Around the time that Pokemon exploded in Japan, there was a company called Natsume who decided that they wanted to create a franchise centered around the concept of battling, trading, and two versions for the price of one. Imagineer was hired on to do that very job and an ambitions artist by the name of Rin Homura would lead the charge in designing the concept that would become the foundation of the Medarot, or Medabots as it's known here in the US. The first games were released in November 1997 which was a year after Pokemon Red & Green made their debut in February of 1996. This franchise had a lot of differences compared to Pokemon and we'll detail all of them here.

The world of the first game is similar to ours in a way but in a not so distant future of Japan. You star as Hikaru Agata: http://oi65.tinypic.com/14cs1nd.jpg

This young man is a normal kid in a normal town who one day while playing with his dog Bonaparte, he finds a medal of the Hercules or Stag Beetle depending on which version you're playing and this triggers him to take up Robattling as a new sport which all the kids in his town are really decent at. His rise isn't easy as he has to juggle school life, Kirara's affection, and even an evil gang called the Rubber Robos who cause mischief throughout the region. Robattling involves a single or team of Medabots shooting, smashing, and all sorts of mayhem until a winner is decided. This is the bread and butter of this game and despite its simplistic nature, it can be insane as RNG is often unfair and can lead to a lot of losses which can result in a game over or a loss of a part. Parts are what makes the bot fight and move and you can't afford to lose those as spares can be sold and traded for money which can go toward buy more parts to build more of these things. Beyond this, the plot is barebones like most battle and trading style RPGs. The soundtrack is very repetitive and grating, but the Robattle song is really good and so much so that later installments would slightly remix and reuse it a lot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70IoRYKNJiU

These set of games were also ported to the Wonderswan which was a Japan and Asian territory system made by Bandai which really wasn't that great to begin with as it tried to compete against the then Game Boy Color and the Game Boy Advance. The ports update the designs of the Medabots to reflect what they look like in the then anime release as well as the town layouts and music were tweaked. These ports are known as the Perfect Editions and beyond that, you aren't missing much: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKExoNzaBg8

There was also a pseudo remake called Shingata Medarot which means the True Medarot in English released for the Game Boy Advance in December of 2004 which really screwed the graphics and music but uses a slightly updated battle engine that we'll talk about in the next post which will cover the 2nd game. This game bombed so hard due to the bad graphics that the franchise slumbered till a new game was made for the DS some years later.

Videos are from Kimbles and Yanik Mangan's channels

Main characters image taken from scan of the manga.