Some of the most popular games in the past decade have also been the most simple. Take, for example, Diablo, or its sequel, Diablo 2. At heart, the Diablo series basically consists of clicking the same mouse button over and over again. But this is justified by the other aspects of the game, the online community, character progression, hunting for rare items, a story-driven single player campaign, and so forth and so on. For all the repetition of repeatedly clicking that mouse button, the design of the game lends itself perfectly to that type of gameplay.

Action RPGs of this sort are nothing new to the GameCube (Gauntlet Legends, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and Phantasy Star Online being among the more prominent examples). Each pits the player against a seemingly-endless horde of enemies, the only solution to mash the attack button and heal at the proper time. The more players kill, the more powerful their characters become, the more money they earn, and the more upgrades they can purchase, be it weaponry, armor or magic. And each game becomes exponentially more entertaining as more players join the action. This is once again due to intelligent game design, giving the players a long-term goal with many simpler, easier-to-attain short-term goals that keep them saying "one more dungeon" or "just one more level."

Unfortunately, the existence of such promising examples only serve to make Digimon World 4 that much more disappointing. Digimon gets the basics of the genre right, with different character classes, character progression, multiplayer support and a "mash the attack button" battle system. The main problem is, short of a love for all things Digimon, there's nothing to hook the player into coming back for more. The storyline isn't all that engaging, there's not enough character customization to justify the effort one sinks into leveling up, and poor design choices mean that the first few hours are also the most frustrating.

Understandably, new characters in the game centers around character progression and are therefore going to be weak at first. But Digimon World 4 takes this ideal a little too far. Beginning the game, I wandered around the first area for a bit, making headway until I was in danger of death. After healing, I made a bit more progress, and once my health began dwindling again, I warped back to town to heal. Checking the shops, I didn't have enough money for another healing item. Returning to the area, I was thrown back to the beginning of the stage with all of my slaughtered enemies having re-spawned as well. This brings up two significant problems, that of the re-spawning enemies and that of restarting a stage at its beginning each time. Though there are checkpoints scattered throughout the stages that allow you to warp back to town and resume at that point, these warps require the usage of an item from inside the stage and players can only return to said warps if they depart using them. Should players perish at a later point in the stage, they're forced to restart at the very beginning of the stage each time, complete with the return of every previously defeated foe.

Continuing my adventure, I had yet to reach my prior position, but my health was dangerously low, so again I returned to town. This time I had enough money to purchase not one, but two healing items. Back to the dungeon, where I once again worked my way through the same area for the third time, slaughtering the same enemies with the same repetitious tapping of the A button. Tapping L to bring up the item menu, I hit A to use the healing item and then hit A again to attack the enemy that had appeared by my side, but instead of taking the offensive, my character used the other healing item and I took substantial damage from my foe. In a real-time action RPG such as this, where time is crucial, it would make sense to have the item menu appear only while the L trigger is depressed, or perhaps disappear after an item is used. Instead, the menu remains open until the player either taps L again or takes damage. Requiring players to tap L to close the menu just isn't that intuitive and results in needless frustration, especially near the start of the game when funds and items are limited. Thankfully, a Quick Heal button automatically uses the strongest healing item without needing to navigate the item menu, but this doesn't resolve the issue of accidentally using too many items when you're replenishing MP or curing a status ailment.

The encounter leaving my character drained of health, and now without the two healing items I had hoped would allow me to progress, I returned once again to town for healing and items. But, as before, I was unable to afford a healing item, so for the fourth time, I started the stage over from the beginning. After repeating the process a few more times, my character eventually leveled up, and after acquiring enough funds for healing items, I was able to progress deep into the stage. Discovering a cave network, I ventured inside, repeatedly fighting large groups of the same enemy until my Digimon, stranded without any healing or warp items, was struck down as I attempted to flee the cave. As characters drop all their money, called BITS, upon death, this left me in a tricky spot. Without any funds for healing items, there was no way I could hope to reach the depths of the cave and regain my hard-earned BITS in a timely fashion. The solution? Restarting the level again, fighting as far as I could, retreating back to town to regain health, hopefully buy items, and then repeat the process ad nauseum. In all, I played through that first area over ten times.

Things get better as players progress in the game, slowly accumulating BITS in the bank so as to not lose them after death, their Digimon becoming more powerful after slaughtering countless digital foes. And though multiplayer also helps to lessen the frustration factor, in both cases, the lack of checkpoints, re-spawning enemies, unintuitive menu design and repetitious gameplay remain, but only slightly less annoying than before, which does little to excuse the first few extremely frustrating hours. Looking past all of the flaws, there's a degree of fun to be had with Digimon World 4, just not enough to make it a worthwhile expenditure.