The closest I ever came to ascending to godhood was on Christmas day in 2003. I was nine and a half years old, and I had been given a weapon. Beyblade was at the height of its popularity in my hometown, and I’d asked my parents for an imported Driger V2 from a website selling toys from overseas, because—as Pokémon cards had taught my generation—Japanese collectibles possess an inherently greater potency.
It was a sinister implement: a two-tiered engine of plastic-bladed violence. In its first match against my older brother’s Beyblade, it detonated his feeble bit of Toys “R” Us fodder on contact. Once the ensuing shrapnel settled, I knew I had gained command of a terrible power. I wielded a battle top that should not be. And thanks to From the Top, a recently-launched top-battling roguelike, it’s a feeling I can once again relive.
From the Top released last month on Steam, and despite the fact that “Beyblade roguelike” seems like it should be an activation phrase for millions of online millennials, nearly nobody noticed. In it, you play as the captive of a top-obsessed tyrant who forces you to perpetually battle whirling bits of bladed plastic for his own amusement—an experience not unlike what I expect many parents had to endure in the early 2000s.
After starting a run by choosing an initial loadout of battle tops, you navigate a Slay the Spire-like path, battling enemy tops between opportunities to upgrade, repair, and even fuse together your own. Tops consist of three components, each of which affect their movement behavior, collision force, and spin stamina. And, crucially, each has an active ability that lets the top do the kind of wild combat sorcery Beyblades could do in the show that always made playing with the physical toys a little bit of a bummer in comparison.
In a couple hours with From the Top, I’ve seen some absurd combinations. One of my legally distinct Beyblades had a heavy, sturdy driver that kept it spinning in place in the center of the arena while its active ability let me fire clones of itself on cooldown. Another could periodically become intangible before emitting a kinetic pulse, letting it phase through attacking enemy tops and counterattack by launching them out of the arena.
While some of the tops I pieced together throughout a run felt as obscenely overpowered as my childhood Driger V2, opponents could field combinations that were equally rude. An early boss boasts both a vampiric stamina-draining impact and a vacuum ability that made escape near-impossible for my less maneuverable tops, while an enemy type in my last run featured floaty, aerodynamic bases and dash abilities that allowed them to simply launch themselves back into the arena after I’d knocked them out.
At just $4, From the Top is a cheap, bite-sized diversion with a pitch I’m surprised we haven’t seen a dozen times before. And just in case my brother reads this: Don’t worry, losing in this one won’t come with a risk of getting hit in the eye with a piece of exploding Beyblade. Apologies again for that.
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