Digimon Racing Review





Developer: Griptonite Games Publisher: Bandai
Release Date: August 24, 2004 Also On: None

If you take a game, add mediocre gameplay, mediocre graphics, mediocre sound, mediocre replay value, the game deserves a less than mediocre score. Digimon Racing is a game that perfectly fits this situation. DR seems to be aimed at the little kids who watch this show rather than normal gamers. Read the rest of the review to see a new level of mediocrity.

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If there wasn’t enough kart racing games on the GBA, Bandai surely wanted to cash in. The executives at Bandai must have realized that a lot of parents are willing to buy games to keep their little kids’ mouths shut, I guess. DR plays like a normal kart racing game. Pressing A will accelerate your kart, B will use your brakes, L is to use a weapon, and R is to jump. There are 11 racers and 12 tracks in this game. Each racer is different by their top speed, control, acceleration, and special weapons (explained in next paragraph). There is a huge lack of tracks in this game. I found myself playing through each track tons of times, not because the tracks were addictive or fun to play, but because there was nothing else to do.

Using some power-ups, you get to increase your speed and harm your opponents. Remember the green and red turtle shells in Super Mario Kart? Guess what, DR has weapons that are exactly similar. A blue bubble is a weapon that is shot straight ahead, while a red bubble is homes in on nearby racer. While you race, you’ll have the ability to get these items that increases your fractal energy. Fractal energy is used to power up your special weapon. Each racer has a unique special weapon. One of the more interesting special weapons in the game is Salamon’s special weapon, where if it hits you, your left and right controls are reversed.

If you’re a Digimon fan reading this, I’ll let you know you can digi-evolve in this game. By going to a special black object in the track, you can digi-evolve. Once you digi-evolve, you can go much faster. If you don’t digi-evolve, you most likely will lose.

There are three single player modes in this game: the cup mode, the time-trial mode, and the quick race mode. Like in the vast majority of other kart games, DR’s cup mode is where the racer who accumulates the most point during 5 races wins. The higher your ranking is, the more points you get. DR does absolutely nothing to enhance the player’s experience with the cup mode. The time-trial mode is where race against the clock. Yet again, nothing special here. Quick race is where you can play one race with competition. Ironically, the flaw of that mode is that it is over too quickly and hard to get any real enjoyment out of this game.

One of the more interesting features in this game is the ability to fight a boss. It not that it’s actually that fun or anything, I just found that it was interesting to fight a boss in a kart. The bosses are rather easy to beat. Interestingly, the last boss is easier than the first.

DR graphics and audio aren’t that special. I don’t want to go into them too much, considering there isn’t too much to talk about. It almost looks as good Super Mario Circuit, and the sound quality isn’t as good.

As far as replay goes, it is pretty low. When Nintendo decides to release the wireless adapter, you can play this game without those annoying wires. I have yet to play multiplayer, but you can see where this goes. Also note that multiplayer wouldn’t help improve this game score (because you do have to buy other copies of the game with other GBAs).

What did Bandai do to make this game a chore to play? That’s the problem, Bandai didn’t do anything to make this game unique. Think of this game as the extra-light version of Mario Super Circuit with Digimon characters. If you’re reading this review online by yourself, then I think you are too old to get any real fun out of this game. Get this game for a kid who likes Digimon. He or she won’t really mind if he has to play a boring game as long as he can play as the characters in the show.

Graphics: 6
Sound: 6
Gameplay: 5
Creativity: 3
Replay Value/Game Length: 2
Final: 4.3
Written by Simon Review Guide

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