Digimon Battle Spirit

Digimon Battle Spirit is a series of 2D fighting games based on the Digimon franchise, developed by Dimps. Unlike its "sister series" Digimon Rumble Arena, it provides a somewhat unique spin on the fighting game genre - instead of knocking out the opponent, the goal is to collect the orbs dropped by the opponent when they are damaged; the winner is the one who has collected the most spheres. In Japan, all instalments were exclusive to Bandai's Wonder Swan console; considering that the Wonder Swan never existed in the west, the translated games were instead ported to the Game Boy Advance.

The first instalment, 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 Rerelease, 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 breifly 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:

 * 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.
 * Bonus Boss / True Final Boss: Battle Spirit 1.5 adds ZeedMillenniummon, the evolved form of Millenniummon, only accessible with something of a perfect playthrough.
 * 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: Agnimon
 * Light the Way: Wolfmon
 * Shock and Awe: Blitzmon
 * Blow You Away: Fairymon
 * An Ice Person: Chakmon
 * Casting a Shadow: Loewemon
 * Final Boss: Millenniummon for the first game, Cherubimon for the second.
 * Joke Character: In the first game, Sukamon.
 * Lethal Joke Character: Sukamon evolves to Etemon, who's incredibly potent.
 * Mascot Fighter
 * No Export for You: Battle Spirit 1.5. Also, some music was removed from the international versions of the games which did get exported.
 * Secret Characters:
 * Battle Spirit: Gabumon, Impmon, Lopmon, BlackAgumon, and an extra Agumon that instead evolves into Omegamon. Battle Spirit 1.5 adds an extra Guilmon that instead evolves into Dukemon Crimson Mode.
 * Battle Spirit 2: Loewemon, and extra versions of Agnimon and Wolfmon that instead evolve into KaiserGreymon and MagnaGarurumon.
 * Spikes of Doom: ZeedMillenniummon's preferred means of attack.
 * Updated Rerelease: Battle Spirit 1.5. It adds several playable characters (Patamon, Tailmon and an extra Guilmon that instead evolves into Dukemon Crimson Mode), new stages for Patamon, Tailmon and Impmon, an evolution for Impmon (Beelzebumon Blast Mode; previously he would kick Culumon 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 Blitzmon's stage in Battle Spirit 2 takes the cake: the Minomon present there are just baby Digimon who don't even move.