A (not so) brief history of my Robopon hyperfixation
Published at 2026-09-24T00:25:19-05:00
A (actually rather lengthy) look at my obsession on Robopon, pretty much covering 2000 all the way up to the current day. Expect some story spoilers, rambling about nostalgia, and almost certainly some inaccuracies. Also, a bit of a raunchy page from its manga. I hope you like reading large blocks of text about random fixations.
Table of Contents
The beginning (The Peak) [2000-2004]
2000. Everyone was wrapped up in Pokemania. You couldn't go anywhere without seeing merch. Video games, figurines, toys, the anime, trading cards, shirts, backpacks, waffle irons, airplane decals, pop tarts, cereal, comics, the movie. Some companies tried to cash in on the Pokemon craze by making their own "catch monsters" game, very few of them caught any attention. Even I ignored them all. Except for one.
It was that era where video game magazines were still relevant. I bought (never subscribed) several whenever I saw them on store shelves at the time; Tips & Tricks Magazine, Nintendo Power, Beckett Pokemon Collector (which eventually spun off into Beckett Yu-Gi-Oh Collector, when then merged back into itself as Beckett Anime Collector), and of course Electronic Gaming Monthly. I was a Nintendo kid so I didn't really care about the competition (Sega was dying, Sony was everywhere but didn't have my interest, and Xbox? Who?); whenever I bought T&T or EGM I'd just look at any Nintendo game news (or cheats, in the case of Tips & Tricks), which would be rather small portions of these books. Even then I really just looked at Gameboy stuff, in 2000 all I had was a Gameboy Color, NES and SNES and nobody was releasing anything for the latter two at this point. Flipping through an issue of EGM though, I kinda caught interest in one thing...
I saw this and...I'm not exactly sure, but it captivated me. "That looks neat." I thought. After a few days it turned into "I want that.". I kept looking at, completely fascinated. The pon designed I liked, the demo screenshot on the right showing Zap vs Boomer looked cool (even though its pretty much just a mockup - battle animations aren't static on the screen like that during menu selection). "Kissin' Cool? What's that?" I thought. The prospect of using a TV remote with a video game? To do stuff like unlock chests? A rather novel idea in retrospect, sure, but as a kid? That blew my mind. "There's so many buttons on a TV remote, there's a ton of stuff I could do!" That was definitely a new concept for me, the ability to use a television remote (or any remote) to affect things in a game. "300 moves? Wow that's WAY more than what Pokemon does". That's a...not entirely accurate statement in hindsight, but sure.
Several months later I'd pick up at a copy at...I think it was Toys R Us, but I'm not 100% certain. Slapped it into my Kiwi Gameboy Color, and I was addicted to it.
I fell for EGM's Marketing
I won't get into the heavy mechanics of the game or do a massive review (I'll still do a review for the end of the year list), but if you look at it yeah on the surface level it's a Pokemon clone. You get a robopon at the start and you're off on your quest to become the...Legend 1, which is not the Champion kinda because there's really only 7 "trainers" you have to beat to get it. But the lineup is...not what you'd expect. Local school bully? Yeah okay that's typical. TV Idol that has hypnotized an entire town to be dedicated to her by taking over a broadcast station? A little different but sure. A biker gang that destroys a town and forces its inhabitants to live underground? Kinda extreme I think. Someone who runs _an entire paramilitary organization with 6 fortresses?_ Huh. The last three are rather normal in comparison (Your girlfriend's father who has kidnapped his daughter and placed her in a tower with no door that you have to blow up, the prince of the kingdom, and the big bad evil doctor hellbent on taking over the world).
Visually the game is...very basic. Its presentation leaves a lot to be desired, I mean this game released in 2000 in the US and doesn't look any better than something like Pokemon Red/Blue? And it released around the same time in the west as Pokemon Gold? The color palette in the US version makes characters look like they come straight out of something like Doug, no idea what they were thinking with that. With some attack animations lasting as long as they do, along with the text for attempted application of status effects (it's not like pokemon where you only get text about a status effect if it's actually afflicted), battles do take longer than in Pokemon. At least you can turn off the battle animations; I personally recommend doing so considering there's only about 15 different visuals that are basically combined with others for different moves. The audio design is okay I suppose, but nothing to write home about. Some of the sound effects can be a bit grating but the Gameboy line was capable of doing far worse. This is NOT the sort of game that would sell someone on screenshots alone methinks. Except it worked on me. Yeah.
Battles are kinda-sorta what you'd expect here. You have a party up to a maximum of 4 robopon (new ones can be acquired by catching them with magnets, or buying them from the Laboratories in towns after investing some cash in them) and they have the usual stats: HP, Attack, Defense and Speed. Instead of moves using PP like Pokemon, they use Energy Points like mana from a standard JRPG. In combat, you have 6 options to choose from: Attack, Items, Robopon (swap your current one out for another in your party), Escape, Defend (spend a turn to take less damage) or Evade (spend a turn for a chance to evade, if you evade you take no damage at all). You have 3 types of Robopon; Arm types are generally well balanced but have a slight lean towards attack, Move types focus towards speed, Boot types usually have higher stats than normal with a preference towards Defense, but cannot swap Parts and Software (more on these in a bit). In addition, you have 12 "Attributes", which are the proper analogue to Pokemon Types. They're not balanced rather well, and feel redundant at times. Water AND Sea? Earth AND Land?
If anything, attacking is where the biggest difference compared to Pokemon is. Every robopon has a basic attack literally just named "Attack". It's free, but it does minimal damage. You can gain other moves, but you don't learn moves via levelup, instead you basically equip moves by equipping Software to a Part. Parts give you slight stat boosts but also have a RAM capacity. This RAM capacity is used for Software, which come in a wide variety of types and levels (Fire v1, Ice v3, Shadow v4, etc). The level basically corresponds to how much RAM said software will use; a part with 30 RAM capacity can equip 3 level 1 softwares, or a level 2 and a level 1, or a single level 3, you see how this goes. Higher levels are stronger, but also cost more Energy Points.
The real meat comes from combinations of software moves. Equip 2 Fire softwares to the same robopon? You get Napalm. Equip 3 fire softwares? You get Napalm and Nova. Equip a Fire and Water software? You get Steam. Fire and Ice? You get Dstry ("Destroy", but for whatever reason some moves are capped to 5 letters...even though the game can support upwards of 10.) There's in the area of 150 moves in total off of these combinations. Not every software creates many combination moves (some don't create any), but there's plenty to play around with here. Nothing really tells you in-game what software combos make what move, so you'll need to do some experimentation to find something you like. You _can_ select the "list software" option in the software menu; this lists all of the moves a software can make, but it doesn't list how to _make_ them unless you make a note of what two or three softwares make a specific move.
Of course since this is an RPG, you also have status effects. Rust acts as a paralyze + poison effect (it's rather busted as a result), Fever is just poison, Stop prevents you from taking a turn, Curse will lower a stat each turn, Bless will raise a stat each turn, Bug is confusion. You get the idea. There's actually a fair amount of status effects, I'd say a little under half are exclusive to basic attacks from parts which gives them a bit more use despite being so underpowered. Inquire gives you information about the enemy pon like current and max HP as well as their attribute, while Seize causes your basic attack to always go first. There's two statuses that are a bit different; "Ignore" and "Out of Control". Ignore is a status some wild Robopon will have, which causes them to ignore orders, attack themselves, skip a turn, self-destruct or go to Out of Control status. While Out of Control, they just use their basic attack over and over until going back to Ignore. These are due to a falty CPU; you upgrade these at a Laboratory, and from what I can tell that's practically the only thing an upgraded CPU does outside of some slight stat boosts.
There's a fair share of sidequests here as well. At the beginning of the game you're given your Grandpa's company to build up and expand; Eventually you'll get shops, a laboratory that can research new Robopon, and a service that basically allows you to send Robopon out to train and gather items. There's the Elite 8; a massive trading quest that results in you acquiring a powerful custom starter. The dreamshells you collect from the underwater sea creatures that allow access to an underwater health spa, for some reason. Illusion Village, a town that only appears at certain times which contains a dungeon with 3 different difficulty levels, each one granting a better prize. Old Man Brownie, a wish granting fairy that lives in a cave in a forest that requires you to push rocks into specific formations to get access. Saving the Princess by getting an item to free her from a mirror. I wouldn't say all of these are interesting, but they're kinda neat diversions from the main game.
There's also "Battle Genesis 5", but it's not really a sidequest, more like a minigame that gets forced upon you about halfway into the game. Five different battle types with their own rules, mechanics and quirks. Battler is the standard battle, you just can't use items. Puncher is where you and the enemy Robopon punch a punching machine and whoever gets the highest number is the winner, Attack is the only stat that matters here. Defender is where you and the opponent choose a card, whatever card you choose that's how much damage you'll get; Defense is the one true stat for this but HP matters as well. Jumper goes off of your Robopon's speed and weight, both jump off of a platform and whoever goes further wins; you can mash the A button while in air to get some additional airtime. Last is Speeder where Robopon navigate a simple maze, whoever makes it to the end is the winner. This one is by far the worst as its effectively entirely RNG, the only stats that matter here from what I can tell are Speed and CPU.
A bit late, but there's a bit of an elephant in the room with this game. Specifically, the cart it came on:
It's big. Certainly bigger than most Gameboy carts. It's because it contains a special board, the Hudson HuC-3. It contains a Real-Time Clock, a speaker (used as an alarm for in-game events that run off of the RTC), and an IR (Blaster? Reader?). The IR thing is used for "GB Kiss" (which is practically impossible to use in the states cause you _did not_ know anyone else who owned this game), but is also used for opening specific treasure chests, and later on in the game you get access to a machine that "bathes your robopon in infrared rays". The chests that are opened are...kinda random, but you usually get something really good out of them. The machine thing? It either very, _very_ slightly boosts your robopon stats (we're talking a gain of like, +2 or something), changes their attribute (Your Fire attribute may become Holy), or in some certain cases will evolve your Robopon. It's kinda neat, but it's also kinda whatever.
The Real-Time Clock in comparison isn't really used for a whole lot. It takes note of the time and date; as far as I can tell the Date itself isn't used but the Time is. Some areas differ based on the time of day; Libra School for example has its lights out after 8 PM, causing it to be a decent low-level grind spot for some Robopon. Illusion Village as mentioned above only appears between 3 and 6 PM, and the Old Man Brownie sidequest can only be done between 6 and 8 PM. The alarm triggers for certain events, like when Illusion Village opens, or if your tower expansion or robopon dispatch is finished. The biggest use of the time however is the...time panels? There are giant stuffed teddy bears scattered across the world, when you interact with them it causes a fairy to pop out and makes you chose between one of three chests. It's completely random, but choosing a chest grants a panel that you place on a board. These panels can be things like "earn double experience for each battle" or "your attack stat is cut in half". You place these onto a board with numbers 0, 2, ... 22. Placing a panel on a specified number causes that panel to take effect during that hour and the hour following it. It's a very weird system, and the vast majority of panels I saw during my recent playthrough were terrible.
Naturally, if you're emulating this at all, you have no access to any of this; fortunately in April of 2026 patches were released by TofuDemon for Robopon Sun and Star (english versions) that allow these games to be playable on standard flash carts (at least anything compatible with MBC3), _and_ automatically trigger events that require IR input. You can find them available here:
Robopon Sun MBC3 Patch by TofuDemon
Robopon Star MBC3 Patch by TofuDemon
I've finished the game, why am I still playing it
In retrospect, the game is...rough. The menus are incredibly laggy and every button press feels like it's on a delay (allegedly due to remnant debug code checking for errors), move animations can take too long, the game presentation is incredibly basic. Only _one_ of the pair released in the States and as a result there's a fair amount of robopon you can't get at all unless you use a Gameshark. Some mechanics in the game aren't very well explained at all (this continues to this day; several status effects have unknown effects, like Soak and Spirit). The attributes are terribly balanced, several of them feel redundant, and about half of all moves in the game are Normal type anyway so it doesn't come up that frequently. You don't even get anything like STAB (Same Type Attack Bonus) from Pokemon if you give a Water attribute Robopon Water moves. I would honestly say this game compares a bit _negatively_ to Pokemon Red and Blue, and those game had more bugs than most shovelware does.
Despite all of those flaws however, young me continued playing it. And playing it. And playing it. I think I, somehow, clocked in around 150 hours in that game. I did every sidequest, did the post-game challenge gauntlet multiple times, caught just about every Robopon I could catch, messed around with the machine that changes robopon stats, fought the Battle Genesis 5 tutorial trainers in your company. Even though I owned Pokemon Gold, and Pokemon Ruby was looming on the horizon, I just continued to play and mess around with this game. I caught and sold robopon to grind up money so I could do the Illusion Village stuff. I found out if you caught Sumisu in the Big Broadcasting Tower you could find it with the Omega software, but you'd have to evolve it to be able to take it off of the Robopon. In school I talked my head off to friends about the game and got them vaguely interested in it. They thought the software part was neat, and saw some of the designs as cool. I'm pretty sure I did a 5 minute stand-up speech about this game for class too. Unfortunately sometime in 2011 I forgot to change the battery in time, so my old save is lost like tears in rain.
The mid era (Holy crap I have a computer with internet access now? Holy crap they made a sequel? Holy crap they made a N64 game?) [2005-2009]
Sometime in...2002? I bought a copy of Tips & Tricks Magazine (or Electronic Gaming Monthly; browsing both of these online I have not found the exact page I looked at) since I loved messing around with cheats and codes in games. There was a section in them that included the release dates/months of upcoming games, and one of them mentioned Robopon 2. "Wow, a sequel? I wasn't expecting that." But hey, sometimes these things happen. And then I never saw it on store shelves. I just thought it was canceled without fanfare and that was that. Oh well, I never saw any screenshots of it, just a line of text in a list so thought it never went very far in development. This also tended to happen, games getting announced but then due to various issues they'd never get finished or picked up by a publisher and never released. I never thought too much about it, kept playing Robopon Sun on and off and played a bunch of other stuff (Gamecube games, GBA titles, and I got a PC in 2001 so I started playing computer games at this point like Command & Conquer, Simcity and The Sims). Plenty of stuff to keep myself entertained, but that thought of an announced yet unseen sequel to Robopon stayed in the back of my head.
In 2005 my household had a computer capable of internet, and my parents realized that you could indeed get FREE internet for 30 days by using those dumb AOL internet trial disks you'd get in the mail monthly. Naturally I did searches of video games I was playing at the time; Animal Crossing, The Sims, Pokemon Ruby...but eventually I was curious to see if anyone talked about Robopon. One search online and what's this? A page on Gamespot about Robopon 2? Screenshots? It actually existed? I was kinda floored; I thought it was a phantom game or something. It was 2005 though; good luck finding it on store shelves at this point. Fortunately the internet came in handy...kinda. In 2005 my parents _did not_ trust the internet for ordering or anything at the time, so that was out; I didn't know about emulation so that wasn't an option either. There was a store in town that sold records and CDs and such, but they _also_ took requests for books, movies, games; visit them, tell them what you want, pay part of it then and the rest when it arrives. So I did just that, and that's how I got my copies of Robopon 2 Cross and Tales of Symphonia.
Wow, I guess it was real after all.
So Robopon 2 is...different. Similar, but different. The story is a direct sequel to the first game; after becoming the Legend 1, Cody gets an invitation to compete in a tournament across the sea in a new region. He gets shoved upon a boat? sub? before being properly prepared, resulting in him not having any of his Robopon once he arrives. Once there he has to become the Champion in a similar way to the first game; working his way through the ranks by challenging the Majiko Rank Holders. If you're worried about this game being tame in comparison, don't be; it's still _weird_. The dialogue has been improved (even though it feels like a gag translation at times) but the story is still silly. Flooding the kingdom via fishing up a giant flower pot, anyone?
Visual and audio wise, it's a _massive_ upgrade. Huge art shift aside, this looks pretty good for early GBA. The sprites look nice, the robopon portraits have a few frames of animation, some of the attacks use full screen effects, it's something that I feel holds up today. The music is better, but it's kinda hard to describe? Rather different from Pokemon OSTs, feels a bit closer to something like Monster Rancher or Digimon maybe? And hey, BOTH games released in the states, so you can actually trade and collect them all this time. The only real differences between the two are some robopon and items you'll find, as you'd expect. At the beginning of the game you find 3 batteries you can use to spark robopon and the results are different between games. There's also...more subtle differences. Ring is actually the harder game of the two, with a slightly higher encounter rate.
The way you acquire Robopon is very different; no buying them or catching them here, instead you "Spark" them with Batteries you can find or purchase. The Robopon you get depends on the type of batteries sparked, but a large bulk of combinations result in a worthless Robopon called Gear or Bulbot (which one you get depends on the version you're playing). There's still about 170 Robopon total, but most are new; about 80% of the roster from the first game are nowhere to be seen here. Robopon now have two extra stats: Force and Willpower (effectively Special Attack and Special Defense, respectfully). There's a third new stat that's...odd; Oil type. Oiltype is only used for some moves; Love and Hate moves will only target robopon with the most and least compatible oil types. Evolution has changed; collecting Energy balls is no longer a thing, instead Robopon evolve by reaching a specific level and then taking them to a Lab for upgrading. Evolution however cuts that robopon's level in half, reducing their stats in the process. Their levelup growths improve upon evolution, so by the time they're back at their old level they'll be stronger than they were before. Types are roughly the same; still just Arm, Move and Boot. Arm types have been slightly diversified, Move types are still speedy (but since there's no overworld segments requiring speed/swimming/flight they don't feel as interesting imo) and Boot types are still tanks, but they're much worse as they don't come with parts or software at all and cannot equip any.
The mechanics in battle are much improved. The biggest change here is that battles are now party vs party, rather than 1v1 like the first game and Pokemon. Speed stat determines the order that robopon move in as well as basic attack accuracy, so it's very similar to how general JRPGs do things. As for menu selection, Evade is no longer an option but you have new options available. You can do Analyze; this basically tells you the type, class, oiltype and current stats of an enemy Robopon. Attacking has been split up into Attack (the basic attack from the first game, and far more powerful) and Skills (using software moves and inate skills some robopon learn on levelup). There's also Autobat, where the game CPU will automatically battle for you; each of your Robopon can be set to 3 different autobattle types. Warlike goes all out on offense, Economy tries to conserve power(?) and Recovery focuses on healing and buffing the party. Honestly I never really used this much, there's not a lot of choice when it comes to combat styles and they seem to love using hate moves against formations that have no robopon they hate. There's also a slot machine that rolls at the top of the screen during your attacks? It'll either do nothing (most common result), give your attack a multiplier, or land on a Jackpot which'll do a variety of things, like give you extra experience or heal a party member just a slight amount. It's...whatever? It's too random to really make a difference I feel. You can still Defend or use Items, naturally.
Parts have been modified slightly; they also grant bonuses to Force and Willpower, but there are no parts that do special effects on a basic hit. Parts _do not_ have to be equipped, but since they're free stat bonuses you'd always have something attached unless it's a Boot type (which since they cannot equip parts at all makes them far worse than Arm and Move types now). Parts are more directly assigned to Class; Arm type, Healer class robopon can only equip parts meant for Healer Class robopon outside of a few that are marked as Arm Any. Software is still a thing, but there's no longer any RAM capacity so you're free to equip 3 types of whatever, whenever you have them. There's far less software variety compared to the first game; only around 100 skills total, 30 of which are only learned inately and not from software, leaving about 70 types total. A fair amount of that remainder is also taken up by all of the various <Stat> up, <Stat> down, <Buff/Heal> love and <Nerf/Damage> hate moves. All of the different attributes have been reduced down to just a few; Fire, Ice, Thunder, Stone and Wind. They're mostly in the background now; robopon still have weaknesses and strengths but they don't make as large of an influence as they used to, and as far as I can tell they're not told to you in game at all.
Status effects have been simplified; Rust is just poison, Suspend makes a robopon unable to act until it's attacked, SysCrash makes a robopon unable to act for 2 turns, Fog reduces accuracy, Hack makes you unable to use skills, Virus is confusion, Reboot prevents that robopon for doing anything for the turn. Unlike the first game which had around 30 different effects, that's all of them here. Some robopon learn skills upon level up, but the most any will learn this way is only three. Some of these are more similar to what you'd see in a standard JRPG; moves that hit a random robopon in combat, including your own or itself, moves that physically attack multiple times in a row, or a move that attempts to steal an item. If these robopon evolve, they do keep the moves they learned in their previous form and may learn new moves in their new form, which is quite nice. Some robopon also have...I guess they're like Abilities from Gen 3 pokemon? But they're not told to you, you'll just see them activate in combat sometimes. Things like reducing physical damage, lowered EP usage, counterattacking or a small chance to heal a little damage at the end of the round.
One odd thing missing from this game is sidequests. There were quite a few in the first game, but here? I mean I guess there's Hoffman Tower, similar to your company in the first one you have to expand it, but here it just requires you to spark more and more robopon and store them in the warehouse. There's Marvel Labs, a end-game grind area where if you tell specific passwords to a dog you'll get some robopon as gifts. There's the mushroom hunt; you can find red, blue or yellow mushrooms around the world and drop them off at a mushroom shop. You'll get a different spirit depending on the mushroom, some will give you extra exp for a time, some will drop random items out of your inventory. It's basically a replacement of the time panel/fairy teddy bears from the first game. Outside of those? There's not much. Like one or two small dungeons you can get some items in that's decent for grinding when they become available. The minigames from the first game return...sorta. It's now called "4tune" and true to the name there's only 4: Puncher and Jumper return but have been slightly modified so level and a high stat aren't everything for these. A new one called "Itemaze" was added and it's the pipe game you sometimes see in video games (I only just learned this is properly called Ghost leg, or Amidakuji), acting as a replacement for Defender. And of course there's Battler, which is just a battle without item use. These are entirely optional, they're not forced upon you like in the first game.
This is quite the overhaul for a sequel, pretty much making it less of a Pokemon clone and more of a traditional JRPG with some Mons game elements. When I played this in 2005 I was kinda floored. Everything was so...different. Radically changed, yet still felt a bit familiar. A much larger leap than two generations of Pokemon, for sure. My reaction to all of these changes?
Thanks! I hate it!
Yeah, believe it or not, as a teen I absolutely....well, I didn't _hate_ it, but I disliked it a fair amount. Why so little software moves? Why are boot types even worse than they were in the first game? Why is most of the roster from the first game gone? Why is the battle system so weird? Why does the plot take so long for each Xstone? Why does the game have such huge difficulty spikes? Why are the parts so boring now? Why do I not catch robopon anymore, and instead have to use this weird sparking system? Why do the sprites look so long? Why does combat include a weird slot reel mechanic?
Certainly my biggest gaming disappointment of 2005. I think back then I gave the first game a 10/10 while the second game got a 6/10. I made it close to the end of the game (the Robopon Graveyard) but I just couldn't bring myself to finish it; the difficulty spike at this point was nuts and I just couldn't bring myself to continue on. Of course the fact that I had internet at the time meant that the web was the new distraction machine, as well as the DS finally getting games, and the Wii coming out soon, Robopon 2 just couldn't compete.
Unlike the first game, this one didn't hold my attention for very long, but I did come up with...well, some things. Hypotheticals like "What if this used the Software system from the first game?" or "What if this kept every Robopon from the first game?", I just kept thinking that the game could be so much better if it kept more from the first games. Maybe not _every_ Robopon from the first games (there are a lot that are just...ew), but enough of them. I think the thing that bothered me the most (even now) is the lack of software moves, it just neuters combat so much in my opinion. I guess this could just be boiled down to "change bad, I hate change".
The late era (Oh yeah, I did enjoy that franchise didn't I) [2010-202X]
I cannot state how much this series, this single, obscure, random franchise from Red Entertainment and Hudson, was a massive obsession for me over the prior. I made a briefly lived topic on Gamefaqs that ended up being a partial resource (and was credited in an faq!). My email addresses from the mid-00s used the name of the fake company I came up with as a OC (Original...company?) for the game. I took sheets of paper, folded them in half and made little paper books in the form of mock manuals for some Robopon, Parts and Software.
This franchise is what partially attracted me to the idea of Programming in general, as it was a desire to make a fangame that I started tinkering around with such a thing. Well, it wasn't really much of a game, I never really moved beyond a concept and even the concept itself was flaky. Basically a programming game of sorts? You'd code robopon parts and software, stick the files in a folder, stick that in a zip or tar file, rename it .robo and some main program would read the .robo file, extract the files, read the data and would...do something??? Look I was 16 and didn't have much of an understanding on how games or code worked (which is a terrible excuse to be fair). I vaguely made some junk in some sort of pseudo-code that was heavily edited from a MUGEN cmd file but I never got very far; later on I wanted to do it all in Ruby (or Python, or Lua) but that whole thing was sidelined by the time I graduated high school (Plus at the time I was pre-occupied with coming up with the ideas that would morph into SLASHTHEM).
You know I have money now, I can just import the rest of these now
Around 2011, my interest in the games were basically done. Nothing new to be seen, all of the games were known about at this point, emulation of them was possible (even though the special functionality of the Gameboy titles were basically impossible to do at this time). I did everything I could possibly do in Robopon Sun and I played enough of Robopon Cross. My attempt to make a fangame of this had petered out by this point since I was starting College and figured I'd put everything towards that. I did start getting an income at this point though, so I basically figured why not start importing the rest of the games I didn't own. Quite a few titles for that; the japanese versions of the first gen games, Robopon 64, and Robopon Ring. Fortunately since this was before the explosion of retro game prices I was able to get most of these easily and cheaply; Japanese versions of Sun, Star and Moon only ran me 20 bucks, and Robopon 64 was only 10. Took a few years before I was able to find Comic BomBom, but that along with another copy of Robopon Sun cost 40. Robopon Ring I didn't get until the end of 2021; that was the most expensive by far, costing 90 dollars for an english copy. I didn't bother getting japanese copies of either of these since, outside of the language used, there's no difference. I also bought a copy of the japanese Robopon Sun/Star player's guide, fairly cheap at about 25 dollars.
Robopon Moon is effectively the "third version" mon games loved to do. Different encounters, a few extra areas added, and in this case they added a few more Robopon, about 20 of them. Some (I believe) have to be traded from Robopon 64, but otherwise I think they're given out as rewards for beating the side dungeons and extra areas. I think every encounter table was expanded, from 4 to 6, so a bit more variety which is nice. A lot of robopon sprites were changed and overhauled, which generally look better. Anything more detailed than that I can't really tell you though, but it seems to be the best of the three because of the changes. Robopon Comic BomBom is...odd. It seems to mostly be a version of Robopon Sun with half of the trainer and robopon sprites changed to resemble art from Comic BomBom? It's not super rare but it's not common either. It's whatever I guess.
Robopon Ring isn't hugely different from Robopon Cross; different encounters of course, Ring is a bit more difficult due to higher encounter rates, and the Sun/Moon/Ion batteries at the beginning of the game spark different Robopon. Ring is more expensive online as it's the rarer one of the two, I wouldn't be surprised if the price on that one is pushing past 100 dollars these days. Honestly you can pick either of them if you want to play, it doesn't really make that large of a difference between the two.
If you want a brief review on Robopon 64; you won't be getting one as I cannot read Japanese, just know that the game is...weird. Like, part animal raising sim, part battler, part 3d fighting game. But it also uses a heavy amount of sprites. Also there's only about 50 robopon in the game. And even though you're in a 3d arena, your attacks hit or miss irrespective of where you're at on the battlefield and what direction you're facing. It also seems really grindy. Told you its weird. I've basically only played about two hours of the game total, but one day I'd like to sit down and actually attempt to figure it out. From what I can tell, you battle other trainers in the open sea to get stronger and get gold so you can buy parts and software and seeds? which you plant to grow more robopon? while your robopon stats increase from battles and also doing housework and chores??? Perhaps sometime in 2036 we'll have an english fan translation of this.
I didn't really know that the franchise had other merch until the mid 2010s, but I never really saw much of a point to attempt to buy it since for the imports it seemed expensive. It had a pretty heavy marketing blitz in Japan from the looks of it; the games, action figures, toys, the manga, and even trading cards. It definitely seemed liked Hudson wanted this to blow up and become a monster hit, but I have no idea how well it did in Japan. Considering it sputtered out around 2003, I assume not very well. Funny how I thought my collection meant I was surely the biggest fan of Robopon alive, nobody could possibly have more than I do. I mean, I have every game!
Ah, oh well.
<The void>. Because a community for this game doesn't exist. And Hudson doesn't really care about this franchise. Because nobody bought it.
Naturally, nobody really talks about this game. Why would they? It's an obscure RPG from the late 90s and early 00s that attempted to cash in on the pokemon popularity right at the peak of pokemon popularity. Not many people bought this game when it came out. People certainly don't care about the franchise today. Even Hudson or Red Entertainment never bring anything up about this series. Why would they? It didn't really sell. It's practically a footnote on Hudson's website. The most this thing is well known for is "That one pokemon clone that has a similar name to Pokemon games that came out 15 years later". Well, that and the borderline NSFW manga.
The only other things that have really happened with the series over the past decade is the reveal that Robopon Star actually _did_ get a localization for the US market, it was just never released. This was discovered during the 2020 Gigaleak when a slew of lotcheck dumps were put online, and the Robopon manga started to get a fan translation so people can read it and, you know, not just stare at the panels with big busty women in them.
I can't say there's _no_ community for this game. Just incredibly, utterly tiny. A subreddit exists; after existing for 7(?) years it has...about 500 subs. Maybe a post every few months or so asking if it's possible to play on a flashcart or someone coming across it for the first time. There's a fansite on Neocities, but it only covers the first generation. There's also the Robopon Wiki on Fandom, but it seems it hasn't gotten updates in a while (no surprise considering how sucky Fandom is these days). You might find someone on Twitch playing it (that was me, the past several months). If you're very lucky, you might catch someone speedrunning it; only one person I know of has done so and they haven't played it in years I believe (Keizaron will never see this). You might find someone dig it up for Youtube every now and then but most just give it a brief, 10 minute look and nothing beyond that. Melody Nosurname has done the most comprehensive look at the entire franchise I've ever seen; a massive, nearly 4 hour look at every game and merch. I haven't watched it yet, but will do so after this entry gets posted (if I'm inaccurate in my looks at the games I'll keep them unaltered; after all, this is basically a history of how I've seen and understood them).
The Robopon Iceburg (as far as I can tell, this is literally the only western Robopon fansite on the web)
Youtube - Robopon Is more Than Just A Pokemon Ripoff by Melody Nosurname (a nearly 4 hour video, certainly the most comprehensive look at the franchise I've seen. I have not watched this entire video but I will after this blog entry goes up.)
There are a couple of romhacks available. There's the MBC-3 hacks for Sun and Star I mentioned when talking about the first generation of games, allowing you to play them on actual hardware while keeping access to the RTC and IR functions (kinda). There's also a WIP Disassembly of Sun and Star up on Github, however work on it has been rather sporadic. There's two romhacks for Ring and Cross, in particular I've been playing through Robopon 2: 0xOS Version which is a slight balance patch to the game in addition to allowing you to spark-em-all. It turns the different robopon classes into more unique, dedicated roles, and makes it so any robopon type can equip parts assigned to its type and not its class, similar to the first generation. From what I can tell there's no translation efforts going on for Robopon Moon, Comic BomBom, or Robopon 64 (There's one for Moon on github, but it's AI and has gone untouched for months. Go figure.), which I suppose is no real surprise. In terms of romhacking utilities there's a few modules for a tool called Nightmare2? It appears it was never completed though, unfortunately.
WIP Robopon Disassembly by PikalaxALT on Github
Robopon 2: 0xOS Version Patch on Romhacking.net
As for what I think about these games, in 2026? Robopon Star, or rather Gen 1, has a few things I actually really like. The story is kinda silly. Some of the sprites look decent. I like the parts and software system, moreso the software since it grants a lot of customization. Honestly though I much prefer the second game. Despite having some flaws (the parts and software not being as interesting, and c'mon what sense does it make to have sneak attacks in _trainer battles_), I think it's better with a more interesting combat system and an even sillier (imo) story. The visuals and music are much improved as well. I'd recommend the GBA titles for anyone interested, especially the 0xOS version since it tones down some of the grindiness in my opinion. You don't really need to know anything from the first game to play the second.
One thing I would love to see is translation patches for the rest of the gen 1 titles as well as the N64 game, but I don't expect these to arrive anytime soon. I've had a few ideas for a fan remake of the games; certainly well beyond my skill level to do, and the ideas probably aren't the best. But that's rather lengthy so I'd probably save that for its own separate post. Primarily use 2's battle system as the basis, but adding a few things over from the first games. More part variety, allow all arm types to equip any arm part regardless of class, way more software variety, make it to where a level 2 software counts as 2 level 1 softwares for the purposes of granting move combinations that rely on multiples of the same software (Fire2 giving Napalm like 2 Fire1 softwares).
As for the chance of us seeing a sequel or a revival of this series? It's dead, c'mon now. Hudson was bought by Konami who has no desire of reviving the series. Red Entertainment seems to mostly be making...Visual novels now? Huh, didn't expect that one. The mangaka of the comic is the only one basically giving any new content relating to the series in the form of the odd doodle or drawing of a character. As far as the companies that own this franchise know, this is a dead and buried series that won't even be mentioned by them, a gamble by Comic BomBom to produce the next Pokemon to sell more issues of their magazine that didn't sell as much as they wanted.
But hey, these games will always have a specific bit of nostalgia for me, and they kinda lead me to the path of becoming more skilled and knowledgable about computers. I guess that's something. Now if you'll excuse me I'll go and watch that Melody Nosurname video.
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