Why Digimon All-Star Rumble Will Suck (...but I hope it won't)

So I heard today that Bandai/Namco is coming out with a new Digimon game. I’ll be completely shameless here and say that I have been waiting for this day for YEARS. I am a completely unironic lover of the entire Digimon franchise. Don’t get me wrong, I like Pokemon and the titanic Nintendo spawn has done a much better job as building a franchise than its much-smaller bastard cousin, but Digimon’s premise has always been unique and clever and interesting, even when it’s been at its worst and completely mishandled (which has, sadly, been quite often).

I’ll admit it. I totally and unabashedly loved Digimon World Championship, though I may have been more in love with the actual concept and not the execution. The idea of a game that is basically just “get monster, raise monster, fight monster, repeat” has always kind of been at the very basic core of Digimon. Sure, the shows were sweeping, epic things at their best moments, but the game itself started off with those little electronic Tomodachi-esque devices in which you got monster, raised monster, fought monster, repeated. That is what is at its core, that is the basic concept of the franchise.

Unfortunately, that isn’t what Namco/Bandai has been capitalizing on with Digimon. What Digimon has become is basically just a Pokemon rip-off with some minimal variation to the concept. I know this is a criticism that has been leveled at it since its inception, but the two games, though starting at roughly the same time and with the same basic core (fighting your monsters against your friends’ monsters) have always had two very different cores. Pokemon has always been more about the team while Digimon has always been more about forming a bond with one specific monster. Pokemon games have always been more about following a story while, at least in the beginning, Digimon games were more about raising that monster, training it to fight (the animé and manga being completely different beasts, of course). Pokemon’s monsters (with the exception of the so-called legendary pokemon) have always been more down to Earth while digimon’s have been more outlandish, often more stylistic and less based on real-life creatures (or keychains).

Digimon and Pokemon are two different things.

Unfortunately, Pokemon is simply the better-known and more popular franchise, largely because the formula proved to be more lucrative, I think. The story of the Pokemon games, though repeated ad nauseum, are more engrossing than the core Digimon experience of raise monster, fight monster. And success breeds envy. We’ve seen it countless times in MMOs—how many MMOs would there be right now if the desire to chomp into the giant pie of World of Warcraft’s success didn’t exist?—and it’s every bit as prevalent in this instance. Digimon wants to be Pokemon when it should be happy being Digimon.

I could go on about this for pages, but I’d rather discuss the very brief clip I’ve seen of this new Digimon game. Now, don’t get me wrong. Like a lot of the Digimon games, this one has the core of a great idea and there’s no reason that the concept—a Super Smash Brothers-esque brawler with the digimon as fighters, including, of course, a digivolution mechanic wherein you get stronger as the match goes on—could be good. In fact, there’s no reason it couldn’t be great. But it won’t be. Because I have no faith in Namco/Bandai to capitalize on what makes Digimon great. All they do is emulate and copy and I have no reason to believe that a Super Smash Brothers-esque brawler (coming out at roughly the same time as the new and super hyped up Super Smash Brothers, designed by Namco, actually) is anything other than a hasty attempt to ride its inspiration’s coat tails to some small, barely-profitable success. The fact that it was announced in late July to be released that Fall fills me with apprehension and dread. Even moreso when I realize…hey look, the new Smash Brothers game ALSO releases this fall.

Let’s look at what this concept could (and probably should) be. This will be a fighting game, pure and simple. Gone is any pretense of story (I hope). And there is nothing wrong with this, this is the basic core of Digimon: the battle. You would start with an egg, just like with the Tomodachi-esque devices, and, once it hatches, you would begin the training regiment, raising basic stats, like in other Digimon games, as well as its affinity to you and other elements in the digimon universe (dragon, machine, etc). How you raise your digimon would not only affect how it handles in battle (is it quick and weak? Or slow and strong? How high does it jump? Does it rely on its claws and teeth or on its special attacks?) but also what digivolution paths it follows. In essence, it would be a basic, old-school Digimon-raising game of yore brought into the modern age. This would add the depth all fighting games need while staying pure to Digimon’s core gameplay: get monster, raise monster, fight monster, repeat. It would also be a unique way of having your “choose” a character. Instead of having a roster to choose from in the game lobby, you would choose your digivolution path. There could even be a “tournament structure” like Digimon World Championship, an actual structure to the battles, a reason to do them. Hell, it could even have 3DS support so you could bring your digimon with you and train it on the go. How freaking cool would that be?

This is what we’re going to get: a character select screen, a basic brawl, and a continue screen. Sure, we’ll get a few game modes. I saw “survival mode” and I’m sure we’ll get an arcade mode that, like all fighting games, wants to pretend there’s an epic story between each round. But that story will be lame and stupid and Namco/Bandai should be ashamed of themselves. The long and the short of it is, no matter how interesting the mechanics might be, the game itself will have no lasting appeal because it will completely and utterly lack the heart and core of Digimon.

And that is a crying shame.

It’s a crying shame when a company doesn’t know what it has or what it could have. It’s a crying shame when a company sees something successful and wants to emulate it to grab up some small fraction of that something’s success rather than making their own product great in its own right to rightfully earn some (or even all) of that something’s success. And it’s a crying shame that we still can’t get the goddamn game Digimon game we all want.

Yes, of course my idea above wouldn’t appeal to everyone. It might not even have the universal appeal Pokemon seems to enjoy. But Pokemon was lightning. And lightning never strikes twice. You can’t try to recreate the same success by painting over it with new colors. You need to recreate Pokemon’s success by doing what Pokemon originally did: create an interesting and lasting premise and sticking with it. Digimon started a staring contest with Pokemon and lost long ago. But it continues to stare at its rival while Pokemon is off doing other things, completely clueless that Digimon thinks the competition is still going.

Ok, so that metaphor kind of got away from me, but you get the point. I firmly believe that if Digimon stopped trying to be Pokemon (or SSB or anyone other than Digimon), it could exist side by side with Pokemon. The advantage games and concepts like this have over, say, the MMO surge of pretenders is that people will gladly play more than one video game series simultaneously. MMOs are more pervasive. They’re designed to take up all your time (and, in most cases, your money too). Most people won’t play more than one or two. But the overlap in fans between Digimon and Pokemon is huge…and I think most of them aside from the most pig-headed fans that will never give Digimon a chance because it’s “just a Pokemon ripoff,” would be happy to have both in their lives as long as they offered their own unique takes on a similar concept.

I know, Namco might surprise me. In fact, I hope they do. Ultimately, the only reason I'm writing this is to hedge my bets. I am almost always wrong. About everything. So if I write this now, only two things could result: either A) I'm proven right and Namco is a bunch of idiots mishandling a great franchise (much more likely) or B) I'm proven wrong and I finally get a great Digimon game.

Sounds like win/win to me!