Catcha Beast

Catcha Beast is a huge craze in Japan, and now it's here in the UK - just in time to be one of the Top 12 Christmas toys for 2008.

Catcha Beast is an electronic game with a built-in compass, and the player has to rotate their body a whole 360 degrees to find the invisible beasts lurking out there in the atmosphere. Once you pick one up the meter on the screen will rise and then it's up to you to reel the beast in. It will fight back, but once you've reeled it in - just like a real fishing rod action - you need to train the beast to use in battles where you can catch other, more difficult, beasts.

When 2 friends have a Catcha Beast they can connect to each other and fight interactive battles, so the possibilities for fun are endless - you can even trade items such as lures allowing you to catch beasts which don't normally appear on your version (there are 2 versions available, red and blue). Between the red and blue versions there are over 100 beasts to catch, so get practising!

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How to Play Catcha Beast

The Catcha Beast catchphrase is 'Reel it in!', and you can see from the picture on the right the action is just like that of a fishing rod. So here's how you play Catcha Beast...

The Catcha Beast unit is fitted with B.P.S - Beast Positioning System - which lets you find the otherwise invisible beasts by looking through the screen and watching the meter at the bottom for any activity.

Once you spot a beast you reel it in by rotating the reel clockwise - they will resist but you have to battle with them.

Once you've captured a beast you then train it to work for you - you can store up to 3 beasts in your E-CASE.

You can then play single player battles or hook up 2 Catcha Beasts together to play 2 player and swap or trade beasts with each other.

Catcha Beast is made by Bandai and is suitable for ages 6 and upwards.