nicholaschin's Full Review: Digimon Battle Spirit for Game Boy Advance (GBA)
This would be yet another Japanese game made by Bandai Japan to be translated and made available to everyone in the world. This was actually a game made for the Wonderswan Color(WSC). Being in Japanese and only for the Wonderswan Color, not many people could understand or get their hands on it, but because of Bandai’s great marketing ‘dudes’ who saw great profit from this great game being released to the world (other than Japan), they made the decision to port it to the Gameboy Advance(GBA). I will be writing about the Japanese version which should be quite close to the GBA version. I have no idea if they ported DBS or DBS 1.5 but I will be writing about DBS 1.5.
Just in case you have no idea what the Wonderswan Color is, it is a Japanese handheld console that is only sold in Japan and only in a few other parts of the world and only available in special shops which import rare games. Compared to the GBC it beats it in almost every aspect: resolution, sound, speed, memory etc. However, compared to the GBA, its just a little less powerful but it is almost equal to the GBA and the differences is hardly noticeable although its only a 16 bit system with a TSTN reflective screen and less resolution. On the other hand, compared to Bandai’s new upgrade to the WSC the Wonderswan Crystal with a TFT screen it gives the GBA an even bigger challenge. But anyway, lets not get too sidetracked with other things beside the game.
Back to the point, when starting it up there are logos of the companies involved in making it plus the starting movie about the characters and their evolutions plus 2 megas fighting at the end of the movie. Once the movie is finished or cancelled, it would bring you to the main menu after pressing the start button. Next, there will be 5 menus. I can’t read Japanese very well but by experience, the first menu is story mode, second is battle another WSC with 2 sub menus: Battle DBS and Battle DBS 1.5. The third is settings with even things you can mess around with: first is time, (sets the length of the battles: 90, 120 or 180 sec) second is difficulty, third is sound test, (to listen to any songs you like which you may have heard in the game, opening, ending etc.) fourth is ERASE THE WHOLE THING!! (I’ve erased my score a few times with this function WHICH SHOULD ASK A SECOND TIME! It just made a beep and then I keep finding my hard earned scores have been erased. Took me 3 times to figure this out!) and the fifth is to go back to the previous menu saving changes. Fourth on the main menu is battle D-ARK which is more commonly known in the US as D-POWER digivice. For the connection you will need a 2 player link cable for the WSC and plug 1 end into the top of the D-ARC. Only the Japanese D-ARK has this feature plus the normal 2 pin connectors for battling other D-ARKs’ and digivices.
Selecting the first menu brings you to the character select screen where you can choose between 12 characters which are: Guilmon, Terriermon, Renamon, Veemon, Wormmon, Agumon, Sukamon, Black Agumon, (you know, the one that digivolves into Black Wargreymon..) Lopmon, Gabumon, Agumon, (same as the first one but digivolves into Omnimon instead of Wargreymon) Patamon and Gatomon. There are 2 hidden characters, which I haven’t been able to unlock. When selecting a digimon, to the right of that digimon there will be a picture of that digimon and its tamer with exceptions of the second Agumon having a picture of Omnimon behind it, Sukamon which has Chumon as its ‘tamer’ (you’ll know if you watched the first season of Digimon) and Black Agumon with a picture of Black Wargreymon behind it. Besides pressing the up and down buttons to change digimon, pressing the left and right arrow keys will change the color of the digimon. All attacks are still the same, only with a different color. Please note that Agumon and Black Agumon have different attacks because they are different digimon. Both of them have different alternative colors too. I believe the 2 hidden characters are Impmon and some other Guilmon.
Once the digimon has been selected with 1 out of 2 colors of choice, the battle will begin. The first battle is always Patamon on the Runaway Express, (watch the Japanese movie) second is Terriermon in Toy Town and the third is Gatomon at some kind of waterfall. The rest of the 7 battles are random. Basically, the objective if the game is to kick your opponents butt and knock their balls out!! You start by attacking them and a successful attack will knock 1-6 battle spirit balls out(this statement most probably stopped everyone laughing if they were in the first place). Usually most attacks knock 1-2 balls out but some knock 1-4 balls depending on if the enemy took the attack full on and 1-6 balls for most of Gabumon’s attacks. Most mega attacks knock 4 balls out but some mega long range attacks only knock 3 balls out. Hard attacks will send you or the enemy flying taking a few secs to get up again and normal attacks will just knock you back a step or 2. When getting a hard attack and after getting up, you will be invulnerable for a few secs: no balls will come out of you when you get hit but you can still attack the enemy. This game requires balls, the ability to knock enemies balls out and also to be able to get your enemy’s balls. This is such a ball grabbing game… unlike the normal fighting games where you keep attacking the enemy reducing their hit points till they get K.O.’d. At the end of the round, usually 120 seconds unless set otherwise, the balls are counted and if you get more balls than the enemy, you win the round. If you get less, you lose and have to play that round again to continue and if you draw, you have to play that round again but your previous collection of balls aren’t trashed. Scoring will be explained later.
Each digimon has 2 or more attacks and usually more than 1 taunt/tease or whatever. Also, instead of pressing a combo of buttons to execute different moves you just press the direction keys plus the attack button to get different attacks. (a BIT like Digimon Rumble Arena/Battle Evolution) Pressing down will make the digimon block, up plus attack usually a long range attack and L or R buttons twice making the mon run plus an attack will make it do a special attack. Digivolving is done when touching Calumon when he/she/it (I think it’s a he…) appears. There will be a sound when he appears. Touching him will digivolve you into mega. When you digivolve, knock the enemy’s balls out and do as much damage as you can and when the enemy get to Calumon first, RUN LIKE THE ENEMY IS GONNA KNOCK YOUR BALLS OUT…. Besides digivolving and normal attacks, there are also items like balls,(baseballs) fire items, lightning items, rocks and black gears. Balls are used by throwing them at your enemy’s head/face knocking them back and knocking 1 ball out. Fire and lightning are also thrown at the enemy. Fire burns their tails, making them run like crazy uncontrollably and they can only jump until the fire dies down. Lightning electrocutes them making them go spaz and if they touch you get it too. The rock, like the others is also thrown but its weight makes it go straight down soon after the throw and sends the enemy flying knocking 2 balls out like the fire and lightning. Each digimon also has their own unique taunt(s). I don’t know if this feature was also ported but if it was it would most probably be the shoulder keys on the GBA as opposed to the second set of action keys on the WSC. Anyway, pressing the taunt key will make the digimon do something funny to an attack/taunt which knocks a ball out. Examples of a taunts are like Gabumon’s where he plays a guitar and attack taunts like Agumon’s where he ‘does stuff’ till his face turns red and he poops. Yes! Poops on the ground. When the enemy steps on it, they totally freak out. When Guilmon steps on it he puts his hands on his head and screams, Renamon tries not to be bothered and acts cool but ends up standing straight like a statue with her fur fluffed up etc. When ‘freaked’ out, they just stand there being freaked and can’t move or attack for a few seconds giving you or the enemy time to grab and throw you or the enemy around. There is an exception with Guilmon and taunts however, Guilmon’s second taunt which is done by pressing down and holding down the attack key will make Guilmon concentrate and his next attack, if he doesn’t get hit or misses knocks an extra ball out.
Each opponent you challenge has his/her/its own area. Guilmon in the jungle, Terriermon in Toy Town, Renamon in an abandoned temple, Veemon in the desert, Wormmon in the digimon emperors base, Agumon in the coliseum, Sukamon somewhere near Odaiba, Patamon on the train, gatomon at the falls and Impmon at some place with tv screens with Impmon’s picture on them(you can tell if DBS or DBS 1.5 was ported by this level. If you get the one with tv screens with Impmon’s face, its 1.5, if not its BDS). Each area has its own dangers which knock balls out of you and different item digimon which when attacked gives an item. Each digimon also has a special passive ability which is activated automatically like Veemon and Wormmon’s ability to run on sand, Wormmon’s ability to climb walls etc.
After defeating all 10 opponents, you will move on to the final boss who I believe is ZeedMilliniummon according to something I found on the net. The final boss is quite hard to beat even on normal. Beating the boss is done by hitting his head until he gets K.O.’d. I shall not give tips on how to do this because it takes all the fun away! If you defeat all opponents without loosing even once, after you defeat the boss, he will suck you into some other place and you’ll have to figure out a whole new way to beat him. If you do all this you win! If you lost even once when defeating those 10 mons you will only have to defeat ZM-mon once. Its quite unfortunate that if you loose even once, your accumulated battle spirit balls (come to think of it, it could be called d-spirit) will reset to zero (0) and you will have to start collecting from that point on reducing your high score. Hopefully if you do, its done in the first few matches. Even more unfortunate is that Impmon is really hard to beat(maybe even harder than the boss) and he is somewhere near the middle.
Most of this should still be the same in the ported version except some sounds visuals, the translated menu and maybe even the mini-game.
The mini-game is called digimon shoot where you pick the direction, pick the power from the meter which rises quickly, goes to the bottom and starts again which keeps going by pressing the attack key to knock the enemy pieces off the board. It’s like marbles where you flick them to knock the other marbles off the board.
While I have tried the main game and the mini game, I don’t have a Japanese D-ARK although I hope to have one someday so I can’t test out the D-ARK battle feature. I really wonder what will happen to that feature… maybe it has been removed or modified. If it was modified, It could have been done to make use of the GBA’s link port or done so it can be connected to the American digivices. Anyway, I can’t really make a definite comment there.
Overall, I think graphics are really great, 2 layers of background which moves independently according to character location, gives the feel of 3D-ish-ness not to mention the reflection which uses the 2 layers of background in the temple level(Renamon). The background uses roughly the same technique as Digimon Rumble Arena for the PS. Graphics are well done with a lot of detail. Sound could be a little better by using real sounds instead of something similar to MIDI.
It is a great game but I have doubts about how well this game was ported because this game was 64MB on the Wonderswan and the maximum capacity of a GBA cartridge is only 32MB!! Only half the size!! So I would expect that a lot of Digimon-ish goodness was cut out or replaced with some lower quality material.
My personal opinion is to get this if you are a Digimon fan or if you like fighting games. Actually, anyone can play this and would most probably like it too, its quite easy to pick up the moves but it can be hard actually getting enough balls to beat the enemy every round so I kinda disagree with the phrase all over the net: “Easy to pick up but hard to put down” or something like that because it can be frustrating at times plus a game takes a long time to play with 20 minutes being the shortest time required to finish a game. This is however, one of the best games that I have ever bought.I believe it fully uses all the capabilities of the console.
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