A BEYREFLECTION
I really hate the Rock-Paper-Scissors game Metal Fight Beyblade has become. The way I see it is:
Quetz 90RF > Earth Aquila DF145SD > MF Libra C145WB etc.
Upon encountering someone with all these parts, your chance of winning are probably about only 33%, and that's only if you also have all three customisations. Not exactly spectacular odds.
But my main issue with this whole simplification is the fact that Beyblade never used to be like this. I guess, Bearing Core dominated at one point, but TBTS was released and the imbalance rectified. Besides, it could be defeated in TA/TB
anyway. In the Plastic Generation, we had Tiger Defenser, War Lion, Twin Horn for Zombies and Upper Dragoon, Triangle Wing, Triple Tiger for Upper Attack. I could go on; there were a huge variety of parts to chop and change, as it were, for different or similar purposes.
I think, what I'm trying to say was totally summarised by the Libra situation at the moment:
Bey Brad Wrote:What makes Beyblade fun is having to pick which attributes are most important to you. Do you want a Wheel with extreme defense and high stamina, or high defense and extreme stamina ...
Currently, Libra has extreme defense and high stamina, but there are no other defensive options. Virgo and Flame have extreme stamina but their defense is too poor to be viable at all. And it's not like it's hard to make a new Wheel that's stronger than Virgo, but they're refusing to go into that weight class again.
For Defense, it is Libra or nothing. The way MFB is designed places such a huge amount of reliance on the Metal Wheel; putting Libra on almost any Track or Bottom will make it superior to an equivalent with another Wheel, more often than not.
To solve the above problem of Attack > Stamina > Defense, or Scissors > Paper > Rock, it is necessary to devise a customisation which transcends such typings, and can overcome them all = a "tier-killer", as Brad terms it. Libra CH120RF is one such customisation. However, in the process to create more successful "Balance" types, a huge number of parts become obsolete due to Libra's weight. Anything other than Libra will be demolished by Quetz or Storm with RF - and therein lies the real problem.
In this way, MFB has become totally stale for me, even with my MOJ order coming soon. The more I think about it, I'm only interested in my package for the pretty new Clear Wheels and clear parts. Which is upsetting in many ways. I feel there's no originality; the only thing remotely interesting in a long time is M145Q, which admittedly I am interested in testing.
And that's why Battle Strikers is a concept which really appeals to me. Granted, I've never even seen one in the flesh, let alone played with one, but the premise already has me waving the cash for whenever Metal XS comes out; the idea of being able to
actively affect the outcome of a match, and hence actually being able to hone your skills, and improve ones chances of winning, is a real draw. Customisation is a bonus on top of that.
---
Has anyone else noticed how brilliantly
ATTACK > STAMINA > DEFENSE
corresponds perfectly with
SCISSORS > PAPER > ROCK ?!
---
tl;dr i hate everything about metal fight beyblade except for pretty clear wheels