The year is 2050. Kids are super into this game called LBX – Little Battler Experience. Here's how it works. You buy a model mech from the toy shop and put it together. Then you get together with your friends and gather around the LBX board, which is really more like a tabletop gaming platform (think Warhammer) than a board-game board. Each of your little mechs has different capabilities and attributes, and you pit them against one another. Sounds pretty fun, right? Alright, time for some Inception s**t. We're going to go down a level. Ready?
In this fictional world, something conspiratorial is happening. There's some sort of military group making little robots, and somehow they end up in the wrong hands (bear with me here, my Japanese is pretty much nonexistent). Fast-forward, and a group of little kids ends up actually piloting their LBX mechs in real battles. How did they get there? I don't really know, and I'm pretty sure Japanese kids won't really dwell on that either. All they will care about is what I'm about to say.
They will not only be able to play a PSP game that takes them into this world and puts them in ths shoes of these ordinary-children-turned-mech-pilots. But they will also be able to buy actual plastic toy versions of the mechs they are using the game, which are themselves based on fictional toy mechs that are sold in the game world. I realize I just blew your mind right there, and I apologize. But it had to be done.
Little Battler Experience is the newest PSP game from Level-5, and it's pretty much brilliant. Will it have any appeal in the west? Probably not. It's too squarely aimed at Japanese culture to have much of an impact outside of it. But it's a perfect example of the airtight integration of toys, games and entertainment (think there'll be an LBX anime?) in Japan.
I spent a good half hour with LBX here at the Tokyo Game Show, and it was actually a lot of fun. The anime-style cutscenes are very well-produced, and the environments are bright and cheery. The combat is fairly standard, at least in the demo (lock onto target, attack, build up a meter to do special attack), but it was simple and satisfying. LBX won't be redefining handheld gaming any time soon, but it's a great idea and I imagine it will be hugely successful. But you never know. Kids are picky. If Level-5 misjudged the material or if kids turn up their noses at the robot designs, then it's game over. But if it hits, look out.
