I once played this game when I was a young little shit, and it suddenly came to my mind not too long ago. I started replaying it that day as a very spur of the moment thing, and today I beat the game again, while also doing all of the endgame fights and collecting almost every robo part, both of which are things that I didn't give a shit about last time I played this. I'm still kinda surprised I got through this game back then, only looking at a guide once that I can remember even with my shitty english level, as there is a fair bit of text and characters tell you to go do things a lot. The story is very generic, predictable and almost condescending stuff for kids, though I found some of the characters enjoyable. The combat is really where this game loses me. Firstly, the ds can barely keep up. There's constant slowdowns whenever there's a lot of shit onscreen or just from the stage moving in any one with lava or water. Making a 3d brawler for the system was pretty bold, and I can admire how hard the developers tried, but perhaps the efforts would've been better spent in making a 2d brawler that ran well instead of a 3d one that runs like shit and plays like crap. The combat itself kinda blows to be honest, there's a lot of guns, bombs and pods (which basically also drop bombs) that work very differently, but easily 90% are total gimmicks that aren't worth the effort required to use effectively when there are several easy to use and low risk alternatives with good damage, and once I found a loadout that worked well together I had no reason to change it as I basically never lost in any story fight. Doesn't mean it was fun to stomp either, I swear every single enemy loves to run around like a headless chicken so killing them tends to take a while, and every single motherfucker can do a sort of tackle that hits like a truck, has a near instant startup animation and seemingly at random it's uninterruptible. Only the AI can do this by the way, not the player. You eat shit and take that 200 damage because fuck you. The combat themselves just don't feel great, there's a certain clunkyness to it all. Your jump leaves you unable to move for a bit when you land, though there are certain leg parts to alleviate this, and getting hit stuns you pretty easily. I could never really figure out why but some attacks seemed to stun for a lot longer, even if they were not freeze bombs or pods which are supposedly made for that. Still, I think dealing with all of the bullshit challenges and grinding for the endgame fights with annoying requirements left kind of a bad taste in my mouth. I really think this series could use one more entry, it has been over 10 years, a lot of things could be refined. Hell, I'd even take a spiritual successor at this point.