Backlog Game Reviews 35: Digimon World (PS1)

 

      Hey there, and welcome to Backlog Game Reviews.

    To celebrate reaching 1,000 followers on Twitter, we’re going to have a retro game marathon. I know we're currently in the middle of a Sega Saturn marathon, but for now, that's going to be put on hold. Once this marathon is over, we’ll get back to the Sega Saturn. To kick this marathon off let’s take a look at Digimon World on the PS1. It came out in Japan on January 28^th, 1999, and on May 23^rd, 2000, it made its way to North America. It then saw a European release on July 6^th, 2001. It predates the anime series "Digimon Adventure." Which debuted in Japan on March 7^th, 1999. This being the second Digimon game ever made, and with no material to work with other than the virtual pets. The developers decided to make another pet raising simulator similar to the last game, Digital Monster Ver. S: Digimon tamers.  How does this game hold up today? Is it any better than Digital Monster Ver. S on the Sega Saturn? Let’s find out.

 The story brings us to a city in Japan.

 

   The game begins at a park in Japan. A group of children are showing off their Digimon V-pets and decide to have a Digimon battle. The game's protagonist, an unnamed young boy, arrives at the park just in time to see the fight.

 

 Digimon Battle! Metal Greymon VS Metal Mamemon

 

   After hanging out with the other kids, our protagonist goes home to an empty apartment and finds a note from his mom saying she'll be home later tonight. While reading the letter, a loud unidentifiable noise suddenly goes off in his room.

 Home alone.

 

   He goes to his room to find out what’s going on and sees that his V-pet is emitting a bright light and the Digimon on screen seems like it’s trying to talk to him.

 

 The protagonist's V-pet

 

   While examining his V-pet, another bright light shoots out from it and engulfs the room. Small objects and the hero begin to float, his body is digitized and he’s then sucked into his V-pet.

 Getting sucked into the V-pet

 

   He loses consciousness, and when he comes to, he finds himself in a new world surrounded by Digimon. Right after waking up, he's greeted by a Digimon named Jijimon. He tells the hero that he’s in the digital world, home of the Digimon, and it's currently in dire need of help. The residents of the Digital world, for some unknown reason, have started to turn feral and violent. Some have even forgotten how to speak.

 

 Welcome to the Digital World.

 

   Because of this, the once-bustling city at the center of the Digital world, File City is now little more than a small village. If this is allowed to continue it could spell the end of the digital world.

 

 Meet your partner Digimon.

 

   So as a last resort, Jijimon, using the V-pet pulled the hero into the digital world with the hope that he'll help them solve this problem. Our protagonist agrees to lend a hand, and together with his partner Digimon set off on an adventure in the digital world.

 The adventure begins!

 

   There's not much I can say about the story. It's cool that it takes place inside the digital world and not on your computer's desktop like the last game, but other than that it's nothing special. That doesn't mean it's a bad story, but not great either, just average.

 

                                                 

 Talking an Agumon into coming to the city.

 

   There isn't much in terms of plot development. Late in the game, you learn about the history of the digital world, and when you make it to the last boss, you'll learn why the Digimon have been turning violent. Until then though, the story pretty much takes a back seat and isn't all that important.

 Training at the gym.

 

The gameplay has changed a lot from the Sega Saturn game and for the better. Digital Monster Ver S. had a lot of waiting and watching, there was very little you could actually do, and spent a lot of time just staring at the screen. Fortunately, this game is a lot more interactive. As you venture across the digital world, you'll either be training your Digimon or looking for wild Digimon to bring back to the city.

 Putting your Digimon to sleep.

 

   Your main goal in the game is to find wild Digimon and get them to come to the city, and to do that you’ll have to explore the whole island. Exploring is a lot of fun as Digimon World is open-world. You have complete freedom of where you can go. Some areas are blocked off and you have to do another mission before you can travel there. But other than that, you can pretty much go anywhere from the start of the game.

 A battle at Factorial Town

 

The open-world style of the game gives you the freedom to tackle things in any order you want. And not being forced to go to a certain place first makes the adventure more enjoyable. Just be careful when exploring as some areas deep in the island are inhabited by strong Digimon that can make short work of you if you’re not prepared.

 Exploring the Misty Tress.

 

Another thing that makes exploring the island an enjoyable experience is how varied its locations are. You’ll travel through forests, caves, a swamp, and even make your way through a factory. There's a lot to see and the digital world is full of unusual scenery making even mundane locations a joy to explore.

 Walking around the city

 

   Getting Digimon to come to the city is pretty simple. Most of the recruitable Digimon will join after you beat them in a fight, to get the others you’ll have to win a mini-game or complete a side quest. The mini-games are a nice break from fighting and they’re just fun to do.

 To get Penguinmon to join the city you have to beat him at curling.

 

 As said before when you're not out exploring, you'll be training and raising your Digimon. It needs to be cared for just as a real pet would. You need to feed it, take it to the bathroom, and give it medicine if it gets sick or injured. And if you want your Digimon to evolve then you'll need to build up its stats so it’s strong enough to do so.

 Agumon evolving into Numemon

 

   If your Digimon isn’t strong enough to evolve it will either die of old age or evolve into a Numemon. Making too many care mistakes will also prevent your Digimon from evolving or turn it into a Numemon. Care mistakes consist of not feeding it when it asks for food, not telling it to go to sleep when it gets sleepy or letting it go to the bathroom on the ground.

 Agumon's stats before evolving into Numemon.

 Stats after evolving into Numemon. Instead of raising your stats, evolving into Numemon lowers them.

 

   So far it sounds like a good system, properly train and take care of your Digimon and it'll evolve into a stronger Digimon. But this is where the game's main problem comes into play, that being it doesn’t tell you or even hint towards the Digimon’s evolution requirements. It doesn’t tell you how high your stats need to be or how much it needs to weigh or how many care mistakes you can or need to make.

 

 Taking good care of your Digimon will result in its evolution raising its stats.

 
 

   It gives you absolutely no information, which just makes it one big guessing game. So, unless you’re using a guide more often than not, you’ll end up with a Numemon or your Digimon just won’t evolve and die. This can make the game very frustrating, so much so that it's not worth playing without a guide.

 The evolution chart. While there are a lot of Digimon in the game I feel that the number of ultimate level Digimon is lacking.

 

   When you get done training and leave the city, you're bound to end up fighting a lot. During battles, you don't have direct control of your Digimon. Instead, you give them orders, such as change target, conserve mp, defend, and attack. At first, you won't be able to issue any orders other than your call which lets the Digimon decide what to do for itself. You unlock commands by raising your Digimon’s intelligence.

 List of available attacks. To learn an attack you have to fight a Digimon that can use the attack you want and your Digimon needs to be compatible with the attack as well.

 

In addition to their normal attacks, every Digimon has their own special attack. When the word "Special" spells out on the screen press square to unleash a powerful finishing attack.

 Numemon's special attack.

 

   That’s all there is to battling in this game. The idea of not being in control of your Digimon and only being able to give commands might sound off-putting, but it's a fun system.

 

 You can participate in tournaments at the arena.

 

   Whether it’s to progress the story, or to grind for money and items, or to compete in the battle arena, you'll spend a lot of time fighting other Digimon. But no matter how many fights you get into the battle system never gets boring.

 Battling at the arena. Arena battles have a more dynamic camera.

 

   Digimon world is a fun and enjoyable game, but it does have a good number of problems. We already talked about how the games doesn’t give you enough information when it comes to evolving your Digimon, so, let’s take a look at some of the other negatives that bring the game down. The most glaring problem is the number of glitches this game has, it’s almost impressive how many there are. There are a lot of harmless glitches such as the glitch that misspells your Digimon’s name. For example sometimes instead of saying Metalgreymon, it might say Metalgreymonn.

 Centarumon evolving into Vademon. Vademon is a special Digimon, any champion level Digimon can evolve into him.

 

   Some glitches can crash your game, such as the Giromon jukebox glitch. When you talk to Giromon in the Japanese and European versions you can access the sound test, but doing so in the North American version will crash the game.

 Talking to Giromon in the North American version will freeze the game. In the European version and Japanese version it gives you access to the sound test.

 

   One thing that really got on my nerves when playing was the enemy placement. When you leave one area and move to another there is usually a wild Digimon standing at the entrance of the next screen. And as soon as the game gets done loading and you transition over you immediately get attacked and forced into a battle. You’re given no time to react so unless you have the layout memorized, you’re guaranteed to get blindsided.

 It's very common to get attacked by wild Digimon as soon as you transition over to a new screen.

 

   The next thing I want to talk about I can’t really say if it’s a good or bad thing but it’s something to keep in mind when deciding if you want to play this game or not. That being this is a game that starts out difficult and gets really easy by the end of the game. At beginning of the game, you have no supplies, no money, and nothing in the city other than a meat farm.

 At the start of the game the only items you'll have is some meat.

 

  Because you don’t have access to the restaurant yet and all you get from the meat farm is 3 pieces of small meat a day you’re going to be constantly running out of food, so, you’ll have to stop whatever you’re doing and go search for something to eat so you can feed your Digimon and avoid getting a care mistake.

 In the digital world meat is grown on a farm.

 

   As you progress through the game things get much easier. By the end of the game, you'll have more items than you know what to do with and you'll have access to shops making it easier to stock up on supplies.

 The city at the start of the game.

 

   As I said before it's hard to say if this high starting difficulty and low endgame difficulty is good or bad. Being so hard right out the gate can be off-putting to new players and the very easy end game can feel a little unsatisfying. But some people enjoy the challenge at the start and feel that the game gives a good sense of progression by getting easier, so I think that whether this is a problem or not is a matter of personal opinion.

 To get Centarumon to join the city you have to solve this maze.

 

   The presentation is as solid as it gets for a ps1 game. The graphics look great, things look a little blocky but it doesn’t look bad. Thanks to the pre-rendered backgrounds the scenery looks very good for an old game like this. Most 3D ps1 games didn’t age very well in the visual department, but Digimon World is not one of those games.

 The tropical jungle area.

 

   The soundtrack in this game really shines. It’s full of catchy tracks that get stuck in your head, like the theme for File City. Or the theme for the fog-covered forest Misty Trees, that give off an air of mystery and perfectly fit the environment. Other areas in the game like the Native Forest don't have music and goes for an ambiance approach. When you go to the Native Forest all you hear are the sounds of wildlife. It does a great job at immersing you in the game.

 Meramon is the first real boss you fight.

 

   With all that said, I would say this is a game worth checking out if you're a Digimon fan. A big part of the game is raising your Digimon, so if pet-raising simulators aren't your cup of tea then this game probably isn't for you. If you do enjoy those kinds of games or are just indifferent to them then give this game a go. It's far from perfect, but it's a good game and much better than Digimon on the Sega Saturn.

Thanks for reading! Next time the retro game marathon continues on with a game on the N64 or Famicom. I hope to see you again here at Backlog Game Reviews.