When a publisher silently releases a game that means one of two things: either the game is beyond atrocious and everyone involved with the product should be ashamed of themselves, or it's decent but market research shows that the general public has absolutely no interest in it. In the case of Konami's GameCube beat-em-up, Rave Master, this title falls somewhere between the two. It's not dreadful, but at the same time there's nothing particularly thrilling about it. It's just a boring videogame, though if you've got some time to kill or some friends, it's actually worth checking out, if for no other reason that it retails for $29.99.

Rave Master's March 2005 release was so quiet that I didn't even know about the game until last week after I stumbled upon it at the Virgin Mega Store in downtown San Francisco. A 3D arena fighter based on the Cartoon Network anime, the game pits numerous character from the series against one another in winner take all battles where the object is to make use of the numerous weapons falling from the sky as well as snatch up these rocks called Rave and Shadow stones, whereupon which you can unleash your character's Groover Attack, impressive looking maneuvers that cause the action to explode in all sorts of pretty colors.

Since I'm still a huge Sega Dreamcast supporter, Rave Master feels extremely familiar, as its basically a rehash of Capcom's Power Stone games, though not nearly as entertaining. In those two quality titles, you must race around multi-tiered boards pummeling your opponents with a multitude of different weapons while at the same time grabbing these glowing objects called Power Stones along the way, and, just like in Rave Master, if you grab a certain amount your character bugs out and you can perform all sorts of powerful attacks. Unfortunately for Konami's game, it's not the "spirited" successor to those titles because it doesn't come close to matching their overall quality. For example, none of the levels in this game are multi-tiered. Much like the aged Sega Saturn game Fighting Vipers you battle within an enclosed space such as a fence. However, there aren't any ring outs either, so while battling atop a giant tree stump you won't be able to knock anyone off.

The gameplay environments are one of the primary reasons why Rave Master falls short. Whereas in Power Stone 2 you can fight atop giant submarines that occasionally dive underneath the water or inside a temple that's full of traps, the developers of this game picked interesting locales but they didn't bother to necessarily do anything with them. Exchanges between my brother and I went something like this:

Me: "Now we're battling outside a shopping mall."

Him: "Can I throw you through the windows?"

Me: "No."

Him: "That's stupid."

This went on throughout the rest of the game. With all of the mayhem going on inside of the ring, it only makes sense to take this core gameplay (which is actually enjoyable to a degree) and build off it. Sadly, Konami chose the low road.

Rave Master contains a handful of modes but none of them are particularly thrilling. In Story Mode there's only five characters to select from and none of there narratives are interesting. In fact, most of them are quite stupid. Elie's, for example, revolves around her search to discover who was peeking at her while she bathed, and the predictable conclusion just ruins the "quest" before it's completed.

Boring stories aren't the only reason why the single player mode is so yawn inducing. Although there are quite a few stages in the game it always generates the same ones, so when I first played the game I fought in that shopping mall two times in a row and then atop the good old tree stump two times after that. Variety is of course the spice of life, and I really wish Rave Master's developers were aware of that phrase.

The other modes are equally ho hum. There's Free Mode, where you must wade through eight battles against the CPU, then Vs Mode, where you're able to fight up to three other people. Vs. winds up being one of this title's saving graces because it's fun dashing about the arenas, testing out several different types of weapons (which include spears, pistols, swords of all sizes, clubs, and other cool stuff), and frantically mashing buttons until only one of you is standing.

The other saving grace is the insane amount of unlock able goodies such as new characters, levels, and concept art, as well as some other interesting things. Unfortunately, to get this stuff you'll need to trudge through the Story Mode and that's a bitter pill to swallow, for what awaits you is a lot of mindless gameplay and cut scenes that beg to be skipped.

As far as the game's bells and whistles go, there's nothing especially fun to look at or listen to. The graphics are decent but by no means worth discussing for very long. I dig the character designs, the slow mo effect that occurs whenever you knock someone out, the various particle effects, and the anime stills, but it's nothing I haven't seen before in other games of this type and it's all offset by the bland-looking stages. The audio portion is equally unappealing. The music is all right, though like the visuals it too seems a little familiar, but the voices are just abysmal. In fact, they're so awful they're downright hilarious, so if you love cheesy stuff like I do, all of this may appeal to you.

Rave Master's not a great game but there are times when I enjoy it, and for $29.99 you and I could definitely do worse. Just don't go into it thinking that you've stumbled upon something special. This isn't a hidden gem at all. It's just a cookie-cutter fighter based on an anime, which, at the very least, is worth picking up if all you do is watch Cartoon Network 24/7.