Double Your Digimon; No Extra Charge - Let's Play Digimon World: Next Order

tintroduction

Hey everyone, GreenGuy here, and I’ll be your host throughout this journey which I, for some strange reason, decided to do for my first Let’s Play.

Digimon World: Next Order is a pretty unique JRPG, which follows in the footsteps of a few other Digimon games (namely, the original Digimon World and Digimon World: Re:Digitize) in that our character explores the Digital World with Digimon that they’ve trained and cared for. We will find, fight, and recruit other Digimon to help build a home city that unlocks various features, and then our beloved partners can proceed to shit on the floor and die of old age right before we reach a boss. It happens. Oh, did I mention that we have two little monsters to call our own?

OH BY THE WAY, if you haven’t already, I strongly recommend that you read the screenshot LP of the original Digimon World by Orange Fluffy Sheep on lparchive, and possibly follow along with the OST on YouTube since some of the music links in the LP are broken. Why? Well, this game is closely tied to the original, and we’ll be seeing some familiar things and hearing a lot of familiar music throughout the game. I just think it’s more fun when people are “in the know.”

tlp

My goal is to 100% most of the reasonable things we can do in this game. We’ll be completing every sidequest, bringing every Digimon to our city, collecting every skill, finishing all of the post-game quests, winning every fight in the coliseum… basically anything that isn’t finishing the Old Card collection, because fuck farming for 540 of those things, and possibly some of the less-useful buildings. I’ll still show off the cards at the end though, since I suffered through it in my original playthrough.

I’m also going to mention that I’m not going to be super-optimized with this. I won’t blast through the game with my first three Digimon, so we should end up seeing a decent number of partners come and go.

In this thread, you can go ahead and discuss your own experiences with the game, or other Digimon-related things, at your leisure. Just keep things spoiler-free and we’re good. Also, feel free to suggest names and ideal types/species for our partners, and I’ll pick from them semi-randomly as they’re reborn and try to digivolve them appropriately. I’m also open to feedback since this is my first rodeo. If the videos seem too loud or if I’m adding too many useless screenshots, let me know.

Updates will be published as soon as I get them done. Unless work interferes, I should post about one update every week. This LP will be primarily screenshot-and-text based, though I will also add videos of cutscenes and important fights, as well as providing links to music from the game when we encounter new songs or go into long segments in a particular area.

tchapters
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tchar

This list includes the characters and plot-essential Digimon we meet throughout our adventure.

construx


tdigimon

A list of all the Digimon we’ve met and convinced to move to Floatia throughout our adventure. This will also include brief descriptions of how to recruit them, and what they do for Floatia. Spoilers will be kept as minimal as possible, but if you’re not up-to-date with the LP, please mind any spoiler tags you see.

construx


tmusic

Every song we’ve encountered so far, in the order we hear them, and when/where they play. Enjoy at your leisure! As a bonus, the original versions of songs that originated from Digimon World 1 are included.

Don’t worry, the retro tunes are certified 100% Giromon-free, so you don’t have to worry about your PC crashing!

Welcome to the Digimon World (Ne0 Version)
The title theme for Digimon World: Next Order.

[DW1] Welcome to the Digimon World
The theme that played alongside Digimon World’s intro cinematic.

1 + 1 = 10 DIGI POWER!
This theme accompanies some scenes that occur just before a fight.

Digital Grit! (Ne0 Version)
This nasty tune plays whenever you’re battling Machinedramon. Heck of a theme for a tutorial fight!

[DW1] Digital Guts
This theme accompanies Machinedramon, the final boss of Digimon World.

When You’re Lonely (Ne0 Version)
This song will greet you in Floatia City during the day.

[DW1] When We Want to Meet
This theme played in File City during the day.

Select DigiEgg
When your partners inevitably fade, this theme keeps you company as you select their new forms.

[DW1] Select DigiEgg
A very similar version of the song, for a very similar scenario.

When the Sun Revives and Ascends
In many scenes that feature Jijimon, or whenever you visit Floatia after recruiting a Digimon, this theme will congratulate you.

Blue Sky, Big Step
All of Nigh Plains is encompassed by this music.

Rebuffing Fight (Ne0 Version)
The music that goes with a large number of boss battles. More often than not, the Digimon who get this theme are Digimon you could recruit in Digimon World.

[DW1] Refusing to Fight
This theme played with many of Digimon World’s boss battles.

Chance Meetings, Dancing Lariats
The theme of most basic Digimon encounters.

Starry Sky’s Goodnight (Ne0 Version)
When night falls on Floatia, this tune helps the resident Digimon unwind.

[DW1] Starlit Night
The Digimon living in File City enjoy this relaxing melody after a day of workdoing nothing.

Temper’s Minuet
This music accompanies many scenes in the game.

Sentimental Sand Storage
The hot winds of Server Desert carry this tune throughout the region.

Binary Dilemma
This hot beat emanates from the depths of Logic Volcano.

Harmony is a Mobius Strip
At the peak of Logic Volcano, Taomon keeps this tune turned to 11–no, 3, just 3, at all times.

FILE001 - WELCOME TO THE MACHINE

[NEW MUSIC] Welcome to the Digimon World (Ne0 Version)

Alright, let’s get this show on the road!

I’m setting the difficulty to Easy. I’ll explain why in a future update, but it really is the most reasonable option.

And here’s our skunk-haired protagonist. His default name is Takuto. I’ll show off the female avatar during the next tutorial updates, but I’ll be sticking with this guy for the bulk of the game since I kinda like his design.

Of course, our hero’s name isn’t set in stone. We’ll need one of those.

[VIDEO] Our journey begins with a Digivice…


c-hero “It’s been seven years… I hope I haven’t lost it.”


Suddenly, we are sucked into our Digivice in a flash of light. It happens.


DigiDave, our temporary stand-in, has landed. Confused, he looks around for a bit before…

I have no idea what those could be. DigiDave moves towards the strange figures.
[VIDEO] Suddenly…


c-hero “I have a bad feeling about this…”



Christ. We’re not even 30 seconds in and DigiDave is about to become DigiDead. This, by the way, is a Machinedramon. Whenever one of them appears, bad things tend to happen.

[NEW MUSIC] 1 + 1 = 10 DIGI POWER!


Oh good, there are three killing machines here. Thankfully, the WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon are on our side.

dt-mgaruru "Get back, DigiDave! We can take it from here! You just need to give us commands as usual!
c-hero “uh”
dt-wargreymon “What is it, DigiDave?! You’ve always given us commands in battle!”
c-hero “UHH?!”
dt-wargreymon “You seem really confused all of a sudden!”
dt-mgaruru “It can’t be helped. We’ll back you up.”
dt-wargreymon “You’ve gotta be kidding me. You’re not supposed to forget us–your partners!”

Unfortunately, DigiDave is so shocked that he forgets how to talk outside of battle for most of the game. It’s a little odd, since he doesn’t shut up during battles.

[VIDEO] And so we enter the first battle tutorial.

Digimon Battles.

The video will give you some basic text, but I’ll try to explain what’s going on in a little more detail. Your Digimon in this game are primarily AI-driven. By default, they’ll attack and pick targets on their own.
You’re not completely useless though. You can give your Digimon orders to target specific enemies or do certain moves.
Holding L1 or R1 will bring up the “Order Ring” for your first or second Digimon, pictured below, and you point the left thumbstick towards the thing you want them to do and press X. Simple, but there’s a little more to winning battles that we’ll find out about soon.

Now, I’ll go over the different parts of the Order Ring, specifically the ones so kindly highlighted for us.

First up, we have the orders and the ring itself. The slot in the center is always an “Agitation” ability, which will be explained in just a minute. The slot on the bottom left is always a Digimon’s signature move (ie, Pepper Breath), and going clockwise from the signature move, there can be up to four slots for assigned skills. You only start with one slot, but you can expand it as you progress through the game. There’s also a Guard skill we’ll be learning soon that will be in the bottom-right section of the ring.

Second, we have the Timer. Whenever you open the Order Ring for a Digimon, time pauses so you can select an option without interruption. You only have 5 seconds to decide your move however, as the ring will automatically close when time runs out. After you select an ability or run out of time, the ring for that Digimon has a 5-second delay before you can open it again. Keep in mind that each Digimon has a separate ring, and each ring has its own cooldown.

With that, we’re told to use WarGreymon’s Mach Jab, and the tutorial battle begins.

[NEW MUSIC] Digital Grit! (Ne0 Version)



We quickly sock the giant death machine in the jaw. The game rewards us by telling us about Agitation abilities.

Agitation abilities are located in the center of the Order Ring, so you can quickly activate them by holding L1/R1 and pressing X. There are a small number of Agitation skills in the game, and they primarily serve as self-buffs for your Digimon. Each species is assigned one, and there’s no changing what they have. MetalGarurumon, for example, will regenerate health for a time. The tutorial wants us to do that, so let’s.

Now we’re told about Order Power. Digimon have two resources they they’ll spend on abilties. For moves that they use on their own, they’ll draw from their MP, while moves that we command them to do will spend Order Power instead. You start each battle with a set amount of Order Power, and you build it up by Supporting your Digimon with the X button as they fight. Don’t mash the button though, Support has a cooldown, and using Support as one of your Digimon lands an attack, or takes a direct hit, will cause it to generate much more OP (we’re talking numbers like 5 vs 30 here).

You can’t really see it since he’s partly off-screen, but I timed my Support with WarGreymon’s Magma Bomb well enough to give him 30 OP, which is what the next stage of the tutorial wanted.

Now that we have 150 OP stored up, we can use his Special Move


Digimon have a slight charge-up period before using their Special Move. Don’t fret, they’re completely invulnerable while they’re charging, so you can also use this charging period to avoid an enemy attack if you time it right. Now, time to give this guy some Terra Force!




Oh good, we’ve put a dent in it.

dt-mgaruru “No good?”
dt-wargreymon “No… I have to keep going. I’ve finally met DigiDave… and this is where I’m a goner?!”
dt-mgaruru “I see… We may be defeated here…”
dt-mgaruru “But we won’t let that happen… to DigiDave!”

dt-wargreymon “What is this… The light of a bond?”
dt-mgaruru “I can feel the power. The bond is transforming into power!”
dt-wargreymon “Let’s go! As long as DigiDave’s with us…”
dt-mgaruru “We can still fight!”

[VIDEO] Tutorial Part 2 (I’d use YouTube for this one, but the song is copyrighted and gets blocked in several countries)

Now for our next trick: ExE. If you hold both L1 and R1 at the same time, you’ll open a third Order Ring that contains two abilities that use both of your Digimon. I’ll explain the other option later, but for now, we’re going to trigger ExE. Using 150 OP from each Digimon, two boys…







…become one powerful boy. For the duration of the battle, at least.

Not only that, they leap into action immediately, unleashing their Special Move.




Our foe is launched into the air, and loses a decent chunk of health.
c-hero “If we can do that two or three more times, we’ll be–”

c-hero “–uh oh.”


Well, there’s goes 85% of our health.


And now we’re done with the first tutorial. Our partners unfuse, and…

dt-wargreymon “Urgh… DigiDave…”
dt-mgaruru “This isn’t the time to be sleeping! We must defend our partner!”

[VIDEO] The two let out a cry and leap back into the fray.




OH HELL YEAH


OH HELL NO








Gottem! WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon pull through!

It was a struggle, but we did it…

…we managed to defeat our first Digimon…

…and it was a powerful one, too! We defeated a-


-Tokomon. We defeated a Tokomon. Good work. :toot:

Alright, let’s see how our friends are doing.

dt-wargreymon “DigiDave… you’re all right…”
c-hero “What about you?”
dt-wargreymon “Um… Just one thing…”

[WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon fade out, presumably dead]

c-hero “Well, piss.”

[DIALOGUE] WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon compilation

Before we even have the chance to wonder how the hell we’re getting out of this cube zone, we’re suddenly whisked away to…

[NEW MUSIC] When You’re Lonely (Ne0 Version)

Just an old Digimon enjoying his day, when suddenly…

dc-jijimon “Hrm?!”

…a human and a bunch of corpses materialize on his lawn.

Meet Jijimon. He’s a wordy little numemote2 who will be occupying the rest of this introduction. I guess he’s also kind of like the Mayor of Floatia, since he’s A) The only one in town who is trying to get things done, and B) The only current resident who isn’t a baby.

Also, Machinedramon is pronounced Machine-DRAY-mon by every character in this game. It annoyed a fair number of people when it came out. In the anime, pretty much every Digimon with “-dramon” in their name had the “dra” pronounced the same way you’d say Hydra or Indra.

dc-jijimon “The Machinedramon should have been caught in the interdimensional trap, but…”
dc-jijimon “Hmph. You defeated that Machinedramon. That must be what destabilized the other dimension.”
dc-jijimon “Hmph. These must be your partners.”
dc-jijimon “And two of them, no less. That’s an odd relationship.”
dc-jijimon “They did everything they could to defend you…”
c-hero “And now they’re dead.Thanks for the reminder.”
dc-jijimon “Heh-heh-heh! No need to look so depressed.”

We get to watch our friends decompose.

dc-jijimon “They were partner Digimon, so it is possible to revive them with a DigiEgg.”
dc-jijimon “I have preserved them in external storage…”

[NEW MUSIC] Select DigiEgg

Welcome to the egg selection screen. We have 10 eggs to choose from. There are also 2 bonus DLC eggs, but we’ll probably never touch them since they’re basically novelties, and an unlockable egg that we won’t be seeing for a while.

For the tutorial, I’ll pick and name these two. I’ll be picking from any user-submitted names when we we ditch DigiDave for our real hero.

[VIDEO] Hatching a DigiEgg




Zugbug the Pabumon and Terra the Yuramon are brought into the world. They’re destined for… not a lot, actually.

Jijimon is about to talk our ears off for a few minutes, and I think this introduction has run on long enough, so I’ll be stopping here. For the next few tutorial posts, we will be switching to DigiDana so the female PC has some time to shine. Expect exposition, training tutorials, and possibly a few DigiMurders when we return!

Oh, and remember that you can submit suggestions for all of the following:

  1. Our protagonist’s name
  2. The two eggs we select for our first Digimon
  3. What Rookie-level Digimon to aim for with our first eggs
  4. Digimon names for future generations
  5. Ultimate/Mega suggestions you’d like to see (though these aren’t guaranteed, some have absurd unlock requirements)

If you want to see the eggs and the latter chunk of the roster, look no further:

DigiEggs










Champion Digimon

Greymon
Garurumon
Birdramon
Angemon
Kabuterimon
Ikkakumon
Togemon
Gatomon
ExVeemon
Stingmon
Growlmon
Gargomon
Turuiemon
Kyubimon
Gaogamon
Wizardmon
Devimon
Veedramon
Tyrannomon
Ogremon
Leomon
Meramon
Vegiemon
Nanimon
Kuwagamon
Seadramon
Guardromon
Woodmon
BomberNanimon
Icemon
Hyogamon
Piddomon
Kyubimon (Silver)
Gururumon
Saberdramon
BlackGatomon
Fugamon
Guardromon (Gold)
Youkomon
RedVeedramon
GoldVeedramon
Growlmon (Orange)
Greymon (Blue)
Garurumon (Black)
RedVegiemon
IceDevimon
Sorcermon
Chrysalimon
Numemon
Geremon
Meicoomon

Ultimate Digimon

MetalGreymon
WereGarurumon
Garudamon
MagnaAngemon
MegaKabuterimon
Zudomon
Lillymon
Angewomon
Paildramon
WarGrowlmon
Rapidmon
Antylamon
Taomon
MachGaogamon
AeroVeedramon
Myotismon
LadyDevimon
Mamemon
MetalMamemon
MetalTyrannomon
SkullGreymon
Gigadramon
Megadramon
IceLeomon
GrapLeomon
BlueMeramon
MegaSeadramon
Okuwamon
Datamon
Meteormon
MetalGreymon (Blue)
WereGarurumon (Black)
MegaKabuterimon (Blue)
WarGrowlmon (Orange)
BlackWarGrowlmon
Rapidmon (Gold)
Taomon (Silver)
Doumon
WaruSeadramon
Infermon
Etemon
Monzaemon
Agunimon
Lucemon FM
Meicrackmon VM

Mega Digimon

WarGreymon
ShineGreymon
KaiserGreymon
Alphamon
MetalGarurumon
Jijimon
MagnaGarurumon
Kentaurosmon
Phoenixmon
Magnadramon
Beelzemon
Justimon
Seraphimon
Cherubimon
Jesmon
MarineAngemon
HerculesKabuterimon
ChaosGallantmon
Craniamon
Vikemon
MetalSeadramon
Titamon
Boltmon
Rosemon
Sakuyamon
Lilithmon
Minervamon
Ophanimon
Crusadermon
Magnamon
Imperialdramon DM
UlforceVeedramon
Gallantmon
Leviamon
MegaGargomon
Belphemon SM
Dianamon
Kuzuhamon
Barbamon
MirageGaogamon
Gankoomon
OmniShoutmon
Arresterdramon
DarkDramon
VenomMyotismon
Piedmon
PlatinumNumemon
Dynasmon
Machinedramon
RustTyrannomon
BlackWarGreymon
Samudramon
BanchoLeomon
GranKuwagamon
Examon
Diaboromon
MetalEtemon
MetalGarurumon (Black)
Leopardmon
Daemon
Lucemon SM
Mastemon

Thank GameFAQs for having an easily-accessible list, though I’m opting to not list a few Digimon because they’re locked behind story progress/spoilers, and there are a couple additional Ultimate-or-greater Digimon in the game, but they’re only obtainable with specific late-game items, or via DNA Digivolution.

DigiDave is a pretty good name, but I think we can do one better. It’s time for good old DigiDesmond (DigiDes for short) to take the stage. As for eggs, how about the green and red one?

I really like the wrist peripheral that this world has for it’s digivice. It just bugs me that if you were to actually have that to walk around with, the screen is then facing the wrong way when you use it. This was a game I wanted to get but didn’t because I probably wouldn’t be able to dedicate time to it like I want.

As for choices.
1. DigiDamien
2. Green and White/Orange
3. Patamon
4. Not the best at naming things so I won’t contribute this part.
5. Before putting my vote for these how extensive is the digimon roster?

Ah heck, I completely forgot to post a few things. Hazard of finishing the first posts at 4AM, I guess.

DigiEggs










Champion Digimon

Greymon
Garurumon
Birdramon
Angemon
Kabuterimon
Ikkakumon
Togemon
Gatomon
ExVeemon
Stingmon
Growlmon
Gargomon
Turuiemon
Kyubimon
Gaogamon
Wizardmon
Devimon
Veedramon
Tyrannomon
Ogremon
Leomon
Meramon
Vegiemon
Nanimon
Kuwagamon
Seadramon
Guardromon
Woodmon
BomberNanimon
Icemon
Hyogamon
Piddomon
Kyubimon (Silver)
Gururumon
Saberdramon
BlackGatomon
Fugamon
Guardromon (Gold)
Youkomon
RedVeedramon
GoldVeedramon
Growlmon (Orange)
Greymon (Blue)
Garurumon (Black)
RedVegiemon
IceDevimon
Sorcermon
Chrysalimon
Numemon
Geremon
Meicoomon

Ultimate Digimon

MetalGreymon
WereGarurumon
Garudamon
MagnaAngemon
MegaKabuterimon
Zudomon
Lillymon
Angewomon
Paildramon
WarGrowlmon
Rapidmon
Antylamon
Taomon
MachGaogamon
AeroVeedramon
Myotismon
LadyDevimon
Mamemon
MetalMamemon
MetalTyrannomon
SkullGreymon
Gigadramon
Megadramon
IceLeomon
GrapLeomon
BlueMeramon
MegaSeadramon
Okuwamon
Datamon
Meteormon
MetalGreymon (Blue)
WereGarurumon (Black)
MegaKabuterimon (Blue)
WarGrowlmon (Orange)
BlackWarGrowlmon
Rapidmon (Gold)
Taomon (Silver)
Doumon
WaruSeadramon
Infermon
Etemon
Monzaemon
Agunimon
Lucemon FM
Meicrackmon VM

Mega Digimon

WarGreymon
ShineGreymon
KaiserGreymon
Alphamon
MetalGarurumon
Jijimon
MagnaGarurumon
Kentaurosmon
Phoenixmon
Magnadramon
Beelzemon
Justimon
Seraphimon
Cherubimon
Jesmon
MarineAngemon
HerculesKabuterimon
ChaosGallantmon
Craniamon
Vikemon
MetalSeadramon
Titamon
Boltmon
Rosemon
Sakuyamon
Lilithmon
Minervamon
Ophanimon
Crusadermon
Magnamon
Imperialdramon DM
UlforceVeedramon
Gallantmon
Leviamon
MegaGargomon
Belphemon SM
Dianamon
Kuzuhamon
Barbamon
MirageGaogamon
Gankoomon
OmniShoutmon
Arresterdramon
DarkDramon
VenomMyotismon
Piedmon
PlatinumNumemon
Dynasmon
Machinedramon
RustTyrannomon
BlackWarGreymon
Samudramon
BanchoLeomon
GranKuwagamon
Examon
Diaboromon
MetalEtemon
MetalGarurumon (Black)
Leopardmon
Daemon
Lucemon SM
Mastemon

Thank GameFAQs for having an easily-accessible list, though I’m opting to not list a few Digimon because they’re locked behind story progress/spoilers, and there are a couple additional Ultimate-or-greater Digimon in the game, but they’re only obtainable with specific late-game items, or via DNA Digivolution.

Anyhow, I should have the next part up tonight or tomorrow. I might speed up the tutorials since I’m eager to get into the game proper, so hopefully we’ll be seeing our real starting group by the 4th update.

  1. Simon
  2. Gigimon and Tanemon
  3. Guilmon
  4. Ryuki and Raiz
  5. Gallentmon/Dukemon

FILE 002 - TRAINING DUMMIES

Meet ShikiDigiDana, she’ll be our hero for the rest of the tutorial Files. She has superior taste in Digivice colors and she deserves a moment to shine.

[VIDEO] The intro again, but with DigiDana this time

Now, back to where we left off…

jijimon1-1
jijimon1-2
jijimon1-3 “This is a tremendous success! Then their rebirths will be complete.”
jijimon1-4 “Just remember: As their Tamer, you have a duty to care for them.”
c-herof “I still have no idea what’s going on.”
jijimon1-1 “Hmm… You don’t seem to understand what’s what.
jijimon1-2 I am just as in the dark as you. I wonder what is going on…
jijimon1-3 Why don’t we go to my house, and you can tell me your story?
jijimon1-4 Looks like Tokomon is still unconscious. We can treat him there.”

We follow Jijimon into his little circuit hut.

[NEW MUSIC] When the Sun Revives and Ascends

jijimon1-1 “So you were sucked in by the Digivice, and unluckily fell into the dimension I created…
jijimon1-2 and then your partners in the Digivice defeated Machinedramon for me. I see.
jijimon1-3 Coincidence has been our friend today. I owe you my thanks, DigiDana. Actually…
jijimon1-4 This world is at a crisis point. As you can see, the city we are in, Floatia, is in disarray.”

jijimon1-1 “It’s because of the Machinedramon…
jijimon1-2 It suddenly started attacking us for no reason, and did a lot of damage to the city.
jijimon1-3 The power of a Mega is overwhelming… It appeared from nowhere,
jijimon1-4 caused massive damage, and then disappeared. We were at our wits’ end…
blank I mobilized my knowledge and technology to build a trap, in order to capture the
blank Machinedramon. I thought that when it appeared, I could transport it to another
blank dimension and imprison it.The plan worked. In fact, the plan went even better
blank than expected. Thanks to you, we were able to defeat that Machinedramon.
blank But that doesn’t mean the danger has entirely passed…”
c-herof “So that Machinedramon destroyed most of Floatia…”
jijimon1-1
jijimon1-2 “The phenomenon of a Machinedramon getting violent and then disappearing
jijimon1-3 has occured several times, in many areas. It would be hard to believe that it is
jijimon1-4 just one lone Mega Digimon doing all this damage.”
c-herof “What?! You mean there are MORE of those things?”
jijimon1-1 “We were able to survive this time because of your valiant efforts.
jijimon1-2 Unfortunately, we don’t know from where and how the Machinedramon are appearing.
jijimon1-3 It seems hopeless, but if we just had a clue… Maybe we could do something…
jijimon1-4 If only we had a clue…”

Hey gang, I wonder if there’s a clue around here somewhere…

c-herof “Hmm…”
dc-jijimon “HRMM…”
dt-tokomon "HRMMM…"
c-herof “Oh yeah, that Tokomon sitting next to you was the Machinedramon.”
dc-jijimon "WHAT?!"

If Jijimon had a drink, it would be everywhere right now. Seriously, the screen shakes as he yells that.

jijimon1-1 It can’t be… but I am sensing a strange data wave coming from this Tokomon,
jijimon1-2 albeit weakly… Hmm… What should we make of this? A Tokomon living in this city
jijimon1-3 Digivolved into a Machinedramon? I’ve never heard of such a Digivolution…
jijimon1-4 Wait. There’s something here in the cloud memory…"

jijimon1-1 “But why did this Tokomon Digivolve into Machinedramon? Or at least an altered
jijimon1-2 form of Machinedramon? Hmmm… We won’t be able to figure it out with just
jijimon1-3 this small amount of information from this Tokomon. But it looks like we finally have
jijimon1-4 a chance to actually do something about this threat. We need to act!”

jijimon1-1 “I have something to ask of you. We want to return you back to the world you came
jijimon1-2 from as soon as possible, but we can’t leave this city in the state it’s in.
jijimon1-3 To get the city back to the way it was, will you help bring back the residents that
jijimon1-4 fled from the Machinedramon attacks?”
c-herof “Okay, I’ll help!”

jijimon1-1 “I’m glad you said that! Go out with your partners and look for the residents who fled
jijimon1-2 the city. I will look into this small amount of strange data we have collected from this
jijimon1-3 Tokomon. Maybe I will be able to unravel the mystery of this altered form…
jijimon1-4 If we can detect abnormal information, we may be able to avoid further damage here.
blank That’s why I first intend to make a detection device. If I have any news,
blank I will send you a DigiMail. So please check your Digivice.”
c-herof “Alright.”
dc-jijimon “So then, DigiDana… I’m counting on you.”

Before we assume full control over our character, Koromon wants to talk to us.

He proceeds to give us a bunch of items:

itemportaitembandageitemfooddigistalk
itemrecovery1itemmp1itemregen1

We get:
2 Portable Toilets, which let us use the bathroom anywhere. One unit will cover both Digimon.
3 Bandages, which let us help our Digimon if they get injured.
10 Digistalks, which are a basic food item.
5 Recovery Discs, the basic healing item.
5 MP Discs, the basic MP-restoring item.
3 Regen Discs, which let us revive a partner if they’re KO’d in battle.

dt-koromon “You can use these items by opening Care Mode with the Square button.”
dt-koromon “Be sure to check item effect descriptions before using them!”
dt-koromon “We’ll gather more later, so come back tomorrow!”

And now we get proper control of our character. Koromon is incredibly useful for most of the game, by the way. We’ll check in with him every day we can to stock up on supplies, it’ll save us a lot of BITs in the long run.

We’re also hit by a lot of UI immediately. The leftmost icons on the clock tell us the current week/season, both of which are mostly fluff that matter once or twice in the game, and the faces by our Digimon tell us their mood, everything else should be fairly obvious.

Here we can see the Prosperity rating, which will increase with every Digimon we bring back to Floatia, as well as our Bonds with our Digimon, and their Friendship with each other.

We may as well see what Jijimon wanted to tell us.

Good advice! If we left town as-is, we’d get destroyed almost immediately.

dt-punimon “But enough of that… What did you want to talk about, puni?”
dt-punimon “I can tell you all you need to know about battles, puni!”

Most of the Digimon who currently reside in Floatia will teach us about various game mechanics. Some of it has already been explained, and some of it won’t be relevant for a while. I’ll spare everyone the wall of text and go over their tips as they become relevant.

Punimon also has the incredible power to make the game harder.

Let’s not.

dt-tokomon “I’ll show you around Floatia and teach you all sorts of things! Interested?”
c-herof “Please do!”
dt-tokomon "Eh heh heh, all right, I’ll show you around!

dt-tokomon “The Meat Fields are next to Jijimon’s house here!”
dt-tokomon “Tanemon is in charge of the Meat Fields! I’ll let him tell you all about it!”
dt-tanemon “You’re that human Tamer, ain’tcha. Nice to meet ya, the name’s Tanemon!”
dt-tanemon “From now on, I’ll give you tasty meat from this here field.”
dt-tanemon “Huh? “How do you get meat from a field,” you ask? Why, what’s so weird about that?”

10 meat seems like a lot, especially if you played the original game.
Don’t forget that we have two mouths to feed.

dt-tanemon “You’ll get your next share tomorrow.”
dt-tanemon “If it’s not enough, go get some mushrooms or something outside.”
dt-tokomon “When your partners are hungry, give them some meat you’ve picked up!”
dt-tokomon “If they eat, well… you-know-what comes out! That’s why we have a bathroom here.”
dt-tokomon “If your partner Digimon asks for a bathroom break, you’d better hurry on over here!”


dt-tokomon “This is the training hall. For now, I’ll give you a real rough run-down!”

dt-tokomon “You can set a piece of gear for each of your partner Digimon to train with.”
dt-tokomon “Training takes one hour, and causes your Digimon to build up Fatigue.”
dt-tokomon “If they get too fatigued, they could get sick and lower their Life span.”
dt-tokomon “Go ahead and give it a shot!”

I have no idea what Tsunomon is sitting on, but it’s pretty fantastic.

dt-nyaromon “Hey, you! I’m over here by the phone! Let me tell you about all about food.”
c-herof “Um, alright.”

Nyaromon proceeds to tell us about the (as she puts it) eight types of food:

Meat:
Increases Weight
Greatly improves Mood
Typically very filling

Fruit:
Lowers Fatigue
Greatly improves Mood

Vegetable:
Increases Training effectiveness
Increases Discipline
Almost never found in the wild, we’ll have ways of getting them as the game progresses

Mushroom:
Lowers Weight
Lowers Fatigue
Typically not filling

Nut:
Lowers Discipline
Typically not filling
Best used for cooking
For some reason, most of them have names that include the word “Fruit”

Drink:
Greatly improves Mood
Lowers Fatigue
Increases DigiFriend
Never found, purchased from vending machines

Fish:
Lowers Discipline
Increases Bond
A fishing rod is required to get these

Yes, that was actually seven. Some foods can also give minor stat bonuses, and each Digimon will have favorite foods, which will give them additional bonuses to Bond and Mood.

dt-motimon “I’m Motimon, the master of training!”
dt-tsunomon "And I’m Tsunomon, I don’t really do anything!"
dt-motimondt-tsunomon “And we are going to PUMP-”
dt-motimon “Oh… my arms are too short to clap. Oh well.”
dt-tsunomon "I don’t even have arms!"

Dated references aside, let’s move on to the “Training” part of the Training Hall…

Training is incredibly important. We’ll be spending a fair deal of time here pumping stats into our partners, growing them from Digital Chumps to Digital Champs.

Finally, I can talk about stats. HP and MP are self-explanatory, but game doesn’t really explain what some of the others do.

STRENGTH: Pretty obvious; Strength factors into all of our Digimon’s damage. I know what Wisdom looks like, but there’s no “magic attack” stat in this game, so if we want a lightning bolt to hurt more, we want more Strength.
STAMINA: To put it bluntly, this is Defense. Having high Stamina means they’ll take less damage from attacks. It has a second benefit in that it’ll increase the number of Materials we can hold, up to a maximum of 200. We’ll be learning more about Materials later.
WISDOM: This stat actually serves three uses. Wisdom gradually increases their chance to block some of the damage they take, and it increases their chance of scoring critical strikes. It also reduces the MP cost of Skills, up to a maximum of 50%.
SPEED: Increases our Digimon’s movement speed in battles. This allows our partners to move out of the way of some attacks, and also lets them move into position for their own abilities much faster. I’m pretty sure this also slightly increases the rate that our Digimon will automatically, but I’ve never tested that idea out.
I’m not sure why Weight is listed on this screen, training has no effect on it. Like Tokomon said, training build Fatigue, we can relieve some by resting for an hour at Gigimon’s bed, using the Rest command at the console, or going to bed for the night.

And here we see what bonuses we have. Bonuses are incredibly handy, the more we have, the higher our stat gains will be. Here’s a quick list of some of them:

BUDDY: Placing Digimon on the same tool, or on adjacent tools, will give this bonus.
RIVAL: Placing Digimon on tools across from eachother will give this bonus.
DAY BONUS: Depending on the day of the week, one tool will have this bonus. There is no bonus on Sundays.
TIME OF DAY: Each Digimon has a certain time of day that they prefer training at.
MOOD: At 80 Mood, this becomes active for the individual Digimon. This becomes stronger with 100 Mood.
GROWTH SPURT: If our Digimon are at different stages (ie, one Champion and one Ultimate), this bonus is granted to the smaller Digimon.

And here’s the Roulette bar. A light quickly flashes across the bar, and if we stop it on a space with any icon on it…

Our stat gain gets a 1.25x multiplier. It doesn’t matter which icon you hit, just as long as you don’t get an empty space.

Every bonus I listed above doesn’t just increase the raw stat gain, they also add an extra “win” icon to the roulette. Getting the multiplier also adds a “W” to the bar as another bonus space, making it easier to get multiple wins in a row.

Delicious, delicious stats. Worth mentioning that our Digimon also get some stats from the equipment neighboring the one they used, so training Speed also gets us a little Strength and Wisdom.

Oh, you guys remember how I set the game to “Easy?” Difficulty in this game does not change anything about the Digimon we encounter in the world, it only cuts our stat gains. If I set the game to Normal, Terra would’ve gained 3 STR/3 WIS/14 SPD instead, and when they reincarnate, the stats they’re born with will also be lower. I don’t like it, since for me, it basically translates to “spend a couple more days at the gym getting ready, have less time to do stuff before your Digimon die.”

“Easy” in the PS4 version is also identical to “Normal” in the original Vita release, our Normal is their Hard.

Now they’re hungry. We can open the Care menu with Square.

From here, we can give them items and let them sleep. With L1 and R1 we can choose to use items on our Digimon individually in case we want them to have different diets.

Let’s throw them some meat.


Well, that was simple, but now they’re saying they’re fatigued. Since we’re only training them, they’re not in any real danger yet, but we’ll want to let them rest a bit before we go out in the world. Exploring with high Fatigue makes it easier to get sick, after all!

We can typically get one more training session out of them, and we can usually push it to two sessions if we know they’re close to Digivolving or going to bed. Digivolving resets a few things, including hunger and fatigue.

On that note, we didn’t actually need to feed them, because after the next session…

[VIDEO] Our partners Digivolve






Well, no surprises there. The In-Training stages for each egg are set in stone, Rookie is
the first stage with any variation, and this is where the stats you train start to matter.

Let’s take a break from all this and look around Floatia.

dt-tokomon “You’re going out? You should at least Digivolve to Rookie first…”

c-herof “You’re not my dad.”

We head outside…


dt-tokomon “New Digimon can build new facilities that provide new services!”

dt-tokomon “If you’re careful, you can avoid battles. If you get in trouble, come back to Floatia!”

Tokomon finally buggers off, and our partners scamper over to us. Sometimes, we can choose to praise, scold, or ignore our partners after they do something.


Let’s go talk to some of the other locals.





dt-pichimon “You can find them when you pick up materials sometimes.”
dt-pichimon “They serve little purpose besides earning some Digivolution items and a PSN Trophy.”

We’ll passively get them while gathering sometimes. There are 540 of them in all, and if we try real hard we can get about 9 or 10 of them in a day. I did this in my original playthrough because I had too much time to kill.

The YukimiBotamon and Bukamon offer us more tutorials. Like Punimon, I’ll wrap them into future updates as the information becomes relevant.

dt-botamon “But then Machinedramon tore on through, and all the Digimon just scattered…”
dt-botamon “The Floatia you see now is the one Jijimon and the rest of us have worked to rebuild…”

Botamon serves a useful purpose. When we talk to him, he’ll hint at a few Digimon we can currently go recruit. If you play this and hit a wall, he’ll help you get back on the right track.

There’s a Poyomon here who will teach us about the online features, but we can’t really do anything with that right now.

Before we head back to the Training Hall, let’s take a look at Digivolution requirements.

This is the History page. This shows us the forms our partners have taken since being reborn, and the potential forms they can take when they Digivolve. We have to “learn” the requirements for most Digivolutions, but we start with all of the information we need for Rookies.

The layout is simple: in order to Digivolve further, we have to have our stats built in certain ways. When you meet a requirement, the box showing the stat will light up.

We know about most of these stats, but some of the bottom ones could use some clarification:

TF: Short for Training Failures. We get these by letting our partners poop on the floor, or by ignoring their need to eat and sleep until they cry or pass out. Believe it or not, some Digimon actually have a minimum requirement for this.

Victory: Possibly the most annoying stat. This is how many battles they’ve won. This stat resets with Digivolution, which means going for a particularly violent will usually ask you to grind 20 fights as Rookie, 30 as Champion, and then 40 as Ultimate. Yeesh. Some Digivolutions also prefer pacifists.

Key Digi: This is basically a freebie for a number of Digimon, provided we’re going down their standard Digivolution path. For example, MetalGreymon’s Key Digi is Greymon, so if we’re using a Greymon, we’ve already got a Key Point.

Key Points: The most important requirement. For each stat we have lit up, we have 1 Key Pt towards the Digivolution. In this case, Terra has 2 of 3 Key Points that will let it Digivolve into Aruraumon. Some Digivolutions require every Key Pt we can possibly get, others are more lenient, having 6+ potential Key Pts and requiring, say, 5 of them.

Unfortunately, we’re not guaranteed to become the Digimon we want when the time comes. If we meet the standards for more than one Digivolution, then we’re left hoping for the best. We’ll be able to do something about this later.

We also get Digivolutions like this. Yeah, probably not getting that with our first batch.

Now, let’s get some Rookies.



Zugbug refuses to eat, so we scold them and they respect us a little more for it. They also go from disliking mushrooms to loving mushrooms almost instantly.

Thankfully, the Training Hall has a restroom, so this problem is resolved quickly.

Digimon like their privacy. We continue training for a few more hours, until…

[VIDEO]…I make a Rookie mistake.


Zugbug Digivolves into a Wormmon. Terra, on the other hand, shows off the dangers of not paying attention. I overdid the Strength training, so Terra met the requirements for two Digimon.


I was aiming to keep Terra as a plant. Oh well. We train them until they decide they’re ready for sleep.

These are their final stats for the night. Before we let them sleep, let’s step outside for a bit…

c-herof “Good night, my darlings.”

Oh yeah, sleeping outside or out in the open isn’t a great idea, as seen here. Our Digimon recovered less than they would have if they slept in the Training Hall or Jijimon’s house. In some environments, sleeping outdoors also runs the risk of making our Digimon sick. We’ll eventually get something that helps us with this.

c-herof "We’ll try not to do it too often-Terra no!"

Ugh, on the plus side, sleep pooping doesn’t leave a stain on the world, and it doesn’t count as a Training Failure.

Well, let’s eat, and then we’ll hit up Tanemon for today’s rations.

Oh no. For the record, we started with 10 DigiStalks and 10 Meat. We went though 4 DigiStalks and 6 Meat yesterday, and that’s not counting what I fed them for breakfast. If we don’t get out into the world today to get some food, we’re going to have problems…

But we’ll do that next time. See you then!

(To avoid having a mile-long wall of Jijimon, I tried a thing to condense his text. Hopefully it doesn’t look awful.)

(Also, don’t forget to submit names! Send them via PM if you’re worried about cluttering the thread. I’ll put up a poll for the player’s name at the end of the next part.)

Optional Dialogue Compilations for this File:
Jijimon talks about Machine-dray-mon for 7 minutes

I really like DigiDana’s design except for the side ponytail. It just looks really off for some reason. I don’t know if it’s the curve or how long it is. But if it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t mind playing as her.

I do like how much this is still like the original Digimon World. I can already see there are a ton of improvements, number one being they actually tell you what things do. That’s always a bonus in games. Also really like that they kept Tanemon as the farmer. A Plant person farming meat is just a really good joke.

FILE 003 - MEET, GREET, AND BEAT

Alright, time to leave Floatia and get our first taste of the outside world…
…after I do a little training. Terra and Zugbug get a little more stamina and some extra health.

Now, let’s head to the Nigh Plains.

[NEW MUSIC] Blue Sky, Big Step

Outside of the city, Digimon aren’t so friendly. Most of them will try to pummel us on sight, and if our Digimon don’t look particularly tough, they’ll try and chase us down if we wander too close.

If a Digimon doesn’t seem to react to us, or they have an “!” hanging on them, then we can usually talk to them. The “!” means they’re related to some kind of quest, and the quest will usually end with a Digimon returning to Floatia, or giving us some items, or trading us something for something else.

That said, we’re immediately presented with a not-so-evil-looking Digimon. Hey, Patamon!

Patamon doesn’t seem to react to our presence, and he has a… we’ll just call them “quest markers.” Let’s talk to him and see what happens.

c-herof “Ho, questgiver! How many bear asses must I collect for your reward?”
dn-patamon “What are you talking about? And uh,”

The way Patamon undulates as he talks is kind of mesmerizing.

c-herof “?!”
dn-patamon “Are you one of those humans?! Oh, I see! You were controlling Machinedramon!”

That’s QUITE a leap there, pal. Rather than explain herself, DigiDana continues to spew out a bunch of punctuation marks.

dn-patamon “How dare you mess with Floatia! I’ll take you down!”

[VIDEO] Vs. Patamon
[NEW MUSIC] Rebuffing Fight (Ne0 Version)
(If you’ve never played the original, it’s worth mentioning that tracks with “Ne0 Version” in their name are remixes of songs from DW1, this theme being among them)

Welp, looks like we have to turn Patamon into paste to proceed. Patamon isn’t threatening at all, even for tutorial purposes.

Case in point: Patamon just bodychecked Terra for like, 2% of their health.

He’ll normally go down with one good hit, the problem here is, well… both of our Digimon only have a single short-range attack.

Zugbug what are you even doing Patamon’s that way. In addition to having no range, the moves we have also come with a big wind-up.

Terra delivers a glancing blow with his rancid breath. Seems Patamon was able to guard against it.


Zugbug proceeds to spit in Patamon’s eyes, instantly destroying the rest of his health bar.

We gain some stats, some EXP, some BIT, and if the Digimon we fought knows a Skill we don’t, we can sometimes learn that as well.

c-herof “I attacked you with bubbles, of course it doesn’t hurt.”
c-herof “Anyway, Jijimon’s waiting for you back in town.”
dn-patamon “…You know Jijimon? Don’t tell me…you’re not a bad guy?!”

DigiDana waves her hand, finally telling Patamon that she is, in fact, not evil.

dn-patamon “Is that right? My bad… I got a bit ahead of myself.”
dn-patamon “I’ve never seen a human before, y’see…”
dn-patamon “Right, then. I’m going back to Floatia. Gimme a holler if you see me out there!”

Patamon returns to Floatia. We’ll check in on him in a bit. We also get some new DigiMail.

Before Patamon sucked us into a fight, I noticed something under that tree.


It says it’s a “Quick Fruit,” but it’s one of the items that actually falls under the “Nut” category.
Rule of thumb: Fruits are based on actual fruits, like apples and bananas. Nuts are geometric shapes with a pattern on them.


Heading up the path on the right leads us to a fellow who almost immediately notices us.

He’s not friendly.

c-herof “CRIPES that was close!”

Something to note about hostile Digimon: most of them actually do move a bit faster than us, so we need to be careful if we need to get around one without fighting them. I goofed and ran into a wall, so Fugamon got dangerously close. If he bumped into us, we would’ve been returning to Floatia carrying two cans of green paste.

Let’s take the left path instead. Going down the left path prompts the game to tell us about gathering.

Throughout our adventure, we’ll be gathering two things pretty much constantly:

Ingredients are items that we can feed to our Digimon, and we’ll regularly get Mushrooms, Fruits and Nuts this way. Some of them will also get us some decent money at the item shop. (when we get one)

Materials are found in these glowing halos on the ground, and the color of the halo tells us what type of material we’ll get. In this case, yellow = metal. It’s not super-important yet, since we don’t have a Builder, but we’ll be needing this stuff later in the game. May as well grab 'em when we can.

Materials are stored in a separate inventory, and the maximum amount we can hold is determined by our Digimon’s Stamina stats, up to a maximum of 200. We drop our materials into a stockpile whenever we return to Floatia.

The game also takes a moment to tell us that there are 8 regions in the Digital World, and the further out from Floatia we go, the stronger our enemies will be.

And finally, it’s going to make us beat up a Goblimon, but not before telling us how the Tactics and Item Box menus work. I don’t think I need to go into much detail about the former; we press Square to open it, and we can select targets, tell our partners to pull their punches or go all out with their MP-spending attacks, and flee from battle.

We can also press Triangle to open the Item Box. The main thing to keep in mind is that we have the option to use two of an item at once, one for each Digimon, so we need to be cautious in cases where we only want to heal one of them, lest we waste some perfectly good healing items.

Time also stops while either menu is open, which is nice.

[NEW MUSIC] Chance Meetings, Dancing Lariats

c-herof "Zugbug please."

c-herof "Zugbug thank you."

We take FakeTerra’s lunch money, and we learn the secret art of “punch things.” The Goblimon gets up and immediately bolts from the scene.

Look at all those Skills we can steallearn from digital ruffians. The squares that are lit up are moves that the current Digimon is capable of using. Rookies are usually stuck with 6 or 7 moves in the upper half of the chart. The closer to the bottom we get, the more powerful the move. Usually.

I consider Mach Jab, but decide to stick with the chance of Poisoning dudes.

As we travel, our partners will often react to their surroundings. Both are getting excited because they’re detecting a nearby digistalk.

Up the hill, we also find a salty fruit, and our partners also lead us to some water. Liquid materials are marked by blue halos.

Then they’re hungry again. At least we’re finding food now.

Also, since we’re no longer being railroaded by tutorials, the fights can last more than 10 seconds.

[VIDEO] Our first non-tutorial battle

Ah, here’s something to note: Timing Support with your attacks only works with attacks your Digimon do on their own. If you spend OP to command them, timing Support well won’t give you a bonus.

Zugbug also manages to Slow the enemy Goblimon. Slow causes a Digimon’s movement speed to tank, making it very difficult for them to move out of the way of incoming attacks.

Goblimon down, :meat: obtained.

The tree nearby has a treat for us. That little smiley peeking out is a cheerful apple! Probably the most common fruit by virtue of being found right outside of town.

Oh, we also began unlocking Digivolution requirements for Champion Digimon. Beyond Rookie, we have to “learn” what can shape our Digimon in the future. Every time we praise or scold them, we’ll randomly learn 1-3 things about their potential forms. It wouldn’t be a Digimon game if there wasn’t at least one dumb aspect to a mechanic. There’s an alternative later that effectively lets us learn these for BIT.

On the plus side, these stay unlocked forever, so if we unlock half of Ogremon’s info with Goblimon, and get another Digimon who can become Ogremon, his sheet will be halfway filled. Honestly though, nobody will blame you for using a guide instead.

After some more wandering, we encounter another Digimon. Tentomon!

dn-tentomon “Boy howdy! It must’ve been fate that brought us together! I’ve got something to tell you, in fact…”
dn-tentomon “So whaddaya think? Have I piqued your interest? Or you want I should pick your nose instead?”

I think the answer here is obvious.

dn-tentomon “One boogerectomy coming right up! …Okay, that wasn’t as funny as I thought it’d be.”

There’s something delightfully “Digimon” about some of these pointless choices. I don’t remember if it ever gets to “world-ending being laments getting the pizza crust” levels, but I digress…

c-herof “You’ve piqued my interest!”
dn-tentomon “Allll riiight, I could tell you were a sharp one! Now then, check out this bad boy.”

Tentomon whips out a disc.

dn-tentomon “Ta-daaah! A Recovery Disc! Just what every Tamer needs!”
dn-tentomon “I can let it go now for a paltry sum of 100 BIT!”
dn-tentomon “So whaddaya think?”

We’re given the option to haggle with Tentomon. Recovery Discs normally cost 100 BIT at the item shop. Let’s stare at him…

dn-tentomon “Alright, buddy, you drive a hard bargain… Fine! Have it your way!”
dn-tentomon “How much would you pay for this bad boy?”
c-herof “Make it 30 BIT!”

DigiDana, no! Prices like that’ll run him outta business!

dn-tentomon “Don’t ask the impossible! Prices like that’ll run me outta business!”

See?

dn-tentomon “Right, how about this? Let’s call it… 70 BIT! That’s my best offer!”
c-herof “How about 60 BIT?”
dn-tentomon “Man, what a skinflint! Nnngh, all right, all right, sold for 60 BIT!”
dn-tentomon “I can see I’ve got a lot to learn… You win this round!”
dn-tentomon “Ah well, come on back and see me sometime!”

You can do this as much as you want to stock up on cheap Recovery Discs, but it doesn’t complete Tentomon’s quest. In order to get him to Floatia, well, he needs to make some profit.

c-herof “I’ll buy it for 100 BIT!”
dn-tentomon “Really? No foolin’?! Well then, pleasure doing business with you, pardner!”
dn-tentomon “Thanks to you, I can finally open my item shop!”
dn-tentomon “I’ll have more deals down the line, so gimme a holler in town!”
dn-tentomon “Peace out, hombre!”

Tentomon sheds his cowpoke accent and moves to the not-quite-big city.

Zugbug picks up on something near the center of the zone, these red ones get us Stone materials.

Whoops. We dug up so much DigiStone and DigiSand that we run out of space for them. We can only carry about 30 materials currently, which really doesn’t last that long.

DigiCopper is apparently similar to brass, which makes me wonder why they didn’t just name it DigiBrass.

We set out to find more Digimon when dusk falls on the Digital World. The time of day does play a role into which Digimon you’ll encounter, though they don’t switch over until you leave and re-enter the map, but enough about that, we find a new thing!

That little weed is scratchy grass. It’s… well, it’s a handful of grass that Digimon don’t particularly like, but it counts as a mushroom. Sounds like eating it isn’t very pleasant.

A short distance from the grass, we find another Digimon-of-Interest! It’s a Palmon, so I’ve got a good feeling about this one.

dn-palmon2 “I’m looking for fertilizer to help me make some tasty meat, but I’m having a little trouble.”
dn-palmon2 “That’s where you come in.”
c-herof “More meat? I’m already like 300% into this.”
dn-palmon2 “Awesome, thanks! You’re the best.”
dn-palmon2 “Bring me a cheerful apple, a digistalk, and a salty fruit when you find them!”
dn-palmon2 “Got it?”

c-herof “I already have all of those things, but you bet!”
dn-palmon2 “Oh sweet! You brought all three of 'em!”
dn-palmon2 “Thanks a bunch! Just what I needed for my fertilizer. Alright, time to make a delicious fruit!”
c-herof “I thought you were growing fresh meat.”
dn-palmon2 “Oho, no. I said fruit treats!”

I suppose it’s just an oddity with the translation. The game has quite a few of them. Anyhow, Palmon heads to Floatia.

With Palmon recruited, there’s just one quest marker left in the zone, and it’s on top of the central hill. Let’s take a look.

We find Biyomon and a Rolly Fruit.

dn-biyomon “I want to fly all through the sky! The thing is, though, I’m not very good at it…”
dn-biyomon “Won’t someone teach me how to fly?”
c-herof “Keep trying, you’ll get it!”
dn-biyomon “I will, thanks! If you meet any Digimon that could give some pointers, please let me know!”

Unfortunately, this is all we can do with Biyomon for a while, and this more-or-less wraps up the current zone.
I actually really like this, because the Digimon we encounter introduce us to the most common methods we’ll be using to recruit Digimon:

  • Like Patamon, some of them require us to fight them.
  • Like Tentomon, some of them need us to speak to them in a certain way.
  • Like Palmon, some of them want us to bring them something, or do something in the world first.
  • Like Biyomon, some of them are waiting for something or someone to be in Floatia.

There are other recruitment methods we’ll run into throughout the game, but most of them will involve doing one or more of those four methods.

We find an Unlucky Shroom. I have a tendency of never using things with names that sound bad, so I’ve never actually fed this to a Digimon. Maybe it actually gives them superpowers.

Terra has to go, so we beeline across the zone to the toilet. The bridge in this zone is optional, and we can walk through the shallow water. We make it to the restroom without issue.

There are a handful of these dotted across the world. Reaching one in time normally isn’t too hard, but when we’re a few zones away and there are a bunch of Digimon in the way, it’s usually better (and quicker, remember that time spent is life spent) to use a portable toilet.

Toilets also have vending machines nearby. Their prices are far from reasonable. Besides the drinks, which are only available from vending machines, these are mainly here if you need emergency supplies.

We head towards a slightly-wooded area and get in another fight.

The most notable thing that happens is that our partners pull off a combo. If both Digimon land attacks on the same enemy in quick succession, then the enemy will take some extra damage.
Combos are good, once you recognize the timing of various attacks, you can set them up relatively easily by issuing commands.

The Goblimon drops a Bandage for us. How nice!

Nighttime rolls around, and as is Digimon World’s tradition, night replaces most music with ambience. Zugbug points out our final type of material: Wood, highlighted by green halos. We can also see the entrance to another zone in the back.

We can also find Liquid materials on land. Generally, these points will give us things like DigiRubber, DigiLatex, and DigiTreeSap.

I figure now is a good time to head back to Floatia, here’s a video if you want to check out the ambience I mentioned. I actually really like that the game does this.

Whenever we return after recruiting a Digimon, we get a scene like this where Jijimon tells us about them.

[VIDEO] MADE MY DAY

dc-jijimon “You’re back, DigiDana! I have good news!”

jijimon1-1 “Patamon has come back to Floatia! He has opened a warehouse!”
jijimon1-2 “Tentomon has come back to Floatia! He’s opening an item shop!”
jijimon1-3 “Palmon has come back to Floatia! He’ll improve your fields!”
jijimon1-4 “The city’s Prosperity is now 3. There’s still a long way to go…”

We also hit up Koromon for our daily items and we get an Auto-Pilot! They’re very handy, we’re teleported to Floatia when we use them.

[NEW MUSIC] Starry Sky’s Goodnight (Ne0 Version)

Patamon has already set up his corner, but the others won’t show up until morning.

The Warehouse is very useful for storing items we won’t be using for a while, especially considering how small our inventory is to start with.

We’re nearly done with DigiDana and the bulk of the tutorials, you guys. I just have one last thing to do.

You see, everything we’ve done today has earned us Tamer EXP, and by everything, I mean everything. Feeding, training, using the bathroom, fighting, all of it gets us some EXP, and we’ve gotten dangerously close to our first level.
This includes moving. We’re going to take a quick stroll in the field to get that 56 EXP.

After a walk and a quick poop, we triumphantly return to Floatia, one last time.

That wasn’t necessarily good timing on my part, Tamer EXP is collected as we play, but we only level up when we return to Floatia.

With every level we gain, we’ll get some TP, and TP is used to get Tamer Skills. There’s a wide variety to choose from, ranging from things like “enemies are more likely to drop an item” to “your Digimon are reborn with higher stats” to “you can now cook and combine food for stronger effects.”

In a lot of cases, it’s hard to prioritize upgrades because a lot of them are really useful! We’ll eventually have a method of respeccing our TP, so we don’t need to worry too much about whether something is best saved for the end-game or whatever.

The maximum Tamer Level we can get is 50, and at 50 we’ll have enough TP to get every Tamer Skill.

That being said, it’s time we let Terra and Zugbug sleep. Their job is done now, but we might hear from them again in the future.
We’re done. The bulk of the tutorials are out of the way, I’ve talked about most of the mechanics we’ll be dealing with, and we’re free to explore the world at our leisure. At least, until we hit a wall that needs story progress to pass.

Next time, we’ll get our protagonist for the rest of the game, and we’ll start our adventure proper.

It looks like the ambiance video links back to the Patamon Fight again.

I like that the game actually tells you the requirements for the different digivolutions. That is so much better than the original game that required things like a tree leaf falling at the exact speed in a forest 100 km from you. Or whatever that game did.

What I do hope we see is really convoluted ways to unlock areas to the game.

Thanks for pointing that out, the link should be fixed.

Next part should be up in a few days. Sorry for the delay, but work got rather hectic.

1 Like

FILE 004 - BUGS N' SLUGS

Let’s get back to it.

Our latest hero is DigiDesmond, and he’s here for the long haul. We select the red and green eggs and begin our journey (fast forwarding through most of the stuff we already saw with DigiDana, of course)…
…and I immediately jump the gun.

Bruce is going to become a flower child, which is reasonable enough. I just have to avoid raising their strength too high, otherwise we’ll get another Goblimon.

I was going to turn Ryuki into a Guilmon, but I forgot to check the requirements. Turns out Guilmon is completely unreasonable to get at the start. Whoops! Oh well, we’ll have a Ryuki Jr at some point.
I decide to go for Solarmon instead.

So of course he qualifies for 2, and opts to become a Goblimon instead. I guess I’m just gonna let Ryuki do what he wants. :psyduck:

These were their stats before Digivolving, by the way. In case you wanted to compare them to Guilmon’s requirements.

Bruce follows the plan. I have no concrete direction for Bruce, I’m just going for Digimon that are green, which means they’ll probably turn into something blue or purple or whatever.
In retrospect, trying to act on thread suggestions was a little pointless, and will be for the first 2 or 3 generations.
It’s very unlikely that our Digimon will get strong enough to Digivolve to Mega, and on top of that it’s usually really easy to qualify for 2+ Digimon unless you neglect an important stat for several days, and we don’t have full control over what our partners can become yet.
Still, we can take solace in the fact that Ryuki and Bruce will be building the foundation which we’ll eventually use to sculpt our partners into digital gods.

We continue to train until it’s time to sleep. I’m going to have to train them a little more in the morning, because Bruce is going to disintegrate the moment something looks at them.
We don’t get out of town until the evening, which means the field is populated with Numemon. It’s typically more dangerous to explore after night, because most Digimon get replaced with more powerful Digimon.

[VIDEO] Trying to remember the controls while defeating a poopslug

We go ahead and fight a few, and Bruce’s lack of Stamina really shows. Yeesh.
Now, here’s a neat thing that’ll almost never happen when you need it to. Bruce needs healing, so I get ready to chuck a single Recovery Disc.

You see that ring? Items actually have a small “Area of Effect.” If both Digimon are next to eachother, like they currently are…

…they’ll both get healed with a single item. There are healing items with a much larger AoE ring, but it’s nice that even the basic items let you do it. (though it’ll usually be accidental, because AI is AI)

Bruce also manages to finish the fight with a special attack.

Completely humbled by our display, the Numemon tells us how to…fart at things. Good deal, though neither of our partners can use it.
We return to Floatia and turn in for the night. Now we’ve caught up to where we were before!

The next day, we set out and immediately find corna Duty Fruit.

Much of the afternoon is spent gathering materials and foraging for food.

Our partners are also strong enough to make the local Goblimon wary. They’ll no longer chase us on-sight, and they’ll even back away if we get closer, most of the time.

Whoops. I spent so long collecting things and re-orienting myself to the layout of the first region that dusk rolled around. Time really does fly in this game, if you have something you want to do, try not to get distracted or you might find yourself in a dangerous place at night time. Or you could just make sure you have an auto-pilot handy.


Nonetheless, we can still take a peek at the rest of our surroundings.
The Power Plant (apparently the second one) is a small area. It features a small patch of dirt that holds no significance.

The gathering spot behind it also has a chance to give us DigiQuartz, our first rare material.

Thanks to the time, the central field is full of Numemon who are a bit above level 2. I might be able to take one down, but they’re close enough that one or two of their friends are liable to join the fight.
If you squint at the shadows in the back, you also might notice that there’s something there. We’ll get to it later.

We leave Power Plant #2 and head to another area, the Old Cableway. You might notice another Digimon loitering in the back. Soon…

There are also some murderous BlackGabumon tooling around.

Returning to the Vast Plateau, we find more new food: a Baby Strawberry.

We also narrowly avoid getting ambushed by two Numemon.

As night falls, we reach the exit near the restroom and move to the Forest Path. I decide I may as well beat something up tonight.

[VIDEO] Slightly stronger Goblimon

Oh beans, he has a new attack. Ryuki actually takes 580 damage from this. If you haven’t watched any of the fight videos, the damage done/taken ticks up from 0. I can’t really get the full amount and the effect of an attack into the same screenshot because of this.

Oof. Looks like both of them could use some Stamina training.


Bruce pulls off their special, and we finally land a good hit.

The pair immediately rush Goblimon and finish him before he has a chance to stand up.

We get a green digistalk for our trouble, and the Goblimon’s spin kick eludes our discovery. Oh well, all things come with time.
Green digistalks aren’t particularly rare. In fact, Forest Path is littered with them. It’s a decent place to stockpile some food during the day.

With that encounter, we return to Floatia for the night, and DigiDesmond gains his first Tamer Level.




There are a lot of skills to get in this game, and most of them are very useful. I’ll be going over them as we get them, but you might be able to glean what a few of them do just from looking at their icons.

That said, some of them are critical for the early-game. I go with Health Runner first, which lets our partners regenerate health as we run around the world. It’s not massive, but it’ll help us save a few Recovery Discs for battle use.
The original Digimon World had a similar feature, Health Shoes, but they only healed one HP per step you took, and they only functioned while you were walking. It also took up an inventory space. Regeneration in this game seems to be calculated using a percentage of our partner’s maximum HP, so the higher their health pool is, the more health they’ll regenerate with each tick, and it works while running! Infinitely better, I’d say.

Ryuki and Bruce train until they’re tuckered out, then we call it a day.

Oh, and while we’re back in Floatia, we may as well check in with our new friends.

dn-palmon2 “Eh heh heh, well look what the cat dragged in. Leave all the fieldwork to me!”
dn-palmon2 “This field is a bit small, so it’ll be hard to do any major improvements…”
dn-palmon2 “Still, for now let’s work on upping the crop yield! Here we go!”

Sounds like Palmon is trying to tell us something…

dn-palmon2 “A bigger field would be reaaal nice right about now…”

Hmm. Anyway, we’ll get 8 meat every day with Palmon in town, much better than 5-a-day, that’s for sure.

On the other side of Floatia, we find that Tentomon has set up shop next to Patamon.

dn-tentomon “What is it, DigiDesmond? Thanks for coming on over!”
dn-tentomon “C’mon, don’t front on me! You know why you’re here, this is an item shop, after all!”
dn-tentomon “You wanna buy, you can buy. Got something to sell, I’m your 'mon!”
dn-tentomon “We’re not official as of yet, if you know’m sayin’, but I’m open for business!”
dn-tentomon “Thanks for your business! And by that, I mean whatcha buyin’, buddy?”

His stock is typical RPG fare. We can get the most basic recovery items, as well as portable toilets and auto-pilots if we need them. We really don’t, as of now. Koromon gives us enough that we don’t really need to shop for a while.

dn-tentomon “A pleasure doing business with ya, homie!”
dn-tentomon “Man, whadda BIT-pincher.”

We leave Floatia and head towards Forest Path again, when we…

…uh…

…I’m in awe at the size of this Numemon.

Occasionally, a rare “elite” Digimon will spawn in certain places. They are very large, and tend to be pretty strong. They also tend to drop high-quality items, a fair amount of Tamer EXP, and a good amount of BIT. Being the bottom rung of that particular ladder though, Numemon really only gives the latter two. I’ll err on the side of caution this time, because I value our Digimon’s ability to continue breathing. Enough about oversized Digimon…

We arrive again at Forest Path, during daylight hours this time. Other Aruraumon tend to hang out around here.

They’re not particularly aggressive towards us, but they not terribly difficult and tend to drop food and Recovery Discs. Did I mention it’s easy to stock up on food here?

Just around the corner, we have… another Numemon. This one has something to say.

dn-numemon2 “This is a momentous occasion indeed! You see, I want five green digistalks…”
c-hero “Bollocks, I left my green digistalks at home.”
dn-numemon2 “Bloop bloop… F-food…”

Numemon emails us immediately to tell us how hungry he is.

c-hero “Gourmand or no, you seem rather picky for a poopslug who seems to be dying of starvation.”

Well, guess we’ll have to somehow scrounge up some green digistalks. Wonder where we’ll find them.

Oh, right, Forest Path. We nab two of them, not even ten feet away from Numemon.

Our partners decided they need to poop about a minute ago. Rather than leave the area, I elect to get it out of the way without loading screens. Turns out, Bruce doesn’t like waterfowl.

c-hero “Come on Bruce, it looks like a cute little duck, it’s not that bad.”
dn-goblimon “Could be worse. Could be a goose.”

When you praise/scold your Digimon, your partners can sometimes interact. When this happens, the stats they gain from it are increased. 10 Discipline would be a pretty hefty boost, if we were pursuing a Digimon that needed it.

I still have no idea how the hell this thing is a toilet. It looks like a miniature paddle-boat to me. But I digress, we’re still only 3/5 of the way through Numemon’s request.
Scavenging the rest of the forest yields one more green digistalk, we’ll get the last one by picking on more Arur-

-wait, is that-

-it’s a Golden Acorn! These only show up in a few places, and sell for 2000 BIT. That’s a hefty chunk of change early in the game!

Ryuki manages to pull off his special attack. In a shocking twist; it involves hitting something with his club.

Or rather, a fireball that he shoots out of his club. I guess they felt the need to justify the fact that these attacks will always hit their target, regardless of distance.

The Aruraumon is so impressed that it drops a pretty rare item (at least for this point in the game). Hunks of Meat are what you get when regular Meat Digivolves. Okay, not really, but I’m sure you know what I’m getting at: it’s more filling and gives our Digimon more weight. It’s a good idea to hold on to it until we get a Digimon with a bigger appetite. It’s a better idea to hold onto it for another purpose.

At the tail end of Forest Path are a pair of RedVegiemon, who serve as a sort of warning flag. We could kite our way around them, but if we can’t take down a RedVegiemon, we have no business going back there.
Now then, we have 5 green digistalks, let’s head back to Numemon.

c-hero “Did somebody order some digistalks?”

He’s so happy. Maybe we’ll get a cool reward.

dn-numemon2 “Yeahhh, I’m so full! When I eat, I just chow down, ya know?!”
dn-numemon2 “A full belly gets me raring to go! I’ll fight with you!”

DigiDamn it. Oh well, guess we’ll see how-

[VIDEO] -oh, Ryuki turbodunked him in like one second. Alright.

c-hero “I’m sure you’re not just a featherweight.”
dn-numemon2 “But all that fighting helped me chill out. Forgive me, I’ll go to the city…”

Numemon joins the ranks of Floatia. I’m sure Jijimon will appreciate this.

We had back to the end of the forest (you know, it seems a little sparse for a forest, now that I think about it) because there’s another friend here…

c-hero “Hi Zugbug.”
dn-wormmon “I may have been abandoned in a previous save file…”
dn-wormmon “…but I still want to help people. The problem is, my only skill is making this thread…”
dn-wormmon “I’m confident in its strength, but what can I use it for?”
c-hero “You’re retired, why not use it to fish?”
dn-wormmon “Fishing line! What a great idea! Even I could make something like that.”
dn-wormmon “…but I don’t have anything I could use as a rod. Could you find me a stick or something?”
c-hero “Sure.”
dn-wormmon “Really?! Wow, thanks so much! I’m counting on you!”

Heading back to the start of Forest Path reveals a yellow ring.

Yeah, we found the one stick in the whole forest. No, we couldn’t see it before getting the quest to build a fishing rod. Let’s get it back to Zugbug.

dn-wormmon “Did you bring me something I could use as a fishing rod?”
c-hero “I found a stick.”
dn-wormmon “Ooh, that’s the ticket!”
c-hero “We’re surrounded by thousands of sticks.”
dn-wormmon “But this is a very good stick.”
c-hero “Fair enough.”
dn-wormmon “Now, I just tie the string to the end…”
dn-wormmon “Presto, fishing rod complete! Couldn’t have done it without you!”
dn-wormmon “Take this fishing rod as my thanks!”

dn-wormmon “I hope this helps with your fishing! Use it well!”

Zugbug sets off for Floatia. I’m sure he’ll run a successful business. Fishing is, uh, a thing we can do. We’ll get to it eventually, but right now we’d basically waste an entire day and get nothing to show for it.

Dusk falls, but I’m not ready to return to Floatia just yet. We’re going to get those two Digimon we saw lurking in the back of Power Plant #2 and Old Cableway first.

At the Plant, we dig up a bit more Quartz and another Old Card. Like I said before, the Cards are pretty much worthless. I may have mentioned that the game is at least merciful enough to not allow repeat Cards to drop, but it’s still an obnoxious grind to get them all.
We can’t even look at them yet, by the way.

Hmm, right, those Numemon… there’s quite a bit of clearance on the left, so we might be able to squeeze past without them noticing.

I think they noticed us. At least there’s plenty of room to keep running and escape their “territory.”

Danger evaded, we find Kuwagamon.

c-hero “Huh?”
dn-kuwaga “I AM KUWAGAMON. I AM LOOKING FOR FOOD TO EAT.”
dn-kuwaga “I LOVE ROYAL DIGIJELLY. IT IS ON FOREST PATH IN NIGH PLAINS.”

Good thing we went there first. A curated, efficient experience this isn’t. :toot:

dn-kuwaga “BUT I GOT LOST ON THE WAY, AND I DO NOT KNOW WHERE I AM.”
dn-kuwaga “SO PLEASE, I ASK YOU! PLEASE BRING ME ROYAL DIGIJELLY!”

Kuwagamon is another Digimon who is content to stand around and starve to death instead of trying a bit harder to find his food. Good thing we’re here!

c-hero “You seem alright, I’ll get the royal digijelly for you.”
dn-kuwaga “YOU ARE A GOOD HUMAN!”

We’ll save him soon enough, but we may as well check out the actual Power Plant of Power Plant #2 while we’re here.

It features a field of oversized lemons. The liquid node gets us some DigiAcid…

…and we can harvest some Conductor Lemons nearby. I guess the implication is that Digimon use lemons as a power source, kind of like that school experiment where you use lemons or potatoes as a battery for a light bulb. I think that’s a cute detail. The liquid node behind the Power Plant contains DigiOil.

On our way to Forest Path, we stop by the Old Cableway for the second Digimon. The Numemon still hate us, but I notice there’s a path between the trees that might let us skirt around both them and the BlackGabumon.

We make it through, learning that it was Kabuterimon we saw in the back. A few Numemon are hanging around him. Unfortunate, but it gives me a chance to drop an important tip:
If a “quest” Digimon is surrounded by hostile Digimon, get rid of them first. In the event that the quest requires a fight, you’ll be moved around, and once the fight is done you might be in a place that will immediately get you in a fight with nearby Digimon. Nothing is worse than scraping by a tough boss battle just to have a Numemon finish you off.

Now, these guys are level 7, which means they’re probably going to be pretty tough.

[VIDEO] Let’s go for it!

Ryuki bops Numemon immediately. We Support this.

Numemon bops back. Not a tremendous amount of damage, but I get the feeling he has a stronger move up his sleeve.

Both partners attack, and Bruce manages to poison Numemon. A well-timed Support gets them plenty of OP. Numemon’s a sturdy boy though, so we’ll bide our time until we can finish him off.

We get them both to 150 OP, so it’s time to do the move.

Our partners get fired up! They unleash their DigiFuse skills…

…which means they both use their special move at the same time. It’s not super impressive to look at…

…but hoo boy, it makes that Numemon super dead. DigiFuse is pretty great, you get both special attacks at once, it can hit more than one enemy at a time, and it also counts as a combo, so you deal more damage than you’d do using their specials individually.

Those are some impressive stat gains! Remember that training a particular stat in Floatia got us about 30 in the one stat. Fighting can be a good way to train, but it can be a bit complex to execute.
Basically, if you’re looking to make full use of it in place of training, you’d need to know which Digimon will give you which benefits for your current powerlevel, while being easy enough to farm without getting yourself killed. These stat gains have diminishing returns once you pass their power level in a particular stat, as seen with their wisdom bonuses.

The battle finished, we praise our partners for their efforts. They also praise each other, boosting the results!

We clear out a few more Numemon to be safe, then we take a moment to jog around and heal our partners. It takes 20-30 seconds to heal the ~10% Ryuki was missing. It may not seem like much, but it’s a million times better than having no regeneration at all.
Let’s see what Kabuterimon has to say.

LIKE KUWAGAMON, KABUTERIMON IS VERY LOUD.

dn-kabuteri “ME, KABUTERIMON. ME WANT BE STRONG, SO ME TRAIN!”

UNLIKE KUWAGAMON, KABUTERIMON SPEAKS LIKE TARZAN.

dn-kabuteri “ME WANT SEE HOW STRONG ME AM! YOU FIGHT ME?”
dn-kabuteri “BUT ME TELL YOU, ME STRONG GUY! REAL STRONG!!!”
c-hero “Alright, let’s do it.”
dn-kabuteri “ME THANK YOU! LET’S FIGHT!!!”

[VIDEO] ME FIGHT KABUTERIMON


Bruce opens by…taking a surprising amount of Kabuterimon’s health. He might be weaker than the surrounding Numemon…

Kabuterimon breathes fire on Bruce…

…dealing 10 damage? With a 1.5x multiplier? Something’s not right here, I remember him being tougher than-

-YUMPIN’ YIMINY! He follows up by dropping a boulder on Bruce, dealing roughly two Bruces worth of damage.

This angers Ryuki, who buffs his own Strength in retaliation.

c-hero “BRUUUUUUUUUUCE!”

Bruce gets back on their feet just in time for Ryuki to get his own helping of boulder-to-the-face. That was a close one! Bruce manages to heal themselves some, I can’t tell if they were in range of the second revival disc I threw or if it was retaliation for Ryuki’s demise.

Both are back on their feet and, oh hell, Bruce is getting crushed again… At least we see the boulder this time.

But they survive! Turns out both of them automatically put up their guard. Guarding, by default, will protect a Digimon from 90% of the damage they would otherwise take, but they can’t move or attack while doing so.

Even fire is no match for crossing your arms.

Let’s put an end to this before Kabuterimon finds any more rocks.


And he’s down! That was a bit more stressful than I anticipated.

dn-kabuteri “OW OW OW! YOU, STRONG…”
dn-kabuteri “WHAT TRAINING YOU DO? …HUH? TRAIN…IN CITY?”
dn-kabuteri “CITY…FLOATIA CITY…BETTER THAN TRAINING OUT HERE?”
c-hero “Yeah, the risk of dying to falling rocks is way lower there.”
dn-kabuteri “OKAY, ME WANT TRAIN IN CITY! ME GOOD WITH TOOLS, TOO!”

Kabuterimon heads to Floatia! Hopefully he doesn’t ruin Jijimon’s power tools.

Now, let’s continue our quest for royal digijelly. Forest Path is populated with Goblimon again, but I’m confident we can handle them after all that.

[VIDEO] In fact, let’s handle two.

They quickly corner Bruce and stunlock them for a bit. Damn those spin kicks!

Both partners manage to finish off the first Goblimon with a combo attack.

Bruce attempts to finish the other with a special. Goblimon hangs on by a thread, but…

…Ryuki isn’t about to take prisoners.

The fight brings us to Tamer Level 2!

You remember how Bruce blocked 90% of Kabuterimon’s death rock? Let’s buy the most useful skill in the game: the ability to guard on command. This is essential for surviving most boss fights.

Heading towards the end of Forest Path, we find another Golden Acorn and a ring indicating…

…that we’ve found our jelly. Let’s get this back to Kuwagamon.

The Numemon Squad isn’t actually that difficult to avoid if you don’t slow down. Your partners are actually solid models, and can sometimes act as obstacles that keep them from catching up to you.

c-hero “Here it is!”
dn-kuwaga *slurp slurp*
dn-kuwaga “DELICIOUS! THIS IS MY FAVORITE! I AM ALL FULL NOW!”
dn-kuwaga “HUH? WHAT AM I DOING HERE? WHERE AM I? THINKING MAKES ME HUNGRY…”
dn-kuwaga “I WANT TO EAT ROYAL DIGIJELLY. WHERE IS ROYAL DIGIJELLY? LET US GO LOOK!”
c-hero “Great, we’re going to have to make the trip three times, aren’t we?”

Actually, he just joins after saying that. Kuwagamon is strange.

And our partners are sleepy. It’s late, so let’s just sleep in this cozy little corner tonight.
We’ve done a fair amount of work so far, this might be a good spot to-oh, hang on, Jijimon is buzzing me.

Ah, looks like some plot is about to happen! What did Jijimon learn? We’ll find out in the next File!

FILE 005 - NEW FRIENDS

Good morning! When we last saw our heroes, they had just convinced Kabuterimon and Kuwagamon to return to Floatia. Jijimon also messaged us, telling us that he dug up some information.

Before leaving Power Plant #2, we head up to the building to collect some more Conductor Lemons when…

…our partners change into digital champions, hopefully to save the digital world.

Ryuki decides to go green and becomes Woodmon. That’s fine, at least he didn’t become a Numemon.

Bruce becomes, probably because I said I was going for green Digimon,

A dark fox. Bruce was slated to become Vegiemon, but I guess the really good stat gains from the battles last night caused them to qualify for more Digivolutions.

Because Bruce cannot use any of the moves we currently have, the game automatically gives us one of the weaker ones they can use. Dark Spirit isn’t much to sneeze at now, but later in the game it can abuse several mechanics that make it one of the most powerful attacks available.


Our partners are certainly becoming stronger, though there’s plenty of room for improvement. Let’s not keep the old mon waiting. We run back to Floatia…

[DIALOGUE] Jijimon’s news

dc-jijimon “Apparently there are other humans apart from yourself in the Digital World!”
c-hero “Seriously?! So I’m not alone here…”
jijimon1-1 “If they’ve suddenly been thrown into this world in the same way you were,
jijimon1-2 they’re probably in trouble. Considering the strange incidents with the Machinedramon,
jijimon1-3 you should also go check them out. If we can exchange information, maybe we can find
jijimon1-4 out why humans have been pulled into the Digital World. And maybe we could solve some
blank other mysteries, too… like how we can send you all home.”
c-hero “I’ll get right on it.”
dc-jijimon “The witness reports are coming from the south of Nigh Plains. Be careful!”

The scene ends, and Jijimon immediately tells us about our latest recruits.

c-hero “Let’s go over the Digimon who have returned since last time.”
jijimon1-1 “Wormmon can tell you what your partner’s favorite food is.
jijimon1-2 Numemon is hanging around the bathroom… I wonder what it’s doing there?
jijimon1-3 Kabuterimon can improve gear in the Training Hall!
jijimon1-4 Kuwagamon likes to hang out in the Training Hall at night! What will he do for you?”

JIJIMON'S DAY HAS BEEN MADE [07] TIMES

Every Digimon we’ve brought back so far has been worth exactly 1 point.

Nice! Between recruiting those Digimon and the traveling we did, we’ve gained two levels!


The perks we go with are Skill Observation, which increases our chance of learning new attacks, and Life Boost, which simply lets our Digimon live a little longer.

Man, it just keeps coming back to Power Plant #2, huh?

dn-numemon2 “This place feels right… I think I’ll stay here…”
dn-numemon2 “Oh, yeah, I found this the other day. Here!”

Numemon gives us a free Portable Toilet every day.

dn-numemon2 “Hmmm… I can find more if you like that kind of junk…”
dn-numemon2 “Come back when you feel like it.”

Of course Numemon would think they’re trash.

We stop by Tentomon’s shop to triple our cash.

dn-tentomon “Hoo boy, those are some expensive nuts!”

And we even spare a moment for Zugbug.

dn-wormmon “But still, I want to be helpful to you! What to do, what to do…”
dn-wormmon “Oh, I know! I’ll tell you about your Digimon’s favorite foods!”

There are two “favorite” categories Digimon can have: Their Preference encompasses an entire food group, and heir Favorite is a single item. Naturally, feeding your Digimon a preferred item gives a boost to mood and bond, and their favorite gives an even larger boost to them. Since mood improves training results, it’s a good idea to feed your partners well when they wake up, if you want to take full advantage of this.

dn-wormmon “Ryuki prefers vegetables, and loves Digistalks!”
dn-wormmon “Bruce prefers mushrooms, and loves Digistalks!”

Wow, so both of them are super easy to please. Let’s step into the Training Hall for a second…

dn-kabuteri “I MODIFY TRAINING GEAR! USE GEAR A LOT. SAVE POWER. FIGHT HARD!”

Yep. You see those little bars above the little Agumon training graphics? Once we’ve filled it for a particular stat, we can pay Kabuterimon quite a lot of BIT to upgrade that piece of equipment, getting bigger stat boosts whenever we train with it.
Before we head out again, we boost their HP, stamina, and strength a fair amount, in the hopes that we avoid another Kabuterimon incident. At night, Kuwagamon arrives at the Training Hall.

Wonderful. :allears:

dn-kuwaga “I DIG HOLES AND SLEEP DURING THE DAY. NIGHTTIME IS MY TIME.”

Every night, Kuwagamon will give us a bird-shaped radish. Feeding it to one of our Digimon will increase the results of HP and speed training for about 3 hours. I’m gonna stockpile them for future generations.
We set out to find these other humans the next day.

Back at Power Plant #2, you may notice it’s a little quiet. The game is nice enough to clear the wild Digimon from an area when there’s a story event nearby. (presumably so you don’t accidentally teleport over an event’s trigger and break the game by entering a fight in the wrong spot)
We gather our usual round of materials and begin to look for signs of human activity.

Said activities may include “just chilling.” So, are they friend, or foe?

[DIALOGUE] Oh boy, humans!
[NEW MUSIC] Temper’s Minuet

We approach the stranger while Salamon, their dog-shaped digi-buddy approaches us.

dc-rikka1 “Himari! Look! Look! It’s a human!”

c-himari “I told you. We don’t know what’s going on here, so we have to be careful.”
dc-rikka1 “But, but… This person looks kind!”
c-himari “Those are the most dangerous types of people! It’s not normal, and probably not sincere!”

I’d say she’s being a little rude to someone she just met, but I guess you can’t blame someone for being cautious when you’re in a world where anything can suddenly become a robotic murdersaurus.
Regardless, before DigiDesmond has a chance to respond…

…someone else approaches us.

Nice sweater vest, buddy.

dc-rikka1 “Hey, Himari. Kouta changed completely too, you know.”
c-himari “Hmmm… Maybe it’s okay, then.”
c-hero “So we’re good? Alri-”
c-himari “Even in the presence of a beautiful girl like me…”
c-himari “He didn’t turn into a big bad wolf or anything, you know.”
dc-rikka1 “He looked after Pabumon and Yuramon too, after all. Kouta really is a good person.”
c-kouta “What are you talking about?”
c-himari “Nothing important. We’re discussing whether or not this person is a big bad wolf.”
c-himari “Anyway… At least tell us your name, okay?”
dc-yukimora1 “Before you ask someone’s name, isn’t it polite to give your own name first?”

Guilmon’s voice here really caught me off-guard my first time through. I definitely recommend checking out the dialogue video just to hear it.

c-himari “Yukimora, you’re always so formal. You said the exact same thing when we first met.”
dc-yukimora1 “It’s called manners. It really goes without saying.”

Yep. Guilmon, a Digimon normally characterized as a rambunctious goofball, is an A+ gentlemon in this game. :allears:

c-himari “Well, I guess I need to learn by your example. Show us how it’s done.”
dc-yukimora1 “Fine. My name is Yukimora. This is my partner Kouta.”
c-kouta “I’m Kouta Hirose. Nice to meet you.”
dc-rikka1 “I’m Rikka! I’m Himari’s partner.”
c-himari “And I am Himari Oofuchi.”
c-hero “My name is DigiDesmond, and my partners are Bruce and Ryuki.”
c-kouta “I see. That’s a good name.”
c-himari “Huh? I’ve heard that name somewhere…”

Guess Himari reads the thread.

c-himari “Hmmm…”
dc-rikka1 “Kouta… Do you have something to eat?”
c-kouta “Only two Digistalks… I want to go in farther, but there’s an aggressive Digimon in the way.”
c-kouta “There’s not much around here for Digimon to eat.”
c-hero “Someone hasn’t been to Forest Path. Or Floatia for that matter.”
c-kouta “We don’t even know how to get back to our own world.”
c-himari “Oh yeah! DigiDesmond, how did you get here?”

Yeah, that’ll do.

c-himari “You can’t get back to the real world, even from, um, Floatia?”
c-kouta “Well… If you’re still here, there really must be no way back, right?”
c-kouta “Could the problem be the Machinedramon attacks? This world is in trouble…”
c-himari “No thanks to you, Kouta…”
c-himari “But first things first. What do we do about this?”
c-kouta “Well, let’s see if we can get to Floatia.”
c-kouta “We can take these Digimon too, right?”
c-hero “What, you think we should abandon actual babies? Of course you save them.”

Himari and Kouta go to Floatia, so you can guess what our next destination is.


Oh, right, Jijimon mentioned that having two partners made us a bit of an anomaly. Perhaps Himari was worried that we were some kind of hacker?

[DIALOGUE] Back to Floatia we go, then.

c-himari “DigiDesmond… That name you told us!”
c-kouta “What? Didn’t you hear the first time?”
c-himari “You don’t remember anything, Kouta?”
c-kouta “I’m supposed to know this person or something?”
c-himari “Do you remember the national Digital Monsters tournament when we were in 5th grade?”
c-kouta “Of course! We only got into the top four, but it was still one of the best moments of my life.”
c-himari “Me, too. We both lost in the semifinals…”
c-himari “But the person who got to the finals…”
c-kouta “What?! It was DigiDesmond?!”
c-hero “You’d figure a name like DigiDesmond would be hard to forget.”
c-himari “Kouta was so nervous, I don’t think he’d remember you, DigiDesmond.”

c-hero “Why do you look like you’re about to punch someone?”
c-himari “Heh heh heh… Anyway… Where is Jijimon’s house?”
c-hero “It’s… the only building that isn’t a gym.”

[DIALOGUE] We have to follow them inside to continue the cutscene.

dc-jijimon “Of the four strongest participants in the same tournament,”
dc-jijimon “three have mysteriously been pulled into the Digital World.”
c-kouta “I feel like this has to be more than just coincidence.”
c-himari “This Digivice was a runners-up prize for those in the semifinals.”
c-himari “That must be what brought us here.”
c-kouta “Does that mean the other semifinalist is here, too?”
c-himari “Maybe… Or maybe they didn’t use their Digivice yet.”
c-himari “We can only guess…”
dc-jijimon “Digivices that only you people carry…”
dc-jijimon “If we weren’t in so much trouble already, I’d want to investigate these devices.”
c-kouta “How dangerous are all these Machinedramon attacks?”
dc-jijimon “They’re very dangerous. They might mean the end of the Digital World.”
c-himari “If we could do something about the Machinedramon…”
c-himari “Will you help us get back to the real world?”
dc-jijimon “Yes. I have already made a promise to DigiDesmond.”
c-himari “We’ll do anything we can to help, if there’s a way to get back to the real world.”
c-kouta “So what should we do?”
dc-jijimon “DigiDesmond has been bringing residents back to Floatia and greatly assisting in its recovery.”
dc-jijimon “There’s still the threat of the violent Digimon… Would you perhaps act as bodyguards?”
c-kouta “Bodyguards? That sounds super cool! Leave it to us!”
jijimon1-1
jijimon1-2 “Heh! You sound motivated, at least.
jijimon1-3 Anyway, I’ve been building a device that will be able to detect the presence of Machinedramon.
jijimon1-4 It will take some time for me to finish it, with just me working on it.”
c-hero “You heard the mon, Kouta. Get to work!”
jijimon1-1
jijimon1-2 “Actually, I’m hoping to enlist the cooperation of the world’s wisest man.
jijimon1-3 Will you go to Logic Volcano and find Taomon?
jijimon1-4 He can be something of a slow starter, so this may be a tough request, but I’m counting on you.”
c-hero “Alright. Bruce, Ryuki, let’s go!”


It looks like we’ll have to pass through the desert to reach the volcano. Let’s see what our new friends have to say on the matter…

c-kouta “You’re helping us, so we’ll help you. Go and find this Taomon!”
dc-yukimora1 “I’ll guard Floatia with my life! Don’t you worry!”

Himari and Rikka are nowhere to be found. They’re probably patrolling somewhere. It’s also getting late, so we train for the night and prepare to set out in the morning.

Worth noting that a lot of non-basic foods will actually give us permanent stat boosts. 10 HP/MP isn’t much, but it’s something.

We’ve also filled the meter on the stamina equipment. 10,000 BIT is a lot, but I assure you, it’s worth the cost. DigiDesmond sleeps on it.

…and sleeping grants him another level! We’ve also hit the point where we’ll get 4 TP every level instead of 3.

Let’s go ahead and learn this one for the future. When our partners finally croak, they’ll be reborn with a higher percentage of their former stats. The rest of the “Reverse Type” skills increase this percentage.

Koromon will occasionally give you medicine with the other items. Normally, medicine will help our Digimon if they get sick. Today, however, it’s going to help us get rich!
(Don’t worry, this is actually the second medicine we’ve gotten, I’m keeping it to the side just in case)

We dump the Medicine and a few foraged items to push us over 10,000 BIT.

dn-tentomon “A pleasure doin’ business with ya, homie!”


Demonstrating our upgraded stamina gear. Level 2 gear gives 10 more of the stat if used directly (as seen with Bruce), and 3 more of the stat if used as “neighboring gear.” (as seen with Ryuki)

Enough dallying, we have a desert/volcano to explore!


[NEW MUSIC] Sentimental Sand Storage

…and we can’t see a damn thing. Don’t let this screen fool you, Server Desert isn’t so bad when you leave this room. Thankfully, Noise Storm is a tiny, circular area, so it’s not like the sandnoisestorm is actually a hindrance.

c-hero “Yeah, darn that Togemon! What did Togemon do, exactly?”
dn-veemon “Even though my special move is so cool and strong! I’ll never go back there!”
dn-veemon “Hmph! What is this…? Are you a human?!”
dn-veemon “What are you doing in a place like this? Is this your first time here?”

Veemon hijacks the camera and slooowly pans across the desert while he talks.

dn-veemon “The old break room called Oasis has a vending machine and a toilet.”
dn-veemon “I hear a tower of new-type servers lies deep within.”
dn-veemon “Head out west to reach Ohguino Wastelands, Logic Volcano is to the south.”
dn-veemon “But beware, the Digimon out there are stronger than the ones in Nigh Plains.”

A few items do spawn in the area, and there are a bunch of Gotsumon running about. They have more health than Digimon in Nigh Plains, but they’re not much of a threat unless we fight several of them at once.




Oh look, this one just became a Meteormon.

The center of the room has a spot that lets you dig up a bunch of DigiOil, which is nice.

Heading west takes us to Server Cemetery. This area features the oasis that Veemon mentioned.

And Togemon, also mentioned. Those Geremon in the background are extremely aggressive, and they’ll attempt to chase us if we get any closer than this.

dn-togemon “Veemon learned a new move.”
dn-togemon “But it still has lots of flaws, so it’s incomplete. It lacks something.”
dn-togemon “I want Veemon to get stronger, so I said, “that move lacks something,” you know.”
dn-togemon “Then that 'mon just got mad and ran off! I must have been too harsh…”
dn-togemon “Veemon’s gotten stronger, but it’s still a child. I’m worried…”
c-hero “I already know where he is, but sure, I’ll go look for him.”
dn-togemon “…Really? Can I… can I count on you, then?”
dn-togemon “…Then please, it’s up to you. You must bring Veemon back!”

We run back to Noise Storm, taking out a few more Gotsumon along the way. This one has a skill that boosts their defense. Buffing abilities are nice to have, hopefully we’ll get some soon.

Ryuki decides to suck the life out of a few of them. (I don’t think this actually heals him)

Look at them, they’re so proud of themselves.

dn-veemon “The nerve, saying, “Your special move lacks something!””
dn-veemon “My Veemon Headbutt is perfect, I tells ya!”
dn-veemon “What an awful thing to say, right?!”
c-hero “Togemon wants you to come back.”
dn-veemon “What?! Togemon said that?!”
c-hero “Togemon was trying to help you improve your move, dude.”
c-hero “They want you to be stronger, they were just looking out for you.”
dn-veemon “…and I got mad and stormed off… I can’t just go back like this, it’s lame…”
dn-veemon “Gimme some time… I’ll go back after I get stronger.”
dn-veemon “Still, just how’m I supposed to do that…?”
c-hero “I think I can help with that.” *cracks knuckles*
dn-veemon “Wow, ya will?! Whatta champ!”
dn-veemon “I guess this is… kinda like having a rival, heh heh!”
dn-veemon “Awriiight, let’s go! I’ll get stronger by fighting with ya!”

[VIDEO] We proceed to beat up a child.
[NEW MUSIC] Justice in Combat




This really isn’t Veemon’s day. Poor kid doesn’t even get a chance to attack.

Of course, not being able to make a move in the first place is the same as saying “your move sucks.”

dn-veemon “But thanks to you, I got a hint on how to fix it! Thanks, yo!”
c-hero “Don’t “yo” me, please.”
dn-veemon “You and I, now we’re real buds, yeah?!”
dn-veemon “I’m going to the city to train some more! Tell Togemon, will ya?! Thanks, bud!”

Veemon joins the city! He doesn’t do much yet, but he’s actually a very important Digimon. Still, if we want a (totally inaccurate) total of the materials we’ve gathered thus far, he’s there for us.

On our way back to Togemon, we take a second to acquire minerals. Sitting on the tip of an outcropping, this node looks like it would have something interesting, but it doesn’t.

dn-togemon “Yeah, what a worry-wait, are you making fun of me?!”

Let’s try that again…

c-hero “I found Veemon.”
dn-togemon “…Oh! Thank you! I see… Veemon said it was time for more training…”
dn-togemon “But even though Veemon’s a greenhorn, you still won? You’ve got talent!”
c-hero “Yeah, beating up a child sure was a challenge.”
dn-togemon “I want to see it for myself… Let’s fight!”
c-hero “Sure, bring it on!”
dn-togemon “Right answer! …Okay, let’s do it!”
dn-togemon “Now you’ll face powers not unlike those of an adolescent!”

Togemon gives the best “bring it” pose they can muster.

[VIDEO] Cactus fracas


Without hesitation, Ryuki and Bruce just jump down Togemon’s throat. Our partners are killers, I tell ya!

Togemon waits entirely too long to use a decent move. It’s nowhere near as powerful as Kabuterimon’s death rock. though.


And we’re done here.

dn-togemon “If I train I’ll get stronger and stronger! I’ll be waiting in the city’s gym!”

Togemon joins the city! Togemon is the daytime version of Kuwagamon. If we talk to them before dusk, they’ll give us a different vegetable. If we stick around Floatia, we’ll get two veggies per day.

With Togemon recruited, we have no reason to linger in this area for some time.

We return to Noise Storm and head south, as the sun begins to set.


I’m pretty sure this area is supposed to be named “Hallowed Hall” and someone just goofed while translating. At least, this area doesn’t lead to a Hallowed Hall of any kind. Also, there’s a colossal Nanimon back there. Another one of those Elites that rarely pop up. I think we could beat the Numemon at this point, but this Nanimon would quite literally numemote2 all over us.

Before reloading the screen though, there’s a lot of goodies stashed in the corner. I’m sure nobody will mind if I scoop these-

-ah, hell. Somebody does mind.

dn-garudamon “All things here belong to me, Garudamon!”
dn-garudamon “If you want to take that… it means you’re ready to face the music, right?!”

This is actually pretty rude. Garudamon appears much, much earlier than he should, and he’s pretty far out of our league. (His weakest attack would top Kabuterimon’s boulder) Even if we somehow beat him, he can’t do anything until the next act of the story, so it’s kind of pointless.

c-hero “Uh, whoops. I think I left my DigiBake oven on.”
dn-garudamon “As long as you understand, I’ll let you off the hook this time!”
dn-garudamon “But don’t think there’ll be a second time… Remember, this turf belongs to me…”

We take out our frustrations on a local poopslug. Wait, it’s up to something…



Geremon literally spat some numemote2 at Bruce, and Bruce is pissed. Rage causes the afflicted Digimon to exclusively target the one who caused it, and they’re more likely to take critical hits while they’re raging.

Ryuki steals Geremon’s soul as payback.

A BlackGarurumon is hanging around the end of Hallowed Hall.

May as well beat it up while we’re here. BlackGarurumon is pretty durable.

And he’s capable of slowing us down.

But enough about him, let’s kill his soul.

Nice.

With that, we leave the Server Desert behind us and emerge in Logic Volcano. What awaits us within this burning hell? How does Ryuki’s oaken body survive being surrounded by embers and ash? Why does Taomon live in a bloody volcano? We’ll find out next time!

I really don’t know what to say about Guillmon’s voice there. That’s not at all what I was expecting.

FILE 006: WISE MAN; FOOL BOY

[NEW MUSIC] Binary Dilemma

Welcome to Logic Volcano. This is a pretty interesting place that is chock full of Digimon to befriend, and mistakes to make.


First though, let’s feed our partners. We have some BIT to burn, so let’s get some Hot Water to, uh, nourish them. Nothing about “canned hot water” sounds like a good time, if I’m being honest.

I guess they liked it. Drinks are a good way to boost DigiFriend, which is useful since it needs to be maxed to utilize ExE Digivolution.

There’s also a little dude hanging around here. Let’s see what he has to say.

dn-gumdramon “Whoa! Who the heck’re you?! D-Don’t tell me you heard that just now?”
dn-gumdramon “It’s nothing, nothing I tell ya! Huh? You wanna know about Logic Volcano?”

dn-gumdramon “What ya see is what ya get–a blazing mountain with rivers of flame.”
dn-gumdramon “A bad place for Digimon that can’t take the heat!”
c-hero “Good thing I have no such Digimon!”
dn-woodmon :gonk:
dn-gumdramon “Not many people come around these parts, so that Taomon sect has set up base further on in.”
dn-gumdramon “I also hear there’s plenty of Legendary Digimon lying in wait, from warriors to dragons!”
c-hero “Ooh, I hope there are dragon warriors.”
dn-gumdramon “Listen, buddy, if you’re having any doubts about your strength…”
dn-gumdramon “…you’d better not venture too far in.”

Fire Wall is made up of narrow bridges, which can make it tricky to navigate around any enemies we encounter. Taomon lives high up, and it’s getting late, so let’s not waste any time.

Ryuki is maybe… not so happy with the decision to come here. Most species of Digimon will have one region in the world that they can’t stand. Lingering in those areas causes the odds of bad things happening to them, like getting sick, to increase dramatically.

We need to take care to avoid situations like this whenever possible, but the plot train waits for no 'mon, not even Ryuki.

There are a few Shamamon sitting around the central crossroad. Not much of a threat.

I like the nixie tubes that dot the region. They serve no purpose, but they look cool.

We reach the top of the area, and there appears to be a Digimon blocking the gate.

dn-birdramon “You… You are not from this world, are you? Begone at once, interloper!”

Of course, we’ll tell the bird we’re here on official business.

dn-birdramon “What? Is this true? …No, for all I know you’re just dropping Jijimon’s name!”
dn-birdramon “If you truly want to pass, then fell me in combat! Only then will I trust in your words!”

…I know it’s a thing for “the righteous one to strike true” and all, but I never really got why anyone would put their faith in someone for how well they can kick their ass. What if we were some evil guy who namedropped Jijimon? What if we were also strong? No use worrying about it I suppose…

[VIDEO] Oh well, let’s commit a birder.




Birdramon is pretty strong, though our ability to block attacks goes a long way in mitigating it. Remember, kids: Guard is the most useful thing you’ll spend TP on.

Birdramon can also drop pillars of fire on us. It’s less effective than the fire tornado.

Ryuki has a great idea, and punches the bird made of fire with his fist made of wood.

Guess we can’t argue with results. We learned a new attack for our troubles.

That’s prohibitively expensive, and pretty powerful. I elect not to equip it yet, since MP is currently a luxury.

dn-birdramon “I am not the only guardian… but perhaps if it’s you…”
dn-birdramon “For now, I will return to Floatia with haste.”
dn-birdramon “As the defeated, I have lost the right to guard this gate. You may pass.”
c-hero “Wow. Dramatic.”

Our first obstacle cleared, Birdramon flies back to Floatia. Hmm… wasn’t Biyomon practically begging to meet a flying Digimon? Maybe we’ll have to check in on her later…

We enter the Gateway, a much smaller area with a bit more breathing room.

Since it’s nighttime, there are some Piddomon hanging around. Most of them don’t bother us, so we’ll just scoot by.

Neat, another node that occasionally gives us rare materials. If you ever play this game, be sure to take note of where rare materials tend to drop. It’ll come in handy for some of the later buildings/upgrades.

Looks like this fellow is the second of Taomon’s guardians.

c-hero “DigiDesmond. Who the heck are you?”
dn-meramon “I am Meramon! I endeavor to guard this gate at the behest of Lord Taomon.”
dn-meramon “Beyond this gate is Lord Taomon’s territory…”
dn-meramon “I cannot simply allow some nobody to pass through.”
dn-meramon “If you wish to pass, then you must defeat me first!”
c-hero “First of all, you’re guarding a bridge, not a gate. Second, you’re going down!”
dn-meramon “Ho ho! You think you can beat me?! I’ll burn that confidence to the ground!”

[VIDEO] By fire be purged?

Meramon gets off to a great start by whiffing his first attack. Bruce gets enough OP to unleash their finisher before Meramon gets the chance to try again.


Ryuki finishes him off. Impressive guardian-ing, Meramon.

c-hero “Damn right I am!”
dn-meramon “Very well. I’ll let you pass.”
c-hero “Damn right you will!”
dn-meramon “Still, beyond this point awaits an even stronger gatekeeper!”
dn-meramon “You’d better not let your guard down!”
c-hero “Damn right I won’t!”

Meramon departs, but seemingly doesn’t head to Floatia. Wonder where he went?

Oh well, we’ll surely cross that bridge eventually. Until then we’ve other bridges to cross, like the one right in front of us.

Across the bridge we find the red variety of digishroom, an Unlucky Shroom. Looks like we can also see the next guardian from here.

There’s also an incredibly shiny toy here. Who left this laying around?

Those are some strange forearms.

dn-omnishout “Laaa la la laaa…naw, still not right…”
dn-omnishout “Hey pal, don’t interrupt the artistic process, all right?”

Alright, nothing to do with OmniShoutmon right now. At least it doesn’t hijack the camera.

Goodness, it’s much later than I thought. We’d better hurry and finish doing what we came here for.

c-hero “You there! Knock-off Bruce!”
dn-kyubimon “This ‘Bruce’ is clearly the knock-off, numemote2 you very much.”

dn-kyubimon “Yet those who rely on strength cannot meet our lord.”
dn-kyubimon “No, that requires intelligence that matches such strength.”
dn-kyubimon “Only those who possess both may qualify!”
dn-kyubimon “First, I will measure that intelligence with a battle of wits…”

Oh, tell me “intelligence” doesn’t equate to “you can fight multiple Digimon at once…”

dn-kyubimonc1 "Heh heh…shocked?
dn-kyubimonc2 “This clone technique is my pride and joy…”
dn-kyubimonc3 “With two of these clones, I’ll test you right here!”

And then they ambush us.

dn-kyubimonc1 “Now, allow me to explain the rules.”
dn-kyubimonc2 “First, each of us three will ask a question…”
dn-kyubimonc3 “Of these, only the real one will ask a question whose answer is 9.”
dn-kyubimonc2 “If you figure out the real me…”
dn-kyubimonc1 “The clones disappear, and you fight me alone.”
dn-kyubimonc2 “However, if you’re tricked and pick one of the clones…”
dn-kyubimonc3 “You will fight all three of us!”
dn-kyubimonc1 “Now then, show me your stuff!”

Okay, okay, they’ll ask us a riddle. Then maybe they’ll ambush us.

So we’re left in control of DigiDesmond again, and we can talk to the Kyubimon to hear their riddles. Are you smart enough to be deemed worthy? I’ll start from the left, and remember, the correct answer is “9.”

dn-kyubimonc1 “Now then, here is a question.”
dn-kyubimonc1 “X sheets to the wind. Two’s company, X’s a crowd. X strikes and you’re out.”
dn-kyubimonc1 “What do you get if you add up all the Xs?”

dn-kyubimonc2 “The following numbers follow a special rule. What is the X?”
dn-kyubimonc2 “2, 3, 5, 7, X, 13”

dn-kyubimonc3 “June is the 6th month, July is the 7th, August is the 8th…”
dn-kyubimonc3 “…November is the Xth month.”

Don’t worry, the top option doesn’t actually accuse Kyubimon of anything. It probably should’ve said something like “I need a moment to think about this” but besides that…

Have you, the viewer, figured out the dangerous puzzle?

Looking at that impressive red mark on your forehead, I’ll assume yes.

c-hero “Are you numemote2 kidding me?”
c-hero “This is stupid. The one on the left is real.”

dn-kyubimon “All of these sayings have three in them, so they add up to nine!”

Yep. That’s it. The hardest bit is probably knowing “three sheets to the wind,” since I’ve never heard anyone say it. It still becomes pretty obvious when you look at the other two riddles.

dn-kyubimon “As promised, my clones are no more…”
dn-kyubimon “I alone remain, to engage you in battle!”

[VIDEO] I’ll never get over that dumb challenge

The battle kicks off with everyone immediately attacking.

Bruce builds up enough OP to do a special move in no time.

Eat cat-faces, knock-off Bruce.

And that’s that. Kyubimon really doesn’t put up much of a fight without their clones.

c-hero “After that dumb riddle, you kind of deserved it.”
dn-kyubimon “Still, proper decision-making in the heat of battle relies on intelligence.”

I guess that’s the logic for passing the intelligence test if you get the riddle wrong while being stupid strong.

dn-kyubimon “I acknowledge both your intelligence and your strength!”
dn-kyubimon “You are worthy of meeting Lord Taomon!”
c-hero “Finally!”
dn-kyubimon “Even so, to think I would lose this easily…”
dn-kyubimon “I cannot show my face to our lord…”

Like Meramon, Kyubimon runs off to sulk somewhere instead of going to Floatia. Those two are old news though, we finally get to meet our lord, and possibly saviour, Taomon.

[NEW MUSIC] Harmony is a Mobius Strip

We’ve reached the summit. It’s kind of a nice place, as far as volcanic locales go.

It even has a little prayer shrine. Sometimes there’s a Cloudy Orange in there, which nobody minds you swiping.

But enough about that. We crossed a desert and climbed a volcano to meet Taomon. Let’s do that.

[VIDEO] The Wise Man

c-hero "Who am I? Who am I???"

Jijimon did say Taomon is a wise man, so let’s pretend we’re also wise to impress him. Fun fact: If Taomon sounds familiar, it might be because they’re voiced by Mari Devon, the same lady who voiced the Renamon chain in Digimon Tamers.

Hmm, trying to be a wiseass doesn’t go over well.

dc-taomon “Leave and don’t come back.”
c-hero “Whoops. I’m gonna call a mulligan on that one.”

Fortunately, Taomon has poor short-term memory, so he immediately forgets that he told us to numemote2 off, and the conversation starts from square one.

Let’s try to be cool and silent, that’s a thing wise people do, right?

dc-taomon “Who are you?”
c-hero “…”
dc-taomon “Huh… Some good-for-nothing kid who doesn’t have respect for their betters.”
dc-taomon “Leave now and don’t come back.”

Ah, numemote2. DigiDesmond calls another mulligan.

dc-taomon “Who are you?”
c-hero “I’m DigiDesmond.”
dc-taomon “I’ve never heard of you, but…”
dc-taomon “I suppose it’d only be polite to tell you who I am, now that you’ve told me your name.”
dc-taomon “My name is Taomon. Why did you come here, human?”
c-hero “Jijimon thinks you can help him make a Machinedramon-sensing remote.”
dc-taomon “Huh? Jijimon asked you to come here?”
dc-taomon “That old fogey asked you to come and get me?”
c-hero “Yep.”
dc-taomon “I can’t say that I am entirely unconcerned about the plight of the Digital World…”
dc-taomon "But nature is in itself impermanent. I believe in becoming one with the flow,
dc-taomon “like a twig on the river. Furthermore, you are an alien species in this world.”
dc-taomon “There is nothing you can do to help.”

Well, we’ve already ousted DigiDesmond as a moron, I don’t see why he should stop being one now.

I’m surprised Taomon didn’t insult us for that.

c-himarishad “What are you doing?!”

Himari isn’t as kind.

dc-taomon “Little girl, you seem anxious about this crisis of the Digital World, too. Why?”
c-himari “You could say that.”
c-himari “The reason we came to see you, the so-called “wisest Digimon” in the Digital World…”
c-himari “…is so that we can find a way back to the real world.”
dc-taomon “I was not aware… As an unclean being,”
dc-taomon “You need only wait for the Enforcer to cleanse you from this world.”
dc-taomon “Although I don’t know if that would result in you being returned to your world or not.”
c-hero “Yeah, thanks, let’s not find out.”
c-himari “Enforcer? If you’ve got an Enforcer…”
c-himari “How come they haven’t taken care of the Machinedramon already?”
dc-taomon “Hmm… There is logic in that question.”
dc-taomon “Why hasn’t the Enforcer of order in this world taken action against the Machinedramon?”
dc-taomon “…”
c-himari “What are you thinking about?”
dc-taomon “I am of a mind to grant you a single chance.”

c-hero “Taomon, are you giving me illicit goods?”
dc-taomon “This is a seed of unclean data which shouldn’t be present in this world.”
dc-taomon “Plant that seed in a place where it won’t be disturbed by Digimon.”
dc-taomon “Observe what happens in 24 hours, and report back.”
dc-taomon “Now go, DigiDesmond.”
c-hero “So is this going to pirate us a copy of Skyrim, or…”
c-himari “Heck if I know.”


Back in control, and with a lead on where to plant the seed, we have a little over an hour to get out of here before our partners pass out from drowziness. Thankfully, an auto-pilot will handily return us to Floatia in an instant.

An auto-pilot that’s currently in my… item storage. Oops.

Well, guess we have no choice but to sleep here. We’re pretty high up, so hopefully Ryuki won’t mind the-

-Uh oh.

Consider this a reminder to avoid lingering in areas your Digimon don’t like. Now, I’d give Ryuki some medicine, but that’s also in the warehouse.

Being sick sucks, no matter what you do, running for about a minute will drop the sick Digimon’s HP and MP to 1. On top of that, the sick Digimon’s remaining lifespan will drop quicker than normal, and at least one of your partners will gradually get upset with you because how dare you do this to dear, sweet Ryuki you numemote2 MONSTER?

Long story short, we need to book it across this hellscape like, 8 hours ago.

Take note of Bruce’s mood here.

Ryuki also has trouble keeping up with us. Thankfully we can’t “leave him behind,” he’ll catch up when we hit loading screens.

FASTER! FASTER, CURSE YOU! Ryuki’s not gonna stop wheezing until we’re out of this inferno!

JUST TAKE THE BIT AND LET ME SAVE MY SON

Bruce isn’t super pleased with us right now. Ryuki is somehow keeping his chin up despite being weak enough to collapse from a slight breeze.

We use the auto-pilot, and instead of getting medicine, we get more Jijimon.

dc-jijimon “You’re back, DigiDesmond! I have good news!”
c-hero “NOT A GOOD TIME!”
dc-jijimon *locks the door*
dc-jijimon “But you NEED to hear about these cool new Digimon, DigiDesmond.”
c-hero “Fine, but you’re lucky time stops for this.”
dc-jijimon “Now, Veemon is a builder who can upgrade the town’s buildings!”
dc-jijimon “Togemon hangs around the Training Hall during the day.”
dc-jijimon “Birdramon had something I guess? I actually don’t know, go ask him.”
c-hero “Okay thanks now if you’ll excuse me I need to stop Ryuki from dying.”

c-hero “…after I pump myself up, I guess.”

We take “Good Digivolution” which, as you’d expect from the description, gives our partners bigger stat boosts when they Digivolve.


Phew! Now that we’re out of the fire, let’s meet our newest residents.

dn-birdramon “What am I doing? Well, you can call me a ‘Sender.’”
dn-birdramon “I use my powers to quickly take you to areas you’ve already been to.”
dn-birdramon “Of course, it’ll cost you. Time is money. Don’t they say that?”
c-hero “Doesn’t who say that?”
dn-birdramon “The goblins, of course.”

Birdramon has the exact same role they had in the original game: Pay some BIT, travel to the beginning or mid-point of any zone we’ve been to.

Right now, it’s too expensive for my taste. Why spend your hard-earned BIT when the desert is like 60 seconds away? That being said, as we open more areas and get access to larger sums of cash, Birdramon becomes a godsend.

dn-veemon “Hee hee, I went and set up a Builder! Pretty sweet, right?”
dn-veemon “But this Builder still isn’t finished.”
dn-veemon “If the city doesn’t get bigger, it’ll be like a lil’ paper-mache town…”
dn-veemon “Still, it’s not like I’m playing around. I’m taking stock of materials!”
dn-veemon “Once the city gets bigger, and the Builder starts operating…”
dn-veemon “We’ll be able to use these materials! I can’t wait!”

Like I mentioned last time, Veemon is currently (mostly) useless. We had no way of seeing Floatia’s stockpile before now, and it’d be nice to use now, but…

His current text box seems to mix a few numbers up. These are mid-to-high-end materials, it’s highly unlikely that we’d even have 1 DigiWhitegold at this point, let alone 47 of them.

Stepping into the Training Hall, we find Togemon. As I’ve said, Togemon is basically Kuwagamon’s counterpart.

c-hero “What?”
dn-togemon “I go out at night but if you see me during the day, I’ll give you a treat! Whoa!”
dn-togemon “See? Food for training! Whoa!”

Togemon gives us a powerful…ginseng? Pretty sure it was a carrot in Digimon World. Oh well, it’ll make us stronger quicker.

dn-togemon “Come tomorrow before night falls! Whoa! I’ll be waiting.”

With Cactus Bandicoot out of the way, we’ve made it through another chunk of plot!

What does this seed become? Will Taomon hang out with us some more? Can a Machinedramon learn to love? Some of this, and more, next time!

After the culture shock that was Guilmon’s voice, it’s nice to see the same voice actor for the Renamon line is back for this one.

Also, what a great line. “You’re impure, so you will be cleaned. But it would probably kill you. Oh well, take this seed.”

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