I think I was in my mid-teen years when Beyblades made their way into stores, so I never really had the chance to experience the thrill of spinning tops designed to smash into each other. At the time, I considered myself too old for that kind of thing. I do remember my younger brother having one or two of them, and he and his friends would pull them apart, trade parts with each other, try to build the ultimate Beyblade, and then ‘Let it Rip!’ until one, or all of their efforts were smashed apart.

Now that I’m quite a bit older and have adult money, I’m starting to buy all kinds of things on a whim. Hasbro has sent us a sample of the BeybladeX series, and I’m considering expanding the collection.

The arena my brother and his friends had at the time was little more than a plastic bowl back then, but the Beyblade X Clash & Carry Beystadium Battle Arena is so much more. It has everything a Blader needs to battle challengers on the go, opening up from a cool-looking black briefcase, accented in red and covered in Beyblade branding, into an awesome Battle Arena! 

After a few simple steps, the Battle Arena is ready to go, complete with Knock-out and Extreme finishing zones to score extra points. Although smashing toys together is a lot of fun, high-velocity pieces of plastic flying out of the arena were fairly common when my brother and his friends would play. The Beyblade X Clash & Carry Beystadium Battle Arena comes with built-in smash barriers designed to prevent rogue Beyblades from prematurely exiting the arena during a fight, and it’s certainly for the better.

Most excitingly, however, is that the lip of the bowl that makes up the arena is circled by a red X-Celerator Rail, designed to catch any Beyblades that wander too close, slinging them around the bowl before launching them back into the middle of the action, and hopefully, to smash your opponent.

You will, however, need to supply your own Beyblades and launchers to make full use of the Beyblade X Clash & Carry Beystadium Battle Arena. Fortunately, Hasbro has also sent up the Cobalt Dragoon 2-60C Deluxe Left-Spinning String Launcher Set – an Attack-Type Beyblade. It’s a bit smaller than I remember the ones my brother had been, but they’ve still managed to cram a bunch of detail into each piece that makes up the whole.

The Blade, Cobalt Dragoon, is made of a stunning silver ring surrounding a pearlescent blue inner section, centred with what I can only describe as a semi-translucent red coin adorned with a blue dragon’s head. It’s also quite heavy for what it is, and further investigation shows that this is made with a metal that doesn’t look much different from small-scale toy cars. Although it is a left-spinning Beyblade, the Ratchet can be used on either left or right spinners.

It has a stunning translucent dark blue outer section before seemingly melding into a translucent red internal piece that holds the Class-C Bit. It has been specially designed to give the Beyblade extra energy when it makes contact with the X-Celerator Rail. Even better, these pieces can all be swapped out with other Beyblade X tops, so Bladers can come up with their own combinations and prove their worth.

As part of the deluxe pack, you also receive a string launcher, something quite different from what I remember, but I suppose we are talking over 20 years ago… Back in my day, I say as I shake my fist, the launcher was a fairly cumbersome item that used those old plastic rip-cords. I remember buying some spares for my brother at one point because the teeth on those would always seem to break when he and his friends would try to Let it Rip!

As hard as they could. With the string launcher, that doesn’t appear to be much of an issue, and unlike the old ones, it also seems to be spring-loaded so that the pull-string will run itself back into place. The string is a decent length as well, about 40cm, so you can build up some spinning momentum with less effort, and rather than being topped with a ring to stick your fingers in, it has a rounded-off T-piece that helps to reduce the chance of pulling the string too far, or worse, small fingers being caught.

Technically, I probably am too old to buy Beyblades, but I can’t help but think about the different combinations I could put together if I splurged on a few more. The Beyblade X Clash & Carry Beystadium Battle Arena is as exciting as it is tidy, particularly with the X-Celerator Rail around the edge of the arena, and having zones dedicated to knock-outs and earning extra points offers different ways to gain an advantage over your opponent.

At the same time, the Cobalt Dragoon 2-60C Deluxe Left-Spinning String Launcher Set is an awesome entry point to the world of Beyblade X, giving you everything you need to kick off your Beyblade-building journey and getting you ready to take on all challengers. Let it Rip!

Written by: Mathew Lindner