The Question:
Cubix Showdown's story mode save data details how many robots you've collected. Upon doing what I thought was 100%, the game lists 32/40 robots collected. Where are these other robots if they are even real?
I doubt most people may know what I'm talking about, so for your entertainment & knowledge here is some background.
The Context:
Cubix Showdown is a 2003 game for the PS2 & GC. It is a game based on a 4kids TV show and it was all essentially trying to do what pokemon did. I had watched the show, owned a toy, and played this game as a kid but way, WAY too stupid to solve the block pushing puzzles and RNG battle mechanics. Having nostalgia, I decided to both play it yesterday and beat it. I thought I did everything but... well that's where things get dumb.
The Problem:
- The Story Mode is divided into 1 tutorial & 4 main levels. You cannot go back to previous levels but each level requires you to get every robot before leaving (except the last level but you can backtrack).
- Each main level gives you 5 robots (one for each type), 1 Cubix form (for collecting that levels 5 Cubix Blocks, this counts as a separate robot), and a Boss robot (not usable in story mode but still goes towards robot collection)
- The only two miss-able collectables are the aforementioned Cubix Blocks & Energy Expansions (which you need 3 of to raise energy cap)
- The tutorial gives you Cubix, 3 other robots, no boss fight
- If you do the math, that's 5 Cubix forms, 3 tutorial robots, 20 main level robots, and 4 boss fight robots = 32 robots.
- Furthermore, the Robot Select menu organizes everything in that exact same way, row by row. There's only 32 Spaces on that menu (it is a menu that's 7x5, but 2 spaces have ✖s for the tutorial row & the last space next to the bosses is a ➡ for confirming selection).
- This is also corroborated with the manual which actually lists all 32 robots as well (talk about spoilers)
DESPITE THAT! The game's story save data reads Collected Robots: 32/40 for story mode.
Personally, I believe there are only 32 robots. That these other 8 were cut content due to a rushed development or something. There are a few robots from the show that didn't make it. If they included a 5th main level, then that'd add in 7 more robots (5 main, 1 Cubix, 1 Boss) and bring it much closer to that value.
Still, I have no way to confirm if that's true. There's like nothing online about this particular bug. I'd like anyone's help and knowledge proving this wrong or right with evidence. In terms of what I've tried in game-
The Failed Solutions:
- The game does have cheat codes to unlock robots. This doesn't seem to unlock anything different from the story mode.
- The game does consider story mode different for its '2 playable characters'. As far as I can tell, it is the same game with different voice lines in battles. No robot differences. Using a cheat code to beat the game with the other character seems to unlock the rest of the multiplayer minigames.
The Potential Solutions:
- The game has a challenge mode, which is a gauntlet of robots based around each area. There isn't an indication that this unlocks anything. There's also only 6 challenges whereas there's 8 missing robots.
- Maybe beating the story mode as the other character would do something different??
Neither of the above is something I want to do without being assured there's something there. The game isn't exactly fun.
More Oddities:
- The game features a bonus menu with bonus pre-rendered videos. I cannot get videos 5 & 6 to unlock either.
- I ended my game at an Energy cap of 225 and also a spare expansion upgrade (you need 3 to increase cap). It seems... very odd to end it at 225 instead of 250 and that spare one feels off. I'm pretty sure I collected everything though.
- The box cover hypes up there being more then 25 robots to collect. It seems a bit low if the actual number is 40, but accurate if the number is 32. This 25 can be wrong depending on how you look at it. 4 bosses aren't playable in story mode and 5 of them are all Cubix forms. So technically there's only 24 unique robots in story mode lol.
Additionally:
- If you want to know each and every robot I unlocked, check pages 14 & 15 of the manual.
- Videos showcasing all robots on youtube also seem to only have 32 robots.
- There is an any% speedrun but there isn't a 100% speedrun.
- I played the GameCube version but it seems to be the same as the PS2 version.
Again, there's not a lot of info on the game in general. Anything you can say may be of help.
If you have any info you'd like to share about the game, know about these missing robots, or know how to access videos 5 & 6, please comment! Thankies!
And even if not, hope it was entertaining to hear!