Digimon Racing

"Game and anime Companies, please stop conning kids and their parents"

I'll be honest and I say I watched Digimon. It happens when you go to take care of kids that are younger than you. You get dragged into watching their TV shows. I'll say Digimon was better than Pokemon, but the games sure aren't. I just can see the company meeting over this. "We'll make Digimon into a KART GAME. Everyone loves kart games." "Perfect boss. We'll get our mediocre group right onto it!" I'm pretty surprised they didn't make a Digimon movies and release this game with it. But without further ado, the review and not my moaning about this game.

Gameplay:
Kart racing. It's not like you haven't seen this before or played it before. You race karts. You want to win first place. It really doesn't get any simpler than that. It's a typical kart game with minimal originality. Yes, there are crates with powerups. Yes, there are little speed-up pads. Yes, there are areas for you digi-evolve up! Hark? Is that a sign of creative and new thought? Well, only a little. If you run over parts of the road that are green and black checkerboard, you evolve up! Charge that evolve bar, and you get a powerup! Yah! Okay, it's really not exciting at all. It's just another cheap gimmick so this game can appear to hold some original feature. But it doesn't do anything to improve the game quality. And characters aren't helping this game either. Different critters that resemble weird deformed animals are your drivers. I think younger kids would understand them more, but I just chose a random one. And I don't think it really matters too much to the whole gaming effect. Kart games have been beaten from heaven to hell and back. Maybe if this was the first kart game, I would have enjoyed this. But since it's following in the footsteps of the many kart games I have played, I can barely play this. Maybe there is more to this game, but if you can't get past the first race without throwing the GBA in disgust, what's the point?
1/10

Story:
You race karts. What do you except? A dramatic monologue and a cut scene? You're out of luck for this game if you want some kicking story. It's a kart game. I don't think I need to explain any more.
N/A

Graphics:
I'll compare this to Mario Kart. And here's two words for you. Horrible. Horrible. They look so fuzzy and deformed. At least Mario Kart's graphics looked decent. I can't even tell what is the kart and what is the driver in this game. Either the artists weren't hired or the programmers just decided to make a cart with some blob sitting on top. The powerups are rating ugly too. I can see the lazy right now. They decided to use circles are missiles. that's the pinnacle of lazy. They could have done a missile or something. But no, they do a circle and palette switches. I don't know who thought this would please kids. Maybe kids are only interested by flashing colours, and I guess that would pass the test. But to me, this game is ugly.
3/10

Sound/Music:
Kart noises and explosion sound effects. That's about it. No voice clips or anything. I can't remember if there was music, because I was concentrating on ignoring the horridness of the game. There probably is some upbeat music, but I cranked the volume down so it wouldn't distract me. But, I really can't blame them for the music. GBA has bad music processing anyway. But with everything else being so bad, I probably could.
3/10

Replay:
If I could barely get through the first race without overflowing with rank hate, then I obviously couldn't replay it. It's that bad. It's almost Shinobi-bad. I'd only replay this if the creators of the game came to me, apologized publicly and then paid me $55 USD per hour to play this game. I'd wish they would recall this game so no other child would have to go through this mental, physical, and psychological torture of a game. It has no redeeming features with a replay anyway, unless you want new characters.
1/10

Rent/Buy
No. Don't even bother. If you're a parent, save your money. If you're a kid, spend it on chocolate. It'll make you a lot happier than this game ever could. I managed to borrow it from my neighbor who is 4. And he's trying to return it to blockbusters in a case so he'll never have to see this game again. Buy Mario Kart Advance instead.

Overall
This game is horrible. Don't waste your time, money or effort. Sliding in the cart and turning the GBA on is too much effort on this game. The only reason it doesn't trump Shinobi as worst game for GBA ever is the fact that you actually get twinges of enjoyment with the flashing colours.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 05/09/04