A Game Within A Game
The main idea of Tournament Mode is that the robot fighting tournaments have become a big sport, where contesters enter tournaments to fight to earn cash money, fame and glory etc. The money can then be used to upgrade your robot, or even to buy new robots.
This is the most popular feature of OMF2097, and the main reason people still play the game. The tournament mode has been rather unique for a very long time, there are always some games that tries similar ideas, but the robots leads themselves easily to this upgrade mechanic. In addition to the usual damage and hit-point upgrades, there are some that reduces damage, reduces damage done to the stun meter, as well as several speed and agility upgrades that lets you move fast, jump further, and attack faster and making new combos.
There is also the user added Custom Tournaments, which is the only way to expand the game. Since the developers released the Tournament Compiler as a free download, anyone could sit down and make their own custom tournaments. Ranging from the simple to complex in design. Most tournaments made, have been attempts at beefing up the enemies, giving the player harder fights for more money, some of these have abused “over-upgrading” the enemies to create this effect, by giving enemy players higher stats and upgrades than they normally could get.
It's also possible to play two characters against each other with all their upgrades as a 2 player variant, by using the “Simulation” button. Though this only works on the same computer and doesn't work over network play. Usually fun for a laugh or two, since Tournament Mode isn't balanced at all.