DRA2 - Any% Rookie

At the dawn of time, early man beat each other over head wit club to ensure their own survival. They toppled beasts and the environments alike. They overcame and evolved all the way up until the current day, where we live in a world where Digimon Rumble Arena 2 exists. I’m not saying they’re the same, I’m just saying they’ve both existed, and both had to overcome a lot of adversity to be here.

Digimon Rumble Arena 2 is best described as a party brawler with up to 4 players. You play as a selection of the characters found in the hit cartoon Digimon(Digital Monster). For as many characters as there are in this game, there’s only 1 (for any% rookie) that matters. Veemon is a blue bloke who if you squint enough and cover your ear slightly looks and sounds like Sonic on a budget. When it comes to the characters you’ll face off against, none of them matter and all pale in comparison to this amazing sky-blue specimen and his literal ability to punch the daylights out of everyone he comes across.
In the context of the game, Veemon is not in the top tier, he is a good utility character and nothing more. These tier lists generally take into account the toons Digi-volved state, which care absolutely zero about. Digi-volving is a 5sec minimum animation with an uncomfortable number of I-Frames in the post, and is essentially the worst thing you can ever have the AI do (except for gain sentience and forget they’re the very easy bot and nothing more).

Ultimately, the aim of the game (our game, at least) is to finish the story mode/classic mode in as quick a time as possible. This is achieved on Very Easy mode, using Veemon. Do you have to use Veemon? For any% rookie, you do. For any%, you can use whooooeeeevvverrr you want. Any% Rookie is a category for characters that are not unlockable, and are base game selectables. Any % is all characters.

You want to be playing this game on an Xbox, the load times are unreal compared to PS2 and Gamecube, and emulation is illegal in this speedrun, and is punishable by death and/or 800 years in prison.

On the stage select screen, you want to select the stages downwards and to the right as far as possible, before reaching the final stages, where you’ll select upwards instead of downwards. This will lock you into a 1v1 boss battle, as opposed to a triple threat match.

Jungle Ruins – Level 1 – “A journey starts with a single step, and then as many VeeKnockouts as you can” – Ghandi

Lvl1 is a fresh take on the Jungle Japes map from Smash Bros but not as good and much more water, and also not floating, and its pretty much not like Jungle Japes at all. Typically, you want to be using VeeKnockout (neutral B) as your primary damage output. Anything else, and you’re using it because you had to (VeeHeadbutt (Up B) combo saver is a common theme, for me at least)

Each character has 3 stocks, which is more than enough to realise what fresh hell these NPCs can really be, especially since they’re listed as the easiest difficulty. I’ve seen reads from these bots that pro Smashers ain’t pullin’.

Your opponent will spawn over a bridge, typically, you want to KO them on/near the rock that they spawn behind. This is due to the mysterious blue orb of complete and utter frustration that spawns beneath the bridges, and rises through it on their second stock. What does it do? Fills whoever collects it its evo-bar to the max, allowing them to digivole. This is typically bad.

You are going to spend a lot of your time trying to prevent the other bloke from digivoling, the absolute worst thing you can do is give them the literal item that allows them to do so. You can further manipulate spawning by placing yourself opposite where you want the enemy to spawn (in most levels, this is comfortably predictable, not so much in the later levels where theres more malakia going on)

To complete this level in the fastest time, Veeknockouts until they’re dead, corner spam so they don’t have a chance to get away if you’re feeling risky, and delete 3 of their stocks. Sub 40 match over screen once you win is ideal and very epic.

RubberTree Falls – Level 2 – “My nama Jeff” – Channing “Jeff” Tatum

There really isn’t too much to say about this level, its very very straight forward. You, and the bloke you’re going to viciously destroy, spawn opposite each on two platforms, with a pitfall + jumpy pad beneath. You want to immediately jump over the pit, grab them, run towards the ledge, throw, and then either jump into or fall into a veeknockout. This BMs them to hell, they cannot block this and is not recoverable.

You will need to work on your timing, and how quickly you can get to the other mon, as they’re prone to waking up, realising they’re in a simulation, and entering flight or fight mode. Keep them away from the far corners of the stage, if they jump up those platforms its most likely GG.

Danger Gulch – Level 3 – “Stick ‘em up I’m a Cowdoy” – A Real Cowdoy

This is an interesting level, in the sense that, it’s mostly straight forward, but you can make things potentially more interesting, the more willing you are to use the level’s surroundings. There barrels full of Grade-A explosive likquahid nigh-tro-ho-jin scattered around, which, say, if you were to throw someone into, explode on impact, doing big damage. Don’t rush to quickly to follow up, though, the residual explosion will damage you, causing you to lose time. 

I recommend throwing from afar, timing a veeknockout at just the right time, and waiting for the mine cart to drop over a new barrel and repeating. Interestingly, the fastest way to take the last stock, is to have the mine cart run your opponent over, resulting in an instant 100-0 on their life bar. This is not always feasible, due to placement, barrel usage etc but definitely something to consider if the opportunity arises. Keep them away from the revolving doors, they will fling whoever walks into them to the other side of the map and the cat and mouse chasing is god-awful and will hamstring your run.

Lava Lake – Level 4 – “Take me to your Xbox to play Digimon Rumble Arena 2 today. You can take me to Moisty Mire but not Lava Lake” – Some kid on tiktok 

This level sucks. Its well and truly awful, and its like the blokes who made the game played Brinstar on Smash a bit too much and thought “yeah, that looks good, lets do that, but worse actually” All the perimeter platforms are awful, they’re awkwardly shaped and difficult to manipulate your neutral B through. You will need to utilise VeeHeadbutt, VeeKnockout and throws frequently to make headway on this stage. Fastest methods of execution are to get them into the lava, and chase/follow up with a VeeHeadbutt + VeeKnockout combo.

The game likes to spawn just the most awful items in this level. Invincibility, pinata mode and all players digivolve are the absolute worst. The AI will make every effort to run immediately for them, as if they’ll never be able to fulfill their lifelong dream of being a pinata in a volcano

The item you will be interested in the most is the iron gauntlet which increases you damage output, as well as your knockback. This is good when you’re confident you can chase/follow up on a throw or Veeknockout off the ledge. 
Do keep in mind, as the AI gravitates towards the items, they will also run away from you if you get them, making more fun and games to be had on a stage that has a rising lava portion. Do keep in mind you can use the rising lava to your advantage for juggles and follow ups.

Steamworks – Level 5 – “From the studio that brought you Shrek, Shrek 2, The Shrekening and Digimon Cumble Barina 2”

This stage is just a mess. The first stock is straight forward on paper. You spawn middle bottom, near a gap in the stage, enemy spawns very top right. If you walk towards the gap, they will begin to gravitate towards you. Is this consistent? Well, that depends if they have a ranged move, because if they do, its not. They will try and snipe you through walls, 20ft above you, with no line of sight. If the opponent is primarily melee, you will have much less of an issue. 

First stock is taken by grabbing and throwing down the hole.
Now the fun begins. Enemy will spawn above you, ideally, they’ll spawn either the topmost part of the stage, to the left or right. If so, do your best Crash Bandicoot impression and neutral slide jump your ass up there ASAP, because if you do, one VeeKnockout off the side is a guaranteed stock. If not? Oopsie doopsie get owned dummy you’re doing it the slow way now. Avoid the water/fire vents and veeknock the shit out of them, this is very slow btw.

Manipulating the spawn sides is difficult but also important on this stage, you take a stock, move to the opposite side of where you want the opponent to spawn. Sometimes you can luck out, and the AI will just kick in and they’ll fall down a ledge walking towards you. I’m not sure why it happens, but it can. Not often, but enough that I’ve openly questioned what I’m looking at.

Chaos Wasteland – Boss Battle – “Knowing that one day the disc will crumble and Neemon will cease to exist FILLS YOU WITH DETERMINATION”

This battle will take you either 20 seconds, or 2 minutes. Really depends on how Neemon is feeling. Neemon is the goofiest looking bloke I’ve ever seen in a video game outside of Skullomania, who is my dad, that I love. I wish I could articulate, truly, how stupid this bloke is but it’s a site to behold. He hoofs bananas and farts. He’s also capable of stringing combos together, its just all over the place. 

The stage is a mess too, the platforms freeze, levitate you, rise and drop, it’s all about being adaptable here. You can lead on the front foot and try to get him off the end as soon as possible. Once you know the platform will rise off a spawn, jump up it to manipulate him to spawn below you. Sometimes you can squeeze him between platforms for a much quicker kill, depending on the layout of the stage at the time. This level is really more about adaptability than anything else, which doesn’t help when you’re coming up on a good pace and you’re thinking about what exactly you’re about to see.

If you can manage that, you’ll have completed the speedrun. Honestly, the runs are less than/around 5min, so practicing isn’t difficult and the actually game itself is not hard to learn. What will get you is how quickly you can pivot when the AI activates and switches from Very Easy to Very OMGSinceWhenC**t because it felt like it. The stage layouts are easy to remember and after a while you will definitely get a feel for all of them.

This entire guide is tongue in cheek and is absolutely not an in-depth technical article about the game. I know SFA about this game from a technical stand point, but I know Veemon punch good off stage and he’s in the top 2 quickest characters to do so. I was dared to speedrun this game, which I hated the concept of, now I’ve written this shit. Go figures.

Enjoy the guide, the run and if you’re struggling with it or have questions, DM me.
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TMG_Ningeff

Digimon Rumble Arena 2

GameCube

PlayStation 2

Dolphinprr

enjoelneer

AnsemTheWise

ipunK

USA / NTSC

Xbox

Gamecube

Emulator

Xbox 360

System

Hi everyone, ASF is back with its main online marathon in 2024! Submissions are open until March 16th, This is your chance to show off your runs in one of the years biggest anime gaming events.

You can submit up to 3 games with 3 categories each. We'd love to see some Digimon at this years event!
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