Ah.
Nostalgia is one of those feelings we all get, especially once we've grown up and become adults that have to take care of bigger things than just playing around and going to school in our daytime. I have come into contact again with a series that has always been near and dear to my heart: Digimon.
I hear what you're saying now. "DIGIMON?! SERIOUSLY?!" Yep! When I was in my pre-teen years, Digimon was almost my entire life. It was the first anime that I'd seen, and coupled with the game Final Fantasy VII, I started taking a real interest in anime at the time. Well, no, the very first anime I'd ever seen was actually Dragon Warrior: Legend of the Hero Abel when I was extremely little back before any of us outside of Japan even knew what anime was. But I wasn't at a very coherent age at the time, so Digimon feels more like my first anime.
I hopped along for the ride watching Digimon Adventure O1, starring Tai and his friends on their quest to save the Digital World from the Dark Masters and Apocylamon. Then, I watched Digimon Adventure 02, set four years after the first one, starring Davis and a newer crop getting advice and help from the older kids. I always thought that the game would make a great setup for an RPG. You've seen it all before. Get sucked into a strange world, gather party members, and battle your way home. Along the way you get power-ups, new abilities, new characters, new places, hell, Digimon Adventure both 01 and 02 was perfect. So when I ran into the Digimon World video game series, of course, I was excited!
I originally found the Digimon Adventure title on the PSX at my local K-mart. That's how you know it's old, ha! It wasn't as pricey as most games out there, which worked in my 13 year old favor. The game stars a hero being sucked into one of those toy digivices after having a very small personality test to determine your starting partner. If you like the daytime, you start with Agumon and if you like the nightime, you start with Gabumon. From here, based on how they are trained, they can literally digivolve into anything. Not that it makes a lot of sense.
Digimon Adventure didn't feel anything like the show. You weren't a Digidestined. It was like a pixel on polygon pseudo 3D version of the old box-shaped Digimon keychain toys, complete with feeding, scolding, praising, and even taking your pet to the local potty. Sometimes it feels more like babysitting than a game about battling monsters, and beware, if you poop outside of the potty, your virus contamination will go up and you'll end up turning into a digimon made of poo named Numemon. Especially if you are playing data types, which are weak to viruses and virus type digimon. However, even if your digimon is a virus-type, this still happens to it, and there are nowhere near enough outhouses in the game to warrant such torture.
If you're asking if I like Digimon World as a game, I can't lie. It's a frustrating mess most of the time. How do you predict without a walkthrough how your Digimon will Digivolve when it comes time? Yes, it's timed. Each Digimon has a lifespan based on the game's internal clock. A baby digimon will digivolve to an in-training digimon after 6 in-game hours. Not real life hours, but in-game hours. It takes about a day for a rookie to go to a champion, and during that time, if you aren't bulking your stats just perfectly, then you don't know what you'll digivolve into. My favorite digimon from the show was Patamon. Of course, I wanted one in my game to have for my very own. But as many times as I played this in my youth, I never got one, ever. I never knew how. And that made me a very sad fangirl. Eventually even if you get the digimon you want, they will "die" and get reconfigured into a brand new digimon for ya instantly, making you having to start ALL OVER.
Now that the internet has all these walkthrough databases like GameFAQs, there are walkthroughs for every type of game out there, this game included. I bet if I really followed one of those guides I could have a Patamon in my game, and maybe even then get an Angemon! Hold on, though - any legitimate gamer out there would be insulted even considering that kind of offer. You know that, right? Well, I'm here to confirm that is the truth with me. I want to be able to figure it out on my own, both as a fan of Digimon and as a gamer. The digivolution path for Digimon World is just outrageous and confusing, plus the game won't tell you how to get any of it.
When I was a kid, I ended up trading this game in after a few months of trying to figure it out. I put the trade credit with Game Exchange to getting my own copy of Final Fantasy VII, as I had been playing on my grandpa's shop's copy for a while. I had given up hope on that game. Just this week, I picked it up again for my PSXfin on my computer in hopes of finding something that would make this game appeal to me as an older gamer with more experience. It's true that I find many games much easier now than when I was a kid, so I thought I'd give it another go out of my undisputed, unrivaled love for the Digiworld. Sadly, the copy I downloaded freezes up whenever money is obtained after a battle, so it looks like I'll never be able to find out.
However, this week has also been the first times I have tried playing both Digimon World 2 and 3, and I have to say that the first game gave me so much to desire that I'm bound to love either one of these in comparison.
I'll get to going to Digital City with my Digi-Buggy next time in Digimon World 2.
Thanks for reading.
Much love,
-Suzuri
PS: I am very sorry about not continuing the Dragon Warrior part of my gamer's blog. I have only played part 4 of the Zenithian Saga, and until I can get my hands on parts 5 and 6, I won't go into them. I don't want to break apart the look at the whole saga in general. Alefgard may be safe now, but there's another world for heroes to save in the World of Dragon Warrior.
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