I'm playing Digimon World DS now. I'm not all the way through, as I
have only just started and I'm playing intermittently. It's not a bad
game, I think, but the stylus functionality seems more of an
afterthought. You only use it for menu functions, and for the most
part I felt its easier just to use the buttons unless I was too lazy to
press the D-pad more than once. You can use the stylus to speed up the
text during dialogue sequences, which moves at a snail's pace, but you
can do that with the A button. When you do that with the stylus, it
seems you don't have to pick it back up to proceed to the next word
bubble, which can result in missed dialogue. Haven't had that happen
with the buttons, though.
On a side note, it's great that a lot of games allow you to speed up or
skip dialogue and cut scenes, but I think we also need a way to rewind
them. My attention lapses sometimes, so occasionally I need to go back
a paragraph or two for context. You can never do that in video games,
and that leaves me feeling lost at times. Especially when I space out
when they tell me what I'm supposed to do. They'd be all, "Okay, get
to it!", and I'd be all, "Wait, what? Do what now?" But maybe I just
need to work on my comprehension, but I digress...
Less of an afterthought, though, is the way they use the two screens.
When you're wandering around, talking to people and exploring the
environment, your character, which can be a boy or a girl (although it
seems like they forget to acknowledge it sometimes. One of my Digimon
referred to my girl character as a "he" once), is on the touch screen
(but not, unfortunately, navigating by touch). On the top screen is a
real-time display of your Digi-Farm, where you can watch your Digimon
wander around and interact with the various training equipment you
bought and set up. After a certain amount of time, a "Day," Calumon
sends you a re****t on how your farm is doing. This includes how much
you Digimon and training equipment have improved, how much food they've
consumed, and how much food your farm produced. As you progress, you
can purchase upgrades to the farm as well as additional farms.
Occasionally, a "Live Event" occurs in which you see one of your
Digimon interact with training equipment, finds random items for you,
or muse aloud about how great a Tamer you are. The text here scrolls
at the same maddeningly slow pace as before, but now you have no
control over it whatsoever.
During dialogue sequences, other people and Digimon can call you over
your Digivice, and you can see them on the top screen. During battles
and in menus, the top screen shows information on what you've selected
and other vital statistics. In battles, you can also see what order
the next few attacks will be as the combatants' status bars stack on
top of each other before dropping one at a time to the bottom screen
when that Digimon's turn begins. If a Digimon is fast enough, it will
get more than one turn before everyone else does.
The way you go about collecting Digimon a lot different from Pokemon,
to say the least. It's also different from what I heard about other
Digimon games, too. Instead of trying to capture them or convince them
to join you, each Digimon you fight is scanned at the beginning of
battle. When you collect enough data on a paticular species of Digimon,
you can go to your Digi-Farm to "Digiconvert" the data into an useable
Digimon. This Digimon is then transferred to your DigiBank, and from
there you can put it into either your party or one of your farms.
Like in Pokemon, your party can have up to six Digimon in it. Unlike
in Pokemon, you can have three active combatants at once, which follow
you around on the map, but I haven't figured out how to switch them out
for the members on the "Relief" row yet without having the enitre front
line knocked out first. You'll also notice that there are five
positions any one Digimon can be in. How you arrange your Digimon will
affect how many of them can be hit by the same attack. Items and
attack have "ranges," which range from one spot to the entire row.
Some attacks, like Straight Punch, will hit Digimon who are standing
right next to each other, while others, like Wall of Water, will hit
every other space on the row while leaving gaps in between. Many, of
course, only hit one at a time.
Your character begins the game with the knowledge of vague rumors about
"strange monsters that fight alongside humans," discovers Digimon while
performing an internet search, and promptly gets sucked into the
Digital World. The world of this game appears to be that of the
Digimon Savers series. Agumon has armbands, the Digivices look like
iPods, and even the DATS appears in a side mission. In short order,
your character goes from "Digi-who now?" to "I'm gonna be King of the
Digimon Tamers!". Seriously. That's the highest rank. You've been
recruited by an organization that I can't remember the name of right
now lead by "ClvsAngemon" (or "CVAngemon" for short) that seeks to
bring civilization to the wild, savage lands of the Digital World.
This involves teaming up humans with Digimon and setting them lose to
perform noble deeds. You in particular get to chose between Tanemon,
Koromon, or Tsunomon. I chose Tsunomon to get to Gaomon, and was a
little disappointed later to find I could've gotten Renamon if I had
chosen Tanemon. Aw, well. Thems the breaks. Pretty soon, you're put
under the command of AzuLongmon, and your journey through the ranks
begins.
With each new rank comes command over higher stage Digimon and more
farms to put them in. I'm at Bronze level so far, and can command
Champion Digimon and have two farms. To attain higher ranks, you must
accomplish missions given to you as well as perform noble deeds. These
noble deeds come in the form of side missions given to you by your own
Digimon. The first few introduced me to the DATS, but the missions are
mainly fetch quests in which you go into the wild seeking such mundane
items as Digicake and toilet paper. Sometimes, a visitor will have
dropped something in your farm (one of the DATS dropped her Digivice
and my Terriermon found it), and you'll have to give it back and then
talk to your Digimon again. It's a little like Animal Crossing, but
with more fighting and you can only accept one at a time.
You can equip your Digimon with weapons, armor and accessories to
increase their effectiveness in battle. Some even allow them to use
new techniques, like the Horned Axe's Double Slash. Some techniques
are misnamed, I think, like Vee Headbutt, in which you attack by
throwing razor-sharp leaves. I'm not sure where to begin telling you
what's wrong with that, but it clearly should be Renamon's Fox Leaf
Arrowhead ("Diamond Storm" in the English version, as the leaves are
white in the anime).
You can both Digivolve and Degenerate your Digimon, moving them up and
down the Digivolutionary ladder, respectively. Different forms have
different requirements, including level, stat height, and having fought
certain types of Digimon enough times. Some Digimon, including the
starters, have a variety of forms at their disposal at each stage, so
you're not stuck with a single Digivolutionary line. I found that some
Digimon don't have In-Training forms, which I found odd. While I
haven't reached the point yet, you can also breed any two Digimon with
each other. This is the only way to get certain rare Digimon. You can
also trade Digimon over Wi-Fi.
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