Developer: Locomotive Entertainment Publisher: Bam! Entertainment

Released: July 12, 2000 Rated: T 3/10

(Note: I would often see this game having a release date in North America around the holidays — November 15, 2000 — but have seen July as an earlier date. I believe this is the date it was made available at Blockbuster for rental and November is the retail release date.)

“Let’s get it over with!” Shouts Rattrap as I choose his portrait from among the eight on the character select screen, indicating that he likely views the action of Transformers: Beast Wars Transmetals as much of a chore as I do at this point. Based on the perfectly ‘90s-centric spinoff of the Transformers franchise that adds animal transformations alongside the familiar robots and vehicles, it’s easy to get the sense that this was the type of cartoon simply screaming for a video game, alongside its other lucrative merchandising opportunities. In that sense, it’s a bit odd that it took over a year for this title to hit North America, and even then, only as a Blockbuster rental title, but as we’ll see, that may be a case of hesitation to localize what is simply a bad, shallow game. That is, until a company like BAM! entered the fray, looking to publish their very first title in a long line of mostly licensed dreck that would clutter their resume until their bankruptcy only five years later.

It would be easy to write Transmetals off as just another of the N64’s sub-par fighting releases – Dark Rift, War Gods, Dual Heroes – but what’s really a shame is that the developers at Locomotive seemed like they had an idea for how to implement the variety of each character’s forms, but lacked the scope or opportunity to make things truly enjoyable (their only other credits on the N64 are the godawful AeroGauge and the mediocre Penny Racers). Characters can transform between their distinct robot, vehicle, and beast forms, with the only caveat being that vehicle must be used as an in-between step in the transformation. As a rule of thumb, robot form (which is how every match begins) is the slowest form and uses mostly ranged weapons, vehicles are the fastest (and most unwieldy), and beast is typically more balanced and uses mostly melee attacks. Seeing each character’s unique forms is just as much a highlight of the experience as it would be in the cartoons and toys, but it’s essentially hampered by the medium, at least with the gameplay just being so dull and clunky.

Gameplay in Transformers Beast Wars actually feels a lot more like games in the kaiju-fighting subgenre, including a lot of games that would come later such as War of the Monsters and the Godzilla games by Pipeworks. They’re not strictly on a 2D plane where characters are always facing each other and can sidestep to move in a 3D space. It’s a small arena with free movement, but whereas the heavy, deliberate pace and collateral damage of giant monsters is a key part of the appeal in a game like Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters – Melee, Transmetals’ fights take place on completely barren pieces of low-res texture against a static backdrop. And regardless of what form your characters are in, controlling them and executing their attacks is incredibly low on both precision and complexity. It’s not easy to hit your opponent, whether it’s with an up close tail swipe or a distanced missile launch, because there’s neither a tangible sense of aim nor competent hit detection anywhere. It’s both an extremely frustrating experience, even without the use of I-frames to prolong battles after somebody actually lands a hit, and even worse, it’s pretty boring as well. 

Other than each character having one super move/ultimate attack called an Ultra Blast, the individual movesets, though unique to each character’s style, don’t offer much depth of strategy or complexity. Every fight is simply going to devolve into taking whichever form you personally like best and spamming the move you feel is the most likely to hit. It’s not a case of not being willing to learn the game, there simply isn’t anything deeper to explore than the base movesets. With eight base characters to choose from (and five secret characters that are simply palette swaps, only unique in their look and personality), you’ll rip through seeing what each of them has to offer pretty quickly, and not really be able to determine if you truly “like” any of them any differently from how you might already feel about them through other products. It’s easy to see why this was ultimately packaged and localized as a rental title, as like many of the other games from that subset, there’s certainly far too little replayability or content to justify a full purchase at the time.

Speaking of other content, there is actually a little bit to speak of, even if the actual game modes are limited to only arcade, vs. and team battle modes. A few mini-games, including an SD-style version of the regular gameplay, pad things out a little bit, but fans of the series may actually appreciate the toy viewer. You can view all of the in-game models and animations in a gallery under the bonus section, which also comes with character profiles and plays each character’s many in-game quotes as well. It’s both the one place where I would say fans of the franchise can truly get something cool out of this game, as well as the only time that the graphics really get to pull their weight, as the models do look pretty good, just not in the constantly rotating and zooming lens of the gameplay camera, against completely barren and insultingly basic backdrops. 

Getting to hear all the voice clips also gets at one of the few real redeeming qualities of the game overall, which is the sound design. I’m unsure if additional developer Genazea (whose splash screen is accompanied by the sultry tones of Megatron saying “Genazea, yeeeeeesss”) assisted in this department, but the amount and quality of the voice clips for each character was certainly a highlight that I can see fans really getting a kick out of. Music was also quite nice, with that 100mph, Dragonforce-esque composition style really overcoming the limitations of the soundfont to deliver some real Saturday morning energy to an otherwise extremely dull game. Much like BAM! Entertainment’s overall resume, it’s not enough to turn the tide of one’s perception towards the game, but it’s good to be able to glean some positives out of an otherwise banal offering.

Continuing Legacy

The Transformers franchise continues to have a bountiful number of video game releases, particularly in the wake of the ongoing film franchise. Of course, numerous titles and subseries have also had their runs in recent years, with various cartoons and other interpretations receiving game adaptations, with the most recent Transformers game as of this writing being based on Transformers: Earthspark. Particularly of note are the titles in the War for Cybertron series, developed by a slew of notable studios including High Moon Studios, Vicarious Visions, and Next Level Games. Also worth noting? There have been almost no fighting games in the Transformers franchise since the release of Transformers Beast Wars: Transmetals.

Additional Information

Saves: None

Compatible With: Rumble Pak

Players: 1-2

Print Guides: None

Aggregate Critical Reception (GameRankings): 48.67% based on 3 reviews

Other Releases: JP, October 1, 1999

My Streams

Commercials and Print Ads

I was hoping to at least find something like a poster from Blockbuster, but I wasn’t able to dig any up. I’ll update this if I come across anything.