Whoever that states that this game is bad it's because they can't rise anything but Numemons or Sukamons.
Great graphics by the time it came out, but sometimes glitchy. Despite that, they were really enjoyable and they fitted the game greatly. Skills-effect are variated and nothing repetitive at all. The only **** thing was that sometimes the game got bugged and the skills showed no detail at all but big pixels (i don't know if that happened only to me, but i had that experience).
Sound (10/10)
Every sound/song loop in the game fits perfectly. The sound can get repetitive ofc, but only if you played more than 500 hours like me :). Still, the music was great, fitting each area. Battle music excellent also. And i'll never forget that digimon whine when it was evolving :D.
Gameplay (10/10)
Best of the best i've seen for PS1. Great variety of items, great variety of digimons, stating 5 evolving levels: Baby, In-training, Rookie, Champion and Ultimate. Great variety of stuff to do, including exploring the island, training your digimon, arena matches, collecting the tradeable cards, curling and fishing (altho it can get certainly repetitive if you're not an RPG fan). Surprises were the best from the game and kept you sucked into it for several hours: By surprises i mean for example: Training your digimon in a certain way and wait till it digievolves, random items scattered throughout the terrain, random events such as Piximon and Vegiemon. Skills, excellent system with the Intelligence-raising and all the skills you could learn from fighting against other digimons or training intelligence. Great, great, great, gameplay is just GREAT!
Side-note: The game itself is kinda hard for the 7-13 aged kids this game it is MAINLY aimed for.
Storyline (8/10)
Interesting at the start of the game but it turns repetitive later on. You're a kid who got sucked by a Gameboy-like gadget and you've turned into data in the Digimon World. Something made digimons in Digital City flee from their home and your job is to find them all (which are scattered throughout File Island). Nothing special, but it has a nice layout.
If you like RPGs and you're into monster-raising games and you haven't played this classic for PS1, i'd suggest you to buy a PS1, buy the game and play it. You won't regret it.