Digimon Rumble Arena

Digimon Rumble Arena (デジモンテイマーズ バトルエボリューション) is a crossover fighting video game developed and published by Bandai Games for the PlayStation video game console. It was released in Japan on December 6, 2001 and in North America on February 24, 2002.

Rumble Arena is played in a similar matter to Nintendo's Super Smash Bros., with players being able to choose from up to 24 characters (fifteen of which need to be unlocked) from Bandai's Digimon Adventure and Digimon Tamers franchises, such as Terriermon, Agumon, Gatomon, and Renamon.

The game's sequel, Digimon Rumble Arena 2, was released two (three in Japan) years later on the Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, and the Xbox.

Gameplay
Unlike some other fighting games, Digimon Rumble Arena is rather basic in terms of control. The player has a jump, a basic attack, two individual "Finisher Moves", a guard, and a "Special Finisher" (when Digivolved).

Each Digimon has one of three specialties associated with it; the specialties in the game are "Fire", "Water", and "Nature". Fire Digimon have an advantage against Nature Digimon, who have an advantage against Water Digimon, who have an advantage against Fire Digimon. Certain stages also have a specialty associated with them. A Digimon caught in its own specialty trap won't receive as much damage as Digimon of a different specialty that fall into the same trap; for example, a Fire-Specialty Digimon won't receive as much damage falling into a lava pit as a Nature Digimon would, who would in fact receive more damage than a Water Digimon would.

Items and cards with various effects will appear during a battle. Food items recover a players Life Gauge, while card items have a variety of effects, such as increasing or decreasing a player's Digivolve Gauge, taking away control over a Digimon, or allowing a Digimon to perform a special attack.

Characters
There are 24 playable characters in Digimon Rumble Arena, all drawn from the Digimon Adventure and Digimon Tamers anime. Nine characters are available at the start of the game, while the other fifteen require either a password or the completion of a certain task to access.

DigiDestined Changes
If a player holds: R1, L1, R2 and L2 while selecting either: Agumon/Wargreymon, Gabumon/Metalgarurumon, Patamon/Seraphimon, Gatomon/Magnadramon or (Not pressing anything upon selection) Omnimon, the character backing up the selected Digimon will be their Digimon 01 versions of themselves, this also occurs upon digivolution.

If you do this while selecting Omnimon, you would get older Tai and Matt.

If you do this while selecting Wormmon/Stingmon, instead of Ken you get Ken as the Digimon Emperor.

Play With The Same Digimon As your Human Opponent
Note:Only in 2 players Mode! If a player wants to play with the same digimon as your human opponent he can hold "select" button while selecting the digimon. Note:During gameplay digimons will have different colours according to which digimon he is selecting.

Music
The original game (Japanese Version) have the Evolution Music and Opening Music of Digimon Adventure, Digimon Adventure 02 and Digimon Tamers as background music, this was changed in the English Version.
 * 1) Butterfly (Digimon Adventure's Opening Music)
 * 2) Brave Heart (Digimon Adventure's Evolution Music)
 * 3) Target! (Digimon Adventure 02's Opening Music)
 * 4) Break Up! (Digimon Adventure 02's Armor Evolution Music)
 * 5) Slash! (Digimon Tamers' Battle Music)
 * 6) Evo (Digimon Tamers' Evolution Music)
 * 7) The Biggest Dreamer (Intro Music) (Digimon Tamers' Opening)

Changes in the English Version
Between the English and Original Version there are some changes:
 * The Name of "Digimon Tamers: Battle Evolution" was changed to "Digimon Rumble Arena"
 * The Original Intro was with Digimon Tamers' Opening: The Biggest Dreamer, in the English Version, it was another music.
 * The Background Music in the Original Version was the Openings and Evolutions Themes of the 3 series, in the English Version this was changed to another music.
 * When a Digimon evolves, the original word was "Evolution"; this was changed to "Digivolution"
 * The Menu Music is faster in English Version than Original Version

Trivia

 * Digimons who naturally would use a cape (EX: Omnimon, Galantmon), don't use one, the capes were most likely removed due to absence of space on the disk, since in the sequel the capes were present.

Cast

 * Steven Blum - Guilmon/Gallantmon, Reapermon, BlackWarGreymon
 * Mari Devon - Renamon
 * Tom Fahn - Agumon
 * Lex Lang - War Greymon, Omnimon
 * Dave Mallow - Patamon/Seraphimon
 * Mona Marshall - Terriermon/MegaGargomon
 * Mary Elizabeth McGlynn - Takato Matsuki, Gatomon/Magnadramon
 * Paul St. Peter - Wormmon
 * Derek Stephen Prince - Veemon, Impmon/Beelzemon
 * Michael Sorich Imperialdramon
 * Melodee Spevack - Angewomon
 * Kirk Thornton - Gabumon/MetalGarurumon, Omnimon