PlayStation Basement #33 - Robo Pit

This review was originally published on the Console Purist Facebook group on April 13th, 2019. Some grammatical errors have been corrected from the original posting.

It’s Saturday, and it is time for PlayStation Basement! PlayStation Basement is a weekly review of an odd or obscure game for the original PlayStation. This one is gonna be a bit shorter, as I am hyper-busy this week. Though I formerly used a rating out of nine to review the game, I am now just using a Good, Bad, or Neutral.

Today I will bridge the gap between two key things – mecha and Easter. Of course, I reviewed those three mecha games the last three weeks, and Easter is next week. Today’s game features some egg-ish robots, but they are not mechs. This is Robo Pit, a robot arena fighter from Altron and published by Kokopeli Digital Studios (the latter only in North America) in 1996. It came out on both PS1 and Saturn. Robo Pit allows the player to create a custom robot (not a Custom Robo mind you), and do battle with tons of computer opponents, honing skills and gathering new weapons on the way to the top. I got this game around when it came out from KB Toys, and it was one of my first PS1 games. How will it hold up?

Looking at the cover art to Robo Pit, you might think this game is a little more hardcore than it actually is. Despite the appearance of the North American and European artwork with the red robot smashing the yellow robot’s arm into bits, Robo Pit is a cartoony game with cute robots. The sepia Japanese cover art represents the game better. The American art totally drew me to look at it when I was little though.

As mentioned, Robo Pit features squat, egg-ish robots doing battle. The robots and stages look pretty nice. Robots don’t have tons of different body parts, but a decent amount of combinations exist. The different arms and color schemes especially give some cool variations. Each stage has a few different hazards and designs that differentiate from others, and most of them also have different looks depending on the time of day that the game decides the match to take place at. I do wish there were a few more parts, colors, stages, and weapons though. Robo Pit is a bit limited, but it works well enough.

This may surprise you, but I love Robo Pit’s musick and sound effects. The music goes for an energetic electronic rock with a few weird found sounds thrown in to make things really interesting. I always think of the weird song with the phone operator coming through. The sound effects have a crisp quality that is somewhat hard to describe. Explosions, lasers, and cannons have some cool slashing sounds, and I love the hollow, metallic sound when a big fist hits an opponent.

Now the gameplay in Robo Pit is where some rust starts to show. The controls are easy to manage, and the game is easy to understand. You have buttons for each hand/weapon, jumping, blocking, strafing, and special attacks. Each match has a time limit or goes until a knockout or ringout. Attacks reduce a character's health. Some weapons have ammunition but can make weak melee attacks afterwards. Winning a match adds points to your robot’s total, which determines your rank. Having a higher rank lets you fight against more opponents. Beating the top robot wins you the game. It’s simple stuff.

Unfortunately, it’s a bit too simple. The game doesn’t mix it up over the course of 50+ battles, and once you find a weapon combination that suits you, you won’t be making many changes. There are some special robots to fight that have stronger AI and special weapons, but nothing in this game is particularly difficult. Though the levels have some different stuff to pick up with the fist weapon and some different layouts and sizes, they also don’t always make a ton of a difference.

Robo Pit is a fun game at first, but it loses its shine after so many fights. I have completed the game a few times, and when I did so recently, it became a slog in the later half. One thing that is cool is to see how you might fight with different parts on your robot, but other than the arms, you are stuck with what you put together at first. A motorcycle piece is going to perform differently than legs, a propeller, or a spring. Some bodies have more defense or attack, others more speed. It all gets repetitive over time, though. Robo Pit could have been really great with a bit more work put in to the game, more variety especially. As it is, it’s nothing top-of-the-line.

Robo Pit receives a Neutral.

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