Today, as part of my weekly retrospective, I’m going to talk about one of my all-time favorite games, and in my opinion one of the very best games on Sony’s original PlayStation. I also think they should remake this game, with it’s 20th anniversary coming up.
Most of this is probably rose-tinted by the several years that have passed since last playing it, but out of all the Digimon World titles, at the time this was the most traditional in it’s RPG stylings and at the time felt immense compared to the previous titles.
I do remember the battles being painfully slow sometimes, but you could evolve and un-evolve your 3 partner Digimon at will and even in some cases “DNA Digivolve” them, combining 2 of them to create a much more powerful Digimon. There was also a “Blast Meter” which would slowly fill up as your partner took damage, which would cause your partner to “Blast Digivolve” once it filled up – I think this worked off of damage taken, so it tended to be a pretty useful mechanic in the tougher boss fights. While slow, there was enough depth to keep the battle system engaging.
There was also a completely seperate Card Battle minigame, and you could challenge just about any NPC and even some Digimon. I really liked this minigame, it was simple but once again quite engaging.
The mechanic for expanding your deck was pretty novel – you had to play hide and seek with Veemon in Kicking Forest, which isn’t easy let me tell you. He then gives you a pair of tree boots, allowing you to kick certain types of trees loved by Cardmon. If you kicked a tree with Cardmon in it, the digimon would fall out and start a battle, rewarding you with a booster pack upon defeating it.
The story was OK, I was mostly there for the fun RPG mechanics and exploration of the visually striking landscapes in this version of the Digital World. There were some interesting locations on each of the 3 continents, too many to mention.
The music. Oh man, some of it has stuck with me all these years, here’s one of the ones you sometimes really looked forward to hearing while progressing through a particularly tough area:
I love the bass groove, which I am pleased to say is not unique to this song – there is groovy bass in many of the songs. I believe this is one of the most criminally underappreciated soundtracks in all of gaming, or at least of the PSX era.
Digimon World 3 was released in 2003, and is thus know as Digimon World 2003 in Europe and Australia for some unknown reason. Someone probably knows the reason, but that person isn’t me and I’m not going to look it up.
I think a remake would make this game so much better – refining and speeding up the battle system, overhauling the tragically dated 3D models (possibly they could just cut and paste from Cyber Sleuth) updating and balancing the card game, and adding online functionality for both the card game and regular battling would be my ideal remake. The story, map, and even the overworld graphics could remain the same. I like the sprites, but I guess the map itself could use some HD treatment.
I can wait until 2023 for Digimon World 2023, and knowing how much Digimon loves anniversaries perhaps they will at least re-release DMW3 on modern platforms.
What say you, TAY? Do you think this is a game they should remake? Did you even play it? Let me know in the comments!
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