Disappointing for Digital Fans | Digimon All-Star Rumble Review

<p>Digimon has always been one of those Japanese properties that&comma; while it has been popular in the US&comma; it has never reached the heights of rival titan&comma; Pokemon&period; Digimon has had other Rumble titles in past&colon; Digimon Rumble Arena 1 and 2&comma; both of which I have played&comma; and while the series has always been ok&comma; it has never been able to surmount its other rival title&comma; Super Smash Bros&period; Digimon hasn’t been as popular in the US lately&comma; but they are giving it another try with Digimon All-Star Rumble&period; The idea is of this to be a light&comma; kid friendly alternative to Smash Bros&comma; that will be for the Digimon fans themselves&comma; more than anything else&period; Now&comma; I understand this idea in that Digimon wants to try and give its younger fans in the US a new game to play&comma; but the game also has all of the previous generations of Digimon&comma; as well&comma; dating back to the early 90s in most cases&comma; which is a little weird&comma; since All-Star Rumble seems to be purely designed with kids in mind&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;12&sol;05051739&sol;Digiscreen&lowbar;01&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-full wp-image-70413" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;12&sol;05051739&sol;Digiscreen&lowbar;01&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Digiscreen&lowbar;01" width&equals;"1024" height&equals;"576" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The game has 3 modes on the main menu&colon; story&comma; versus&comma; and training&period; Story is your simple&comma; run of the mill arcade mode&comma; with a skylanders like feel&period; In order to get to your opponent for the match&comma; you have to fight your way through different types of Digimon that all have their own attack patterns and weaknesses&period; This gives the fighting game a unique twist at first&comma; but can become a burden for multiple playthroughs&period; The tutorial doesn’t disappear after your first playthrough&comma; so you are forced to do the exact same story over and over&comma; but with different Digimon orders each time&period; It becomes a pain&comma; especially when all you’re doing the story for is to unlock more characters&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The versus mode has a little more variety to it&comma; as there are many different styles of play&comma; but they all boil down to the same kinds of modes on the same 12 stages&comma; which can get very repetitive after a while&period; The amount of characters in the game is even less than the Digimon Rumble Arena 2&comma; with only 12 playable characters available&comma; as opposed to the more than 20 in the previous title&period; Then there is the Training mode&comma; which is like any other fighting game training mode&period; There are also the collectible cards that you can get and purchase through completing the Story Mode&period; These cards are all modeled after the original Digimon Card Game&comma; and you can use them as Defensive or Offensive buffs that can activate different effects during battle&period; A lot of them have unique effects in battle&comma; but there isn’t any surprise when the stronger card wins the effect&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;12&sol;05051726&sol;Digiscreen&lowbar;03&period;jpg"><img class&equals;"aligncenter size-full wp-image-70414" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2014&sol;12&sol;05051726&sol;Digiscreen&lowbar;03&period;jpg" alt&equals;"Digiscreen&lowbar;03" width&equals;"1024" height&equals;"576" &sol;><&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The graphics are disappointing&period; While the character models look new and shiny&comma; they don&&num;8217&semi;t fit well with the outdated&comma; and ugly textures that make up most of the environments and stages&period; The game itself looks half good and half bad&comma; and just goes to show that some parts of the game had effort put into them while&comma; other parts weren&&num;8217&semi;t even really bothered with&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>While the game is only &dollar;40 retail&comma; I feel like it really was a rushed attempt to use the Digimon license to make a few more dollars with the holiday rush&comma; and that honestly really disappoints me&period; Digimon has a lot of memorable characters from all of its season runs that many people would love to see in one of these entries&comma; and while Digimon Rumble Arena 1 and 2 tried their best to fit as many memorable characters as they could&comma; this entry simply tries to fit only a few&comma; and make the game as simple as possible&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The game could have more playable characters&comma; and unique fighters&comma; as well as a plethora of stages all from the unique locations and settings throughout the series&period; I am a Digimon fan myself&comma; so I love the series to its core&comma; but I wish that more love had been given to the game as a whole&period; As it stands now&comma; the game is a somewhat solid fighter&comma; held back by a clumsy story mode&comma; and myriad of missing fighting modes&comma; characters&comma; and stages that should have been included as well&period; If you’re a Digimon fan&comma; and have a group of friends&comma; this could keep you occupied for a few hours&comma; but it doesn’t have the replay ability that Smash Bros has&comma; and once again&comma; that is quite a shame&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;