Digimon World: Dusk
Score: 91% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: BANDAI NAMCO Games America, Inc. Developer: BEC Media: Cartridge/1 Players: 1 - 2 Genre: RPG
Graphics & Sound: Digimon World: Dusk is the latest in a long, long list of Digimon games. Before I start this, I'll go ahead and tell you that this is the first of those games that I've ever played. So given that I've never played one before, I won't compare it to any previous Digimon games. Also, there is a lot to do in Digimon World: Dusk, so I recommend reading through the booklet before you play. It'll help you know more about all the extra things you can do. There are also trainers in the city and at the coliseum who can tell you about the game concepts. The graphics in Digimon World: Dusk are quite beautiful. There are over 15 different areas to explore and each of them is well detailed and individual. There are 397 different digimon that you can encounter in the game. They're all quite interesting, ranging in size, color, species, and so many other details. I spent hours just digivolving and degenerating to see them all. The sounds were mainly just background noise to me. The attacks have different sounds, but they're not unique for each attack. Since many of them share the same sound, you aren't sure what you're getting hit with just by listening. The music is soothing and doesn't annoy you. It changes with each different world and has different music for the battles.
Gameplay: When you start Digimon World: Dusk, you choose to be a male or a female trainer and then you choose a pack to play with. This pack will be your first three digimon. You can choose from a balanced set, an attack set, a defense set, or a "pretty" set. Each of the different pack will have its own strengths and weaknesses. These are by no means the only digimon you can have, though. Each time you encounter a digimon in battle, you scan it. The higher your trainer level, the more data you will get on each scan. When you have 100% or more scanned, you can go digiconvert that data into a new digimon. Keep in mind though that you can only befriend 40 digimon at one time, so if you're trying to get specific ones for the quests or just because you want them, you need to plan in advance which ones you're training. To train your digimon, you can either take them with you on your travels or you can leave them on a farm. You can have up to six digimon in your party at once, but only three active in battle. All six will get the experience from the battle, though. This can be used as a quick way to level up and digivolve your digimon. To train your digimon on farms, you first need to buy a farm (you will get a ticket for a free one after your first quest). You can own up to four farms at once. You can also enhance each farm with a terrain board and a BGM board. The different terrain boards increase specific species EXP. The different BGM boards change the growth rate for specific species. You can change out the terrain and BGM boards whenever you want, so you're not stuck with one once you choose it. You can also add goods to farms. You'll have to add food there. You can opt to add items to train your digimon stats. Digimon World: Dusk consists of several different means of play. If you're one of those people that just wants to play start to finish and beat the game, you can do that in Digimon World: Dusk. It is quite possible to beat the game just doing all the main quests. You'll notice, though, that you're only 56% complete with the quests when you get to the end of the game. There are at least sixteen farm quests to do in addition to the main quests. When you take a quest, often times it warps you to a different starting point than normal. I did notice on one quest, I had to cancel the quest and go back to that world at the normal starting point so I could open a door to be able to get where I needed to go on the quest. Once you've opened doors/gates, they stay open. There's a lot more to do, I don't have the space to cover it all. Make sure you do go to the Digi-coliseum and take the challenge to raise your trainer level as soon as you think you're ready. There's also DNA Digivolution, Armor Digivolution, Digi-Eggs, and many more things to work with.
Difficulty: Digimon World: Dusk isn't hard to play. I found that just doing the quests, I had strong enough digimon to beat the game without dying. However, if you want to get 100% quests completed to unlock the extra areas, it's not quite as easy. You need to plan in advance which digimon you're raising to get to the higher evolutions you need to do some of the farm quests. You'll find that you have to degenerate to evolve to some levels. When you degenerate and digivolve, your aptitude increases (or stays the same, it doesn't go down). The rest of your stats will decrease when you degenerate, but they won't go as low as a newly created digimon of that type would be. Sometimes, you'll have to degenerate and digivolve again and again to get the aptitude high enough to go to another level. Another time-consuming task is figuring out the attacks. The information screen in battle does tell you what they do, but not everything about it. Some attacks hit multiple times. If the first blow kills the enemy, attacks like gatling punch transfer the second/third attacks to another opponent. Attacks like rapid fire don't transfer the second/third attacks, so you just lose those extra hits. That meant that I had to learn how well rapid fire was going to work and select different enemies for those other hits, rather than just selecting the same enemy and letting the game move those other hits for me.
Game Mechanics: I found Digimon World: Dusk to be very easy to figure out how to play. To move around, you use the D-pad. If you want to look around a world to figure out which path to take, you can use the touch screen. Just touch the screen and drag it in the direction you want to see. You can only see as far as you can drag without lifting your stylus. Other than that, I didn't find much use for the stylus; personally I found the buttons easier. The Battle Menu is pretty intuitive. On the top screen, you'll see four sections. The top left is the list of the next four digimon to battle. Underneath that in the bottom left is the current digimon fighting. The top left is the information screen. It shows information about the current digimon fighting and when you're selecting an attack, it shows attack information. The bottom right is the battlefield. There are 5 blocks on the field, so you can battle anywhere from one to five enemies at once. Each attack you have covers different locations so pay attention to where you're attacking to get the most out of each attack. In the Battle Menu, you can use either the stylus or the (A) Button to select your choices. The (B) Button will cancel out of a selection and return you to the previous menu. You can also choose to play online against your friends. All online battles are held by going to the Digi-Coliseum. From there, you choose either Wireless Communication or Wi-Fi Connection. If you're using Wireless Communications, one player will be the host. If you're using Wi-Fi Connection, you'll need to find your friend by Friend Code. You can play against friends not only on Digimon World: Dusk but also on Digimon World: Dawn. All of these instructions are in the booklet if you get lost. I really enjoyed Digimon World: Dusk. I've got 80+ hours in it now. The controls are easy to use, and the game provides many hours of fun. You won't get bored of it quickly!
-Cyn, GameVortex Communications AKA Sara Earl
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