Hands-on with Digimon World Championship

Strange to say it but the underground world of cock fighting gets a euphemistic makeover in Digimon World Championship. Replacing roosters with cutesy digital creatures, the game puts you in control of a burgeoning digimon training empire with the hopes of rising to the top as the best trainer in the world. Small pens, grueling training schedules, and tough battles await in our hands-on look at the game.

Unlike Pokémon, where turn-based duels are the crux of the game, here your primary task lies in cultivating digimon. Battles do play an important part in Digimon World Championship, but most of your time is spent hunting and training digimon in preparation for combat. In fact, you're afforded no direct control of your creatures in battle; instead, you select a trio from your roster and they automatically fight. Only the most prepared digimon emerge victorious, which means it's your job to train them properly.

There are two elements involved in the preparation of digimon for battle: hunting and training. Before you're able to train any monsters, you obviously need to go out and catch some. Over 200 varieties of digimon can be found in the game. Their availability dependent on the weather, season, and time of day. When you locate a creature, you need to battle it into submission. Once exhausted, you're able to use the stylus to wrangle it in. Another option is to use food as bait and then stun the digimon for a quick capture.

With digimon in your possession, you can move onto training. More akin to caring for a pet than actual athletic training, your primary responsibilities include feeding your digimon, cleaning up after them, and making sure they receive plenty of exercise. Digimon only grow when well-fed, so shoveling food into their small cages is vital to raising strong fighters. Of course, digimon that ingest lots of food expel equal amounts of waste. Fail to clean out their cages and digimon become discontent.

If you're abhorred at the concept of keeping digimon in tiny cages, fret not - your burgeoning digimon cultivation empire comes with a network of training cages among which you can transfer the little creatures. Each cage offers a different exercise and thus a unique statistical boost. Move a digimon into the track pen, for instance, and you can permanently boost its health. Since each variety of digimon possesses unique attributes, you'll want to implement a training regimen suited to addressing their individual weaknesses.

When you're content with training, you can move into competition. A slew of modes afford plenty of battle opportunities: 60 title matches, unranked free matches, one-on-one local battles, and online bouts via Nintendo WiFi Connection. Unfortunately, you're never granted control over your digimon during battle - even in multiplayer matches - so you best prepare them well. Lose a battle and you'll have to administer first aid to your ailing warrior, using bandages and medicines to heal them up.

With over 200 creatures and tons of battle modes, there's certainly a lot on offer in Digimon World Championship. But the lack of direct control over digimon during battles is, in our opinion, a serious disappointment, preventing the game from being anything more than an exercise in monster management.

Thankfully, ample options for customising and training digimon should keep fans busy when the game hits North American stores in the autumn. Whether the game will make it over to Europe is another, far more unlikely, matter however.