Battle System
The battle system of Robotrek is quite unique. At first glance it looks like any, e.g. Final Fantasy battle system from that time, it is everything but like that.
Basics
Your party consists only of the hero character. But to do battle, you have to use the robots you built and configured at the Invention Machine.
At the start of a battle up to three enemies appear on the left side of the screen. Your primary robot appears on the right. On your turn, you can move the robot around in the highlighted area and perform an action to finish the turn.
The action can consists of swinging one of your equipped weapons by pressing L, R, or X. Or you can press A to open the action menu.
You get a turn only if your cool-down meter is full. The meter is affected by the CHARGE ability of the robot. As long as that ability is blow 50, rapidly pressing B helps improve the meter. Above 50, B mashing is ignored. Depending on your mashing skills, only a CHARGE above 80-90 shows a notable difference.
Action Menu
| ATTACK | Open another sub-menu for more options, the attack menu. |
|---|---|
| GUARD | Have the robot go into a defence stance. |
| ESCAPE | Try to flee from the encounter. |
| Player's name | Have the player assist the robot. |
With the player option, you can order to change robot, or throw support items like 
Cure and 
Clean at the current robot.
Changing to the next robot, means cycle through the robots. You can change the order in the main menu. The game automatically changes to the next robot when the current robot is out of hitpoints. If all your robots are dead, it is game over.
You can close the action menu by pressing B.
Attack Menu
| RUN | Execute a RUN command. |
|---|---|
| Right hand weapon | The same as pressing R without entering the action menu. |
| Left hand weapon | The same as pressing L without entering the action menu. |
| Back pack weapon | The same as pressing X without entering the action menu. |
The RUN option in this menu is perhaps the main confusion for new players. It is not obvious that ESCAPE in the action menu is running from the battle, and RUN executes one of the pre-programmed stills. You program your robots at the Invention Machine.
Selecting the RUN option opens another sub-menu that shows all you pre-programmed skills. The ones in red cannot be executed. A skill may be red, because your robot does not carry the necessary items.
You can close the attack menu and return to the action menu by pressing B. Also, you can press B in the skill sub-menu to return to the attack menu.
Timer
For each enemy in a battle the timer is increased by 10s. If you beat all enemies before the timer runs out, you get additional experience.
- You get 0.1 Megs, if the timer is below 10s.
- 0.2 Megs, if the timer is below 20s
- and 0.3 Megs, if the timer is blow 30s.
This bonus counts for all enemies killed. Especially, if an enemy calls for reinforcement you have to kill those, too.
- Each time you hit an enemy with a melee weapon you get an additional 0.1 Megs.
Also note that the capsules disappear once the timer runs out. You can “waste” time opening capsules to gain items, effects or upgrades. E.g. 
Bombs cannot be leveled at the Invention Machine. But they can be upgraded with level-up finds from the capsules.