Digimon World- A Misunderstood Masterpiece

Digimon World- Misunderstood Masterpiece

Predating a phenomenal anime series, this game is an achievement in artistry. The abstract and surreal prerendered landscapes to the harmonic melodies give this game unmatched ambience. Digimon World is a virtual pet raising, battling, and recruiting simulator. You start the game with a fantastic cutscene setting the premise of the setting. The hero of the game is in the real world with his virtual pet device (at this point I am not sure if they were proclaimed Digivices) where he is drawn into the Digital World and thrust into File City. Depending on your answers to the prompt at the start of the game you are given a fantastically realized “Rookie” Digimon.

As you train and raise your Digital monster it can evolve further into a “Champion” Digimon. The final stage of evolution is the “Ultimate” level however it is an impressive task to reach this level as you are hoisted a timer your Digimon lives by. After your digital monster reaches a certain age, it fades away and is reborn through the egg you pick. Each egg hatches a baby that turns into a “Training” Digimon which comes full circle to “Rookie” and so forth. When training at the designated training segment of file city you can boost your stats which increases the chances to evolve into a respectable creature. I will get more into a Digimon’s stats in future paragraphs and what is essentially a large outdoor gym is placed conveniently to the left of the starting area.

Now that we have expounded upon the evolution and reincarnation system, let’s get into the combat system. Every Digimon can learn moves from battling other Digimon or as a base move. Your trainer learns commands through experience. Your Digimon has a variety of stats that you increase at the gym or through battle. These stats serve as prerequisites to evolution. This leads to quite a bit of depth and mastery in raising your monster. In actual battle, it is a hybrid of real time and turn-based as you issue commands to your Digimon, who enacts them in real time against other Digimon as you watch on in third person. When your Digimon’s special meter fills up, you are granted the chance to mash the buttons to power up your most powerful attack.

File City, the place you start in is in shambles, the few Digimon there powerless and Jijimon the village elder essentially tasks you with rebuilding the city via recruiting various Digimon. As you embark on his task you stand in awe as your city grows in utility, granting you not only pleasant vistas but also useful components to your gameplay. One such ancillary gameplay function that is the first you obtain is the bank from defeating a Digimon called Agumon (essentially an orange Dinosaur that can shoot fire) that likely mirrors the starter Digimon you have.

You must be careful when venturing into the new frontiers as each zone has multiple levels of threats. Another precaution is using the toilet because having your Digimon defecate outside of the background can lead to your monster evolving into a “useless” Digimon that eats the excrement of your previous monsters (which enables a janitorial simulator of sorts and lends to Digimon World’s crude sense of humor).There are multiple “final bosses” and even after you beat them you can still recruit the Digimon you missed to obtain a one hundred percent completion rate. The game is just packed full of content and is more content rich in my opinion than many multi disc games of the era. This is possibly due to the lack of “CGI” cutscenes relative to the games.

Digimon World has a fantastic soundtrack that harmonizes with its surroundings and unique sound effects that help ground such a surreal world into a believable abstract universe. The visuals are no slouch either as the prerendered landscapes descend you into a state of awe. The three-dimensional model work in this game cements Bandai as the best in the fifth gen in my opinion at it. I could rave endlessly about this masterpiece of a game that was shunned by critics very unfairly. While it achieved a huge fan following the critical aggregate of it was a 52.55% on the now defunct gamerankings.com. Many of these reviews failed to realize the artistic vision for the game instead comparing it to vastly different experiences like Pokemon. Digimon World is abstract perfection and a misunderstood masterpiece.

 

[peachGummiez]

Back in like 2006ish I scooped this and a bunch of other games up all at once from a game store clearance rack. I think it was this, Digimon World 3, SmackDown 2, WCW Mayhem, Digimon Rumble Arena and possibly other ones and total it was less than twenty bucks.

Fast forward, I'm playing Digimon World, and an old man passing through stops and looks at it and goes "...that's a game for babies, isn't it?" and then looked at me like I was wearing a propeller hat and holding a giant lollipop.

I don't remember my point. Good game. File City's night and day music rules.

 

[Yamibito]

I once heard that the European version had a game breaking bug that prevented you from beating the game, not sure how true it is

That's true. It has a major bug that prevents you from entering Ogremon's fortress and Factorial Town.

I used to love this game as a child, back when everyone and their mother was obsessed with Digimon, but upon completing it as an adult, I realised some evolution requirements were cryptic (impossible to guess without a guide) and/or really grindy, and the feeding and pooping mechanics killed the fun sometimes. Still, it was really atmospheric and unique in many ways, and I enjoyed the experience. Nostalgia aside, I would rate it 6.5/10.

 

[anuchi]

I tried to play this game after countless recommendations from online friends but got massively overwhelmed and my digimon just crapped itself repeatedly lmao
I honestly thought the difficulty wouldn't be an issue since I have two Digimon X and haven't had any trouble reaching stage VI with them, but I guess I majorly underestimated this game
Not sure if I should quit or give it another go lol

 

[DjQuick2008]

spent hours on this game when it was released struggling to get back into it now im older

 

[rugal]

great article
its a master piece of the era
played it a lot as a kid and still to this day one of my favorite game

it has alot of content and is a really hard game since your digimon dies and is reborn so you must train it again
its a game you really must talk to many of the npc and really take in the information of the game in order to train in best way and in order to find out how to make you digimon live longer

i did find digimon 2 and 3 less hard but more fun

 

[DaxterDotEXE]

 

[BanzaiBill]

I loved this game as a kid, even though I only played it at my neighbor's house as I didn't have a PS1 and never understood what I was doing when playing. Great review my friend, made me wanna play it again.

 

[Kaitensatsuma]

I remember feeling particularly proud figuring out how to "game" the system to make sure I'd usually be able to get to one of the higher tier evolutions by "specializing" in one or two stats

Definitely a unique game that required some patience.