Digimon World

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Digimon World is a Digimon video game for the PlayStation. Released by Bandai in 1999, as a result it is based more on the Digimon Virtual Pets rather than the better-known anime series.

The main character is pulled through his V-Pet device into the Digital World and is then tasked by Jijimon to rescue File Island from the corruption they have encountered. The majority of the Digimon have become wild and the only city has fallen into disarray.

The majority of the game revolves around the player raising their Digimon, much like the Virtual Pets. The Digimon the player raises is also forced to fight most of the other wild Digimon in order to try and return them to the city. This leads to some massive Guide Dang It moments, or even Unwinnable situations.

Critical reception was mixed and sales weren't strong, but the game has turned into somewhat of a Cult Classic. It was followed by a variety of different sequels, as well as a card battle spin-off. Another sequel has come out, this one closer to the original gameplay.

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Tropes used in Digimon World include:

• 100% Completion: Hoo boy. Getting all the medals in the game is the closest it has to 100% Completion, and to get every last one of them, you have to: beat the final boss, win every single one of the arena cups at least once, play for 10 in-game years, collect all of the cards, recruit all the recruitable Digimon, catch one hundred fish, raise every single obtainable Digimon and get a perfect score of 10 in curling.
• Anticlimax Boss: Numemon. Seeing as how you can fight him right after you defeat Giromon, there's no way you can really lose. There's even a chance you can one shot him entirely.
• All in a Row: Partner Digimon generally follow you.
• Awesome but Impractical: Giromon's finisher. Supposedly the most powerful one in the game, but due to this (and possibly to compensate for the fact that Giromon is one of the easier ultimates to obtain), the way it functions prevents it from being useful a lot of the time. Essentially, unlike most finishers, which when pulled off successfully, are guaranteed to hit the enemy, Giromon's creates a bomb he throws into the ground and which the enemy has to run into for them to be damaged. The thing is that the distance Giromon throws the bomb at never changes, and due to the way battles work, you have no control over where he tosses it, so in smaller areas it's very likely that it'll get tossed into the scenery (or even off-screen) where the enemy can't touch it, making it useless.
  • Another example, as well as another candidate for strongest finisher is Digitamamon's finisher, Nightmare Syndrome. It attacks by creating a ghost that inflicts damage by contact. The problem is that it flyes randomly, so it either hits the enemy, runs out of power or hits yourself.
• Back Tracking
• Becoming the Costume: What happens if you have a Numemon and take it to the stuffed Monzaemon toy in Toy Town. The transformation has no negative effects on your Digimon, though, in fact it turns a (usually) useless monster into a potential Disc One Nuke.
• Big Boo's Haunt: The Overdell area, including Grey Lord's Mansion. Many darkness-based Digimon roam this area, including the ghost-based Soulmon. Bakemon can be found in front of the mansion as well. It is also guarded by a "black force", requiring Virus-type Digimon to enter.
• Big Eater: Many digimon, such as Numemon and Tyrannmon, tend to demand large amounts of food to stay happy. Because of this, beginners and even veterans might find it difficult to support these two in the early stages of the game, having to spend a good amount of time looking for food and training their Digimon.
• Bizarre Taste in Food: You know those piles of poop that your Digimon leaves behind if you fail to take him to the bathroom in time? They make nice little (or not so little) snacks for Numemon and Sukamon.
• Bonus Dungeon: Back Dimension.
• Boss Battle: Distinguishable from regular battles with its own battle music. Also, unlike regular battles, once the player gets caught in this type of battle, the player can not use the Run command.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Many of the bosses.
• Broken Bridge: Quite literally.
• Cap:
  • Stats cap out at 9,999 (for HP and MP) and 999 (for Offense, Defense, Speed, and Brains).
  • Partner Digimon's Weight can reach up to 99.
  • Up to 99 of an item type can be kept in the inventory.
  • Speaking of items, the player starts out with 10 item slots in his bag. It can later be expanded by picking up Keychain items, up to 30.
• Carnivore Confusion: Digimon, regardless of species, do not eat each other. They do eat meat, but it's grown on a farm. Literally, it grows out of the ground like a plant. Even more confusingly, the farmers growing the meat are all sentient plants.
• Character Name Limits: The player is limited to six characters for name entry. This applies to both the Player Character's name and his partner's.
• Cherry Tapping: A few moves are fast, deal little damage, and consume little MP. Spamming these is actually a viable strategy, as the attack speed will interrupt almost every attack the opponent tries to throw your way and you won't lose a lot of MP.
• Convection Schmocvection: The player has no trouble staying for a long time in really hot areas like in the lava-filled cave deep in Drill Tunnel. Averted for the partner Digimon, as some species can not stand extremely hot places and can risk getting sick from staying there for too long.
• Convenient Questing
• Cosmetic Award: The medals.
• Covers Always Lie: The PAL cover features the main Digimon roster from Digimon Adventure, ignoring the fact that Tentomon is just a common enemy, and Gomamon is completely absent from the game.
• Cruelty Is the Only Option: Certain digivolutions (without items) basically forces the player to do this to his partner. Notable examples include:
  • To obtain Nanimon, the (Rookie) partner Digimon's Happiness and Discipline have to be completely empty, then the player scolds him.
  • Some digivolutions require the partner Digimon to lose a life before it can (randomly) trigger, though some have additional requirements. One noteworthy example goes to turning Angemon into Devimon, which requires not only forced life loss but also a low enough Discipline.
• Death Mountain: Great Canyon. It is a rocky mountainous area with three tiered areas (bottom, top, topmost).
• Defeat Means Friendship: Many of the recruitable digimon need to be fought first. Afterwards, they'll magically regain their memories and agree to join the city.
• Dialogue Tree
• Digital Avatar: Everything is digital.
• Discount Card: You get a small discount from the city's shop if your Digimon is Fresh or In-Training.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The Happymushroom increases your Digimon's happiness, but may make him sick. Wonder what kind of mushrooms they are.
• Down in the Dumps: Trash Mountain, including the kingdom where Sukamon dwell in.
• Dummied Out: Numerous Digimon which didn't make the final cut can be accessed with a device such as Action Replay, many of them fully playable.
• Elemental Powers: Most of the techs. Each Digimon is also given their own element typing which decides not only the tech elements they can use, but also their elemental strengths and weaknesses.
  • Bare-Fisted Monk: Battle techs, with a Rock Steady tech thrown in for good measure.
  • Extra Ore Dinary and Fricking Laser Beams: Mech techs.
  • Making a Splash and An Ice Digimon: Ice techs.
  • Playing with Fire: Fire techs.
  • Poisonous Digimon, Big Creepy-Crawlies, and Green Thumb: Nature techs.
  • Shock and Awe and Blow You Away: Air Techs
  • Toilet Humor: Filth techs.
• Dynamic Loading: Every time you switch to a new area.
• Endless Game: Probably. 10 year Glitch sometimes makes the game unable to reload a saved game after the 10th year of gameplay.
• Engrish: One of the arena cups is described as the 'Metaric Cup'. While a quick glance might give the idea that it's simply a misspelt version of 'metric', some fans think it's an Engrish translation of 'metallic'. Bizarrely, either of them could be the correct translation, as the cup is for cyborg Digimon.
  • And some of the attacks, too, like "Metal Sprinter/Splinter" which throws small computer pieces around the screen.
  • For whatever reason, the intro screens for the different cups were left untouched in the international versions. The result is Engrish in spades, including such gems as "WHO's A MOST COOLER ?", "COME TUGETHER !!" and " "CRAPPER's" CUP".
• Eternal Engine: Factorial Town.
• Event Flag: This can lead to some almost Unwinnable moments.
• Extreme Omnivore: Using items on your Digimon partner is represented as it eating said item. This includes floppies, evolution items, and even the portable potty.
• Fishing Minigame: It will make you want to gouge your eyes out with boredom, and is full of Guide Dang It moments. The rewards are worth it, though...
• Friendly Neighbourhood Vampires: Myotismon looks like a blond Bela Lugosi-style Dracula, owns a spooky mansion with coffins as furniture and a lab, and likes discussing matters over food. Also a really nice guy.
• Game Breaking Bug: Oh so many in the US version. While most of them aren't quite at the level of "game-breaking", the game is absolutely crawling with bugs. The most commonly cited in that version is the jukebox bug, which crashes your game if you try to play it.
  • Some NPCs (especially the ones in the bonus areas in end of the game) will trap you in endless loops of dialogue that you can only leave by holding your left control away from the monster and rapidly pressing X to try to skip through the dialogue. If you're trapped in a corner and can't get past then your only hope is to reset.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: The game addresses the fact that certain Digimon are simply too big to be partner Digimon. The non-battle NPC versions of these Digimon are full-sized, while the partner and battle character versions are smaller.
• Get on the Boat: Or rather, Get On The Whamon...
• Global Airship: Birdramon's movement service.
  • Important to note that it is a One-Way Trip, where you'll need to walk back or use an Auto Pilot.
• Goldfish Poop Gang: Ogremon's team.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Myotismon's experiments result in a Skull Greymon who ends up taking his creator captive. The skeleton dragon mellows out a bit after you defeat him, though.
• The Goomba: The ModokiBetamon (day) or Dokunemon (night) at Native Forest, the first area the player can access upon exiting File City for the first time. These have low stats and can be used for quick and simple money and item farming.
• Gratuitous Japanese: Basically, nothing but the text was translated - every occurrence of Japanese in the graphics are left as is. This is particularly confusing when Ogremon's gang takes over Drill Tunnel, as the player character reacts angrily when he notices that the sign on which the tunnel's name reads has been altered. The problem is that the sign is just a part of the background graphics, entirely in katakana and no translation is given for what is says when Ogremon takes over, potentially leaving quite a few Western players slightly confused.
  • Speaking of the player character, his few voiced lines during actual gameplay are also left undubbed, resulting in him shouting "Yatta!" after winning a battle and saying "Oyasumi" when letting his Digimon sleep even in the international versions.
• Gravity Barrier: Partially averted in that you have to fall to get into a certain area of the game.
• Guide Dang It: On more than one occasion and certainly in regards to attempting to get that particular monster or opponent.
  • Recruiting certain monsters can be this too.
• Healing Potion: The recovery floppies are the most basic example of this. Certain other non-floppy items can also restore HP.
• Hit Points
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Analogman 'dies' as a result of his own weapon.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: There's a whole archive worth of Digimon literature relating to this.
  • Not to mention the Big Bad is a human and pretty much a predecesor to Akihiro Kurata..
• Ice Palace: The Ice Sanctuary in Freezeland. Requires Vaccine-type Digimon to access.
• Idle Animation: If the partner Digimon is left idle, he will do this. Animation varies between Digimon.
• Inevitable Tournament: Although there are battle arenas, they're not required to recruit Digimon. Non-combat tournaments are.
• Instant 180-Degree Turn
• In-Universe Game Clock: Lampshaded in-game.
• It's Up to You
• Item Get: <item name> Woah!
• Jungle Japes: Tropical Jungle.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Many of the Digimon forgot their life in the city after they left. Some even forgot how to speak.
• Last Lousy Point: Inevitable if the player wants 100% Completion (see above).
• Lethal Lava Land: The Lava Cave inside Drill Tunnel until Meramon is defeated.
• Life Meter: Displayed during battles.
• Limit Break: All the "Finisher" attacks.
• The Lost Woods:
  • Native Forest is the inverse version of this, going by its Japanese name which is the inverse of The Legend of Zelda's Lost Woods. It is the first accessible area the player can access outside the city and has a simple layout.
  • Meanwhile, the Misty Trees plays this straight until most of the fog is lifted, as going through this area in its original state will result in the player running in circles as every path goes to a random one.
• Luck-Based Mission: In order to recruit Monochromon, you must make enough profit working in his shop. There is little you can do but hope that the customer Digimon accept higher prices without storming out, that they ask for Medicine and that they are not goddamn Weedmon.
• Mana Meter: Mostly just the player's partner Digimon's, except in tournaments where the opposing Digimon also has their MP meter displayed as well.
• Megaton Punch: The second most powerful battle tech in the game.
• Mind Screw: The true ending if you go through the Back Dimension. It's explained in the spin-off, Digital Card Battle.
• Mirror Match: Possible but rare; you can fight a recruitable verion of your Digimon.
  • Especially common with the first boss, who is an Agumon, which is one of the two starter Digimon.
• Money Spider: Digimon fought in the overworld drop Bits (the game's currency) upon defeat.
• Never Say "Die": Digimon are said to 'fade away' if they're slain, although this is justified as they don't die, but rather regenerate into a weaker Digimon.
• No Cartoon Fish: One of the main sources of food.
• No Item Use for You: Tournament battles prohibit use of items, obviously. Garurumon's rematch before recruiting him also counts in addition to the player being unable to give commands as part of the deal.
• Obstructive Foreground
• One Bullet At a Time: Only one projectile per Digimon is allowed onscreen. For example, a Digimon can't use Spit Fire again until after the first one disappears.
• Opening the Sandbox
• Palette Swap: Mainly used on things like ModokiBetamon, but many of the 'NPC' versions of playable Digimon are slightly different to the playable characters. The toy versions of Agumon come in two variants - they're not palette-swapped, but one is partly transparent.
  • These palette swaps actually became official Digimon, appearing in later video games, the trading card game and even in the anime.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Piximon, Mamemon, and Metalmamemon definitely qualify. All of them are really small, but they are all Ultimates. They're also pretty tough to recruit, having to go back and forth on screens until you finally see them, and then attempting to take them on.
  • Giromon is also small, but is different in the others in that he doesn't randomly appear. Despite this, he's an incredibly powerful boss, having access to DG Dimension and an ultimate that is one of the most powerful in the game, albeit hard to aim.
• Pokémon-Speak: The recruitable Bakemon in Overdell Cemetery can only say slight variations of "Bake". Since you need to answer a few yes/no questions to get him to the city, you need a Bakemon of your own who will translate the former's speech. Or you could just look up the right answers on the Internet or even guess them.
• The Power of Friendship: The final battle is Analogman's attempt to prove that slave Digimon are better than friend ones.
• Power-Up Food: The meals you can buy at the restaurant all increase your Digimon's stats a bit. Can be abused for rather game breaking results thanks to a certain Good Bad Bug.
• Power-Up Letdown:
  • Some digivolutions can cause disadvantage to the partner's stats, especially if this happens to Rookies. One harsh example is the one that turns the partner Digimon into Sukamon, which results in slashing all stats in half.
  • Digivolution via items allows the player to obtain a particular Digimon without fulfilling any requirements (and can be done on any Digimon one-level lower compared to the Digimon associated with the item). However, this will not result in boosted stats and will not extend the partner's life span.
• Preexisting Encounters
• Prehistoria: Ancient Dino Region. Particularly the more lively Glacial Region, where many dinosaur-based Digimon dwell in, in contrast to the dreary Speedy Region.
• Random Drop: Wild Digimon have a random chance of dropping items after they're defeated. The item type depends on the Digimon.
• Road Runner PC
• Run, Don't Walk
• Save Point: Whenever your Digimon sleeps.
  • Justified Save Point: In Jijimon's house.
• Saving the World: At least, the Digital one.
• Scratch Damage
• Scripted Event
• Sequence Breaking: Certain characters in the final few sections of the game appear regardless of whether or not you've done the quests which would presumably be required. Leomon, for example, gets a small role in the ending sequence regardless of whether or not you've spoken to him, and although the Grey Lord's Mansion quest introduces Devimon, a Digimon fought as a boss in a different part of the game, it's possible to do them the other way round.
  • In addition to this, advancing the Ogremon subplot to the point where he takes over the Drill Tunnel before you recruit Meramon makes Meramon unrecruitable and the post-earthquake shortcut to Mt. Panorama permanently unavailable. Under these conditions it's still possible to beat the main storyline of the game, but you can no longer unlock all the medals and can't achieve 100% Completion.
• Sidequest: The whole game is made up of mostly optional quests, as there are only two Digimon you must recruit to get to the final main dungeon. The other numbers can be made up from any of the quests.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Freezeland.
• Sound Test: Giromon's jukebox. However, it is rather infamous for crashing the game if one attempts to use it in the North American version of the game. It works just fine in the PAL version, though.
• Spell My Name with an "S": Analogman, not mon.
• Stat Grinding: The damned Gyms.
• Stupidity Is the Only Option: More than once, to boot. Getting insulted by a bratty Otamamon? Let him have it. Bringing a sick Digimon who can't stand the cold to the local Slippy-Slidey Ice World? Brilliant idea. Walking to a clearly unstable piece of land on the edge of a cliff? Even better!
• Suicidal Overconfidence: To the point it's annoying.
• Swamps Are Evil: The Geko Swamp is filled with hostile Yanmamon (day) and Gekomon (night).
• Talk to Everyone: Almost subverted when Angemon is recruited as between him and Jijimon you can just about work out where the heck to go next via fairly obscure riddles.
• Talkative Loon: Giromon.
• Toy Time: Toy Town.
• Training from Hell: In Trash Mountain, you'll find one of the little gyms scatteder around the game world. This particular gym makes your Digimon dive into a giant pile of poop and stay there to somehow increase their MP.
  • It's also notable as being the only training exercise that decreases your Digimon's happiness when you do it. They REALLY don't like having to wade around in poop for an hour.
• Translator Microbes: Mentioned early in the game; the player's character thinks he's speaking his own language, but other characters claim he's speaking theirs.
• Underground Level: Drill Tunnel.
• Unwinnable: Whether it's by mistake or design is uncertain. It is certainly possible to get stuck if you enter Jijimon's house - on more than one occasion - because as you leave his house (usually just after saving), a powerful Digimon attacks you with no warning. You can, however, just die and wait to get to Champion level again before the opponent re-appears.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Mt. Infinity.
• Video Game Caring Potential: On the long run, it pays to properly take care of your monster. Not only does it usually result in better digivolutions, but full happiness and discipline increase the Digimon's lifespan and the time it takes for it to poop once the appropriate speech bubble shows up, respectively.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: Basically, you can deprive your Digimon of sleep, scold them hundreds of times for no reason, and even make them crap themselves. Some of these are required at least once if you want to complete the Digivolution chart. Oh, and did we mention you can do this to the baby level Digimon? Note that neither of said actions will go unpunished, but still...
• Viral Transformation: Suggested to be how Analogman transforms Digimon into copies of Machinedramon, and powered-up ones at that.
• Virtual Ghost: Analogman.
• The Voiceless: Your partner is the only Digimon who doesn't talk, although the speech bubbles expressing his various needs are implied to be speech.
• Warmup Boss: Agumon.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Frigimon calls you out on bringing a Digimon who can't stand cold to Freezeland. He refuses to come to the city until you come back with a Digimon who doesn't mind the freezing climate.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: Apparently time runs more slowly in the digital world; the ending implies your character has only been there for a few real-world hours, and he theorises that that's why he doesn't have to eat or sleep in that world. Confusing this is the fact that it has its own time system, which works on a cycle of approximately half-hour days.