Recently, Bandai Namco and Digimon fans everywhere celebrated the 20th anniversary of the very first Digimon World game. This Virtual Pet style game, while a bit of an acquired taste for some, proved to be highly popular and spawned several sequels over the years.
The series continues to be enjoyed to this day, with Digimon World: Next Order being released in 2016. However, there are some peculiar things that made the original game stand out. Some of them are memorable, some are hilarious, and some are just outright scary. Here are some things you probably forgot about the original Digimon World.
8 It Never Held Your Hand
Digimon World basically threw players to the wolves immediately in terms of how much it told them what to do. Players were left to figure out things on their own sometimes the hard way. For example, if you wanted a specific Digimon such as Greymon or Birdramon, the Digimon had to be in certain conditions when it evolved and there wasn't really a way to know this without pure trial and error.
However, the one mercy the game did grant was making signs that would appear over a Digimon's head when they needed something. They weren't always clear either, as players have reported they would often mistake the sweat mark that meant they were tired as a sign that the Digimon was thirsty.
7 The Whole Playthrough Could Be Ruined
This game had a very tight margin for errors. One little oops could mess up your Digimon's entire stats and in turn, make them evolve into a Numemon. Players needed to figure out the evolution algorithm quickly because Numeon, as charming as a sentient turd can be, are not really strong options for progressing through the game.
The original Digimon games are very reminiscent of the franchise's early Tamagotchi pet simulation style of play where users have to feed them, exercise them, etc or they will hate you and become unhappy. Or just you know, die.
6 Digimon Were Not Potty Trained
This one people will find, depending on your sense of humor, either really gross or completely hysterical. In Digimon World, no matter how big the Digi, they all, yes all, need to use the bathroom regularly.
If they don't make it to one in time, they'll leak themselves and feel pretty terrible about it, knocking down their stats. Sure it's annoying, but it's also pretty hard to picture a Greymon sitting on a human-sized toilet and not laugh at least a little.
5 The Layout Was Messy
For a game that was incredibly tedious in its mechanics, Digimon World had a tendency to be very unorganized with tracking things such as battle wins, care mistakes, etc. Besides the basic care of feeding and potty time, players were responsible for raising stats of their partner like stamina, intelligence, strength, etc.
These were all things that shaped your Digimon and were really important to keep track of, so players had to often resort to writing them down if they were trying to follow a specific evolution pattern. Talk about budget cuts!
4 Digimon Didn't Live Long
The caring of Digimon had a roguelike mechanic where basically if they fainted in battle or had bad stats they would die and you have to raise them from scratch all over again over a period of a few days. Here's the thing though about that – it wasn't just player mistakes that could cause death.
Nope, Digimon at ultimate or champion levels could sometimes just kick the bucket for no reason other than a random game algorithm or they weren't strong enough yet to get to the level. That means you could do everything perfectly right and still end up very salty.
3 Digimon Went Vegan Before It Was Cool
One might wonder what Digimon even eat in a remote setting like the digital world. Apparently, the developer was way ahead of its time because the main source of food in the game was fake meat that grew in the ground like a plant.
It was strange, yet somehow ingenious because forcing your Digimon to hunt and eat other Digimons for food frankly sounds pretty disturbing. Not to mention it would have been really strange for a dinosaur species like Agumon to eat cabbage.
2 The Animation Was Frumpy
The original Digimon World was painfully glitchy and sometimes very awkwardly animated. Some people might argue that this is because of the game's age but that's questionable considering other games out at the time had quality art. Most likely it had to do with the budget the team had to work with.
In that era, Digimon was still a new franchise attempting to pull itself off the ground and phase away from its Tamagotchi genre. Fortunately, they have come a long way in their game graphics since the early 2000s.
1 It Didn't Mimic Pokemon Games At All
To this day, a lot of people continue to call Digimon a ripoff of Pokemon but fans of both franchises know that the former's first game didn't try to copy Nintendo's RPG series.
Whereas the Pokemon games were about forming a strong team and becoming the best in battling, Digimon World was about painstakingly raising one Digimon while helping the land's inhabitants build their land. Digimon World was different enough to stand up on its own.