Biomotor Unitron Review – A Quality Pokémon-Influenced Dungeon Crawler!

To say that Nintendo’s Pokémon had an influence on the video game industry would be a massive understatement. After its release, many companies tried to mimic aspects of that remarkable series of games. One of SNK’s attempts to cash in on the craze was with their own JRPG featuring collectability as a key part of its design: Biomotor Unitron.

In it, you are a pilot of a machine who wants to become a famous master of your Unitron by defeating challengers in an arena in town. To achieve this, you repeatedly venture out to four different dungeons defeating enemies in one-on-one battles and finding money and materials in treasure chests. Based on your starting character, your Unitron has a certain affinity to a specific element, initial loadout, and sprite in the overhead dungeon areas.

This means that you may be a Birdian who has wings on the back of your mech and an affinity for wind, or a Mariner who looks like a walking fish with a focus on water, among other options. Along with these choices, the four main dungeons also feature enemies of a certain element type. Each of these are strong and weak against a specific affinity. For instance, Wood is strong against earth and weak against fire. Knowing these characteristics is a key part of being successful in the game.

Keeping track of all this may be a bit difficult to remember, but to help alleviate such confusion, the game has a built-in help feature. With it, there is an explanation of all the characteristics of your Unitron, a listing of the different elements, and more. This is really convenient so that you didn’t have to find your manual to study something before making a purchase or crafting a weapon. Although, the Neo Geo Pocket Collection that I am playing this on does include an electronic manual for the game if you want to refer to it. Other nice touches include a fast battle system, the option to turn off animations, and the ability to leave dungeons by a menu command. All of this demonstrates a thoughtful design by the game developers, which I appreciate a lot!

Speaking of battles and dungeons, in Biomotor Unitron you’ll be going through a many of both. Once in a dungeon, you walk around in an top-down view similar to the Gameboy Pokémon games looking for treasure chests or the stairs to the next floor. All the while fighting enemies in side view, one-on-one battles. These are often fast and satisfying to complete and beat. After winning a battle you obtain experience points for your character and money to use at the shop in town.

Each dungeon has a set of pre-built levels that are chosen at random. The game is not a pure rogue-like in the sense of floors being randomly generated. They are only randomly chosen from a list of pre-made options. The only floor not randomly chosen is the last one for each area. I found the dungeons to be of reasonable length, being about 30 minutes to complete in one sitting. These are enjoyable to go through repeatedly, and it was gratifying to see my mech’s abilities become stronger as the game progressed.

In the event that you lose a battle, you are automatically transported back to town with no consequences for your loss. Fundamentally, this means that the game promotes taking risks and going as far as possible before being defeated or you complete a stage. Once back in town, you can buy new material and equipment, craft new arms (weapons), and try and go up rank in the arena. This is basically the gameplay loop of the title, and works well as a portable dungeon crawler JRPG with collectathon elements. The main thing I don’t like about the gameplay is that you can only craft new weapons. It is not possible to craft new legs, heads, and the like. This made things a little less exciting than what I originally expected. Before playing the game, I thought you could craft all sorts of equipment for your Unitron, but you cannot.

As far as other elements to the game, the music and sound effects are fine, with good color use for the characters in and out of battle. Just think of it as GBC quality, and you’ll know what to expect. As far as the storyline, there are a couple of major story beats that occur, but your main character is one note, as are the different people in town. Despite that, I did like the big reveals at times and enjoyed the effort put forth in those moments, even if there are just a few of them.

All in all, Biomotor Unitron is a good game, and a product of its time. It doesn’t really excel in any one area, but for a portable JRPG it is well-designed for its hardware and the specific needs of a portable gaming system. It is a welcome inclusion to the NEOGEO Pocket Color Selection Vol. 2 collection.

Title: Biomotor Unitron
Genre: Dungeon Crawler JRPG
Year Released: 1999, or 2022 on Steam
Developer: Yumekobo, published by SNK
Played On: Steam, as part of NEOGEO Pocket Color Selection Vol. 2.

Price Paid: 60 cents, or $5.99 for the collection.

Remember, we can have different opinions about the games we play. If you like something more (or less) than I do, both of our perspectives are valid.