A look back at: Digimon World 4

Not happy. At all.

Not only is this a hack-and-slash RPG, and I don't like the former style of gameplay, but it's not balanced for just a single player. You have a standard experience system, easy to understand, but you basically have to kill, kill, kill and it takes a long time to get to the next level. Good news about level gains is that they restore all HP and MP, perhaps this game's only saving grace. But for those unlucky peeps like myself who are playing single player, the big issue is just how easy it is to get swarmed in levels, especially those who keep spawning in in Zelda-like rooms that lock you in. Some may like it but in the end it will become tedious. Techs and grinding them up are quite important as much as regular grinding, and equipping the right weapons or mods on your Digimon are also important. Only one shot weapon, several blade or blunt weapons, hey I would rather just use the special abilities that Digimon would have, you know? Feels a lot better that way. This game also is basically impossible to do low-level from what I can also notice.

Only four levels, and the enemies and dungeons can prove to be annoying, especially the further you go. It seemed like before I could enter the third world I had to get a Digivolution, and having to do at least two sidequests to get two Digivolutions, one of which involves cleaning house in one particular dungeon in a TIME LIMIT with about 279 foes, isn't that great. Later dungeons are just filled with traps and lock-in rooms, and my experience with lock-ins in Zelda or Doom have taught me they don't have any fun value the more there are.

And then we get to the main thing, the enemies. Starting out in Death Valley, things aren't bad. Bosses are challenging to start, enemies are simple mooks. But hey, one feature this game has a TON of blocking, and enemies can be known to block multiple times and easily counter back. Block rates shouldn't be the high. Dry Land's got the constantly blocking Mummymons and Tyrannomons who have a very broken flame attack. Venom Jungle's Tortomon love to use a spin attack when they are invulnerable and their breath attack comes far too quickly. And then Machine Pit, dear god. Inferimon and their multiplying, and the Raremon have a poison shield and can stop your movement. Did I mention that the poison effect in this game seems to never wear off? And then there's some bosses that are just ridiculous, probably Lucemon is the most tedious, not tough, just annoying when it comes to finally being able to hit. This has nearly all the elements of things that I outright hate, and will be one of my lowest ranked games, at least considering that I had to play this in singleplayer. If we had more characters (heck, even computer-controlled allies would be fine) on your side, this game would have been a whole lot more fun.

A look back at: Digimon World 3

Really wished my summer wasn't spent on so much grinding and understanding game mechanics where all the games in the franchise are all different. At least with Digimon World 3 the gameplay resembled a lot of mainline Pokemon, and I've already been playing quite a few of those hacks at this point. Still, for the last Playstation 1 title of Digimon World, it delivered in what it could. Premises were established, with the nice spice of variety being given out as needed. The one-on-one Pokemon-esque battles can be appreciated albeit with necessary grinding. And a lot of it. Plenty of beef gate moments were frustrating to deal with but I invested the time I could. There's even gyms again for stat training. And while I do say the Digivolutions can be complex, I didn't have nearly as much trouble implementing what was desired.

TRADING CARD GAMES! I will be 100% honest, I am not a fan of any of these games due to complicated mechanics involving all of them, it took me a couple of weeks to even fully understand Final Fantasy 8's Triple Triad, and to this day I still don't understand 9's Tetra Master. So what makes you think I'm gonna like the somewhat required card game here? What makes you think I'll know when battling a rival tamer means with Digimon or with the cards? And then there's the fact you want to win to get the best of card decks, and don't even get me STARTED on the fact that a draw is a loss. This card game's mechanics were only slightly easier to pick up on than others, but I still hate trading card games.

As for the plot, I actually kinda liked it. Being trapped in the online world, realizing that the guy the government wants is a good guy, being a part of a resistance movement, it's an overused plot line but it still holds up. The bait-and-switch villains were kind of dumb but it's actually hard to notice how bad they were when you get sidetracked by other things in the meantime. But the terrifying concepts of stuff spilling over into the real world with a juggernaut (Destromon) wanting to level areas, as well as trying to do everything before everyone gets turned into Oinkmon made for a nice storyline overall.

A look back at: Digimon World 2

Whew, put a ton of hours into this, and I did take nearly a month to finally finish it and well I'm not too happy with things. Even the gameplay time maxed out at 99:59 and I'm 100% certain that I took longer.

It's great that Digimon World as a series tries different approaches to gameplay, with the first combining virtual pet with RPG elements which was relatively lukewarm. This game goes for the Mystery Dungeon-esque route, combined with traditional turn-based gameplay and a little dice of that convincing Digimon to join a la Pokemon. Of course, things aren't going to be perfect. The battles in this game are really sluggish to go through. You can certainly not have too much trouble with them, particularly with good strategies, but each attack takes a long time to go from one to the next, and seeing "Attack Missed" is annoying since you don't get to see what happens. Oh yeah, and this goes by the "first Final Fantasy" targeting mechanic, you defeat one Digimon and another that targeted it will always miss the target. So yeah, battles, slow-paced but still requires some strategy.

And then the whole navigating randomized dungeons. I'm okay with this on the whole due to being familiar with some mechanics already. What I'm not okay is the amount of preparation needed for many places you'll be going to. You won't know for sure if you need to have the right equipment to tackle electrical fences, landmines, or bugs that you won't see unless you pressed X for what's in front of you, and it can cost a dungeon run and force you to head back. And just so we're clear, you can only hold so much in your tank for supplies, so even treasure chests can become not useful later on. Early game is the worst at this due to having a measly 8 spaces in your inventory. Sure, it gets better, but that's early game hell for you.

The Digivolution system is also hard for me to even describe, though better than the last game thankfully. I hated the fact that some Digimon essentially cap out, and had to be spliced with other Digimon as something that starts weak, yes, this means of course you have to train new guys up at your own pace, and this adds to the overall time spent and exhaustion I felt at the end of it all. Was it worth it? Eh, I've done this kind of thing lots of times, so probably not. And then this game's plot is really just "get assigned mission, battle boss at end of dungeon, rinse, repeat". Not much in things until the Blood Knights start being invaders and some truths get revealed at the very end of things.

All of this really does amount to an RPG that is so not worth it...but then you get the music, and it's kickass. Seriously, this is some good, good music. Technological, of course, but it keeps the adrenaline working. Early dungeons sound tame, but things get much better. All battle themes are great, the main one is repetitive but not bad, and the boss themes are really gone. The soundtrack saved this game from being worse than mediocre.

A look back at: Digimon World

What a tiring game. And for the Playstation and for a one-disc game, this is surprisingly impressive. It takes a lot to figure out what to do in this game and even then there are still areas of the game which even guides have yet to figure out. Man, did it really take years to figure out the Digivolution? Because that certainly was a core mechanic that I feel this game really should have done better. Anyways, yeah, Digimon World, this is my first foray into this small series and I plan to play more, but this first game is easily the most unique.

As unique as it is, it takes a ton of balancing in order to just beat the game, and even far more to complete it. I don't think I'm gonna try that latter half. See, you have one Digimon as your pet, you gotta take it to training, feed it, have it battle, and have it go potty. All while balancing what appears to be general RPG navigation and other mechanics. Well, apart from the battles, which ends up being another key point as in the beginning their entirely AI controlled. I've never really been a fan of "letting things play out" with little in the way of influencing the battle, and I would argue that there should be more commands available early instead of when you can increase their Brains stat. With AI control, you're bound to see your or enemy Digimon just run around, determine whether or not to block attacks, or use the right techniques you want, and what could have been a short battle ends up much longer. Battling is necessary for extra skills and for stat increases of course, but then you gotta deal with that and getting the RIGHT stats up for Digivolving, all the virtual pet stuff I mentioned earlier, oh, did I mention that Digimons can lose their lifespan and start completely anew? Yeah, they can.

And all this while you try to rebuild a town. I actually like this mechanic a lot, reminds me of the Suikoden games and recruiting people for your castle. Except for a fleeting moment where a Greymon can ambush you outside the main house, which can be unwinnable if you just have a rookie Digimon at the moment. Definitely not fun. Of course, time-based events are at play, meaning there is quite a lot of waiting, but having to combine that with training the Digimon makes it quite easy to miss the event you were hoping to trigger. But hey, I hear the other Digimon games have significantly different gameplay, and I do applaud the many things to do, even if they take up most of the game that the plot of this game doesn't really take off.