Producer: Bandai
System: GameBoy Advance
Year: 2004
Overview: The digimon return in a Mario Kart-style go-cart racing game. Better get off the sidewalk…
Story: Not much of a story, like a racing game needs one.
Graphics: Impressive for the little GBA system. The digimon and the backgrounds are detailed quite well, and the part at the end of a circuit showcasing the top three drivers even seems to have a little CG animation.
Sound: The BGMs sound fine. The problem comes from the voice-overs. Some of them at least sound like their respective digimon (Agumon and Tentomon, for example), but others sound really horrible.
Gameplay: The game play might be a bit too much like Mario Kart. But that’s not really a bad thing, except to those who will simply write this game off as “Mario Kart rip-off”. But seriously, Digimon isn’t the only franchise to borrow from Mario Kart; take Megaman Battle & Chase for example. I think Shrek also has a similar style racing game, among others. Anyways, I’m getting off topic. You choose a digimon (most of which are from Digimon Adventure) and burn rubber through a number of tracks. You will get to uncover various weapons to use against your opponents, as well as evolve and gain a better chance at winning that way. You will also fight bosses, in which you must hit it three times within a certain time limit. Other than the main circuits, there is also a Time Trial mode, where you can try to complete a course in a certain amount of time, and a mini-race, where you can just pick one track to race on instead of an entire circuit. There are even some hidden drivers you can unlock. Up to four players can challenge one another, and this game is even compatible with the GBA wireless link adapter.
Challenge: Yeah, the competition gets pretty fierce at times, but there is a difficulty setting in case things get too rough.
Final Rating: 8.5/10 You’ll probably like this game if you’re a Digimon Adventure fan and like racing games. There are very few digimon from Zero Two, Tamers, and Frontier (V-mon, Guilmon, and Agnimon; that's it), so if you’re not a fan of Adventure you may not think this is worth picking up.
