Prior to SNK's departure from these shores, they gave American gamers a fantastic library of games which included a few good RPG. One of those RPGs is BioMotor Unitron. Developed by Yumekobo for SNK, BioMotor Unitron was a dungeon crawler that had many strategy elements in it, thus giving it a niche flavor. But after SNK practically died at the hands of Nintendo, it became rather difficult to obtain a copy of BioMotor Unitron. So is it worth the aggravation to track down BioMotor Unitron? Unless you absolutely must have a good story and characters in your handheld RPG fix, I'd have to say yes.

BioMotor Unitron started off rather boring in terms of story and catchy plot sequences, but it became fairly interesting as time went by. The word "cliche" has a home in the storyline and overall execution, but it is still a well-told plot regardless of the lack of originality. As it goes, the planet of Elscea was war torn many years ago. Kingdoms and castles had been decimated by the war until the meteor Unitice hit the continent of Tridiss. Somehow, someway, this prevented the war from continuing and saved the kingdom of Rhafiace and the entire world.

The friendly neighborhood meteor released UNITRON crystals that sparked munitions creation. The munitions were the ultimate Unitron robots that were built by the inhabitants of the planet. These were then used as peacekeepers to potential opposing nations. After 199 years of war-free existence, the kingdom of Rhafiace holds yearly tournaments to determine who the "Master of Masters" is. These grand engagements are fought with Unitrons in arenas inside the kingdom. After you choose what race/class your warrior will be, you initiate gameplay and are welcomed into the world of BioMotor Unitron.

The plotline is of low ambition and execution, but that is understandable since the focus on BioMotor Unitron was mostly directed towards creating a dynamic battle engine that utilized the NGPC's power to create a close-to-console experience. But the story itself isn't very bad at all. It has a few decent twists and takes place in a joyful little castle so all emotion isn't lost. There really are no other characters besides the fifteen or so people you meet up with in the town. These characters don't develop and so, a small chunk is chipped off the final story score.

As for the main protagonist, BioMotor asks that the player take the role of the active character instead of watch as the protagonist develops. While this is what RPGs are all about, it would have been nice if the main character had a more involved role in the plot and its outcome. Utilizing this standard RPG feature would have given the characters some more ambience and would have given BioMotor Unitron a more mature edge than what you have here. But it certainly fits the bill well enough, and despite the story being only an add-on to a wonderful gameplay engine, it still fares well enough when compared to the traditional NES RPG.

The gameplay in BioMotor Unitron is good, to say the least. The game revolves around collecting various tools and minerals in the dungeons surrounding Rhafiace, so that you can add on to your Unitron to make it more powerful. Once you have tuned the Unitron to taste, you can either go through dungeons acquiring experience and other statistical boosts, or you can participate in the arena battles held inside Rhafiace. But the story will not progress until you have beaten the opposition in the Rhafiace arena.

The dungeon crawling itself is rather dull. While it does help to raise your money and item supply, some of the random battles are ridiculously difficult. But not to worry though, you are brought back into the kingdom even if you die, but you must trudge through another randomized cave if you wish to complete to the end of the dungeon (seven levels down, each increasing in difficulty) and acquire the supreme quantity of experience and items.

The battle engine is the most integral facet of this score in my humble opinion. Think of a souped-up Pokémon with giant Unitron robots and you have the idea. The battle menu is easy to navigate and very precise. There are a grand total of four options that are given to the player when their turn comes about. These consist of attack, item, charge (gather attack power or EP) and flee/escape. You can have two weapons on either arm of your Unitron, but only one can be used in a turn. There is also the "Special" command that gives you a battle advantage that is obtained from one of the characters in Rhafiace. I had no complaints about the battle system; it's not brilliant, but it was implemented well.

To complement the game even more, the menu's are very well done and make an otherwise boring chore of equipping items and weapons an easy task. After the desired weapon/armor has been created with the minerals and money collected in the dungeons, it can be attached onto your Unitron and alters the battle animation to show the Unitron with its new gear. There are no complaints here as the menus are wisely designed for ease of use.

The gameplay altogether is good, if a tad lacking. Had Unitron been lengthier than a paltry eight hours, and if the random dungeon generation didn't exist here, BioMotor Unitron would have shined brighter than Christmas. But with strong consideration for all these problems, 81% is all BioMotor's gameplay deserves.

The graphics are fantastic for the Neo Geo Pocket Color, most of the monster and character designs are really close to true anime and rise above Pokémon's blocky sprite Pikachus. If there is one problem it has to be the battlefield. While the Unitrons and their attacks look sensational, there is no background animation to speak of. It's understandable as including one would have just bogged down speed and intensity, but it would have been nice to see something, anything as the background for the battles.

Otherwise the graphics have no weak points or visual errors to speak of. The visuals are some of the best ever and will only get better if a sequel is done on Game Boy Advance or Neo Geo Pocket Color.

What can I say about the control? It's devoid of flaws and handles movement with precision. There is some questionable collision detection, but the game otherwise handles its four-direction dungeon waddling with old-school finesse.

Sound/Music is pretty easy to review. There is nothing special here besides some good battle music. I know that we're not dealing with a powerhouse CD player such as the Playstation, but Yumekobo could have done so much more in this area of the game. Some wavy western tunes could have progressed the thrilling battles more, but it wasn't annoying, and in the end I guess that's the only thing that really matters in a handheld RPG.

Even if BioMotor Unitron has a few flaws here and there, that still doesn't dismiss the fact that it's a fun game to play. The difficulty becomes a little unbalanced if you venture too deep into a dungeon with too few hit points, but it was never unbearable. If Yumekobo had possibly made only one dungeon design instead of about a dozen for each dungeon, they would have had the ability to give BioMotor Unitron some more longevity. The game is just too brief (about eight hours max) to make you replay it more than twice, and the aforementioned character fumbles drag the score down somewhat. But for a solid strategy/RPG experience, you would be hard pressed to find a better handheld game than this.