Digimon World Re:Digitize

Raising a Digimon is always cool and fun, but the game sticks with the original concept of only having just the one Digimon which makes things annoying in some cases in the game. For example, there are a few times where you need an elemental move to do something in order to recruit a Digimon back to the city. If you don't have it, then you have to wait until your Digimon goes through its lifespan before training it again to a Digimon with the right moves.

The selection of Digimon usable has been increased a lot since the original game. I think it has nearly all of the original Digimon, along with new additions from the later series.

By sticking to the original concept of one Digimon, it takes at least a few hours to raise one up to an acceptable level for battle, which is cumbersome when you're stuck in the middle of a story because it temporarily halts progression.

Also, recruiting Digimon seems to have lost its fun and meaning when compared to the original game. Maybe it's because there isn't any shops or buildings in the game and most of the recruits merely become NPCs that just stand around in the city. And even so, its not as lively as you would want it to be (although, I should hold that against it since this is a PSP game). There were some empty and closed buildings that I initially thought would be open once I recruit the right Digimon, but they were still closed by the end.

Some buildings have been expanded, particularly the coliseum by fourfold with its range of rules in battles and tournaments, and the scope of the building itself.

I found the 2v2 battles in the coliseum poorly implemented, because it does not show your partner's Digimon nor does it show its counterpart before the battle. Also, the last floor of the coliseum is rather anti-climatic as it's just a number of "boss battles" with rules exactly the same as the first floor. Why not mix and match the rules instead? It would have been fun to have 2v2 with timed battles, or even tamerless 2v2 battles.

The running speed of the player is flawed because 9/10 (or even 10/10) of the time, the Digimon will catch up to you when they start chasing because they're faster than the player. And this is perhaps one of the most irritating aspects of the game, because it wastes your time unnecessarily when travelling around the terrain. At least it was possible to dodge around and evade the enemies in the original game, whereas you're nearly always a victim to the enemy's near immediate attention once you pass by them.

The map itself gets confusing at times. Especially since the locations are plain, so navigating generally requires opening the menu to see the map. Not having a mini-map on the HUD was a poor idea. And I found myself slipping a few times because the game resets your direction after a battle, so at times I was walking the opposite direction.

The story of the game is okay itself, you won't see a Freudian psychodrama since its a kid's game. There is a surprising point where you do get to choose to side with one of the two sides on a decision, but it's nothing major because the discord is settled very quickly.

Music was okay as well, nothing irritating at all, just adequate enough for video game music.

Other notes:
There is a unwinnable boss battle that I think was poorly implemented. I actually cheated my way through that battle thinking that it was winnable, but it turns out the boss takes no damage once you deplete its HP down to zero (or near zero). Maybe it would have be nice to do something like making it visibly timed or blatantly show that the boss is invinsible by taking no damage at all from the beginning instead of instilling some sort of fake hope to an idiot like me.