So I opened Xcalibur Force Xtreme this weekend and I am impressed with it, despite not really knowing what to expect from it.
In the months leading up to its release what struck me was the fact that an equivalent tip was never released during the plastic generation (the series which I feel Burst is most similar to, at the moment). Grip and Storm Grip Base are perhaps the most similar Blade Bases, but you have to look to HMS (Grip Flat Core UV) and MFB (RF etc.) for any clear, obvious similarities.
This was interesting to me because of the focus on these two generations' focus on metal contact points: up until this point, we hadn't really seen what this particular form of rubber flat would do in a plastic-orientated metagame. Of course, this combined with the added complexity of the mechanics of Burst made it all the more intriguing! I've written a few thoughts, not in any real structure, below, which could be interesting to discuss.
Height in the Burst Metagame
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I'm continually surprised by the lack of significant height differences in Burst Drivers. Xtreme, which I had erroneously assumed would be taller than many of its other Attack Driver counterparts, is exactly the same height as Accel. Height constraints have been traditionally introduced to compensate for the strength and movement of these tips (whether deliberately or not), but it looks like Takara-Tomy has made a deliberate attempt to keep all Drivers at basically the same height. I'm assuming this because if you look at the design of Xtreme Driver closely, you can see that there is a lot of room for the actual tip to be housed further up (or down) the Driver. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Xtreme and Accel, and essentially all other hitherto released Drivers, are the same height.
I wonder why? Is it because the Burst mechanism doesn't work well when Beys are at different heights? Are they saving height alterations for future releases? It could be that this isn't something they're interested in anymore, but that would seem surprising considering how much of MFB was specifically designed around this, as well as the fact that height was also a strong feature of the plastics metagame.
Xcalibur's Teeth
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I have also noticed, as well as read many others echoing the same thing, how much more difficult it is to assemble any customisation using Xcalibur as the Layer. I would guess that this in turn makes Xcalibur more difficult to Burst than if it had shorter teeth, obviously, although I don't have any concrete evidence on this at all. Why is Xcalibur designed like this? Is it to compensate for, on initial impressions, pretty impressive attack potential?
Almost everything I've used on Xtreme has been very prone to Bursting, which I've seen being posted
elsewhere too. Xtreme has come with a whole new set of risks which its predecessors never really had. Is Takara-Tomy therefore moving towards Beyblades which are more robust?
Somewhere in between all this, you can basically infer that the Burst dynamic can still be developed a lot further. Layers might come out which are exceptionally hard to Burst (we already have Chaos, which is the opposite), and similarly I would guess that there is scope to control Burst rates in the Driver, as well. Right now however, to me at least, the design of Xcalibur's teeth embody the fact that the metagame, and the Burst mechanic in particular, is still very much in its infancy.
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