DigiMon Arena

Two tiny figures clash on a pixelated arena and you're hunched over your computer mouse, knuckles cracking. DigiMon Arena is exactly what the name promises — a web-based showdown of digital monsters from the nineties, when this stuff was everywhere. The developer is unknown, which isn't surprising — among hundreds of similar titles, even the solid ones got lost.

The game is turn-based fighting in its most stripped-down form. You pick one of a handful of available Digimon, face off against an opponent, and then you take turns attacking. Each monster has a couple of abilities, minimal health, and plenty of developer naivety. The graphics are a pixelated disaster in the best sense of the word — animations last half a second, the sounds are like someone recorded them with a microphone into a bottle, and they play on rotation even during battles.

Playing is boring in exactly the right way educational games used to be. You click to attack, you wait, your opponent picks theirs, and then something between nothing and almost-nothing happens on screen. No tension, no strategy. Every Digimon does pretty much the same thing. The game lets you win a few tournaments, then gets bored just like you do, and it's over.

Today you look at it with a smile. DigiMon Arena is pure period artifact — something that existed because Pokémon did and it had to be easy. It wasn't. But the shrewdest game producers knew one thing: a brand name is enough, and fans will play anything. Arena is proof they knew what they were talking about.

If you're curious what fans were doing before we all moved to browser games and then Flash — if you're in the mood for turn-based battles without substance and without mercy, it holds its own among retro curiosities. It runs in a browser without issues, if you can find it anywhere. You're more likely to enjoy it with nostalgia than with pleasure, but that's exactly the flavor we're after.