Review by Cocytus (WtW Forum)
Digimon World 2 is a dungeon crawler released for the Playstation. It is a dungeon crawler, much akin to Roguetypes. It has randomly generated floors that you must traverse filled with traps, monsters, and treasures. You, the young hero Akira, join one of the three groups and accept missions to dive into the enemy domains. Let's look in depth at the gameplay, story, music, sound, and difficulty.

The gameplay is divided into two parts: the dungeon crawling and the battling. For dungeon crawling you dive into the enemy domains with your ever handy Digi-Beetle, which is essentially a tank. It has its own HP and EP. HP is health of course. It gets depleted by running over mines or poison fields or electric columns or if you get a health bug. Its EP is essentially gas, you lose one every step you make or more you pick up a bug. And of course if either of these reach zero you are booted out of the dungeon. So always carry items to repair them. It becomes less of a hassle with a few upgrades. With upgrades you can destroy obstacles in your way and carry more items and mons. And you will need these upgrades. The dungeons get very long and taxing.

Overall, I'd give the Dungeon Crawling a 2/5.

Now the battling takes place on a separate screen from the dungeon. There are three phases here. The first one is the heroes phase. Here he can shoot items to his team or at the enemy team. In the second phase you issue commands you mons. Have them attack, counter, use support skills, or counter. Then you watch the battle unfold. After the battle they get experience and level up. However they can only level up so much. By DNA Digivolving them you can increase there max level, however you take them down an evolution level IE, Mega>Ultimate>Champion>Rookie. But you can get an entirely new mon with a new move set.

Overall, I'd give the Battling a 4/5. I find it fun building teams with the movesets I want. However it loses a point for the actual battles, it is pretty boring just watching.

The story starts out with the Hero on his last mission following Zudokorn into an enemy domain to subdue on enemy mon. After the mission you join one group out of three associating with Virus, Data, and Vaccine type digimon. Sadly that does not play too big a part on the story. All missions are the same no matter what path you go down. The more domains you dive into, the more the mystery of the Digital World will be revealed to you. One slight problem is that the domains can get long and tiresome and you can forget the subtitles of what is going on.

Overall, I'd give it a 3/5. It's a good story, but bad pacing.

The music is excellent. The battle theme and boss themes really get you pumped. They are very fast paced pieces and the final battle theme is great. It really screams, this is it, now or never. The town themes are fun too. For those who played the first game, they give you nice nostalgia rush the first time you get to File Island. However and sadly, the dungeon themes aren't as memorable. They are alright pieces, but you will be listening to them for most of the game and they get old sadly.

Overall, I'd give it a 4/5. It has excellent battle themes and alright dungeon music.

The sound is alright. Just hope you like the sound your Beetle makes when it moves. That is a sound you will hear for the entirety of the game. There is also the sound you make when you walk. They are both very squeaky. The highlight is that the monsters attacks are voice acted. Only in Japanese though. Just do not yell out the attacks with them with other people in the house and yes you will most likely want to yell out with them.

Overall, I'd give it a 2/5. Cute attacks yells do not defeat the squeaky shoes.

For the difficulty I have three words for you: Duo Scissor Claw. That is a very broken attack that lowers enemy defense and targets all also it has a relatively cheap MP cost. It completely destroys the difficulty of the game. If you like difficult games you can always abstain from using it, however the game itself is not too difficult, Duo Scissor Claw or not. The hardest part is in the beginning when you have low EP and not a lot of choices for your team. But after that little hurdle the game itself is pretty easy. It is just long. There are a few difficult bosses in the arena but for the most part that is from challenging them too early.

Overall, I'd give it a 3/5. It has a rough beginning but a long, smooth ride to the end.

This game's weakest point is its pacing. It is a nice game but for anything to happen it just takes too long. For an idea it takes around 80 hours to beat the main story. And you are then rewarded with a 100 Floor bonus dungeon. That's a fun way to kill an afternoon.My overall score for the game is a 3/5. It has a great selection of mons and excellent music. But once again the pacing is too slow. I recommend it for those who like Dungeon Crawlers and/or hardcore Digimon fans who want to play it for the mons.

Dungeon Crawling 2/5
Battling 4/5
Story 3/5
Music 4/5
Sound 2/5
Difficulty 3/5
Overall 3/5