Producer: Bandai
System: Playstation
Year: 2001
Overview: The first of the Digimon tournament fighters, Rumble Arena is among my favorites of the entire series of games.
Story: None. Zilch. Zip. Doesn't need one here, anyway.
Graphics: While the intro movie looks (and sounds) excellent, the in-game graphics seem like they could've used a little polish. They sometimes look a bit too blocky, but I suppose it's nothing to complain that much over.
Sound: The best music I've heard in a digimon game to date. Am I just imagining things or do the songs playing on the VS Computer mode sound vaguely like remixes of 'Butterfly', 'Target', and 'Biggest Dreamer'? Only two things really bothered me, one was Guilmon's voiceover on the title screen that I never did like, same for Culumon's running his mouth on the digimon select screen. The Chosen's voices sounded a bit grainy, but they weren't bad overall.
Gameplay: Just pick a digimon from Digimon Adventure, Zero Two, or Tamers and go at it through a set of eight battles in the regular arcade-style mode. You can also battle with a buddy in a 2 player VS mode or against the computer in a 1 player VS mode. The controls are very nice, with no complex button combos to memorize. Just a simple and straightforward fighting game. Each arena you fight in is unique, with various traps waiting, as well as modify cards that hover about, which can have either good or bad effects. As your digimon attacks the enemy, or blocks its attacks, its evolution guage fills up, and it can evolve to its Ultimate stage (except Wormmon, who evolves to Stingmon). The evolved digimon is stronger than before, plus they can unleash a desperation move which does massive damage, but causes it to revert automatically back to its Child stage.
Challenge: Gokoumon, the big boss of the game, will probably cause some hair-pulling. Other than that, the challenge is about average.
Final Rating: 9/10 If you like any of the first three sasons, I certainly recommend this game. I doubt you'll be disappointed.
