Digimon World 2 is dungeon crawling & monster collecting RPG. It's a sequel that doesn't have anything to do with the first game in the series.
I played Digimon World 2 after finishing watching Digimon Adventure anime. I lost my Digimon World 1 copy by then, so I was excited when I found a new Digimon game in the store. It turned out way different than I hoped. It got me weeks to get used to. It even took me years to know some of its basic gameplay elements, but I liked it nonetheless.
Enter the Domain
Digimon World 2 follows Akira, a new Digimon tamer who joins a "guard team" to defend the Digital World from threats. Akira starts taking missions to enter Domains and defeat their evil Digimon. Eventually he gets involved with an evil organization called Blood Knights.
The majority of the game happens in the Domains: Randomly generated dungeons with multiple floors. You travel these dungeons with a living tank called Digi-Beetle. It has it's own HP and EP (energy points.) Each move in the domain takes energy and you have to use Auto-pilot to return to the city when EP gets low. The Digi-beetle can be upgraded to travel more distance, endure damage, and avoid traps which can be found in domains.
The domains are full of wild Digimon that you'll have to fight when they get close to your Digi-beetle. If you sent to wild Digimon a gift they like before the battle, they might join you after you win. Recruiting more Digimon is essential to progress in the game because of the level caps and the DNA Digivolving mechanic which I'll explain about below.
Battling & Digivolving!
The other main focus in Digimon World 2 is the battles. Parties with up to 3 Digimon fight each other. It's also where the strategy of this game shines.
Every turn you have to choose the action of each of your Digimon. Using techniques deplets MP but you can recharge it by guarding for the turn. There are four types of techs: Attack, Counter, Interrupt and Assist. Most of the techniques have their own effects and the best party contains Digimon with techniques that support each other.
The strategy in the battles revolve around the effects of techs and the Digimon types. Vaccine Digimon are weak against Data Digimon but strong against Virus which in turn is strong against Data. There are also the elemental types:, for example Water techs are strong against Fire Digimon but weak against Nature types.
Your HP and MP stay the same after battle unless when leveling up, in which case they'll become full. You'll find yourself trying to optimize your strategy to win battles with the least amount of resources used. Since wild Digimon always come in the same groups, you'll battle the same battles multiple times in order to gain experience or recruit more Digimon to use for DNA Digivoving.
When Digimon reaches levels 11, 21 and 31 it can Digivolve to the next level. From Rookie to Champion to Ultimate and finally Mega! The monsters of each level are stronger and have access to better techs! But the Digimon have level caps. The only way to increase the a max level is to DNA Digivolve.
DNA Digivolving is fusing two Digimon into one Digimon with stronger base stats and higher max level (and DP which determines their next Digivolve stage.) The new level cap isn't increased by much: The level of the first Digimon + (Second Lv/3.) The new Digimon also resets to a lower level. Fusing two Champions results in a Lv1 Rookie and two Ultimates to a lv11 Champion. The resulting Digimon depends on the two parents and some Digimon can only be aquired via DNA Digivolving.
That means you'll spend the majority of the aquiring new Digimon, leveling them up, and fusing them to repeat the process all over again. This along with the slow battles makes the game hard to recommend or even get back to, nowadays.
I have to say however, that Digimon in this game look cool. The game uses the same 3D models of the first Digimon World but there are more Digimon this time, and each one of them has more than one animation for techniques. There are even Digimon from the second season of the anime like Veemon and his evolution line.
Some Digimon like Veemon aren't encountered as enemies. So getting one of these Digimon via Digivolving and DNA DV makes spending time getting them worth it. I remember feeling so excited when I got Flamedramon for the first time!
Flawed Game But Has Its Audience
While the monster collecting and battle aspects is solid. It's drawn back by the level caps and the need for DNA Digivolving. Digimon World 2 is very grindy and time consuming. The dungeon crawling aspect isn't better. All domains look the same, and after a while they don't even feel "randomly generated" anymore. There are some colored tiles but most of the battles happen on the same brown screen!
A monster that intimdating, swayed by a Toy Plane?
There's also the voice overs: Every attack is voiced by its original Digimon but can be used by any other Digimon. It feels jarring when you hear the giant dinosaur Greymon use the chidish voice of Agumon. These attacks also use the japanese voices so some of them are different than the english text.
That's not to say, the game is bad though... Well, it is bad! It's too slow both in and outside battles! But there's something good about leveling up the Digimon and getting a new Digivolution. It feels worth it somehow. I also like the battle system despite how slow it is. There's a reason why some fans declare it as their favoite PS1 game.
I think the game would've been amazing if there wasn't that level cap that require DNA DV. While it'll be a short game and there will be less incentive to recruit new Digimon, monster collecting should be its own reward and shouldn't be "necessary" to pad out the game.
Do I Recommend Digimon World 2?
While I can recommend the first game. I can't recommend Digimon World 2 to anyone except those who like mindless grinding in games! The battles are solid but there are too many of them, and the story/characters don't really shine. Digimon collecting is fun but recent Digimon games have more monsters in them so I'd recommend those instead.
What do you think?
If you want to read more Digimon check @dlstudios post "This is a Terrible Game and I Love it.", he makes a good points about the game.
You can also check my Review of the first game. For PS1 nostalgia there's PS1 Games of My Childhood series. For more #gaming content follow me and comment your thoughts.