Pontinho rates this game: 3/5There's a certain degree of likeability about Rumble Arena 2. It has a charm all its own - a kind of clumsy quirkiness wrought with effort and clouded in branding.
Smash Bros. enthusiasts will detest this one for it's failure to paint Nintendo mainstays all over its title. It also doesn't offer the maddening kind of simplistic complexity only Melee can, but is a decent game.
Winek rates this game: 3/5Digimon Rumble Arena 2 is a Fighting Game for Gamecube.
The game is very simple, straightforward, no stories. There are many Digimon available to play with. Most of them comes from the first season of Digimon and the main characters of some other ones.
The fighting style is pretty simple but nice, with a basic healthbar and some items popping out from times to times. There are many combos for each characters, who all have their own attacks. One interesting system would be digivolution. Your character will be able to evolve during the game if it got enough Digi Orb. One sad thing is that digivolution is not constant for some Digimon, like Rookie -> Champion -> Ultimate for Palmon as an example, Champion -> Armor -> Ultimate for Gatomon who should have been Salamon instead, and other greater such as Agumon who goes Rookie -> Chamion -> Mega which isn't the normal digivolution route at all and makes it feels much superior to the other despite the game.
For those who doesn't know Digimon very well, the normal route is In-Training -> Rookie -> Champion -> Ultimate -> Mega.
One other disappointing thing is a lack of good characters. For example, Hawkmon and Armadimon as well as Renamon and Terriermon were all part of the anime along with Veemon and Guilmon respectively, but weren't included at all.
Overall, the game's great, but just disappointing around some details. It's also too bad there's no story, let alone simple speeches, such as "Hey, I'm bored. Wanna duel?" "Sure!" as the game simply bump up fights with no seem-likely reasons. It's not something terrible, just a "Too bad" thing.
teapartycthulu rates this game: 1/5This game is a pretty terrible platform fighter. The controls feels stiff and awkward, the music is terrible, and the AI is just straight up baffling sometimes. However, the most fatal flaw of this game is the balance.
This game is quite possible the most random fighter I have ever played, and the imbalance of characters accentuates that flaw greatly. Within 5 minutes of playing the game, I had already found
- 1 infinite (Agumon's up-tilt against a wall, if done frame-perfectly, covers both techs and no-techs)
- 1 ridiculously broken tech trap which is also an infinite (Some character, don't remember which, has a command grab that does half your health, and combos into itself if teched)
- The easiest AI loop in the world (grab, throw against the wall, up tilt, down tilt, repeat: works against every AI in the game)
- The fact that every character besides Agumon and Tentamon suck, except the unlockables, who are horrifically broken
As well, I played multiplayer a bit with my friends. Frankly, it was so terrible that we had to keep playing it. We found 4 more infinites, and also realized that the items are the most busted thing in existance.
Basically, it's fun for a laugh, but don't play it.
Brendoge rates this game: 4/5Digimon Rumble Arena is a formula that is simple, but no doubt appeals to anyone who ever gets a kick in a fighting game. While the series may have suggested you must be a fan before getting in the action - this game is for anyone. Think, super smash bros, think the simpsons arcade - Rumble Arena is the digimon edition for these styles of games.
Transforming your characters into beings more powerful is a good temptation for playing this game. Forget the characters, forget any story from the television show - this game could have anyone fighting together and it would make for some entertaining gameplay.
It's fun on the most part and simple on the second. There's a lack of a story, lack of great music and sound, but it barely deters the developers from dishing out a great lot of gaming goodness. Check it out for yourself, you, most likely, won't be disappointed!