Digimon Rumble Arena 2 for GameCube Reviews by Gamers

It's hard to appreciate the craze that is Pokemon, Digimon, and Let's-capture-some-intelligent-and-seemingly-precious-animals-and-make-them-fight-to-the-death-mon. As far as the Saturday morning cartoon tainted hand sees things, there are a lot of cute critters that battle one another and the forces of evil. The other hand that still lives somewhere on Earth is a bit more practical; it sees animal cruelty. Wouldn't Psyduck and the gang be much happier if children didn't imprison them in magical balls and force them to combat others of their kind for the sake of some ridiculous tournament? Shouldn't Pikachu be set free and allowed to roam the grasslands of Nebraska without having to worry about what bloody dragon his punk-ass kid of a tyrannical master forces him to face next?

These are deep questions. We'll not know for some years what the extent of psychological damage cartoons of this kind have on children is. It's not as easy as scientifically monitoring a youngling watching Bananas in Pajamas and actually witnessing a perceptible loss of intelligence as the program trudges on, anyway.

Whatever potentially disastrous effects the -mon craze may have on the youth of the world is, there's no denying their appeal in the here and now. They're the Power Rangers of modern society. And, though these programs may too face the same A.D.D. fate that forced the Pink Ranger into a black hole of drugs and street walking, right now they make money. Enter Digimon Rumble Arena 2, a nifty idea to make heaps of money.

Bandai very carefully looked at the gaming market, scrutinized sales figures, and then came to the conclusion that one of the best ways to usher in a new era of cash generating Digimon products was to emulate the subgenre Super Smash Bros. created and simultaneously perfected. While this easy selling formula may not be the platinum to that game's gold, it is a noteworthy, if straightforward effort that will appeal to youngsters, party-gamers, and casual Smashers.

For those not in the know, Rumble Arena 2 is a sequel to a PlayStation One title released in early 2002 (very late into that system's lifecycle). For that reason, it didn't launch to much critical acclaim, or notice. But, the formula was still sound and the money flowed. This updated version comes with newer, shinier graphics, more interactive environments, more Digimons to collect (and subsequently shovel into the lower ranks of a child's virtual fight club), and more things to do.

On a fundamental level, fighting can be compared to Smash Bros. In Rumble Arena, action is two-dimensional. Characters move left, right, up, and down, but there is no in and out. There are only two planes or...di-men-sions. These polygonal, yet flat levels are designed in such a way to play off intense reflex action and a variety of preset hazards only a forward looking camera schema can allow for.

While the maps themselves are fairly diverse (you got your ice, lava, old west, cannery, waterfall, creek, wasteland, toy-land, and other stereotypical brawl zones), they're not as original as a 21st century gamer might expect. Funny how by now we've seen so many lava traps that we're starting to pray for an old mundane library fight. Wouldn't that be new and exciting? An irony, it's called.

For as unoriginal as they may be, each of the environments offers a fairly unique style of play. Some focus on jump pads, while other zones perilously scroll in a way Power Stone 2 fans will instantly recognize. Still more focus squarely on no frills punching and kicking. Despite already having this diversity that comes hidden within the bowels of an ordinary lava pit, there's also an incredible amount of interactivity; no environment is static. Some areas are semi-destructible, while others will move, disappear, contort, or completely explode. This style of dynamic action adds an extra layer of depth to a title in dire need of it.

Even without environmental originality, Rumble Arena may superficially be a dead ringer for Smash Bros.. It has a similar style, a similar look, and similarly interactive arenas. Still, it's clear that the Rumble Arena franchise has some distance to go before it's crowned the new king of lighthearted party-fight games. Once you play, you'll understand. Control doesn't focus on stringing together impromptu combinations of ranged, power, melee, and aerial attacks at different levels of force like Smash Bros. Instead, there are a few predefined sets of combos that can be begun and then played out. This makes using one of the Digimon characters to fight more an exercise of memorization and timing than reflex, which detracts significantly from the frantic feel titles of the sort need to be...well...darn frantic.

There're also a few severe balancing issues to be discovered. True, each of the dozen or so base Digimon characters comes with an assortment of float, charge, close-quartered, and ranged attacks of varying lengths and impacts, but some are so powerful from onset in very specific ways that a skilled player can become a nearly unstoppable player. For instance, certain characters possess teleportation powers, which makes kicking them off a pitfall pointless. Others have very short, but extremely powerful spray attacks that render any tight offensive attempt null and void. Imagine combining the two, which some do. Whoops.

There's also the matter of Digivolution. During play the Digimons who endlessly fight one another can collect scattered digiballs. When enough are accumulated, a transformation can occur. Unlike other games that allow players to transform into unstoppable killing machines after pounding down a few coins or stars or rings, Rumble Arena just switches up the colors, the size, and the move sets. In fact, and more often than not, it's actually counterproductive for a player to switch mid-game into a more evolved Digimon. New moves from an evolved Digimon don't augment whatever that creature was originally capable of. Instead, they crazily limit the player in a variety of unwanted ways, taking away the original powers that made your stock model Digimon so powerful to begin with.

While you're dealing with these issues that were either left underdeveloped or untouched, you'll find the singleplayer mode to be an unsurprising and wholly unfulfilling ladder. Naturally, it's in multiplayer where the real fun sleeps. And while there is no developed online mode to speak of, there are plenty of ways to go "ooh," "eee," and "ah crap" provided Smash Bros. isn't within an arm's reach.

Alright then, there are graphics and sound. Surprise! Here's the thing about sound... It's not annoying, but it's not special. If you've seen the cartoon, you'll know what to expect, but if you're anticipating a moving Thomas Newman score that seems to stop the world for a couple of minutes, you might as well swing a hammer straight into your face. There are a lot of cutesy noises, cutesy blast effects, ambient sounds, and some tunes that all pass for Digi-ppropriate. In this universe that thrives off authenticity, that's commendable.

Graphically, it's also a cute game, with cute characters, cute colors, cute little bursts of light, and cute menus (that whirl and fly and twist and make men feel speedier than usual). While technically simplistic, and sometimes primary-colored to a fault, a person would be hard-pressed to wring out some sloppily done anything. The visuals aren't horrendous, nor particularly amazing, but a special kind of "well, there it is." Wait for it...Digi-ppropriate.

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