Introduction

As a TV show Digimon is arguably on par, if not better than it's biggest rival, Pokemon. However, as far as video games goes, things are drastically different. Franchise that has everything it needs to pull off a perfect game, but never quite managed to do so.

Story & Characters

You take a role of a silent protagonist who goes through special training to become a Digimon Tamer. Digimon Tamers are societies first and only defense against wild and evil Digimon. Defense as such is separated into three categories, Black Sword, Gold Hawk, and Blue Falcon, all with their respective mascot (DemiDevimon, Agumon, Patamon), or Digimon if you will, one which will be your first companion depending which guard team you join. No matter which guard team you join you'll have your usual rival soon enough, you can also interact with characters from other teams.

The story itself is surprisingly on a dark note, bit more than your usual Digimon story with an interesting villain and several great twists later on.

Gameplay


Gameplay wise there's huge difference between Digimon World 2 and it's predecessor, huge amount of annoying and tedious parts have been removed, unfortunately, a lot of new equally, if not more tedious have been added. Digimon World 2 is a dungeon crawler which wouldn't be a bad thing if dungeons themselves weren't so lifeless, poor looking and repetitive. Going through dungeons is done by controlling a vehicle called Digi Beatle, assembling your own Digi Beatle and taking care of it by avoiding various traps on the field is kinda fun.

The best part of Digimon World 2 is the fact that you can tame any Digimon you want, you can have over 30 Digimon's in your collection, battling and raising them is not as fun though. Battle consists out of standard turn based combat, you can have max three Digimon out on the field all at once. While there's four types of attacks, some with special effects, and flours that give advantage to certain Digimon there's not much tactic to it, it all falls down who has stronger Digimon.

Raising Digimon is noticeably, unnecessary I feel, complicated in this game. Their max level and evolution is determined by their DP points, as soon as they reach their max level you have to do DNA digivolution after which you raise lower level Digimon again just to extend it's level limit. it has it perks of course, Digimon become noticeably stronger with every DNA evolution, but sometimes also can go through evolution that doesn't make any sense.

Music


I always found music in Digimon games to be rather unique, upbeat and well patched to every situation in game. Two of my favorite video game themes are from this game.

Presentation


Considering similar games rely heavily on sprites and image backgrounds Digimon World 2 doesn't look all that shabby for a PS 3D game. While characters and certain areas look good Digimon themselves have weird design and height issue. Dungeons are also poorly designed and have no substance to them. Menus are themed appropriately and look good.

Replay Value

There's no sidequests, no mini games, no mystery to unreveal except to go through main story and raise Digimon, and raising Digimon is not really a blast. Only hardcore Digimon fans might head for a second playthrough.

Final Verdict:

5/10