My Complicated Love For Digimon World | Digimon World (1999 ~ PS1) Retrospective

0:00 [Music] foreign all right hey everyone uh it's me Wayne I'm back been gone a while let's talk about Digimon Digimon was always that strange series that I really liked growing up but the extent to which I could interact with it was limited I was introduced to the franchise through the anime singing a couple of episodes of the show on TV and from there I tried to find a few other ways to get into the series I collected the trading cards I remember having one or two of these transforming toys and of course I had a couple of the VHS tapes including one for the movie which I enjoyed more when I was a kid but still kind of have a soft spot for but beyond that it was kind of hard to be a really

0:45 die-hard fan of Digimon when I was younger as I wasn't really watching the newer shows as they aired and there wasn't a lot of merch out there if anything it's easier to be a fan of the series now that I'm an adult with new series like Ghost Games streaming tons of new Collectibles stuff like model kits and it really feels like the franchise has grown up with us with the newer material and the anime actively acknowledging how much we've grown since we started watching Digimon Adventure back in the day one aspect of the series I didn't get a chance to take part of until I was older was the video games I don't even remember seeing many of them advertised when I was a kid and in fact I didn't actually get a chance to play my first one until I was in college and my roommate at the time introduced me to cyber sleuth for the PS4 I'm not sure where I saw it but I do remember seeing ads for this one Digimon game the first one in fact and I was excited at first

1:32 when I saw this floating around as a kid because it was for the PS1 and I had a PS2 I could play it on but I was also a child and wasn't allowed to play t-rated games and trust me we're gonna get into why this game having that rating is ridiculous but I'm older now I pay for my own video games and besides I'm pretty sure I can handle anything this has to throw at me and I paid a pretty good penny to get this in my hands too so is it gonna be worth it to finally satiate my curiosity that's been building for over 20 years now I sure hope so in terms of story there's not a lot to spoil here but spoiler alert this is Digimon World for the PlayStation [Music]

2:23 just look at this thing I normally go on my way to collect black labels for my PS1 games but I've yet to find one in as good a condition as this Greatest Hits copy so here we are for now can't deny how cool it is to finally have this in my collection that image of metalgreymon was striking it's no wonder they decide to use this for the American box art it's a legitimately awesome render and oh boy what a tagline on some of these ads may not be suitable for people who suck at video games I can tell you right now it took some stones for this game to come right out of the gate swinging like that especially since a lot of advertisements at the time time weren't really showing off what the game actually was and all the marketing seemed super vague I do have to say though as much as I like this American box art I was shocked the other day when

3:09 I finally saw the Japanese box out for the first time and are you kidding me right now this is amazing I'm pretty sure this was done by Kenji Watanabe an insanely talented artist who did a lot of early artwork for much of the Digimon franchise and I believe even designed several of the creatures I do wish the states had more confidence in box art like this but still what we got over here does beat out what they went with in Europe which honestly looks like repurposed images used for merchandise from the anime like this would have been the stock image to use on the tags of plushies or t-shirts alright before we keep getting too sidetracked let's lay down the premise we've got this kid living in Japan where apparently all the cool kids like to hang out and play with their repets comparing what they've raced and pinning them against each other in a fight it's a little hard to

3:54 ignore that the CG in these cutscenes are well look this game clearly had some budgetary constraints alright not every Studio was swimming in money it is kind of funny hearing Mona Marshall voicing the main character here since she also provided the English voice for Izzy and the English dub for the original anime or uh koshiro Izumi sorry this won't be the last time you hear me using the localized names in regards to this franchise but another key thing to take note of here are these little keychains hosting their little creatures known as Digimon because believe it or not understanding these devices how they work and their history with the Digimon franchise is essential for understanding this game I think the premise of this game alone would have confused me as a kid because I think I always assumed it was based on the anime

4:40 and it's it's not it actually predates that show by a couple of months it's actually not based on any pre-existing manga anime Trading Card Game nothing like that no it's based on this remember Tamagotchi I had one of these as a kid it was cool he was my little buddy the thing had flames on it and I'm pretty sure I accidentally left it somewhere in my friend Ethan's van and it's likely been lost to the tides of Time or you know between the seats it was a virtual pet or v-pet you would feed him teach him lessons clean up his poop on occasion it was just a neat little well virtual pet that you would take care of and depending on the level of care you gave it and what its base form was it would grow into a variety of different creatures until inevitably passing on to the big motherboard in the sky death comes for us all and your

5:26 adorable pixelated bundle of innocence is no exception also I feel like I wouldn't be very good at my job if I talked about the Virtual Pet Craze and I didn't mention Sonic Adventure um and of course the uh the Dreamcast uh virtual memory unit this thing is amazing I love this uh I I know that the uh the GameCube ports of Sonic Adventure one and two also had something like this but uh the Dreamcast version has always been my favorite but you had these little creatures in Sonic Adventure that you could you could find and raise they had a whole like Garden for them and then uh you could dump them onto your memory card and the the vmu the portable memory card for the Dreamcast it was like its own little like gaming handheld

6:14 and it was basically just a little Tamagotchi look at them look this is a little guy he's like yo he's somebody on my thing this is a fantastic I love it at some point or another though the company that created these little guys Bandai decided they wanted a spin on the Tamagotchi that was easier to Market to young boys and from that idea Digimon was born they had this cool brick design the creatures inside them were still cute but would evolve into much edgier and fearsome forms and when you train them up enough you could even have them battle with your friends Digimon it wasn't a complicated battle strategy it was mostly a predetermined outcome that was decided as the devices were linked and compared the stats from each creature with I think a little RNG thrown in there watching the battle actually take place was something of a formality but yeah this is the concept

7:01 that the rest of the franchise was born from and certain aspects of Digimon and other media would take their own liberties with these ideas like the anime taking a more linear approach to the evolution of each creature but plenty of other aspects of this franchise have held on to the roots of these original v-pets there was even a new line of toys released for the franchise's 20th anniversary with new designs being launched over the years and this Greymon pattern is probably my favorite even now the recent anime series Digimon ghost game ties in the newest evolution of these v-pet devices known as the Bandai vital bracelet a real life accessory that you can use as a weird sort of hybrid between an original v-pet and I guess a Fitbit racing your Digimon not So Much by feeding them or cleaning up their waste but by training yourself with it through physical activity not just by tracking your steps but also various other

7:47 exercises it's a really creative way to evolve the old vpet idea for adults with jobs that can't spend every every minute feeding their fake pet okay so like one of the really cool things about this vital bracelet is that you should be able to interact with these with somebody else's and have your Digimon to fight each other kind of like you could with the old V pets but if you want to just initiate random battles all you need is something with an NFC Reader that's giving off an active signal and then it acts like there's something inside of that device uh that's like you know it's infested with a hostile Digimon and yours is fighting it it even works with the new 3DS XL because it has an NFC Reader for the amiibos and so you know you can uh be like oh no oh no oh no there's a there's a bad Digimon inside my 3DS isn't that crazy that's so

8:35 weird that's so uh that's so nuts you know it's just one more cool thing about the 3DS you know people have been telling me lately that's actually really easy to mod these all in all it's just cool to see that even after decades have passed and this Series has entered so many other forms and media that frankly it's probably more well known known for it still feels like the origins of this franchise have always held a sort of importance and a shining example is Digimon World I can't speak for the original developers or what their intentions were but just based on what I've been able to gather after playing it it seems like what they were going for was taking these original Digimon virtual pets and adapting this concept into an adventure game and it works to a degree

9:25 from here you get to name your main character and a lot of fans will recognize him as mommyo or is it mameo mamio anyway it relates to something we'll talk about someday but in this title he's really just recognized as The Analog Kid or really whatever you name him when he gets home he notices his Digivice it was a turn back then leave me alone is doing some weird stuff all on its own almost like it's come to life and before he has time to question what's going on he's sucked into the device and transported into the digital world how many of you seen Tron huh what seriously none of you have seen Tron here he's greeted by Gigimon a friendly Elder Digimon who tells him about his sort of turmoil that started to wash over the digital world affecting the memories of those inhabiting it and

10:11 causing them to scatter this vast Island to segregate from their once unified home he enlisted Digimon partner to you and asked for your help in bringing the various Digimon from across the island back here to file City to rebuild and help thwart the looming and mysterious Peril he knows is coming apparel they don't have any name for besides vaguely referring to it as the emergency you essentially have one larger overarching objective here recruiting more Digimon to file City but in order to do that you'll need to get accustomed to the main subject of this title's gameplay Loop raising your Digimon I mean there are a couple of simple things you can do outside of file City a few weaker Digimon to fight and even one or two that you can recruit to join the town but before you go exploring too much the first thing you want to do is train

10:56 acquaint yourself with this mechanic now because it's something you're going to be repeating for the entire rest of the experience you're gonna start your adventure with either an Agumon or a gabumon arguably two of the most popular creatures in the series and which one you get will depend on how you answer a couple of questions from jijimon at the beginning of the game he also gives you an option to name your Digimon what can I say I'm a sucker for Tradition now from here you want to make sure to stock up on food and sure you can find some mushrooms hanging around the screen surrounding file City but the best source of food for your digital friend is a farm run by a local tenement where they grow meat I love this exchange too mamao questions hunks of cooked animal flesh just sprouting out of the dirt and

11:42 tenements just like you're on Archer fell it's weird to expect that it wouldn't and our little MC is just like yeah sure that tracks this open-minded mentality where he's willing to just accept that elements of this world don't play by the same rules he's accustomed to are honestly kind of refreshing this kid's just like dude I got sucked into a keychain this morning the word normal doesn't mean anything to me anymore tandemon will give you new rations of meat for every in-game day and you'll want to continually stock up on this stuff because from here once again you need to train near the edge of the city is a location called the green gym there are other gyms in this game but I'm gonna be honest this is the only one that matters here you can take your Digimon to a workout station and raise one of their stats HP MP offense defense speed or brains now time is always

12:29 moving forward in this game and with every workout an in-game hour passes usually this is a real world minute and you could watch that full minute play out but you can also just press the triangle button to speed past that process and jump right to the end of set hour each Digimon has a certain amount of time that needs to pass before they can evolve into their next form and depending on what their stats are at the end of that time period they'll evolve into one of several possible new forms each base Digimon has their own evolution tree dictating what they can grow into when and under what conditions and after enough time passes once you've raced it into either a champion or ultimate level Digimon they'll die of old age and reform as an egg or digitama of your choosing giving you some agency over which evolution tree you want to train with so let's say you start with this digitama and hatch a bodemon you'll

13:15 want to get a head start on a few of his stats and after just a couple of hours he'll evolve into a coramon now this is where it starts to split because after maybe one in-game day passes your coramon is going to evolve into either an Agumon or a gabumon this is depending on which stats have been given priority say for example if you want an Agumon you'll need to have coromon's HP MP and often take priority over his defense speed in brains and vice versa if you want a gabumon okay now he's evolved and you have your Agumon and I hope all of that made sense to you because now it can evolve into one of six different possible creatures okay seven if we're counting numamon more on him later and this is where the interesting part kicks in I don't know how my younger self would have responded to this game mostly because the anime taught me what the

14:01 paths of evolution were for each of these creatures but the original v-pets and by proxy Digimon World do not follow this logic these evolutionary trees are not linear and you have to have the stats for each possible outcome down to a science and if you don't good luck because this game has no intention to walk you through that process there's a sort of art to how a game can communicate its mechanics to the player and this is a form of art that Digimon World seems to have a decent understanding of for just about everything outside of how Evolution works and given how crucial this process is to your progression as you only to know how to raise specific Digimon to either deal with strong opponents in the Overworld or complete missions that call for very specific creatures this feels like more than just a slight oversight I know there's a player's guide available

14:47 for this game but I've also heard that it's not even very reliable when it comes to accurately walking you through obtaining specific Digimon I should address that there are some fans out there who hold to the idea that half the points or half the fun of this title is walking through the Digimon racing process blindly doing your best to train them up in the way that makes sense to you and just seeing what they become and I don't disagree actually you know what I can see value in that especially when you're first starting out in the game and can afford to say things a bit more casually these Evolution trees will lead you through the base Digimon to the more intermediate forms in a fairly natural way and aren't exactly the most demanding thing in the world getting a good champion level Digimon might not be too hard and who knows you might be surprised by how much you end up liking a certain creature that maybe you didn't even think much of before early on I was

15:34 sort of blindly making my way through the game raising my little digital buddy and ended up racing him into a bergermon which was never really one of my go-to designs in the series but I think we can all see a little appeal in a giant bird that's constantly set on fire and apparently can't afford good dental care this guy stuck with me for a while though he ended up being a really reliable partner to get me through some of the early game Trials able to blast through most battles and I was able to clear a few recruitments because of it I gained a new appreciation for bergermon after that something I probably wouldn't have had if I didn't raise that Digimon without knowing exactly what it would turn into in fact the first ultimate level Digimon I got was not one I would normally have gone after I barely even give androman a second thought before playing this game but now I love this guy we've been through so much together he helped me on so many tough areas I started to care about so many Digimon I

16:19 never did before playing this game like betamon or elecmon the list goes on and when androman finally had to fade away to begin the cycle Anew I felt something you know it felt like we really did have a sort of connection and did he just dab on me on his way out that said trying to raise an ultimate level Digimon is a bit more complicated than a champion and a large reason behind that is that its minimum required stats can be very high and you are not going to guess what those requirements are if you want to go into this blind for a bit and see what you get it's all well and good in fact I recommend it for the early game but I won't pretend for a minute that this should be the expectation for the whole game not with the amount of time getting stronger Digimon can take even when you know what you're doing I only mentioned this because I've actually seen some fans

17:05 trying to ridicule people who try to get into this game nowadays for doing it wrong if they want to use a guide I don't want to undercut this play style there is value to it and it's my recommendation that you start out this way during your first playthrough but the mandatory purist mentality some players have with this stuff in this game or any other is barely logical guys no this is archaic it's incredibly time consuming and in many cases it's simply not going to be feasible in this day and age when we just don't have the time to sink into a game like this and anymore I mean maybe when you were growing up with it sure I see this in a similar way to people who insist Metroid on the NES is a game that holds up 100 well with no mapper guide of any kind and no dude it's a lot to expect players nowadays to have the time patience or fortitude for

17:51 that kind of crap when half the hallways all look the same in the same way I think Dragon Warrior a game that came packaged with a partial guide is best enjoyed with that guide I think trying to evolve ideal creatures in Digimon World in a completely blind way should only be seen as an optional method for new players who might like playing it that way otherwise and I really don't have any shame in saying this this is a flaw in the game's design one that I'm sure drove some kids absolutely crazy back in the day because we're talking about one of the most fundamental elements of this game's structure not knowing how you need to properly train your partner to achieve one of several possible different Evolutions can be crippling to the experience but thankfully we do have options nowadays

18:36 with a helpful tool that I like to call the internet I want to give a big old shout out to Sid Montage who put together this great Evolution tool online and I'll leave a link to it in this video's description by inputting what Digimon you currently have with you their stats and which Digimon you want this tool will tell you not only if that evolution is possible but what you'll need to do to accomplish it and how your chances for that outcome fare against any others you could achieve this thing is a godsend because it will walk you through all of the necessary criteria between tradable stats weights care mistakes and bonus criteria like required discipline and happiness or the amount of techniques you'll need to have touch your Digimon yeah this is a lot of stuff

19:25 that's not just a prop for a gag by the way I took a lot of like actual pen on paper notes for this video this game is just so full of information so let's start with the basics what are care mistakes your buddy will communicate its needs to you like when it needs to eat when he needs to sleep and when it needs to unload when you see these little speech bubbles you'll want to tend to these needs when they pop up otherwise that will count as a care mistake then again while some Evolutions require that you have little to no care mistakes some like skull Greymon will require upwards of 10. you basically have to actively neglect your partner Digimon to get some of the most powerful creatures in this game if you're going for a Digimon Evolution that needs as few care

20:10 mistakes as possible you want to make sure you're taking care of all of its needs as soon as they come up you'll have about until the end of the in-game hour to make sure that they get fed or go to sleep or unload or else that will count as a care mistake but the tricky thing is that this game doesn't really track them in any visible way for you if you have to have care mistakes to get certain Digimon you want my recommendation is to just go the poop route it's way too easy to lose track of every time you've gone hungry or gotten over tired during a workout but when you just neglect letting them use the toilet the results are very visible this is the reason the game got a t rating by the way thing is once your Digimon has left this stuff around it uh well it doesn't go away not unless you evolve it into

20:56 either a pneumon or a tsukumon an evolution you obtain when you fail to meet the requirements for certain levels of Digimon and I believe also triggered by camera stakes and these things will clean it up for you what a game that's not all though because another really important aspect of racing the right Digimon is their weight and this is one of the harder things to control but it's also one of the more lenient Windows you can race it digimon's weight by feeding it but I would wait until they actually tell you they're hungry and depending on what you feed them like mushrooms are better for maintaining a control on their weight as it will only raise the stat by one but giving the meat could raise it by two or three depending on the size of the portion your Digimon will also lose a couple points of weight every time it uses the bathroom so you have to use the power of math to use the

21:43 lost weight to keep it under a certain limit or feed them have to to your food to circumvent the cost that's a um weird way to put that now why not just stuff this little guy's face full of hearty farm-grown sirloins well because that would lower their happiness and discipline that matters too kind of happiness and discipline are more like bonus criteria when it comes to attaining a particular Digimon Evolution a digimon might require a particularly High discipline stat like say 90 percent on their discipline to add to their meter if you have the right stats for one Evolution but it also puts you close to the parameters of another Evolution this can act as something of a safety net you can think of it as giving you

22:28 bonus points of likelihood for turning into a particular form there are several ways to raise these one of the easiest is grinding for some bits the currency of the game and buying a bunch of low-level healing items these can be fed to your Digimon without acting like food so it won't contribute to their weight stat but it also won't lower their happiness and discipline like force feeding them an RB sandwich does there's a chance that your Digimon will refuse this item in which case you can choose to scold them which will offer a boost in both meters there's a praise button too and while it will raise your digimon's happiness it'll also lower their discipline I guess you can't be letting these creatures get the idea that they're too loved and valued can you have you ever tried simply turning off the TV sitting down with your children and hitting them another bonus criteria available to you is one that I

23:15 didn't end up getting a lot of use out of because I think it mostly benefits players trying to raise a strong Digimon in the late game after doing a lot already and that would be acquiring a certain amount of texts which are essentially new attacks that your Digimon can learn by fighting certain other Digimon that already know those texts your buddy is capable of learning it can take a lot of battles between a lot of Digimon both yours and the ones you fight as I guess they need to be lined up with the same pool of tech capabilities in order for them to pass it on but you'll want to gain a lot of these just to make some strong Evolutions a bit easier to get I uh I was bad at this one I I did not get a whole lot of text in this game and basically all of this stuff you gotta keep in mind while you train your little friend feed them let them sleep make sure that you didn't make them train too

24:00 many times in a row or else they'll get exhausted take them to the John make sure to get meat from the meat farm every day they praise them but not too much and make sure you're battling a lot oh that's right how many times your Digimon is in battles that's another bonus criteria I completely I forgot about that one there is an undeniable quality to just raising one of these little guys starting off from the stages of their infancy watching them grow into stronger and stronger forms sometimes you know ones you weren't directly aiming for or even hoping for but there's still something to love there a lot of kids growing up with this title would end up with the infamous green blob we know as pneumon because they didn't really understand how to achieve one of the next forms but honestly unless you're neglecting training altogether and just building up a lot of

24:45 camera Stakes you're never really at as much of a risk of ending up with this Digimon as I was always led to believe I think it just lends to the fact that this title just doesn't dish out its own rules in a very understandable way now there are some Digimon forms that take special parameters to attain they're not always the only requirements for getting a certain Evolution but it can and act as something of a shortcut through that process like using the Golden Banana to get edamon but there are some that just appear I had a hard time trying to emulate this as it happened to me by complete accident the first time I picked up this game and I wasn't recording at the time but I had a gabumon and I took him into a battle that he ended up losing and turned into a Pokemon just just a little ghost dude just a little guy these circumstantial Evolutions are interesting especially

25:31 when they catch you by surprise and I'm sure there's some solid documentation out there on what they all are and how they're achieved but they add just that one extra spin to this already pretty in-depth system if you want to get every Digimon in the game you're going to be doing a lot of like work especially since you only ever have one creature and need to work through its entire life cycle before you can take another crack at it this is a very time consuming process like to an alarming degree but it has its benefits that said raising your Digimon is only one part of the cycle so what do you do once you gotten your little buddy strong enough to venture outside of file City outside of file City their Digimon

26:17 scattered all over the island in various biomes living their lives an aimless wander or dedicating themselves to some form of menial task those are just the recruitable Digimon though the standard ones that you find out in the Overworld are there to battle they'll just be sort of waddling around out there in their habitat and for the most part all you have to do is just watch their movement patterns and if you don't want to fight just gotta find an opening and move past them if you end up making contact with one of them though the game is going to take a quick second to load in all the available information on each combatant and if there are any more wild Digimon in that area they may decide to either join the fight against you or get scared and run off from here every stat that you've trained for comes into play attack and defense are obvious calculating how hard your Digimon can

27:02 hit and the resilience it has to oncoming attacks from opponents HP and MP are similar managing the hit points available to your Digimon partner as well as their magic points I'm gonna be honest I'm pretty surprised they went with the standard RPG magic points for this one and not like data points or something more you know digital monster related but sure this is something that your Digimon is going to need to tap into anytime that they want to use one of their texts which make up their attack move set some text will cost more MP than others and will usually compensate that cost with a wider range or heavier attack power now for the most part you yourself aren't going to be doing a lot in these battles as the outcome mostly relies on what your Digimon does with the tools at its disposal and I think this is sort of understandably created the idea that the player doesn't have any real agency in

27:48 these fights thus making them kind of random but that's really not the case not as much as you might think anyway and that's something held up especially well with the final two stats speed and brains a high speed stat will do what you might imagine increasing the rate at which your Digimon will attack the opponent and I know that sounds simple but trust me especially when you're surrounded by enemies training your Digimon with a high speed stat is one of the best things you can ever do for it I mean you don't have to worry too much about it getting too hurt if it's wiping out your enemies before they can even get a good hit in right it's weirdly satisfying too like sure you can see the results of your Digimon being able to hit really hard but it's easy to feel really proud of your little buddy watching them move around on the field and just absolutely juggling anyone they're up against because the other guy

28:34 just can't react as fast as yours it's not all perfect though sometimes it doesn't matter who stats are what I think the game just gets tired of processing so much information for a few seconds and sometimes everybody on screen just kind of sits there and does nothing like guys guys come on we got a fight going on here yeah okay there we go now sometimes it's not quite enough to land an attack first some attack animations take longer than others and depending on if it's a projectile move or not an attack might be interrupted but once the projectile is in the air it's gonna hit there are times when you'll actually want to be really mindful of when these animations are beginning and ending because there is one attack you have direct control over and that's tied to the Finish gauge every Digimon has a finishing technique

29:19 and during each battle you'll see the word finish complete itself letter by letter as time passes once it's filled you'll see a prompt indicating that you can use it and then you'll need to alternate between the L1 and R1 buttons really fast to bring it to maximum power the finishing technique is going to be one of your best friends because it can pack a ridiculous punch and be an absolute Game Changer if you ever find yourself struggling during a fight and it doesn't cost any MP just need to fill that gauge up and you'll be able to launch it but timing is important here because if you start this thing and get hit during the process your finishing technique is on and you'll need to wait for it to fill up again before making another attempt to use it generally I find it best to wait until your Digimon has been hit with an attack and gotten up from their recovery animation as your opponent will need time before they can

30:04 cycle into another attack and if you initiate your finisher during that window they'll be stuck unable to move while you power it up and won't be able to defend themselves from it it's a great strategy to rely on especially when you need to wrap up a fight and have run out of MP for basic texts but if you need just a little more control over how these fights play out you'll want to train up your digimon's brain stat as when you get it to high enough levels you can call out to your pal during battles and instruct them on which Tech to use in that moment depending on the ones that you've outfitted them with when to stay on the defensive when to use their own judgment or when to flee from the battle altogether as you learn how your digimon's text operates how fast they are how much ground they cover how much MP they cost and how effective they seem to be against certain opponents this becomes a huge asset in gaining more

30:51 control over each encounter but you also so can't forget the importance of using replenishing items you can purchase or find items like these little floppy disks that will recover their HP or NP each with their own set of ranging Effectiveness depending on the size of the floppy and you can toss these out to your Digimon partner in real time during battles working immediately on contact when you're out battling especially when you're exploring deep Beyond file City you want to make sure to stock up on as many of these as you can because you'd be surprised how quickly both your digimon's health and MP can get drained and outside of sleeping which takes up several hours of your partner's a limited lifespan this is your best way of recovering these stats these aren't the only recovery items though there are others that can restore your Digimon from status ailments like when they get hit with certain techs that can poison

31:36 them leave them with a lasting injury stun them or um turn them into this old 8-bit version of themselves resembling how they look on the old v-pet toys just shooting out these little pixels that do barely any damage like the status effect can be annoying but it's undeniable charming and there is nothing more satisfying than an enemy doing this year Digimon and their own HP is low enough that this basic little attack the Sprite does actually takes them out now these recovery items aren't exactly free there are a few that you can find out in these monitors scattered throughout the world among other helpful items but those are limited the rest will have to be collected on the off chance and enemy drops one after being defeated or buying them from shops but obviously for that you're gonna need bits and this is one

32:22 of the main draws for combat in this game because of the way training works you don't really get a lot of experience points for Downing foes but winning battles is still one of the best ways to make money you should remember that your main objective here is just a peaceful recruitment Mission but you are going to be doing some battling along the way and if it's not just for mandatory story based fights it's usually going to be from trying to fill out your wallet a bit and if you got a strong Digimon you can stump through quite a few of these fights pulling in a decent amount of dough along the way there will be times when you might find yourself burning through cash faster than you're making it especially when you're raising low-level Digimon who can't really fight but try not to stress over it too hard especially when you can rely on some really big payouts from major fights during quests as you Explore More of the island you'll begin

33:08 to encounter other Digimon with slightly more scripted places in the world maybe they're guarding something maybe they're just irritable and need to be knocked around a little bit before they're willing to join the city maybe like this little patamon here they might just have something to prove thing is as you get further and further away from file City these guys are going to pack a bit more of a punch and you're going to want to exercise some caution you really don't want to loosen these tougher fights because they're repercussions can actually be a lot worse than just losing time for every evolution cycle your Digimon has three lives and every time they get knocked out during a battle you have a small window where you can use a revive item to get them back up and running otherwise they'll lose a life and be sent back to file City and you may have even had some of your items stolen as well lose all three of those lives and your Digimon will die

33:55 reverting back to a cluster of data until farming back into a digitama and this right here this is bad see if a digimon Fades way out of old age it's all good they retain the text that they obtained throughout the journey you get to choose the digitama they form back into and they'll hatch with some nice parameters but if they fade away because they've lost all three of their lives they will form into a random digitama you don't get to choose and they'll lose a portion of their learned text unable to carry them over into the next cycle oh and uh your Tamer level goes down oh right Tamer level we get we got another mechanic guys your Tamer level as a way of tracking your success as well a Digimon Tamer when you're constantly getting your Digimon into fights it ends up losing your Tamer

34:41 level will remain stagnant or if you have managed to race it up to that point it could end up going down a rank to raise it you really just need to hunker down and raise your Digimon to higher levels getting it up to an ultimate form is an automatic Tamer level increase you can also raise it by winning tournaments jot it down we'll get to it the Tamer level controls what percentage of your Digimon stats they carry over from one cycle into the next so the higher your Tamer level the better parameters they'll start out with after fading away and hatching out of a digitama basically the better you get at fully raising big strong Digimon the easier it will become to raise new big strong Digimon as you keep going but sometimes getting your Digimon ready for the outside world isn't just about getting them ready for combat

35:27 sometimes it's a better bit more than that I should mention this isn't alcohol I'm not inebriated this is root beer I'm just tired not every Digimon out there on file island is aggressive or out for a fight they've lost their memories and scattered around but some of them have just set up shops somewhere trying to make the best out of the lives that they still have as you venture out to find them sometimes you'll need a bit more creativity than just coming in for a fight and instead greet them with a willingness to help them out with their problems maybe you got some dudes in the mines that are trying to do some old-fashioned tunneling and they need help moving these giant piles of dirt out of the way it's really tedious but it does open up the way to the cavern where you find a rampaging marymon who's

36:13 causing extreme heat in Quakes and you have to convince him to stop some Digimon just need to be found at the right time of day as they hear about you trying to rebuild the city and actually approach you about wanting to help aiding you and building bridges that help you reach new areas and such it's actually kind of interesting how this one in particular is built up as I think most of the rookie Digimon that you recruit towards the beginning of your journey will only join you after challenging you to a fight everyone is still lost and confused and then I going to just trust some random human stranger that shows up one day but as you start to make your intentions known and word starts to spread about your efforts and how the city is starting to grow you'll start to encounter more Digimon in the Overworld that have an easier time trusting you or some that will just actively be looking for you and yeah some of these little tasks you have to take care of to recruit people are

37:00 man they sure are unique I'll tell you what check this guy out monochroman ah this big beautiful Triceratops over here he looks pretty cool what do you think you need to do to get this guy to join file City maybe duke it out with him in a struggle of superiority now now you gotta work retail I kid you not there is like a system to this shop of his and you have to gain a certain amount of bits and profit for his business in order to gain his favor this man is judging you entirely on your customer's service skills and you have to get this down pat sorry did I say customer service I meant customer manipulation this entire mini game is based around Digimon coming in for something and you determine by looking

37:45 at what kind of Digimon they are which is profiling by the way if you should lower the price of the item keep it the same or charge them some Digimon will be kind of Stingy they don't want to give up their money very easily and you gotta lower the price for them before they actually buy anything with most Digimon just coming in to buy food you want to keep the price the same because even if you do up charge them it's only like by 8 Bits and it's not going to be as significant enough difference when trying to reach your goal you might be able to up charge katsumon and whatever he's trying to get but it's not a guarantee your lucky break is actually when a go bury mon comes in because I guess they just are very smart and you can manipulate them to your heart's content that includes if they're coming in asking for your most expensive item which is medicine this is the most

38:32 American game from Japan I've ever played thing is once again your goal is to get 3 000 bits in profit by the end of your shift and monochroman will come in at the middle and end of said shift to gauge your progress and it's crazy enough that there's all this stuff to keep track of in here they place a game with its own set of mechanics inside a game that is already drowning and mechanics and to top it all off it's kind of luck based the Digimon that come in in what they ask for is entirely randomized you can know how to deal with every single person that walks through that door and know exactly how much money they are or are not willing to slap onto your counter before they leave and to absolutely everything right and it won't matter because on this round

39:17 half your shift was taken up by everyone coming in asking for meat in which case it is impossible to reach your sales goal man I play video games to get away from this stuff but I did eventually get it you want to know the craziest part though it's actually not the quest that took me the longest yes there is fishing in this game on the south of the island there's this Lake Dragonite Lake and here you can do some fishing I actually really like fishing in video games I think it's a good time there's a reason I bought this ridiculous thing but I didn't spend a lot of time doing it in this game because there's so much other stuff to do of course I did find out you actually do want to get some fish from this place

40:02 and keep them handy for a different quest in another location completely different requirements it's fine thing is I read a lot of forms and stuff online that were telling me that you have to get a really special rod from a specific location in this game to be able to do this part and I found out that's actually not true at all I accomplished this with the most basic fishing rod available on a mountain full of poop monsters using the most simple lure I could find in all it cost me was uh you know a couple of real life hours of my time basically you have to wait for a really specific time of day for this huge shadow in the water to appear at which time you want to cast your line in and uh hope it grabs on once you've got a bite you'll need to start reeling it in but don't be too hasty if the tension gets too high the

40:48 line will break and you'll have to try again I was stuck here for a while I mean it was chill but I remember this was the moment that I put together that this video was going to take a very long time to actually come out turns out you were fishing for a Seadramon who's actually pretty laid back about being dragged by a hook in his face and offers to either teach your Digimon new techniques or become your friend and start burying you over to Beetle land it's a land and there's beetles there it's uh it's pretty neat he also gives you a flute that you can use to just like contact him it's like he's saying dude seriously just call next time I want to keep my cheek intact this game is just full of stuff like this dudes you've got a battle or Digimon that need to be saved some guys that just want to talk or maybe some really bizarre things like getting a new Memon bringing it to

41:34 toy town and stuffing your a little slug monster into this empty suit to evolve him into a Monza mod so you can free the place I think one of the most memorable recruitments though is ogremon ogremon is basically running a gang of thugs who are causing trouble all over the island and after hearing a rumor about their misdeeds you can trigger them to appear and start a bit of a rivalry with this guy you chase him down finding each of his hideouts one by one and teaching him a lesson each time this is a rivalry that could span a significant portion of your playthrough and it also helps highlight the importance of becoming familiar with this island itself as you'll need to track down each new place he fleas to once you take him down one last time he reveals that his motivation for causing all this trouble was his defeatist belief that the island was doomed and that nothing wouldn't matter

42:19 if everything was going to be destroyed anyway but after seeing how powerful you are and witnessing your resolve to save everyone it inspires him to join you in the city and help keep Digimon safe finding a new purpose now that he thinks there's hope that's what file city is to a lot of these Digimon they don't know what sort of threat is on its way they don't know what led them to be scattered or what caused this danger they just have this feeling a knowledge gnawing at the back of their minds telling them something is wrong and it scares them but seeing you there helping bring everyone back and slowly developing file City back into a real Community again helps put them at ease and drive them to regroup with their peers and help each other and this highlights one of the most important aspects of the game that I think is built up by how well you

43:05 master its mechanics file Island and the various Digimon that inhabit it are the very soul of Digimon World as you continue to bring more and more digimod back to final city you'll see them start to accept tasks there and watching this place grow over the course of the game is one of the greatest visual rewards this title has to offer early Digimon like Agumon will join and help out with stuff like running an item storage so you can drop off important stuff with him and come back for it later when you have the space or need for it palmon will go to the meat farm and help grow larger supplies of meat rations kuniman will eat away at a bunch of foliage to open up a shortcut to a nearby bridge betamon will open a little item stall and elect mod will create lights to help illuminate the city at night stuff like that which can range from a direct mechanical benefit to a cosmetic Improvement that really helps add a

43:50 sense of growth and character to the location but is more powerful Digimon start to join your cause you'll see many new benefits open up to you they'll create new buildings and structures or even improve on ones that were there already allowing the residents to house incredibly helpful assets to your journey like a clinic that you can take your Digimon to if they get hurt or tired a restaurant where you can get meals prepped and add special stat gains to your partner a bigger shop capable of Housing and selling better items or even kabutarimon and kawagumon joining your city and upgrading the gym so the training equipment helps make your Digimon gain stats faster not every recruited Digimon is well useful some of them just kind of hang out like sukumon okay actually I did find that on the occasion that I need to rack up care mistakes to get a certain Evolution I could just leave all the uh business to

44:36 this one corner and I swear he cleans it up sometimes I think it might be totally random like when he does it or whatever but it has disappeared so I'm pretty sure he has some use but even Digimon that comes to the city and don't really do much still help out your progression to some degree as every time you recruit someone they add to the city's Prosperity points and the amount they add be it a value of one two or three is dependent on what level of Digimon they are you can check your current Prosperity points by talking to Gigi mon but be careful about when you do it there are two points we're talking to Gigi Mon and getting a Prosperity Point update from him will trigger a visitor in and thus a mandatory battle and oh man I sure hope you're actually equipped for a fight once you get to 15 points because otherwise when Greymon comes to test your strength he might just break your little friend in half the other

45:21 encounter triggered this way is a little ways off though initiating once you've accumulated 50 Prosperity points but we'll get to that part soon enough there is such a good sense of progression here though even in spite of the fact that your Digimon partner will routinely revert back to a much weaker form that needs to be trained back up you can get so many new tools at your disposal through the recruitments that help make the training process become so much easier and it really does feel like you're gaining more control and agency over the experience as you build new connections and strengthen your community not every attempt at this is perfect the whole Piximon Quest left me kind of disappointed this man is an ultimate level Digimon who shows up in this one spot on this one screen but the catch is that he only has a three percent chance of spawning in every time

46:07 you enter said screen so after spending a pretty generous amount of time going back and forth on these two screens more times than I dared to count I took him down with my buddy in crime and a lot of healing items and he joined the shop and sold a training guide for a lot of money so then I grinded going through a ton of random battles against strong enemies to fatten up my wallet and when I finally bought the thing and left it in my inventory to activate it while I trained the results were minuscule why is it really so game breaking to have just one item that supercharges your training like is it really so unfair to have a reward like this when you have to put so much effort into getting it to begin with you gotta put the work in to get this thing why isn't it more useful but

46:53 that's honestly just one example even out of the stuff that I didn't get a lot of use out of I can't help but appreciate all these new additions that come to file City bit by bit like I don't really go to greymon's Arena very much but I did think it was a really cool addition letting you bring in your Digimon to come in and fight in a tournament potentially earning yourself medals for some good old-fashioned bragging rights and I think it also might raise your Tamer level I still need to confirm that one though that's just what I've seen a few sources claim but there's a pride that comes with this you know a physical manifestation of your hard work in the form of the Digimon you've helped even the aesthetic charm gets to me I'm in love with vile City's nighttime theme I think it's an especially fitting piece when you have a really powerful Digimon someone who's tagging along with you and treading through dangerous territory entangling

47:39 with the toughest guys out there but then they just suddenly die of old age automatically returning you home as you see this powerful Warrior returned to a small gentle soul Who's relying on your help this quiet little tune chiming in like a lullaby to return your mind to a simpler and more innocent place just like your partner and the rest of the soundtrack isn't slouching either there's quite a few tracks here that really stood out to me and really helped sell the vibe of each environment I traveled through I think two of my favorites are the themes for the gear Savannah and the Misty trees there are a couple of tracks that get kind of repetitive and as much as I hate to say it a little grating at times I'm looking at you main battle theme I still like it well enough but it makes it hard to listen to on its own but some of the heavier battle themes that kick in for

48:25 tougher enemies are really solid but it's not just the OST that makes this world so much fun to explore it's just such an interesting world all on its own the environments are made up of pre-rendered backdrops with a fixed camera this can admittedly make getting through some areas without getting sidelined by enemies a little on the impossible side but I also think this is the best way to present things these areas are so lovingly crafted and there's this sort of visual quality to this sort of environmental setup that I absolutely adore from the PS1 ERA this Final Fantasy 7 has some of my favorite examples but I also just love the odd little ways things are scattered around here you have stuff like batteries and vending machines refrigerators and all sorts of junk just sort of grown into the the world around them it's hard to

49:11 discern their origin but it adds this otherworldly feel that's so unique and really helps the Digimon World stand out as its own thing it also kind of reminds me of certain aspects of the anime to a degree and I'm not sure if that was a coincidence or not but this sort of abandoned technology and overgrown Wildlife Vibe really works for this franchise actually now that I think about it the anime and this game actually have a lot of the same locations that the characters visit I wonder if there actually was some collaboration there or maybe there's just a good lore Bible that each project was taken from I also admire some of the ways that they play with these environments mechanically like discovering a new location has a solution that might only make sense in this world but you're still LED in the right direction Often by rumors from this little guy here or from shellman's News Bulletin if you recruit him to the city and I mean weird stuff too like

49:59 coming up to this sheer cliff and the only way to make it to the land on the other side is to just walk out there there's just an invisible Bridge here and you can simply walk across it to reach a new area or how has a bunch of elevators around that don't just move on their own but basically move entire land masses around in changing the environment where things really start to get tricky though is when you encounter certain locations that require a specific Digimon to enter like myodisman's Mansion or the ice Sanctuary another good reason I don't think the totally blind approach to raising your partner is always the go-to these are some of the coolest locations in the game though if only because they actually kind of feel like proper dungeons with puzzles to solve and a Litany of enemies to conquer within the only thing that maybe makes these a little more frustrating than I think they were meant to is the time restraint

50:45 factor that hovers over the entire game because you should only be entering these locations with an especially powerful Digimon and those Digimon also have a pretty limited lifespan it can feel a little tense just wondering if you'll actually be able to clear the area in enough time before your current partner Fades away thankfully though this is a fear that was never realized in my playthrough and I actually really enjoyed making my way through these locations and putting all that training to the test I also just really appreciated my otisman here as well he was one of the big things standing out to me as an example of how this game treated each of these characters as opposed to how other media in the franchise would like if you've seen the original Digimon Adventure anime you might remember my otisman as one of the most intimidating villains in the whole series but here that context didn't

51:31 exist for the developers I guess and they looked at the artwork and decided to make him a more respectable and mild-mannered Lord character I'm not Lord as in an evil mastermind seeking Conquest more like someone who owns a land and digital Scotland or something I don't know it's neat though I imagine the only thing the devs had to go off of for their personality for each character is just the artwork and they were able to write these characters in ways that seem to fit their design and place in the world other Digimon media would kind of follow this trend letting the creatures act and interact with the stories in any way that seemed to best fit the current material and it's a sense of Freedom that I think lends to a better sense of World building for each individual project it and on that note as you might remember there was a greater purpose to bringing all of these lost Digimon together as you progress

52:16 through this world you inch closer and closer to saving it throughout the island you'll find more than just its scattered inhabitants and by completing certain objectives and recruiting certain Digimon you'll continue to gain access to new areas either by way of shortcuts opening up for you or roadblocks being removed while you search for more recruits you'll also be trying to gather as much information as you can on this vague emergency threatening the world in this process we'll take you through several key locations but the thing is you're not required to go in every location or even complete every Quest that helps fill the blanks on what happened to this Island's history because of that this story can feel a little sloppy and a lot of the big Revelations can feel kind of

53:03 redundant it's actually incredibly straightforward what's going on in this place but you wouldn't know that just from the way that it's presenting all of this information to you there are some portions that are kind of hard to miss but stuff like the Toy Town Mission I didn't experience that until after completing the main story and it actually does shed some light on the fact that your character is not the first human to travel to the digital War world and that there was once a war between the humans and Digimon here then again this isn't the only place that decides to establish this your mission to find Clues isn't smooth at first it seems like there might be something important in the ancient Dino region where a meteor is touched down but first you have to gain access to this place which is being guarded by a tyranamon after beating him he reveals that the meteor crash in a nearby area known as

53:48 the ancient Speedy Zone it's a silly name I know but it does make sense time just runs at twice the normal speed here it's literally more ancient than the area surrounding it and you have to make sure to run through this area and find the meteor quickly before your Digimon grows too old but once you find what you're looking for it turns out to just be another Digimon named meteorman I guess there's a bunch of these guys just living in space and they sort of fall down here from time to time there's a couple of little red herring missions like this where you hear about some kind of issue on the island and you figure it must be connected to the major threat looming over everyone but it's more like one of the consequences of that major threat going unchecked so it's still kind of showcasing the stakes of the sort of chaos this place has fallen into it wasn't until I was pointed in the direction of the Misty trees that stuff

54:33 started to fall into place for me first I had to do something about this fog covering the area because I would just get lost in it otherwise in the nearby gecko swamp I found a Shogun geckumon who agreed to teach me how to travel through the confusing terrain allowing me to find chirimon who's looking a lot creepier than he did in the official art but it's it's fine it's fine cherrymon is one of the few Digimon on the island who at least still has some of his

…