Digimon World Championship for Nintendo DS Reviews by Gamers

Ah, Digimon... Pokemon's one most worthy competitor, the Sonic to their Mario, at least until Season 4 killed the series and Yu-gi-oh took over... The TV series had so much good, so how come they haven't had a single decent game?? Why don't the Digimon games ever follow the concept of the show? Virtually every Digimon game is just made to be even more Pokemon-like than the anime, favoring COLLECTING Digimon over one Digimon partner per human. Digimon World Championship continues in this tradition, while attempting to get back to Digimon's roots, that is, as a boy's equivalent of a Tamagotchi. The plot is your average shovelware Pokemon-type cliche: there is a big Digimon tournament which you are out to win.... just because. You do this by raising Digimon from egg, to baby, to rookie, and so on. You do this in a customizable training center using a somewhat imaginative point-and-click interface using the stylus. Dropping Digimon in different rooms(you pick what kind of rooms you have and how you arrange them) will affect a Digimon's stats in a different way, usually raising one trait and lowering another. Once their stats reach certain requirements, they Digivolve. Gameplay largely consist of you moving Digimon from one training room to the other repeatedly, feeding them when they are hungry, bandaging wounds, cleaning up Digi-droppings, etc. Can you imagine Angemon being treated in this way, watching him eat off the floor and leaving a mess? No. Then you get into battles using the Digimon you trained. You pick a team of Digimon to fight, and then AI takes over. No maintenance whatsoever, and there doesn't seem to be much difference in what Digimon you use, except for level. I actually haven't gotten far in the game, but I really don't think it gets much better from where I am. Just more training, more AI battles, more training, on and on and on. And judging from other games of its kind, I don't expect any plot twists. I don't recommend this.

This wasn't an overwhelmingly horrible game but it was a little frustrating from time to time.

I liked that you did just about everything with the stylus. Feeding, Cleaning up cages, moving Digimon and taking care of them when they are sick.

What did frustrate me a little came in 2 forms.

1. I wanted to take a more hands on approach to battling instead of dropping 1 or 3 of them in the ring with the basic orders to either attack normaly, use special or support and hoping for the best. A turn based battle where you could choose the Digimons actions each round would have suited my style more appropriately.

And 2. There never was enough time. Like monster rancher time was measured in regular intervals but unlike monster rancher time moves forwards regardless of weather you want it to or not. Meaning if you weren't done moving your digimon or feeding your digimon or hunting for digimon like (like in Pokémon) then tough. You would just have to live with it.

Don't get me wrong its not a bad game and if you can live with auto battling and never having enough time then it could be a great game for you. I liked doing things with the stylus I just was annoyed by a few other characteristics.