Overview
Fed up with arguing with your friends about who has the better taste in music? Well here's a way to settle things with this arena based battle game that uses your music CD collection to fight! The concept is simple. Each player inserts a CD and the game uses the information to generate three fighters. You then go head to head in a random area - taking it in turns to choose to fight or maybe use one of your special attack moves. The winner is the last one standing.
Comment
So the idea behind CD battle sounds like a laugh. Put in 2 music CDs and beat up your mates. Unfortunately that's all there is to it. Have a battle, have another, have another. There is almost no variety and very little design flair which means after about three goes it feels pretty stale. Other than proving that the Latest Jean Michel Jarre CD can beat up the soundtrack to Ghostbusters (which it did with startling efficiency), the whole exercise is rather pointless.
sunteam_paul
You say...
In 1992 the big toy fad amongst Japanese kids was the Barcode Battler. Kids swiped barcodes through what looked like a particularly ugly handheld. This ugly handheld then converted the data from the barcodes into numbers "characters" who would then fight it out on the machines tiny LCD screen. Released soon after this CD Battle is pretty much the same deal, however, instead of using barcodes it uses the data from Audio CDs. One would imagine King Records rushed this out asap to milk the craze for all it was worth. It shows.
Two players insert their CDs of choice and the game creates a three person party, looking strikingly similar to the Final Fantasy games of the time. They then proceed to duke it out in the turn-based style familiar to anyone who played an RPG during the mid-90s. That's pretty much the whole game.
Despite the RPG stylings there's no real quest mode or anything like that, the combat system is fairly rudimentary and the characters lack imagination. There is some fun in going through your music collection with a friend (Beach Boys vs. Beatles!! etc), though it doesn`t really make up for the lack of everything else. As a gaming curio its worth checking out due to its low price (usually under 500 yen). Very much a product of its time. 2/5.
William Byard
Cheats/Tips
SOUND TEST: On the title screen push and hold SELECT + UP + I + II. |
