Digimon All-Star Rumble (Xbox 360) Review

Ryan Bloom / Feb 3rd, 2015 No Comments

It’s ironic that Digimon All-Star Rumble revolves around boredom because you’d have to be severely bored to have any desire to play this game. The cute-yet-deadly creatures are back in video game form in the U.S. for the first time in years, but the only reason they are stirring up the Digital Monsters world is because they are bored. It’s not the best concept for a game, but it’d be forgiven were it any good. Unfortunately, Digimon All-Star Rumble is all parts bad, and unlike its characters, the game comes off as lazy.

Fight to the Sweet Death

The game’s main appeal is the battle mode, which feebly attempts to imitate Super Smash Bros. Up to four players can face off on interactive levels, but that’s where the comparisons to Nintendo’s popular title begin and end.

Battles are the game’s main appeal.

In reality, combat has little depth and mostly involves mashing buttons. Attacks are made through three face buttons, and there are no complex moves to pull off. Players will mostly find themselves smashing the B button until a combo is performed. For opposing Digimon, it’s about proximity — if you’re stuck close to a button-mashing monster, there is no opportunity to counter. Combat mostly boils down to whoever lands the first blow.

Things can get frantic with four players on the screen, especially when multiple Digimon have digivolved. Players can hold down LB and RB when a meter is full to temporarily unleash an overpowered monster. This is the only time combat holds players’ interest at all.

All That and Bore

In order to enjoy battle mode to its full potential, players must first unlock characters through the game’s story. The title’s excuse for a plot happens to be that all the Digimon were bored because their world was peaceful and they were unable to digivolve. The creatures decide to hold a tournament to find out who is the best Digimon.

Levels are poorly designed.

The campaign mode plays out through poorly designed levels that offer little challenge. The short levels follow a rinse-and-repeat formula of defeating a few easy enemies then facing off against a rival digimon. Defeating each level’s boss unlocks that creature in battle mode. Levels feel like incomplete rejects from Skylanders, and navigating through them is made unnecessarily frustrating by a badly placed free-floating camera.

Overall

Digimon All-Star Rumble takes inspiration from great games, but it is barely passable even on last-gen consoles. From the graphics to the mechanics, the game feels like it might feel out of place on the Gamecube. Digimon fans in the U.S. have been waiting too long for a video game, but even that is no excuse to try Digimon All-Star Rumble.

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Ryan Bloom

Chief Editor at Gaming Illustrated

Ryan Bloom is a writer and avid gamer from Orange County. He received a B.A. in Communications with a minor in American Studies from California State University, Fullerton in 2010. Follow him on Twitter @BloomsTweets.