Are there any differences between Digimon World 2003 and Digimon World 3 (US)? (2025)

wildwing64 said:

As far as I know Digimon World 2 didn't get a European release, so by the time 3 came around it made no sense to keep it as number 3 when the entry before it was missing.

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World 2 certainly wasn't released here. Which was a shame. I didn't think of that for why it was renamed though lol.

CoDL said:

Released only in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Digimon World 2003 is exactly the same as the Japanese version of Digimon World 3, where unlike the North American version, after defeating Galacticmon, Junior returns to the Amaterasu Server, which is partially fixed, to play a test game.*

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Well it's not 100% the same since DW2003 still uses the same music as DW3 in the opening and credits whereas the japanese version plays "Miracle Maker" at those points... so it's more like 99% the same (minus the language of course).
A few elaborations on the post Galacticmon gameplay, there aren't really any new maps or Digimon for that part, the fixed amaterasu server uses the color palette and soundtrack of the Asuka server but still has the amaterasu random encounters. I think the central and east sectors are the only accessible levels, the rest are blocked off. The quests are pretty much a continuation of the original in-universe gameplay plot before the A.o.A. derailed everything during the main story, so your goal is to defeat the city leaders again (except they are not in their cities this time since most of them aren't accessible) and finally challenge the game master in the arena (the arena reception in the admin center couldn't be used throughout the main story).
There are no Digimon or card exclusive to the post game, although I think there are new high level tamer and card battles to be fought with the NPCs that are exclusive to the new Amaterasu server.

randomzer0 said:

A side question to this would then be... which version is better? So far 2003 is sounding like the version to play.

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There's no reason to go with the US version if you can play PAL region games...

PAL refers to the European and Australian release. DMW 2003. Has a sane Counter Crest.

The US version is called DMW3 and has the broken all-powerful Counter Crest that beats the game for you.

IIRC the story content on World 3 was also cut from the original Japanese version. The 2003 ver had the cut contents.

Also, one minor difference is that the japanese and 2003 had longer battle opening scenes, one extra music that was absent from the US DW3 that is the Kurt's battle. Minotaurmon had different KO pose. In DW3 your maximum damage input can be 4 digit numbers, when in 2003 (and also maybe in the JP one), the maximum damage input is 9999.

I've never found any other differences, I played the 2003 version when I was young. So I didn't know much.

Also, Theigno, the Japanese version actually had 2 openings. One is the miracle maker song, and one is the opening we get in the western version.

DATS24 said:

In DW3 your maximum damage input can be 4 digit numbers, when in 2003 (and also maybe in the JP one), the maximum damage input is 9999.

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Errr... 9999 is also a 4 digit number. This has no difference between the two versions.