue looses. If both roll red or both roll blue, both are a loss. A win allows the winner to remove on body part from his opponent. A die that lands vertically, on its hexagonal end, is an automatic win. When a medabot looses all of his parts, his opponent is the winner.

In the advanced game, players start by rolling their die simultaneously to see who goes first, higher roll going first. Each player then rolls his die twice during his turn, the first roll determines the body part being attacked via the icons on the die. The second roll determines if the player wins that body part, which happens when his roll is higher than the point value as printed on the body part and card. If his roll is higher, he takes the body part, if it is lower, the opponent keeps his part. Again, if the die lands vertically on the number roll, it is an automatic win of the part concerned. The winner is the player who collects both arms and the head of his opponent. The one problem we have had is interpreting the left versus the right arm icons, each time we play we review them out of necessity, they are a little vague and could be seen either way.

Both basic and advanced games require that loser's parts be returned at the end of the battle but I can see this not being the case in some more competitive circles. The rules also do not mention that players can use different parts from their own (or defeated) medabots to build more powerful hybrid characters, my boys have already done this. The battles are fun and fast. The characters are cool looking and fun to play with as action figures would be. As a separate game or as a part of a Medabots TV show based rpg (using BESM or some other system for the non-ro-battling parts) the figures are certainly worth a buck each. I don't know what they retailed for before they became dollar store fodder, but I'm sure it was way more than even a fan of the show would be willing to pay.

Additional rules, products and copies of character cards are available at http://www.hasbro.com/medabots/

This review appears in Alarums & Excursions #336, and appears here with permission. Check out A&E review in this archive.