Retro Wrap-Up: Custom Robo Edition

One of the more interesting franchises to come out of Nintendo in the past decade was the Custom Robo series. The series is similar to the Cyber Trooper series, except the robots are the size of action figures and you can customize them however you want. The GameCube installment, called Custom Robo Battle Revolution in Japan, was the first game to be released internationally. It had a more mature story than previous installments, which helped fight off the “kiddie” stigma that Nintendo had since the SNES days.

And, wouldn’t you know it, Nintendo never bothered to properly advertize the damn thing! The Operation Rainfall Retro Commercial Research Team (in other words, me) found only one English commercial for Custom Robo, but I never saw it on TV. Hell, if I hadn’t seen a cutscene from the game on G4’s Cinematech, I wouldn’t have even heard of it. Regardless, here is that very commercial for your viewing pleasure in this week’s Retro Wrap-Up.

Here are the highlights of this past week.

Yen Press has announced that they will be publishing the Sword Art Online light novels and the Madoka Magica manga internationally.

Charlotte Buckingham gives us a preview of Two Brothers, and Crystal Baltimore previews MacGuffin’s Curse.

In addition, David Fernandes reviews Mamorukun Curse! for the PlayStation 3, and Jonathan Higgins reviews New Super Luigi U for the Wii U.

The Nicalis-published 3DS fighting game Yatagarasu has now switched names and platforms, becoming a Vita fighting game called Legend of Raven.

Meanwhile, Vblank Entertainment has announced that Retro City Rampage will be coming to the 3DS eShop.

Jeff Neuenschwander tries to justify GameStop’s used price for Xenoblade Chronicles in this week’s Jeff’s Musings.

Ubisoft Montreal announced it was creating its own love letter to JRPGs called Child of Light.

We take a look at Nozomi Entertainment in this week’s Publisher Spotlight.

Atlus announces they’ll be bringing 2D fighting game AquaPazza for the PS3 to North America.

Andy Na takes a look at The Vision of Escaflowne in this week’s Anime of the Past.

Sony has announced an official price drop for the PlayStation Vita and its memory cards. Finally!

A possible Wind Waker HD bundle for the Wii U was briefly leaked onto YouTube before being taken down. Hopefully, this will be the real deal in a couple months.

Namco registers a few more trademarks in the Tales series. What could they mean?

Speaking of which, Phil Schipper and his motley crew continue their journey through Tales of Symphonia in this week’s Stream Recap.

Sony announced its launch library for the upcoming PlayStation 4. Microsoft did the same thing for the Xbox One.

Nicalis is bringing Grinsia, a JRPG by KECMO for mobile devices, to the 3DS eShop.

Finally, this week’s Downpour Podcast features leftover material from the Precursor Games interview a while back, since the hosts were pretty busy at the time.