What is the peak of a show, the peak of a franchise? It’s something that fans often argue about with whatever franchise you’re referring to. What’s the peak of Pokémon? Was it Generation 4, was it Generation 5, is it happening right now, was it Gen 1? What’s the peak of Yu-Gi-Oh? What’s the peak of Ben 10? Was it the original series, Alien Force, Ultimate Alien, or Omniverse, or maybe even the reboot? This is something that fans argue about regarding every single franchise that is out there. What’s the peak of Bakugan? Was it Generation 1 in Battle Brawlers or Generation 2 in Battle Planet, or if you’re really optimistic and love Gen 3 for whatever reason, maybe you’re arguing that Gen 3 was the peak of Bakugan? I don’t know.
Discovering Beyblade X
But, nevertheless, there’s a series that I got into recently that I actually think the peak is happening right now for that series, and that is Beyblade. I was never a Beyblade person growing up during the first generation of Beyblade back in the early 2000s. Yeah, I had a couple of Beyblades, it was never really my thing. I never really watched the anime, it was kind of just a couple of toys that I had as a kid growing up that I would play with every so often. Then they had the whole, you know, Beyblade Metal Fusion, Metal Fight, second generation. I remember it being on the air on Cartoon Network back in the day, was never my cup of tea, never my thing. Then Beyblade Burst came around, right? Now your Beyblades explode, this is the new gimmick they’re coming into. Again, never really my thing.
But all of a sudden, now we have the fourth generation of Beyblade, which is titled Beyblade X, and if you’ve been watching some of my more recent Bakugan videos, you probably have heard me reference Beyblade X a couple of times because I think Beyblade X is, quite frankly, the peak of Beyblade. This is the best the franchise has ever been. So, in this video today, I’m going to tell you guys why I love Beyblade X so much and why this is the peak of the franchise.
A Brief History of Beyblade
So, as I mentioned before, with Beyblade, it’s had a bit of a long, tumultuous history. Eventually, we’ll do a rise and fall of Beyblade video. If you guys enjoy this video, we’ll do that in the future. But, obviously, there was Generation 1, which got the whole thing started. Then Metal Fusion was like this new reboot for Beyblade in the early 2010s. Then Beyblade Burst introduced the new blow-up gimmick, you know, your Beyblades can explode on impact, hence the Burst gimmick. Essentially, what Beyblade X has done is, it’s taken the core values of Beyblade and all of the gimmicks that those prior iterations have introduced and essentially has regurgitated it into a brand new package that is Beyblade X, and it is all done so well that it really takes the franchise to a whole another level, in my opinion.
The Design of Beyblade X
So, first and foremost, I want to discuss just the designs of the Beys, then we’ll get into the functionality and gameplay and how this all comes together to make Beyblade X the peak of Beyblade. So, first and foremost, when you look at the designs of these Beys, quite frankly, they are simplistic yet awesome. And what I mean by this is, they’re eye-catching to me. Like, I first got into Beyblade X because, as you guys know, if you watch my Bakugan videos, I do collect Bakugan, right? I go down the, you know, toy aisle where Bakugan is at Target, at Walmart, whatever other retail store that carries them, and I’ll often check to see, hey, what new Bakugan are in stock? Are there any that I don’t have, any that I want to purchase, whatever the case may be?
And all of a sudden, I noticed, maybe a year ago at this point, whenever Beyblade X first came out here in the US, I see Beyblade X, this new iteration of Beyblade hitting store shelves. And I’m looking at this, and I see Dran Sword, I see Arrow Wizard, I see Helm Knight, and I’m just like, these all look really cool. Shark Edge, there’s a Shinobi Knife as well. It’s like, these look really sick. From a design standpoint, they are so simplistic, yet there’s just something about them that makes me want to collect and buy each of them. They just look really cool.
Initial Purchases and Impressions
So, at that point in time, I picked up a Dran Sword in the blue color, right? I picked up a green Helm Knight, a yellow Arrow Wizard, I picked up, you know, the green Shark Edge, I picked up, or Keel Shark, I think it’s called here in the US. I might mix up the Takara Tomy and Hasbro names here and there throughout the video, but, nevertheless, I get the two-pack with the green Shark Edge, Keel Shark, and the purple Shinobi Knife, and that was all I bought. That was it for Beyblade X. I bought those, got them home, opened them up, I was like, wow, these are really cool.
The system for how you put them together is really simplistic. There’s your blade, there’s your ratchet, and there’s your bit. You put the ratchet onto the blade, you slide it a little bit, it locks in place. You take the bit, you pop it in, and there you go, you can play with your Beyblade. It’s really simple, unlike some of the prior generations, like with Gen 1, you actually had to get a sprue kit and cut the Beyblade pieces out of that kit and put it together like a model kit, which, again, is not the most simplistic thing to do.
I’ve recently done them with some old Beyblades from Gen 1. We’ll talk about that in our rise and fall of Beyblade video, but as a kid, I don’t remember doing that, and, quite frankly, I don’t know how I did that, ’cause I struggled with one of the ones I bought recently as an adult. So, yeah, this is much more simplistic than those Beyblades were back then.
Eye-Catching and Simplified Designs
But, nevertheless, when it comes to the design, they’re just so simplistic. I have them on screen, obviously, throughout this video, you can see what I’m talking about, but they just pop to me. They’re just eye-catching. If you’re walking down the toy aisle of a Target or a Walmart, like, these are going to grasp your attention. The packaging is great, the Beys themselves look really cool. I heard someone describe them once as kind of looking like sports team icons, right? It’s like the logo of a sports team, each Bey, and they all look sick.
That was it for me with Beyblade X initially. I never bought any more. Then, all of a sudden, when Bakugan started phasing out, like at the end of last year in December, I started seeing more Beyblade X pop on store shelves, and I’m like, jeez, these look really, really cool. And I started collecting more and more of them, and now I am fully hooked into Beyblade X. It is such an amazing iteration of this franchise, and it’s gotten me hooked into Beyblade in a way that no other iteration ever has.
The Beyblade X System
We touched on the system a little bit of how they work, but you have your blade itself, your ratchet, and your bit, right? There’s also Beyblade UX, which is another system that they have, which is the unique line, which basically, each Beyblade has a gimmick. And, as of the making of this video, Beyblade CX has been announced, it’s not out yet, but that’s the custom line, and essentially, now you have your bit, your ratchet, but now your blade comes in three different pieces. With, I don’t know the exact names off the top of my head, but essentially, your character icon is one piece, you have your plastic assist blade, and your metal blade that all go together to make the top of your Beyblade.
All in all, the simplicity of this line, the fact that you can take pieces from one Bey and mix and match them with another, I know this is something that existed in Beyblade Burst, I know this is something, I believe, that existed in Metal Fight as well, but the way it’s done here is so simplistic and so well done, it just works perfectly. Like, I’ve had Beyblade Burst, I have some Beyblade Burst toys in my collection, and those toys, they just, in my opinion, aren’t as nice as Beyblade X toys are.
Comparison with Beyblade Burst
Like, Beyblade Burst to me is too loud, there’s too much going on with the designs of the Beys themselves, whereas the simplicity of the Beys in Beyblade X is really what’s hooked me to this franchise. And I feel like it’s easier to just sink your teeth into if you’re a newcomer coming into the franchise. You look at a Beyblade from Beyblade Burst, and there’s so much going on there. In my opinion, most of them don’t look great ’cause it’s just like, there’s too much, you have to put stickers on a lot of them, some of the designs, I can’t even tell you what they’re doing there, what is happening with that design, I don’t know.
On the other hand, Beyblade X is so simplistic, you just get the Bey and you go. You can very easily tell what your Bey is. Yellow Kong, for example, it’s a monkey, it’s a gorilla on it, that’s very simplistic and easy to tell. There’s not a lot going on there, so you know what you’re getting yourself into.
Gameplay: The Xtreme Rail Difference
Lastly, I wanted to talk about the gameplay itself, because this is, obviously, a toy game that’s meant to be played by kids and adults alike, and, obviously, there has to be a fun game tied around this in order for it to work and in order for it to sell. And, oh boy, is the game for Beyblade X pretty fun. So, if you guys don’t know already, Beyblade in general, the whole gist behind it is, it’s spinning tops, whichever top stops spinning first loses, whichever top keeps spinning wins, that’s the whole gist behind Beyblade in the first place.
To me, it’s kind of boring. You do it once, you do it twice, you get the idea, you move on. With Beyblade Burst, they try to mix things up a little bit, they added the whole bursting mechanic, so now your Beyblades can explode on impact, which, obviously, is something cool for kids to enjoy and adults alike to enjoy.
With Beyblade X, the gameplay itself is the same as any other iteration of Beyblade, right? They’re in an arena, they’re spinning, whichever one stops first, whichever one blows up, if it hits, you know, into a certain pocket, you get two points, if it hits into another pocket called an Xtreme Finish, you get three points, that’s the whole gist behind it, it’s like every other Beyblade. But the big difference with X, which makes this a lot more fun and a lot more unpredictable, is the whole Xtreme Rail or Xtreme Line, depending on what you call it.
The Xtreme Rail Mechanic
Essentially, when you buy a Beyblade X arena, on the arena, there’s a green rail that goes around it. If you have the Hasbro one, like I do, there are different colors on the Takara Tomy version, but, nevertheless, there is a rail on your arena. Essentially, the bit of each Beyblade, the bottom little piece that it spins on, has gear teeth on it that lock in place with this rail. When it locks in place, they go extremely fast, and, essentially, this creates an unpredictability when it comes to the gameplay and much faster and action-paced action with Beyblade X as opposed to you just sitting there watching these two tops hit each other very slowly to see which one stops spinning first. That becomes rather boring rather quickly.
Whereas, with Beyblade X, there’s a lot more action in the game. These Beys are going super fast, they’re hitting each other with hard impact. I’ve had Beyblades pop out of the arena towards my face before playing Beyblade X. It’s pretty exciting to play. I could see this being a really fun game to get yourself into. I’m not going to lie, I thought about going competitive with Beyblade X, going to a tournament to see what it’s like, ’cause it’s that much fun. I can only imagine if you fully sink your teeth into it and fully get into the meta game and customizing your Bey to have the best possible combinations at these tournaments and whatnot, I can’t even imagine how much fun that would be to get into, but that’s not something that I’ve really sunk my teeth into.
Why Beyblade X Is the Peak
So, with that all being said, Beyblade X to me is the perfect celebration, if you will, of the Beyblade franchise. It’s taken elements from each of the prior iterations that they did well, plus the core elements of what Beyblade is, and essentially took them all and put it into this one package that is Beyblade X, and that package is absolutely phenomenal. We’ll see what happens with Beyblade X over time. It’s only on its second year right now, it premiered all the way in May of 2023, the manga did, in Japan, and then in October of 2023, the anime premiered in Japan. So, we’re still pretty early on into this generation, so I’m curious to see what exactly happens as we go forward.
Evolution of Beyblade X Lines
As I said before, we had the BX line, the basic line that was introduced when this first came out in 2023. 2024, Year 2, introduced the UX, the unique line, to Beyblade X, and now in Year 3, being 2025, we have CX, the custom line, being introduced. So, if they keep this up, this is going to keep getting more and more complex, but they’re still doing it in such a simplistic manner that’s not exactly destroying the game and making it overly complicated.
Beyblade X is really just kind of a testament of the love and care that Takara Tomy has put into the Beyblade franchise over time. And that’s why I’ve been making comparisons to Bakugan with Beyblade X. If Spin Master did what Beyblade X is doing, Beyblade with Bakugan, Bakugan would become a massive success. Bakugan would be a huge hit like it never has been before, and hopefully, they see what’s happening over at Takara Tomy, Spin Master does, and hopefully, they see, hey, if they can do that with Beyblade, why can’t we do something like that with Bakugan? Why can’t we take the core values, why can’t we take the gimmicks that people enjoyed from the prior generations, put it all into one brand new package, and make Bakugan its peak like it’s never had before? ‘Cause that’s what’s happening with Beyblade right now. Beyblade X is the peak of Beyblade.
Conclusion and Call to Action
Anyways, let me know down in the comment section below what you guys think about all this. What do you guys think about Beyblade X? Do you agree with me that this is the peak of Beyblade, it is happening right now in the year 2025, or do you disagree with me and think that maybe Beyblade Burst or Beyblade Metal Fusion or the original Beyblade was the peak of the franchise?
