The first installment, Digimon Battle Spirit (known as Digimon Tamers: Battle Spirit in Japan), was primarily oriented on the then-current Digimon Tamers. It provided a playable cast from across the first three anime series, though the cast is primarily Tamers-based. In this game, most characters have only one evolved form, accessed by coming into contact with Culumon whenever he occasionally appears on the stage. It later received a Japan-only Updated Re-release, Digimon Tamers: Battle Spirit 1.5, which added a handful of playable characters, stages, and a True Final Boss.
Digimon Battle Spirit 2 (Digimon Frontier: Battle Spirit in Japan) was exclusively focused on Digimon Frontier, and as such had a much smaller playable cast. It follows the anime to a certain extent, being that the final boss is the anime's Disc-One Final Boss... but that's where the adherence ends. This time, evolving is achieved by filling a meter at the top of the screen by damaging the opponent; once it's full and activated, the player briefly evolves to the respective Beast Spirit form and uses that attack instead.
See also Digimon Rumble Arena, the console cousins of these games.
Tropes present in the series:
- American Kirby Is Hardcore: The Japanese cover consists of 2-D art of Guilmon, Terriermon and Renamon posing heroically with their Mega evolutions in the background. The American cover has Guilmon and WarGreymon rendered in 3-D and in the midst of battling each other.
- Ascended Extra: In the first game, Cherubimon was just the evolved form of an unlockable character. It's the final boss of the second game, in accordance with the plot of Digimon Frontier.
- Background Boss: All the final bosses act this way to a certain extent, but ZeedMillenniummon is a veritable master of it - no direct part of him can be damaged, and instead parts of the scenery must be destroyed.
- Elemental Powers: As with the anime, Battle Spirit 2's playable cast do this. The elements don't have much of an impact on anything and are functionally all the same.
- Playing with Fire: Agunimon
- Light The Way: Lobomon
- Shock and Awe: Beetlemon
- Blow You Away: Kazemon
- An Ice Person: Kumamon
- Casting a Shadow: Loewemon
- Final Boss: Millenniummon for the first game, Cherubimon for the second.
- Home Stage:
- Each Digimon that can be fought has its own stage. Terriermon's is a playground, Agumon's is some ancient ruins, V-mon's is a desert, Wormmon's is a factory, Guilmon's is a jungle, Renamon's is a wuxia-like setting, Sukamon's is an ice rink and Milleniumon's is some kind of industrial complex.
- Battle Spirit 2 also has its own character stages, based on various locations seen in Digimon Frontier.
- Joke Character: In the first game, Sukamon.
- Lethal Joke Character: Sukamon evolves to Etemon, who's incredibly potent.
- Mythology Gag:
- In the first game, one of Agumon's victory poses has him wear his PunkAgumon wig as seen in Digimon Adventure.
- In the first game, one of Wormmon's taunts has him don a Digimon Kaiser cosplay.
- Palette Swap: During Mirror Matches, the enemy's sprite will be recolored to tell it apart from your Digimon. The extra versions of Agumon, Guilmon, Agunimon, and Lobomon also have slightly different color schemes than their regular counterparts, freeing up the standard sprites for the computer to use in their respective Mirror Matches.
- Secret Characters:
- Battle Spirit: Gabumon, Impmon, Lopmon, BlackAgumon, and an extra Agumon that instead evolves into Omnimon. Battle Spirit 1.5 adds an extra Guilmon that instead evolves into Gallantmon Crimson Mode.
- Battle Spirit 2: Loewemon, and extra versions of Agunimon and Lobomon that instead evolve into KaiserGreymon and MagnaGarurumon.
- Spikes of Doom: ZeedMillenniummon's preferred means of attack.
- Theme Music Power-Up: Digimon evolving causes the music to change, either to a rendition of the anime's own evolution songs (in the Japanese version) or this heroic-sounding tune
(in the American version). - Time-Limit Boss: 2 gives around 4 minutes to defeat the final boss.
- Turns Red: In 2, the Kerpymon has a 3-shots in a 90-degree spread, increasing to 5 in a 180-degree spread. When its palette shifts, the shot count increases again.
- True Final Boss: Battle Spirit 1.5 adds ZeedMillenniummon, the evolved form of Millenniummon, only accessible with something of a perfect playthrough.
- Updated Re Release: Battle Spirit 1.5. It adds several playable characters (Patamon, Gatomon and an extra Guilmon that instead evolves into Gallantmon Crimson Mode), new stages for Patamon, Gatomon and Impmon, an evolution for Impmon (Beelzemon Blast Mode; previously he would kick Calumon away), a few new music tracks, and a True Final Boss, ZeedMillenniummon.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: In all games, you can kill the miscellaneous Digimon wandering around (they drop powerups depending on which you're playing), but Beetlemon's stage in Battle Spirit 2 takes the cake: the Minomon present there are just baby Digimon who don't even move.
