Just beat the game earlier this morning. It was a solid game that will has some really neat elements that could be greatly expanded upon in a sequel. This was my first Digimon game, so I'm just going to rant about the game a little. Sorry.
Collecting, digivolving, and training digimon is by far the most fun part of the game. It's been years since I kept up with the digimon universe, so it was exciting to see what some of the digimon would evolve into. There's some really cool designs, though I feel like the franchise plays too heavy on the digimon becoming more anthropomorphic as they go up the digivoltion chain; Some of them still look really great, where as other just look like people in crazy armor.
The characters and story was pleasing enough, though I definitely messed up and chose the male protagonist. There's a fun story and world in the game, but it's unfortunately bogged down by walls and walls of text that are often poorly localized or completely irrelevant.The whole detective aspect really reeled me in early on; I had a lot of fun solving cases and actively wanted to have my digimon investigate to see what new cases would arise. This enthusiasm unfortunately waned as I got further into the game. Even beside the randomly generated ones, the majority of cases don't have you going to new locations or doing anything you haven't already done outside the main quest. Granted these quests expand upon the world and some even flesh out important characters in the game, but I found myself losing motivation to take on new cases because most of them go no where. It's unfortunate, as there's really room for variety in the case structure that the game just doesn't capitalize on.
Which in lies my biggest complaint of the game: its repetition. The game is content having you do the same mission structure over and over. It's either "Go to point A and talk to X" or "Go to Point A and battle X". This wouldn't be as huge of an issue if he game didn't repeat locations so often; Some later dungeons are literally the same dungeons you progressed through earlier on. The last quarter of the game ramps up and offers some unique locations, but by the 30 hour mark it's a little too late. Likewise, the battle system becomes routine way too quick. There's not the greatest room for customization once you pick your digimon in terms of moves and abilities. Also, the game undeniably pushes you to digivolve into more advance forms; it gives you the option to keep lower tier digimon, but you have almost zero incentive for focusing on a lower class digimon as opposed to a more evolved one. Battles then become the victim of spamming your best character and loading up your heaviest digimon for battle. I could have used multiple teams, but it was just more simple to keep spamming Wargreymon's strongest move that dealt massive damage regardless of types.
Regardless of those flaws, I had a fun time with the game. It was really satisfying seeing certain characters go from their base form to a dominating monster capable of beating any of the bosses in the game and I even started to like some of the main cast. I'd love to see the franchise ditch the persona-esque mix of real world vs. battle world in lieu of something more imaginative and set in the digital world. Then again, maybe that's what other games in the franchise do. I have no idea.