Digimon World: Data Squad review

This is where the problems start. Instead of a typical command menu in the lower left corner, four brightly colored menus (Action, Guard, Escape, and Support) appear in the middle. From there, dozens of different command plates "honeycomb" outward in a messy web - however, instead of a unique command on each plate, like you'd expect, the same three or four commands are repeated randomly. The more times a command appears, the more your Digimon wants to execute that command. So if you see twelve "Smiley Slaps" and only ten "Sunshine Guns," then you know your Lalamon really wants to Smiley Slap someone. The problem with this is, if you want to make your Digimon happy, the game degrades into a mere counting exercise, which isn't much fun. Plus, the fights are so easy that it really doesn't matter which commands you give your Digimon anyway.

To make matters worse, in addition to the overly simplistic combat, each order you give is accompanied by long, repetitive camera pans. Think you can tolerate the sluggish pace so long as the scenery is nice? We should warn that though some of the cel-shading is attractive, most of the environments look plain and underwhelming. Running through them, interrupted every few steps by slow and uninteresting battles, is not a pleasure.