It takes a step in the right direction, but it does some things that drag it back down to a place where it once was.
The Bad: Run-in rate is killer | Farm System got a severe downgrade since the last game | Graphics and music are at a stand still.
---------------------------
Digimon World: Dawn/Dusk is the second Digimon game featured on the Nintendo DS. The two games, in a sense are almost exactly the same, with the differences being several Digimon being exclusive to each game and the areas within the game that you can access. The other obvious one is the team that you're on. Since I'm posting this review in Dawn, I'll talk solely about Dawn.
Your adventure in Digimon World: Dawn takes place in Sunshine City where you fight against your rival team, Night Crow who resides in Darkmoon City. Dawn starts you off participating in the Bronze Tamer Tournament. As the storyline would take it, just as you're about to make a run for the Championship, chaos in the two cities ensue.
A mysterious virus is spreading around destroying access points that connect the two cities and reverting Digimon to their Digitama (DigiEgg) state. The terror is spreading fast, and something needs to be done about it. That's where you step in. The Light Fang Chief, Julia, has entrusted you to investigate what is going on and get to the bottom of it all.
One particular feature about the game that stands out is the Farm System that the Digimon DS games use. Here, you're able to put Digimon in a farm with several training items that you can use to help raise your Digimon and DigiEggs. The Farm System in Dawn/Dusk took a severe beating from the first game. Dawn/Dusk capped limits on your farm by adding a memory system. Each item you use on your farm is a certain size and depending on your farms memory it limits you to how much training equipment you can use on your farm. The last game had a level up system with the items where they would grow after a certain amount of days. The items in Dawn/Dusk, however, are standalone items and can no longer be upgraded by just keeping it in your farm. Also, it's harder to get food since you cannot directly buy Digimon Food from the shops. The Farms also allow you to give Digimon specific experience gains this time by the addition of terrain change and background music. Depending what the farm is equipped with, it will either benefit or limit what certain Digimon can gain.
A good feature that Digimon fans were waiting for has to be it's addition of online battling. Like the Pokemon series, as long as you have your friend's Friend Code, you can battle using the Nintendo Wi-Fi system. What's great about this is that it allows you to gain Tamer Points (points needed in-game for certain items and events) with each win or loss. I've battled online several times and have found absolutely no problems battling with other people. Although finding them online might be a hassle from time to time.
As far as graphics go for this game, it goes almost unchanged from the last game, only change up a few sprites and making several of them smaller. In some Digimon, for example ShineGreymon, you'll notice a huge graphical difference from the other in-game sprites that isn't 100% visually appealing. It smooths out the graphics, but it doesn't mean that it actually looks good. Some other Digimon suffer from a lack of detail because their sprites are so small. The attack/defense/support animations are exactly the same from the last game, so there's nothing new graphically for this game.
Musically, they've varied up some of the music that plays, but doesn't do anything that pushes it's music to the next level. Most of the time, you'll be playing this game with the volume down since you might get tired of the alarm sound going off whenever you run into a Digimon.
Training in Dawn/Dusk is actually quite easy since the game allows you to hold up to 3 Digimon to use in battle and 3 Digimon to hold in reserve. But even though it's easy to level up, it starts becoming a chore when the places you're training at aren't giving enough experience. You'll be able to access better training spots later, but not until after you beat the main adventure. The game also requires you to degenerate your Digimon several times for statistic gains, which makes training even more tedious. It's not horrible, but the system could be made a little easier for some. Although tedious, you become rather numb to the fact you have to keep degenerating later.
Even after the adventure has ended, there is still lots more to do after the game to keep you busy, not only does this add some value to the game, it also adds a certain degree of challenge since these additional quests are particularly harder than the main story line quests. Most players would appreciate some extra adventure.
Digimon World: Dawn/Dusk, is a solid game that does improve on certain things from the last game, but is almost at a stand still due to some bad decisions made game play. It doesn't really add anything new to those who have played the last game, but with the addition of online battling, it does add a certain value to the game that makes this title worth purchasing. If you're a fan of the last game, Pokemon has left you bored, or willing to indulge in another RPG for the DS, Digimon World: Dawn and Dusk is worth that purchase.