I had finished dusk all the way to special ranking match that you need to use wifi at least once ie. Battle online,breed or trade etc. That rank battle was fine also finished all main quest all that's left for me are side quest which I barely did.
1:19 I love how all of the fandom that remembers this older game has just fully embraced the mistranslation/typo that is Night Crow as the team name. And for those unaware, the Team Names were supposed to be Light Fang and Night Claw
Post-game was the best part. And the real magic of this game was the sheer amount of digimon you could actually collect. Demon lords, Royal Knights, Great Dragons, Fallen Angels/Archangels, Olympus XII...It was a hell of a grind (and I believe some of them required multiplayer to get), but honestly the post-game was fun as hell, and just having the opporunity to have so many cool digimon. I remember grinding through so many battles while having so much downtime as a kid...great times.
after completing all the species quest and transfield, i had so much fun collecting all the megas by encountering them. A lil bit more grind to digivolve them to super megas
This. Theyre old ds games that havent aged the best but the reason theyre still so beloved is all the crazy digimon you can grind and collect. Plus the way the stat system works lets you make any digimon an absolute demon even if they arent fully evolved. Thats the fun part of the game. Its not surprising when people dont explore that core part of the experience and then come away underwhelmed
And the way you could get different skills on digimon that wouldnt get them otherwise normally. I remember getting Water of Life, or whatever it was called, from MarineAngemon on my Apocalymons. And just getting really powerful skills from that to put on the really strong digimon for PvP
For newcomers in any of the DS Digimon World/Story games. There is a mechanic where you touch and drag your screen to see the path ahead of you. If you don't want to have this labyrinth experience that was said in the video, just use it a lot, it will make your life so much easier. I see a lot of people that don't know or forget that this mechanic exists, and it makes a LOT of difference for your experience.
Surprised you didn't talk about the incredibly lengthy evolution process of some Digimon. Yeah, Lunamon into Dianamon is straight-forward and only requires some grinding, but try to get ZeedMillenniumon or Apocalymon to understand true pain.
I went through that pain, and I also managed to get Chronomon HM. Despite how long it took I'm glad I went through the trouble of getting them, especially Zeed since he's my favourite Digimon.
@@LockonXDynams Lots of Digimon were meant to be obtained through trading. Since Nintendo WFC for DS shut down, your only chance is to know someone who has the opposite version and trade with you in a local network.
@@DominatorLegend I tried to get Apoklimon but I just couldn't although I go out of my way to get ZeedMillenniumon at some point in each run of Dusk I do
@@DominatorLegend The time when electronic toys were meant for interacting with others face-to-face. In today's standard, inconvenient, but damn, miss that time a bit.
Grimmon is still one of my favorite digital entity villain, it's not a true digimon, being born from the virus I believe it went around digi areas collection data from other digimon and was able to create a physical form. Also if im not mistaken it's main goal is to destroy all data because it was the reminent of Chronomon: Destroy mode. It wants revenge against real beings for defeating it and then Grimmon being a virus just wants to erase every.
While I understand not wanting to go through more grinding, the post game has some of the best fights. The demon lords, royal knights, and even the protagonists from the show of the time. I also really enjoyed the amount of different digimon you could acquire and digivolve.
^^This. Honestly the post game of Dusk was my favorite part. I personally didn't manage to evolve my Clockmon all the way to alphamon until the very end, but that also made it super exciting. I would love to see Echo make a follow up video on the post game. Also Echo forgot to mention the farm, which isn't a super fun mechanic to be honest, but its cool to be able to raise excess digimon or just digimon you find cool without having to battle with them. It also adds a bunch of digimon to that parade in the credits, which obviously was not long for Echo since they didn't have much in there.
After completing all the species quest and transfield, i had so much fun collecting all the megas by encountering them. A lil bit more grind to digivolve them to super megas
the demon lords and royal knights do not appear in the post game the only two quests that appear in the post game are the gaia origin and legendary tamer quests which are honestly really hard and the best part of the game in my opinion
I think people hate grinding because they grind in a wrong way by being too obsessed with their current evolution stage. By grinding a bit at a degenerated-form than digivolve again, even just do it once, let you get stronger in a quicker way.
One thing I loved about the Dawn and Dusk games was you really felt the power increase after digivolving. You get so much stronger, and because you start back at Level One, your stats go up so fast.
The big problem is that you can DNA Digivolve for a Mega, but don’t have enough Aptitude to get to level 99 afterwards, leaving your Digimon in a Limbo state because they can’t degenerate without reverse-DNA digivolving… which requires you to get one of the fusion materials you *just lost* AGAIN. What a waste.
@@Deoxys_Used_Mimic I completely agree. Especially too 100% the game and get all the DNA Digivolutions, some require strong digimon and stats, and the DNA digimon really doesn't feel worth it.
@@Deoxys_Used_MimicBy far the wonkiest mechanic in the game. I just played through the whole game and my lord... DNA digivolving/degenerating is a science in and of itself, and at the same time, the results often aren't even what you'd want.
I want to make a comment about the map design. So, for different missions, chests and NPCs will show up in certain areas. So if you’re doing a Union Quest in a new area and you see “dead ends” or spots that empty, chances are a NPC or chest will spawn there when you do a certain Species Quest.
While I absolutely love Dusk and have really fond memories of playing it in middle school (alongside a friend who had Dawn), I totally agree with the critiques. I replayed these games about a year ago and definitely found aspects tedious and grindy. As a kid, it's not as big of a deal. I had a lot more time on my hands then, so figuring out the maps and leveling my mons wasn't as daunting a task. I remember not caring for the side quests even back then, however... But I think that's a major weak spot even in the modern Digimon Story games. Cyber Sleuth (and Hacker's Memory by extension) is cool and all, but *man* I hated how many side quests you had to do to progress. That being said, with Dawn and Dusk, I personally remember feeling a sense of accomplishment by facing the grind and getting powerful digimon. (I had a reserve team of Zeed, Moon, and normal Millenniummon at one point, if that tells you anything) It really made it feel like my victories and evolutions were earned. Plus with Dusk, I could partner up with digimon that were typically portrayed as villains--but we were actually the good guys here! I thought that was a fun flip of expectations and it's what drew me to Dusk over Dawn in the first place... and what keeps me returning to it every so often. I missed out on the true 'Digimon World' games as a kid owing to not having the systems (and despite being a HUGE fan of digimon), so this was my first 'real' chance to partner up with some digimon and hold the fate of the Digital World in my hands, so to speak. It was a bit of childhood wish fulfilment for me, heh. The games *definitely* have their flaws, but I think my young self was able to flesh out the gaps in plot and the tedium of the quests with some imagination--and a lot more time on my hands than I have now, ha ha.
You can use the move command to not only move your digimon into different orientations on the battlefield to get different bonuses with their passives. Depending on how many panels away certain Digimon are from other Digimon they will support and give bonuses to their teammates. You can also use the move command to swap one of your Digimon out with one of your Digimon in your reserve. She say one of your Digimon goes down and you don't want to revive it you can swap it with one of the ones in your backup. When you're in the maps you can use your stylus as well to drag the screen around to fully see the map without having to move your character as well by the way. The Farm island is a massive part of this game and it helps your Digimon grow faster get better stats and even skip Evolutions possibly and you only mentioned the music from it. Last thing to explain is the gates. Those Gates stop you from going into "dark areas" the Digimon in those areas are higher level and different species that are a little bit harder to fight will appear only there as opposed to the rest of the map. Sometimes you need to go there for side quests or for the main quests but most of the time they are a optional difficulty bump or if you're looking for different species to get scans on. Generally overall I mostly agree with the review. It is really grindy and kind of a time-waster but it is kinda fun as well.
if i recall there is also a fairly long post game which explains alot of the questions you have like the chronocore core and that question about a traitor but you need to get further ahead in the digimon tournement for your tamer ranks and i think you need to start keeping mental notes cause i think that you start needing to go to places that dont have out right quests for them all the time
Honestly, I'm not surprised you struggled so much. It looked like you were refusing to engage with the game's mechanics. I mean, imagine playing Pokemon, but never using the pokemon boxes for example. You seemed to be approaching the game like it was a totally different subgenre. Monster Taming games are mostly about, you know, taming and raising mons. Heck, the whole point of the side quests locking you out of main quests was to teach the player to relax and take their time. Mainlining the story instead of meeting the game on its own terms kinda makes it obvious that you'd struggle.
Yeeeah, kinda can't help but notice how a lot of "this old game isn't as good as you remember it to be" sort of vids are more so someone who tried to rush through the game complaining when they run into a fight underleveled and unprepared.
Let's be fair here, locking people out of the story with side quests isn't a lesson worth teaching but artificially stretching game time. Especially with maps like this it gets old really really fast.
@@brotbrotsen1100 brooo thats how RPG game works. they lock u out of story. so u wont be under level and such. i mean thats like saying. i am level 15 but i wanna fight a level 50 monster/boss so i can finish the story fast :> thats stupid and thats not really how u play such game :>
@@phantomhearts5577 No dragon quest, final fantasy, tales of, shin megami tensei or persona game is stretching their game time as much as dawn and dusk by giving you constantly unrelated fetch quests. Just compare the game progression of dawn/disk with something like golden sun. You naturally progress to tackle stronger enemies there.
@@phantomhearts5577 And they also don't "lock you out of the story" the journey is supposed to be part of the story, usually you have a goal in another city for example that directly relates to the progression of the final goal, dawn and dusk on the other hand is like nahhh go fetch me something first.
20:48 Some of the stuff Grimmom said there is just general Digimon lore. Digi-Entelechia was the secret towards evolution that Calumon posseses, ans Yggdrasil is the god of the Digital World (even tho he doesn't appear in this game).
Dawn and Dusk have their issues, I can't really deny any of the problems you bring up. I think for me though I just don't mind. Yeah the games are grindy, but grinding isn't too for me since I usually put something on in the background to watch or listen to. As janky as the map designs are, I find all the locations distinct and memorable. Especially the ones that have multiple parts, such as Macro Sea connecting to Access Glacier and Thriller Ruins having the mansion area. The map theme definitely goes hard, but my personal favorites are the Sunshine City theme and the digivolution lab theme. And yeah, just wanted to agree the sprites are top tier and one of my favorite parts of the game.
I remember how my sister and I got these games. We went into a Game Stop and saw both versions in the bargain bin. I took Dawn and my sister took Dusk. Both of us fell in love with the game, and sometimes we replay them, even to this day.
dude, i grinded the heck outa this game, it helps to have a friend to play against. Fun fact actual names of the teams are Night Claw and Light Fang, but because japanese L and R sounds it got changed.
I love that each version has different bosses and areas, makes them feel a bit unique also the union leaders being gender switch is cool. I know digimon don't have genders but the ones chosen do lean towards feminine and masculine.
There is a last part of the the story that is after the end game that try to explain some more of the story. It mostly were the difficulty get turned up to 11 and has 4 options mirror variance of maps. That were I believe is we’re the true ending is in Digimon Dusk, although it is my opinion on if it is a true ending or extra content.
You should play the prequel, Digimon world DS. It still has some of the same flaws, but it's for the most part a lot better. The narrative is more straight forward and less padded, it explains who chronomon is, and is still pretty fun.
It actually took me like 10+ hours of playing dusk to realise you can drag the map around a little to try and scout ahead. Makes running into a dead end not so bad
I always find the "Well why is character trying to take over the world?" critique a bit weird cause like, some people are just power hungry and will take power or try to when given the chance sad as it is, it's like asking why "character wants to steal the riches from the dungeon?".
That wasn't even the problem. The bad guys wanting to take over the world is one thing, that makes sense. The problem was the ultimate villain in this story (just like most digimon stories now that i think about it) wanted to destroy the world. Which honestly makes no sense, especially since he had no apparent reason behind it. It's REALLY dumb.
@@RED_XLR Yeah that is a big difference, only game i really remember explaining it super well that i played is Super Paper Mario, where the bad guy's motive for destroying the world is that his life was so bad he wants to end all life.
I remember this game. Beat it twice, doing 100% the second time (or as 100% as you could without Wi-Fi). I realized that the main problem with the game was its ATROCIOUS encounter rate - having a code on that allowed you to turn Encounters off/on at will made the game experience SO MUCH BETTER.
man, I see people in the comments complaining about grinding, however, I've never had that problem (didn't use the arena codes before u ask) in fact I've completed this game several times on both versions, personally, my biggest complaint with the game was some few quests like airdramon or basically having to google to figure the swamp or take way longer than you need.
It was interesting seeing your side of this i dont remember struggling with any of the fights since i was always overtraining my digimon i remember to get lilithmon i had to go back and forth 78 times to get the evulution requirements and to go up the ranks for the arena was so cool like the one where they are all megas intraining form. I also loved the fact that they didnt let you get the mc digimon which forced me to have to make a unique team. anyways great video subscribed.
i cant remember the plot of the post game for the life of me, but i know when i was younger it was the coolest thing to me, and i felt SO rewarded finishing the post game story. you should consider a part 2 covering the post game!
This isn't the full story. The Julia plotline is continued in the 7 Demon Lords sidequest, and Chronomon does appear in the postgame. He's the most difficult enemy, and your reward for defeating him has to do with the digi-entelecheia. Once you realize what that is, it makes more sense.
You should really try out Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth. They're the next entry in the Digimon Story games, which is what the DS games actually are, their names were changed to World in the international release, which is the other main series of Digimon games, Digimon Story being focused on RPGs like this one. Even though it's a different world and story from the DS titles, it's the best that Digimon RPGs have been, and it's really, REALLY good. There are two games, base Cyber Sleuth and Hacker's Memory, both of which were given a single complete edition on pc and consoles a few years ago, which includes both games in one package. I can't recommend it enough.
I loved that game so much especially the QoL such as skipping animation, repels, free gate, etc. And of course don't forget the appearance of SPOILER in the post game
Man, I'm actually jealous that you got to finish the game lol. I think I ended up losing my copy of Dawn at the ChaosGallantmon fight, and mycopy of dusk from MANY years ago got up to MaloMyotismon I think. God, I want to play it again... But I really can't justify buying it again lol
Fun fact about running around and finding dead ends. Since the main game part was on the touch screen you could touch and drag to look ahead around your current area. So you could see dead ends sooner then later. Personally I loved Digimon World DS/Dawn/Dusk the most out of the digimon games since it has the best digimon 'feel' to it in my opinion. I like when Digimon have their own world that really feels like there world being a odd mix of nature and technology for landscape. The other games on the other hand I feel Cyber Sleuth was too pretty boy anime art style with a hacking theme with digimon thrown in. Survive has the digimon act as mythological creatures instead of lifeforms in a digital world. I guess I prefer when Digimon are considered lifeforms from a digital world as opposed to just digital lifeforms in cyberspace if that makes sense.
Digimon World Dusk/Dawm was everything I wanted Digimon World 3 to be, and it was on a portable console. It may be a bit barebones as an RPG in general, but still a great Digimon game. And hey, you did a solid summary of the game, I had fun listening.
A fair and thorough explanation of one of my favourite games as a kid 😭 I have to agree that a lot of the game mechanics and structure of dusk/dawn don’t really hold up but nostalgia always keeps me coming back 🤫 Loved your take my friend! 💕
Amazing review and discussion about the game! I remember playing this one and yeah it has a lot of issues. It’s still fun but I can’t help but think how everything could have been improved to make the experience more enjoyable. Like the map design and random encounters
Just a wild guess of mine, but i've always had a hunch that, with how the story went, they probably had sequels in mind while writing Dawn/Dusk, and that the story in them was foreshadowing what was to come. Guess we'll never know for real.
I recently replayed Dusk after many years of not playing it since my childhood and eventhough I put 35 hours into the game and completed all sidequests and main quests including the legendary tamer one I have to agree with you… I really enjoyed my time with it but I just don’t have the patience for the absurd encounter rate and the amount of species EXP grind you have to do in order to get some mega evolutions, its really stupid With that being said I still really love the game and eventhough it has many apparent flaws I just can’t hate it because its my childhood and I really enjoyed it despite everything, I just wouldn’t recommend it to someone who’s not a digimon fan tbh
Did you use an emulator to replay the game? If so which one? I’ve been dying to replay the games without buying a ds since mine broke ages ago but all the emulator sites look super sketchy.
I loved this game especially post-game but can't find time to replay it since the story takes a long time (random encounter & poor map designs) - but it remains in my top 3 Digimon games, I really loved it while playing it so long ago
So, fun fact, if you actually pay Kowloon Co yourself, out of your own funds (good luck actually *having* that much though...) you can skip the boss battle and get a unique item! ...though it's not a very useful item. It's low level, and it's technically better than most low level equipment, but it's completely outclassed by the high level items available to you by that point.
Eh, by that point in the game, i'd pretty much gotten all the Species EXP i'd need for my main team, barring some Machine EXP (which wasn't too terrible to grind for in Dusk, but was still a few hours' timesink). Though admittedly, reverting super early to level-sync my team at the start put my stats a bit above-curve, and i'd had to sink hours into grinding Species EXP earlier in the game...
The music dude! I remember the music fondly. The best track I’ve ever experienced. This was my first Digimon game and I wish Lunamon would reappear so I can use her again 🥰
Something I want to point out that you skimmed over is the story differences between Dawn and Dusk. The overall story is almost the exact same in each game... but not in the way you would first assume. It doesn't just flip the teams' roles in the story; Dusk gets taken over by the big bad regardless of which game you are playing. Dawn also does not start at the tournament section, but rather has a section before it, and gets it's areas in a different order. All in all, they actually did the games in a way that there good reasons to play bothe besides just "get them all".
No? Depending on what game you play, the rival city gets taken over, you fight a phantom looking chaosgallantmon in dawn and a fiery ophanimon in dusk and you save your own city's captain from the glacier, its literally just flipping the roles, from inviting your rival to your home for safety, covertly invading the enemy base. Or did you get confused with a different game
@@aokyoutsuki7744 It's not just a flip like in the Pokemon games. Apart from specific moments, such as which city and faction gets saved first, each game actually follows the gaps of the other. For example, the starting sections are training for the Normal level tournament (Dusk) and fighting in that same tournament (Dawn). In Dusk, you don't fight in the tournament because LightFang canonically wins it. In fact, if you ignore the fact that the opposing faction stays corrupted for the game, both protags could be running around and never meet. EDIT: Excuse me while I misremember one of my favorite childhood games...
@@AriosQarsute err, you still beat the tournament in dusk, and you get introduced to koh, and later in the forest, you fight the mind controlled friends of your rival, ending with you having a rematch with your rival as the final encounter, its literally a flip.
Dusk starts on the previous day and Dawn throws you right at the tournament. They have different starting dungeons (Sunken Tunnel for Dusk, Login Mountain for Dawn) and face different bosses in those locations as well as Loop Swamp and Palette Amazon (SkullBaluchimon and Mercurimon for Dusk, WaruSeadramon and Spinomon for Dawn) but overall the text is just flipped, though with a few glaring errors here and there.
I beat this game about a year ago, and honestly, at the end I was REALLY burned out on the game, and when I beat it, I put it away and never looked back I started playing because it had ZeedMilleniummon on it Never got it tho
I loved playing this game, but honestly, the grinding was a bit of a double edged sword in my mind. You've gotta do grinding to meet Digivolution requirements, yeah. But apparently as long as your patience can handle it you can potentially grind almost ANY digimon to have 9999 HP/MP and 999 in everything else. In theory, this may be fun for the purposes of letting you continue to use Digimon you like or want to meme with in comparison to those with the best stats (i mean just look at the Platinum Tamer Certification fight where the Imperialdramon Paladin Mode's allies are just two In-Training digimon... that are still fully capable of handing your ass to you if you don't grind). However, allowing that many Digimon to have maxed stats across the board kinda removes some of the individuality from them, and means you're typically looking for anything with the best traits to grind up to that level. I'm all for being able to increase stats to certain limits, but those limits should vary by Digimon in order to give some others the ability to shine in battle. To a lesser extent, sometimes the big bosses that take up three zones in battle are easier than those that are just another befriendable Digimon, cause an AOE attack that hits more than one zone will potentially just hit it 2 or 3 times even if it doesn't normally due to how the zones work. (also i kinda wish the new form of Ophanimon [and ChaosGallantmon if you're playing Dawn] you fight right before Chaos Brain became befriendable in later games)
My biggest problem with these games is that they love gatekeeping digivolutions. Like why do i need to have piedmon before being capable of digivolving into It? I'm not against grinding but this is just disrespectful
from what i remember, piedmon is a Dusk exclusive. was either DNA evolution of certain digimon or a random wild encounter in one of the end game areas to get his 100% data to unlock him. and if you were lucky to have a friend or a second DS and copy of the game, try gettin him thorugh DigiEggs Been years since i last played this game, but i remember grinding for hundreds of hours to get him and the other dark masters just to get Apocalymon. and even more hundred of hours to be a legendary tamer to get ChronomonHM just for that tiny Chichimon data These games are just mindless grinding for cool looking digimon that you can max out their stats for, being 999, and destroying everything in your way
Some of the befriended digimon can be encounter in the overworld. Trying to get Piedmon by digivolution is hell. You need all the dark masters, Metalseadramon, Machinedramon, Puppetmon and Piedmon. 4 megas
@@anjelo5509 after completing all the species quest and transfield, i had so much fun collecting all the megas by encountering them. A lil bit more grind to digivolve them to super megas
Still the Digimon game with the most playable Digimon in it. It was dumb if you wanted to fight hardest extra boss after beating you had to play one local or online match to unlock the quest for it though.
If your curious chronomon was the final boss of the previous digimon story game so it's a reference plus the digi story games are technically connect unfortunately only half of the entries were localized but fans are almost fully done translating both if your interested
As a kid I remember playing digimon dawn and it was fun. The game was slow at times but I was patient enough to finish the game’s story. I didn’t complete the game too 100% like you did but Watching this video was definitely nostalgic for me. The best part about this game is the digimon, some of the dialogue and battling to make my digimon stronger. Also playing this game along side my brother who had digimon dusk.
In Dusk I almost always pick up a mushroommon that way I can degenerate it down and then set it on the track to get Lilamon which as a 3 tiles powder move that can hit twice. A great large boss killer for me. Though yeah usually I find myself having done quite a few degenerations by the time I get to my ultimates and you can get a ton of stats by going back down to rookie after having gotten a few strong moves. Plus the earlier you get a full team the more exp they get even if you don't use them on the final team. I would often cycle out my whole team from front or back or just switching some in once they were stronger.
I remember never being able to learn how to navigate that damn swamp!!! But overall I loved these games growing up! I played Dawn and restarted loads of times until I got Dusk! Then I just roided out Dawn completed the DigiDex unlocked loads of things via Wi-Fi connections and passwords! Dusk was the game I would restart and sometimes I would transfer powerful mons and just speed run the game! If they were to remake or remaster it, besides more mons I would want them to add the hacking skills from Cyber Sleuth Hacker's Memory, giving us ability to turn off encounters, force encounters, or even accelerate! Edit: OH GOD I FOGOT ABOUT THAT LILLYMON QUEST!!! I legit missed the dialogue telling me she was in my first playthrough and had to go to TH-cam for the location after hours of going through every DAMN MAP!!!
My only big issues with Dawn/Dusk are that: 1. The grind for certain Digimon can be absolute hell if you're trying to get them in your team for the final boss of the main story. You can need, like, 50 or 60K experience for a specific species of Digimon (for those that don't know, experience was divided into Species Experience, and there were 8 different Digimon species, and while you could level up from experience regardless of which species that experience was obtained from, for Digivolutions, you needed varying amounts of experience for specific species) at a point in the game where the best place to farm that species' experience only nets you anywhere from 100 to 500 per fight depending on the enemy encounters. 2. There really isn't much to do in the postgame. Yeah, there are a few extra sidequests and Union Quests, and yes, there are a few hidden sidequests that only show up if you have specific Digimon of specific personality types in your DigiFarm, but once you've done all that, there's nothing else. 3. Digimon hatched from DigiEggs tend to break the game in half due to having notably higher stats than your starter Digimon or anything obtained through converting scan data.
I remember playing this game on my Ds and loving it much more than pokemon.. the many hours i spend to level up then devolved just to increase the aptitude so i can get the Mega requirements ☺️
I played them about a month or so ago myself and I have to say that while I agree with some things (story, map design, quests, etc) a lot of the enjoyment out of the game is all the things you can do on the side, grind to get new digimons/digivolutions, optimizing farming, the secret farm quests, DNA/Armor Digievolutions, the tournament arenas and some other things, as some people have pointed the real enjoyment you can and should be getting out of this game (at least for Digimon fans) is just the incrediby huge variety of Digimons you can get and try out, just seeing the sprite works of 300+ digimon was really worth the grind and fun.
I have fond memories of this game too, despite its need for polish, and I agree that it has a top tier soundtrack. My favorite theme by far is Darkmoon City, but Process Factory does take second place. ❤ Honestly, the Digimon Story games need remakes. The first two could use some improvement with the gameplay and with the plot's execution, whereas games 3 and 4 were never released overseas...
the worst thing is that you didn't even fully explore digivolution at it's core. You can do armor, dna, and change the forms of certain mega's to make them EVEN stronger then ever, your dog has a rather badass form you didn't explore whatsoever. I will agree on one thing, the game can be a waste of time, but what the game makes up for is just overall training your digimon and making them the coolest digimon ever. That was kinda the whole point to that game at least for me anyways, at some point I do wish to play that game again but actually try to just give me the most swagger team I could ever grab and just nuke the last boss easily. Also i coulda sworn there's a secret boss fight that relates to what the bad guy says before he died....hrm...I could be wrong I guess, oh well, I'd have to play the game myself to remember.
I think there is a fight against Chronomon, but that's tied to a request that requires you to have played multiplayer at least once before you can take it, so idk if that can be accessed now
digimon world ds was also a wild game,, while not having to grind as much as dawk & dusk, the game felt a lot smoother even if you did have to defeat all seven great demon lords in a row without resting in between
I kinda like that too, how they made their variants vary more unlike the Pokémon variants. I’m saying this as someone who is a fan of old Pokémon (not the new ones, I don’t have Cybersleuth yet, but I noticed it’s better than Pokémon SwSh and SV)
Sorry for not saying anything at all while watching, but that’s not a dead end in PalleteAmazon. It’s actually a pathway meant for a side quest in the game. That quest, in particular, is The Wing Ring where you have to deliver said ring to a Penguinmon, but accidentally give it to the local Muchomon instead, forcing you to fight it to get the ring back and deliver it to the blue bird Digimon.
To answer on PrinceMamemon, yes it is a mega level digimon and is the final evolution of Mamemon. It's most identifiable signature move is Smiley Warhead.
I recently had played Dawn, and damn I feel you on finding lillymon. God I wanted to choke the breath out of those stupid little pixels that basically told me "Your lillymon is in another castle"... Grrrr.
Man, as a kid I had so much time on my hands when I played this game with Constantly degenerating and digivolving my Digimon long before the final boss. I basically curb stomped it. But yeah, I love this game and is still my favorite Digimon in terms of Gameplay. The quests and map design are awful, and having a Map at all while exploring would have been nice. But I still love it regardless. Dianamon ended up being my new favorite Digimon ever since.
As someone who has over 200+ hours in this game this was such a good game. Mind you about 10-60 hours was spent on grinding to get my digimon to level 100 ( some still did not even get their. And do not get me started on how long it took me to get all of the bursts mode evolutions plus ruin mode for greymon along with a high enough level and stats. This is the first and only game I ever went try hard mode on and I can't even do online with it anymore 😪
I always figured the maps were made that way because they needed areas to spawn quest NPCs so they built them like that and then probably came back later to figure out where bosses and NPCs would spawn, and then noticed they don't have enough NPCs to populate all the dedicated areas
Here’s another secret for you. If you have the 100,000 bits needed to pay for his services, you can do just that so you don’t have to fight him and instead they give you the KowloonBlade, a weapon with a Level 10 requirement that gives the following boosts: +16 Attack, +9 Defense, +10 Spirit, and +7 Speed.
Because the digimon's level goes to 1 after digivolving or degenerating, your exp curve shortens. I.e. it takes 2 exp to go from level 1 to 2, and 6 to go from 2 to 3. Later in the game its incredibly easy to go from level 1 to like, 20 in a single battle. This boosts your stats a lot. If you ever go back to this game, you should digivolve and degenerate more. Not only does it boost your stats but it makes grinding was easier.
to this day, i still love this game. i just beat it at 55 hours after a ton of grinding and making Mugendramon/Millenniumon. it's not 10/10, but it makes me happy. i binged the last half of it the last few days and aside from some actual GARBAGE like requiring metalseadramon to get mugendramon and kuzuhamon to get sakuyamon, i had an amazing time. it's extra fun, and i'll always love it.
I had Dawn an while I love lunamon Lightfang and the dawn characters, including your rival being in night claw or night crow with the typo, holds a special place for me
If you decide to check out another Digimon game, I'm sure you've been recommended Cybersleuth already! It's essentially a spiritual successor and kinda-sequel to Dusk (SPECIFICALLY Dusk) made around five years ago. It's much more generous with experience and its difficulty curve is not nearly as terrible, it's become one of my favorite monster collecting games along with it's sequel.
My takeaways: 1. Maybe don't rush through the game as fast as you can without training. 2. Skipping through dialog tends to make it hard to understand the story. The story is actually pretty straightforward. 3. Wandering around areas and exploring is kind of the point. That ded end you encountered is where the end of a side quest takes place later on These games are pretty fun and a great way for any digi fan to collect their favorite mons. Love your video though man. Thanks for posting.
I think giving improvement ideas actually isn't futile, as a group of modders are working on enhancing the games, the list you gave sounds entirely plausible for them to do. As for your final thoughts overall, I agree on almost everything, except that "from one of your own" bit, your leader actually IS infected, you just save them before your faction can be infected like the other side was. Its what you do in the Glacial map. I also fully agree the game has aged HORRIBLY and you basically need to have grown up with the DS Story games to enjoy it. I'd never recommend someone who isn't a massive Digimon fan to play it if they didn't grow up with it.
the post game should just be called the grindhaus. Transfield is an interesting design for an area, and the boss gauntlet showcases some of the best designs in the game. But the following legendary tamer quest is so damn difficult, grinding is no longer a recommendation, but a necessity. Transfield becomes a prime place for grinding. I forgot what the city looked like, all i knew was transfield. I had to digivolve and degenerate my megas down to rookies and back up to push out the lvl cap, only for a chance at completing the final quest. There are some fun easter eggs and references to the anime in the mission which is a tournament, and there is some closure to what ChronoCore was referencing in his last moments... but it is not worth the effort.
I play through these games at least once a year , and i have no problems but the exp grinding is HORRENDOUS. Plus a port or remake would make a bunch of improvements form the base game for sure
This is one of the games that benefits greatly from emulating with speed up. Which is the case for all the major Digimon games I keep replying. Dusk/Dawn, World 1, World 3. All of them are a blast to play with speed up and some cheats to remove big annoyances. They're so much fun in fact, I forget just HOW tedious the games are without. As a kid with endless time and no responsabilities you can just grind away for hours, but as an adult they're impossible to play without. Lol
from my experience with Digimon games, its heavily dependent on a person's love for Digimon. with the world games, story games, and the newest Survive game, its all clearly made for people who already love digimon. which makes it hard for new people to get into the franchise. With people constantly comparing it to Pokemon, they instantly make judgement calls to drop the game. Digimon Dawn and Dusk have major problems but for people who love digimon like, myself dont mind one bit, cuz digimon (honestly, there might be something wrong with us). Though, for the average person, it may be a turn off.
It 100% is though from what I remember is that you also needed to play the original Digimon world DS game if you want to understand lore I think? Mainly the lore Grimmon brings up. Or just look it up.
I kinda don't understand this comment. What exactly the specific of this term means. Like, what's the difference, for example compared to pokemon itself ?
The funny this is that the same goes for pokemon. As an rpg, pokemon regularly fails to hit the bar in a lot of ways, and even the fanbase has a tendency to constantly point out all the negatives in the games, but because it's pokemon, they're always willing to get it.
@@mistydono3482 I tried Digimon World DS but I didn't really like it so I didn't bother finishing the game. Dawn and Dusk, however, I enjoyed and I have replayed them many times.
@@ikhwanmauaja1184 There's way too many to list them all. For example: the setting, gameplay mechanics, the tamer-monster relationship, and story themes. A direct pokemon-digimon comparison is about as viable as a direct pokemon-SMT comparison.
I have played the hell out of this game and have made realy hard to obtain digimon like chronomon and zeedmilleniummon. I just wish that the game had like a repell thing like digimon. Allso kaloon Co theme slaps.
These games could really use a remaster/remake with some QoL additions. I love Dusk but I've never been able to complete it because of the grinding.
There's currently a fan made remake in development.
I had finished dusk all the way to special ranking match that you need to use wifi at least once ie. Battle online,breed or trade etc. That rank battle was fine also finished all main quest all that's left for me are side quest which I barely did.
Having the same problem, also a map would be nice.
Theres a fan remake that, at this moment, is planned to basically be a 2.0 of this original game with an ubsurd ammount of new digimon and content.
@@parsath_2584 where can i find updates for this??
1:19
I love how all of the fandom that remembers this older game has just fully embraced the mistranslation/typo that is Night Crow as the team name.
And for those unaware, the Team Names were supposed to be Light Fang and Night Claw
Not all of us.
i mean night crow sounds pretty cool
oh my god night claw makes so much more sens
I mean, I don't think most players even know "Night Crow" is a typo haha
The worst part is that I'm 99% sure that the back of the box or manual spelled it as Night Claw.
Post-game was the best part. And the real magic of this game was the sheer amount of digimon you could actually collect. Demon lords, Royal Knights, Great Dragons, Fallen Angels/Archangels, Olympus XII...It was a hell of a grind (and I believe some of them required multiplayer to get), but honestly the post-game was fun as hell, and just having the opporunity to have so many cool digimon. I remember grinding through so many battles while having so much downtime as a kid...great times.
after completing all the species quest and transfield, i had so much fun collecting all the megas by encountering them. A lil bit more grind to digivolve them to super megas
This. Theyre old ds games that havent aged the best but the reason theyre still so beloved is all the crazy digimon you can grind and collect. Plus the way the stat system works lets you make any digimon an absolute demon even if they arent fully evolved. Thats the fun part of the game. Its not surprising when people dont explore that core part of the experience and then come away underwhelmed
@@JoshuaBojangles surely I wasn't the only that had an in-training Mon with rainbow spit doing DMG cap .. right...right?
And the way you could get different skills on digimon that wouldnt get them otherwise normally. I remember getting Water of Life, or whatever it was called, from MarineAngemon on my Apocalymons. And just getting really powerful skills from that to put on the really strong digimon for PvP
For newcomers in any of the DS Digimon World/Story games. There is a mechanic where you touch and drag your screen to see the path ahead of you. If you don't want to have this labyrinth experience that was said in the video, just use it a lot, it will make your life so much easier. I see a lot of people that don't know or forget that this mechanic exists, and it makes a LOT of difference for your experience.
Oh, and don't be afraid to speed up the game if you are playing in a emulator.
Surprised you didn't talk about the incredibly lengthy evolution process of some Digimon. Yeah, Lunamon into Dianamon is straight-forward and only requires some grinding, but try to get ZeedMillenniumon or Apocalymon to understand true pain.
I went through that pain, and I also managed to get Chronomon HM. Despite how long it took I'm glad I went through the trouble of getting them, especially Zeed since he's my favourite Digimon.
You need to start with the attack pack to get ZeedMillenniumon but how in the hell are you meant to get Pidmon
@@LockonXDynams Lots of Digimon were meant to be obtained through trading. Since Nintendo WFC for DS shut down, your only chance is to know someone who has the opposite version and trade with you in a local network.
@@DominatorLegend I tried to get Apoklimon but I just couldn't although I go out of my way to get ZeedMillenniumon at some point in each run of Dusk I do
@@DominatorLegend The time when electronic toys were meant for interacting with others face-to-face. In today's standard, inconvenient, but damn, miss that time a bit.
Grimmon is still one of my favorite digital entity villain, it's not a true digimon, being born from the virus I believe it went around digi areas collection data from other digimon and was able to create a physical form. Also if im not mistaken it's main goal is to destroy all data because it was the reminent of Chronomon: Destroy mode. It wants revenge against real beings for defeating it and then Grimmon being a virus just wants to erase every.
Essentially chrono core is a piece of Chronomon destroy like you said, Grimmon is just a fake digimon it make so it had a body
While I understand not wanting to go through more grinding, the post game has some of the best fights. The demon lords, royal knights, and even the protagonists from the show of the time. I also really enjoyed the amount of different digimon you could acquire and digivolve.
^^This. Honestly the post game of Dusk was my favorite part. I personally didn't manage to evolve my Clockmon all the way to alphamon until the very end, but that also made it super exciting. I would love to see Echo make a follow up video on the post game.
Also Echo forgot to mention the farm, which isn't a super fun mechanic to be honest, but its cool to be able to raise excess digimon or just digimon you find cool without having to battle with them. It also adds a bunch of digimon to that parade in the credits, which obviously was not long for Echo since they didn't have much in there.
This comment makes me want to go back to collect them all in the cyber sleuth (after I finish survive thoughXD)
After completing all the species quest and transfield, i had so much fun collecting all the megas by encountering them. A lil bit more grind to digivolve them to super megas
the demon lords and royal knights do not appear in the post game
the only two quests that appear in the post game are the gaia origin and legendary tamer quests which are honestly really hard and the best part of the game in my opinion
I think people hate grinding because they grind in a wrong way by being too obsessed with their current evolution stage. By grinding a bit at a degenerated-form than digivolve again, even just do it once, let you get stronger in a quicker way.
One thing I loved about the Dawn and Dusk games was you really felt the power increase after digivolving. You get so much stronger, and because you start back at Level One, your stats go up so fast.
The big problem is that you can DNA Digivolve for a Mega, but don’t have enough Aptitude to get to level 99 afterwards, leaving your Digimon in a Limbo state because they can’t degenerate without reverse-DNA digivolving… which requires you to get one of the fusion materials you *just lost* AGAIN.
What a waste.
@@Deoxys_Used_Mimic I completely agree. Especially too 100% the game and get all the DNA Digivolutions, some require strong digimon and stats, and the DNA digimon really doesn't feel worth it.
@@Deoxys_Used_MimicBy far the wonkiest mechanic in the game. I just played through the whole game and my lord... DNA digivolving/degenerating is a science in and of itself, and at the same time, the results often aren't even what you'd want.
I want to make a comment about the map design. So, for different missions, chests and NPCs will show up in certain areas. So if you’re doing a Union Quest in a new area and you see “dead ends” or spots that empty, chances are a NPC or chest will spawn there when you do a certain Species Quest.
While I absolutely love Dusk and have really fond memories of playing it in middle school (alongside a friend who had Dawn), I totally agree with the critiques. I replayed these games about a year ago and definitely found aspects tedious and grindy. As a kid, it's not as big of a deal. I had a lot more time on my hands then, so figuring out the maps and leveling my mons wasn't as daunting a task. I remember not caring for the side quests even back then, however... But I think that's a major weak spot even in the modern Digimon Story games. Cyber Sleuth (and Hacker's Memory by extension) is cool and all, but *man* I hated how many side quests you had to do to progress.
That being said, with Dawn and Dusk, I personally remember feeling a sense of accomplishment by facing the grind and getting powerful digimon. (I had a reserve team of Zeed, Moon, and normal Millenniummon at one point, if that tells you anything) It really made it feel like my victories and evolutions were earned. Plus with Dusk, I could partner up with digimon that were typically portrayed as villains--but we were actually the good guys here! I thought that was a fun flip of expectations and it's what drew me to Dusk over Dawn in the first place... and what keeps me returning to it every so often.
I missed out on the true 'Digimon World' games as a kid owing to not having the systems (and despite being a HUGE fan of digimon), so this was my first 'real' chance to partner up with some digimon and hold the fate of the Digital World in my hands, so to speak. It was a bit of childhood wish fulfilment for me, heh. The games *definitely* have their flaws, but I think my young self was able to flesh out the gaps in plot and the tedium of the quests with some imagination--and a lot more time on my hands than I have now, ha ha.
You can use the move command to not only move your digimon into different orientations on the battlefield to get different bonuses with their passives. Depending on how many panels away certain Digimon are from other Digimon they will support and give bonuses to their teammates. You can also use the move command to swap one of your Digimon out with one of your Digimon in your reserve. She say one of your Digimon goes down and you don't want to revive it you can swap it with one of the ones in your backup.
When you're in the maps you can use your stylus as well to drag the screen around to fully see the map without having to move your character as well by the way.
The Farm island is a massive part of this game and it helps your Digimon grow faster get better stats and even skip Evolutions possibly and you only mentioned the music from it.
Last thing to explain is the gates. Those Gates stop you from going into "dark areas" the Digimon in those areas are higher level and different species that are a little bit harder to fight will appear only there as opposed to the rest of the map. Sometimes you need to go there for side quests or for the main quests but most of the time they are a optional difficulty bump or if you're looking for different species to get scans on.
Generally overall I mostly agree with the review. It is really grindy and kind of a time-waster but it is kinda fun as well.
if i recall there is also a fairly long post game which explains alot of the questions you have like the chronocore core and that question about a traitor but you need to get further ahead in the digimon tournement for your tamer ranks and i think you need to start keeping mental notes cause i think that you start needing to go to places that dont have out right quests for them all the time
Honestly, I'm not surprised you struggled so much. It looked like you were refusing to engage with the game's mechanics. I mean, imagine playing Pokemon, but never using the pokemon boxes for example. You seemed to be approaching the game like it was a totally different subgenre. Monster Taming games are mostly about, you know, taming and raising mons.
Heck, the whole point of the side quests locking you out of main quests was to teach the player to relax and take their time. Mainlining the story instead of meeting the game on its own terms kinda makes it obvious that you'd struggle.
Yeeeah, kinda can't help but notice how a lot of "this old game isn't as good as you remember it to be" sort of vids are more so someone who tried to rush through the game complaining when they run into a fight underleveled and unprepared.
Let's be fair here, locking people out of the story with side quests isn't a lesson worth teaching but artificially stretching game time. Especially with maps like this it gets old really really fast.
@@brotbrotsen1100 brooo thats how RPG game works. they lock u out of story. so u wont be under level and such. i mean thats like saying. i am level 15 but i wanna fight a level 50 monster/boss so i can finish the story fast :> thats stupid and thats not really how u play such game :>
@@phantomhearts5577 No dragon quest, final fantasy, tales of, shin megami tensei or persona game is stretching their game time as much as dawn and dusk by giving you constantly unrelated fetch quests. Just compare the game progression of dawn/disk with something like golden sun. You naturally progress to tackle stronger enemies there.
@@phantomhearts5577 And they also don't "lock you out of the story" the journey is supposed to be part of the story, usually you have a goal in another city for example that directly relates to the progression of the final goal, dawn and dusk on the other hand is like nahhh go fetch me something first.
20:48 Some of the stuff Grimmom said there is just general Digimon lore. Digi-Entelechia was the secret towards evolution that Calumon posseses, ans Yggdrasil is the god of the Digital World (even tho he doesn't appear in this game).
Actually based on how this game plays out it takes place on the Iliad server so Yggdrasil might not be the host computer
Dawn and Dusk have their issues, I can't really deny any of the problems you bring up. I think for me though I just don't mind. Yeah the games are grindy, but grinding isn't too for me since I usually put something on in the background to watch or listen to.
As janky as the map designs are, I find all the locations distinct and memorable. Especially the ones that have multiple parts, such as Macro Sea connecting to Access Glacier and Thriller Ruins having the mansion area.
The map theme definitely goes hard, but my personal favorites are the Sunshine City theme and the digivolution lab theme.
And yeah, just wanted to agree the sprites are top tier and one of my favorite parts of the game.
A peak piece of digimon media. Dawn and Dusk are still by far my favorite games in the franchise. Hopefully we get something like this in the future.
I remember how my sister and I got these games.
We went into a Game Stop and saw both versions in the bargain bin.
I took Dawn and my sister took Dusk.
Both of us fell in love with the game, and sometimes we replay them, even to this day.
dude, i grinded the heck outa this game, it helps to have a friend to play against. Fun fact actual names of the teams are Night Claw and Light Fang, but because japanese L and R sounds it got changed.
I love that each version has different bosses and areas, makes them feel a bit unique also the union leaders being gender switch is cool. I know digimon don't have genders but the ones chosen do lean towards feminine and masculine.
I find the idea of Julia being into corrupted Knights to be funny.
There is a last part of the the story that is after the end game that try to explain some more of the story. It mostly were the difficulty get turned up to 11 and has 4 options mirror variance of maps. That were I believe is we’re the true ending is in Digimon Dusk, although it is my opinion on if it is a true ending or extra content.
You should play the prequel, Digimon world DS. It still has some of the same flaws, but it's for the most part a lot better. The narrative is more straight forward and less padded, it explains who chronomon is, and is still pretty fun.
Or play Cyber Sleuth. Similar gameplay, but a bit more streamlined and less grindy. The story is also pretty fun.
Yeah, but a lot of the evolutions don't make sense in the first DS one.
@@MegaSilver
Only a couple, most are fine
Personally preferred Digimon World DS over Dusk/Dawn, not sure why but just couldn't get into the later games.
@@seb24789 I think Cyber Sleuth it’s better in graphic, less grinding but Dawn/Dusk has a better farm and status system is more friendly than Cyber
It actually took me like 10+ hours of playing dusk to realise you can drag the map around a little to try and scout ahead. Makes running into a dead end not so bad
I always find the "Well why is character trying to take over the world?" critique a bit weird cause like, some people are just power hungry and will take power or try to when given the chance sad as it is, it's like asking why "character wants to steal the riches from the dungeon?".
That wasn't even the problem. The bad guys wanting to take over the world is one thing, that makes sense. The problem was the ultimate villain in this story (just like most digimon stories now that i think about it) wanted to destroy the world. Which honestly makes no sense, especially since he had no apparent reason behind it. It's REALLY dumb.
@@RED_XLR Yeah that is a big difference, only game i really remember explaining it super well that i played is Super Paper Mario, where the bad guy's motive for destroying the world is that his life was so bad he wants to end all life.
Why do people do anything, man?
"Why do you digivolve?" "I dunno. I just want to do it." Simple.
@@CasualBurger-q7r
That’s not how Digivolution works, in-lore… but I get what you’re trying to say.
I remember this game. Beat it twice, doing 100% the second time (or as 100% as you could without Wi-Fi). I realized that the main problem with the game was its ATROCIOUS encounter rate - having a code on that allowed you to turn Encounters off/on at will made the game experience SO MUCH BETTER.
Wait how about digifarm? Can you use it after having the code on?
@@ispeakcockney5387 the farm takes 20 minutes to complete a day without encounters (ive been minmaxing my digis for like a week)
I loved dusk. Played it so much as a kid, I remember there was a tournament mode.
I would grind so much to get the coolest digimons.
man, I see people in the comments complaining about grinding, however, I've never had that problem (didn't use the arena codes before u ask) in fact I've completed this game several times on both versions, personally, my biggest complaint with the game was some few quests like airdramon or basically having to google to figure the swamp or take way longer than you need.
It was interesting seeing your side of this i dont remember struggling with any of the fights since i was always overtraining my digimon i remember to get lilithmon i had to go back and forth 78 times to get the evulution requirements and to go up the ranks for the arena was so cool like the one where they are all megas intraining form. I also loved the fact that they didnt let you get the mc digimon which forced me to have to make a unique team. anyways great video subscribed.
i cant remember the plot of the post game for the life of me, but i know when i was younger it was the coolest thing to me, and i felt SO rewarded finishing the post game story. you should consider a part 2 covering the post game!
I wish this game was less grindy/slow/clunky
It's not bad IMO, but I feel it would be actually really good after someone do a QoL Patch.
This isn't the full story. The Julia plotline is continued in the 7 Demon Lords sidequest, and Chronomon does appear in the postgame. He's the most difficult enemy, and your reward for defeating him has to do with the digi-entelecheia. Once you realize what that is, it makes more sense.
You should really try out Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth. They're the next entry in the Digimon Story games, which is what the DS games actually are, their names were changed to World in the international release, which is the other main series of Digimon games, Digimon Story being focused on RPGs like this one. Even though it's a different world and story from the DS titles, it's the best that Digimon RPGs have been, and it's really, REALLY good. There are two games, base Cyber Sleuth and Hacker's Memory, both of which were given a single complete edition on pc and consoles a few years ago, which includes both games in one package. I can't recommend it enough.
I loved that game so much especially the QoL such as skipping animation, repels, free gate, etc. And of course don't forget the appearance of SPOILER in the post game
Man, I'm actually jealous that you got to finish the game lol. I think I ended up losing my copy of Dawn at the ChaosGallantmon fight, and mycopy of dusk from MANY years ago got up to MaloMyotismon I think.
God, I want to play it again... But I really can't justify buying it again lol
Fun fact about running around and finding dead ends. Since the main game part was on the touch screen you could touch and drag to look ahead around your current area. So you could see dead ends sooner then later.
Personally I loved Digimon World DS/Dawn/Dusk the most out of the digimon games since it has the best digimon 'feel' to it in my opinion. I like when Digimon have their own world that really feels like there world being a odd mix of nature and technology for landscape. The other games on the other hand I feel Cyber Sleuth was too pretty boy anime art style with a hacking theme with digimon thrown in. Survive has the digimon act as mythological creatures instead of lifeforms in a digital world. I guess I prefer when Digimon are considered lifeforms from a digital world as opposed to just digital lifeforms in cyberspace if that makes sense.
Digimon World Dusk/Dawm was everything I wanted Digimon World 3 to be, and it was on a portable console. It may be a bit barebones as an RPG in general, but still a great Digimon game.
And hey, you did a solid summary of the game, I had fun listening.
A fair and thorough explanation of one of my favourite games as a kid 😭 I have to agree that a lot of the game mechanics and structure of dusk/dawn don’t really hold up but nostalgia always keeps me coming back 🤫 Loved your take my friend! 💕
Amazing review and discussion about the game! I remember playing this one and yeah it has a lot of issues. It’s still fun but I can’t help but think how everything could have been improved to make the experience more enjoyable. Like the map design and random encounters
Just a wild guess of mine, but i've always had a hunch that, with how the story went, they probably had sequels in mind while writing Dawn/Dusk, and that the story in them was foreshadowing what was to come. Guess we'll never know for real.
I recently replayed Dusk after many years of not playing it since my childhood and eventhough I put 35 hours into the game and completed all sidequests and main quests including the legendary tamer one I have to agree with you… I really enjoyed my time with it but I just don’t have the patience for the absurd encounter rate and the amount of species EXP grind you have to do in order to get some mega evolutions, its really stupid
With that being said I still really love the game and eventhough it has many apparent flaws I just can’t hate it because its my childhood and I really enjoyed it despite everything, I just wouldn’t recommend it to someone who’s not a digimon fan tbh
Did you use an emulator to replay the game? If so which one? I’ve been dying to replay the games without buying a ds since mine broke ages ago but all the emulator sites look super sketchy.
This was my favorite game growing up but nobody ever rembers it, thanks for giving it some much needed coverage
A lot of the game stuff is explored after you beat the game. The post game is incredible.
I remember when I got all my digimon stats to 999 and beat the legendary tamer quest no trouble
I Have A Disgusting Team That Can Kill Chronomon HM BEFORE HE ATTACKS!
awesome video, enlightened me to the core. Echonox is back and better than ever!
This the kind of videos I love! I had no clue Dusk was like a full RPG. Good video, thanks for giving me a taste of what this game was
I loved this game especially post-game but can't find time to replay it since the story takes a long time (random encounter & poor map designs) - but it remains in my top 3 Digimon games, I really loved it while playing it so long ago
So, fun fact, if you actually pay Kowloon Co yourself, out of your own funds (good luck actually *having* that much though...) you can skip the boss battle and get a unique item! ...though it's not a very useful item. It's low level, and it's technically better than most low level equipment, but it's completely outclassed by the high level items available to you by that point.
The Species EXP (and keeping your money) is much more valuable anyway.
Eh, by that point in the game, i'd pretty much gotten all the Species EXP i'd need for my main team, barring some Machine EXP (which wasn't too terrible to grind for in Dusk, but was still a few hours' timesink).
Though admittedly, reverting super early to level-sync my team at the start put my stats a bit above-curve, and i'd had to sink hours into grinding Species EXP earlier in the game...
The music dude! I remember the music fondly. The best track I’ve ever experienced. This was my first Digimon game and I wish Lunamon would reappear so I can use her again 🥰
I think Lunamon might’ve been in Cyber Sleuth, or at least for Sayo iirc
Beautiful review-take, it was entertaining and i enjoy your sense of humor and pacing, bravo.
Something I want to point out that you skimmed over is the story differences between Dawn and Dusk.
The overall story is almost the exact same in each game... but not in the way you would first assume. It doesn't just flip the teams' roles in the story; Dusk gets taken over by the big bad regardless of which game you are playing.
Dawn also does not start at the tournament section, but rather has a section before it, and gets it's areas in a different order.
All in all, they actually did the games in a way that there good reasons to play bothe besides just "get them all".
No? Depending on what game you play, the rival city gets taken over, you fight a phantom looking chaosgallantmon in dawn and a fiery ophanimon in dusk and you save your own city's captain from the glacier, its literally just flipping the roles, from inviting your rival to your home for safety, covertly invading the enemy base.
Or did you get confused with a different game
@@aokyoutsuki7744 It's not just a flip like in the Pokemon games. Apart from specific moments, such as which city and faction gets saved first, each game actually follows the gaps of the other. For example, the starting sections are training for the Normal level tournament (Dusk) and fighting in that same tournament (Dawn). In Dusk, you don't fight in the tournament because LightFang canonically wins it. In fact, if you ignore the fact that the opposing faction stays corrupted for the game, both protags could be running around and never meet.
EDIT: Excuse me while I misremember one of my favorite childhood games...
@@AriosQarsute err, you still beat the tournament in dusk, and you get introduced to koh, and later in the forest, you fight the mind controlled friends of your rival, ending with you having a rematch with your rival as the final encounter, its literally a flip.
@@aokyoutsuki7744 Indeed, my memory failed me in this instance.
Dusk starts on the previous day and Dawn throws you right at the tournament. They have different starting dungeons (Sunken Tunnel for Dusk, Login Mountain for Dawn) and face different bosses in those locations as well as Loop Swamp and Palette Amazon (SkullBaluchimon and Mercurimon for Dusk, WaruSeadramon and Spinomon for Dawn) but overall the text is just flipped, though with a few glaring errors here and there.
I beat this game about a year ago, and honestly, at the end I was REALLY burned out on the game, and when I beat it, I put it away and never looked back
I started playing because it had ZeedMilleniummon on it
Never got it tho
I loved playing this game, but honestly, the grinding was a bit of a double edged sword in my mind. You've gotta do grinding to meet Digivolution requirements, yeah. But apparently as long as your patience can handle it you can potentially grind almost ANY digimon to have 9999 HP/MP and 999 in everything else. In theory, this may be fun for the purposes of letting you continue to use Digimon you like or want to meme with in comparison to those with the best stats (i mean just look at the Platinum Tamer Certification fight where the Imperialdramon Paladin Mode's allies are just two In-Training digimon... that are still fully capable of handing your ass to you if you don't grind).
However, allowing that many Digimon to have maxed stats across the board kinda removes some of the individuality from them, and means you're typically looking for anything with the best traits to grind up to that level. I'm all for being able to increase stats to certain limits, but those limits should vary by Digimon in order to give some others the ability to shine in battle.
To a lesser extent, sometimes the big bosses that take up three zones in battle are easier than those that are just another befriendable Digimon, cause an AOE attack that hits more than one zone will potentially just hit it 2 or 3 times even if it doesn't normally due to how the zones work.
(also i kinda wish the new form of Ophanimon [and ChaosGallantmon if you're playing Dawn] you fight right before Chaos Brain became befriendable in later games)
My biggest problem with these games is that they love gatekeeping digivolutions.
Like why do i need to have piedmon before being capable of digivolving into It?
I'm not against grinding but this is just disrespectful
from what i remember, piedmon is a Dusk exclusive. was either DNA evolution of certain digimon or a random wild encounter in one of the end game areas to get his 100% data to unlock him. and if you were lucky to have a friend or a second DS and copy of the game, try gettin him thorugh DigiEggs
Been years since i last played this game, but i remember grinding for hundreds of hours to get him and the other dark masters just to get Apocalymon. and even more hundred of hours to be a legendary tamer to get ChronomonHM just for that tiny Chichimon data
These games are just mindless grinding for cool looking digimon that you can max out their stats for, being 999, and destroying everything in your way
I agree with you a lot man, I think having to befriend another digimon to be able to digivolve a digimon sucks
Some of the befriended digimon can be encounter in the overworld. Trying to get Piedmon by digivolution is hell. You need all the dark masters, Metalseadramon, Machinedramon, Puppetmon and Piedmon. 4 megas
@@anjelo5509 after completing all the species quest and transfield, i had so much fun collecting all the megas by encountering them. A lil bit more grind to digivolve them to super megas
Still the Digimon game with the most playable Digimon in it. It was dumb if you wanted to fight hardest extra boss after beating you had to play one local or online match to unlock the quest for it though.
To this day... still want the MC's Hat
(Also love this game)
I used to play the hell out of this game.
Beat the game hardest digimon
It reason why I love this digimon!
And best Digimon is Lunermon
If your curious chronomon was the final boss of the previous digimon story game so it's a reference plus the digi story games are technically connect unfortunately only half of the entries were localized but fans are almost fully done translating both if your interested
As a kid I remember playing digimon dawn and it was fun. The game was slow at times but I was patient enough to finish the game’s story. I didn’t complete the game too 100% like you did but Watching this video was definitely nostalgic for me. The best part about this game is the digimon, some of the dialogue and battling to make my digimon stronger. Also playing this game along side my brother who had digimon dusk.
In Dusk I almost always pick up a mushroommon that way I can degenerate it down and then set it on the track to get Lilamon which as a 3 tiles powder move that can hit twice. A great large boss killer for me. Though yeah usually I find myself having done quite a few degenerations by the time I get to my ultimates and you can get a ton of stats by going back down to rookie after having gotten a few strong moves. Plus the earlier you get a full team the more exp they get even if you don't use them on the final team. I would often cycle out my whole team from front or back or just switching some in once they were stronger.
Fun fact - “Night Crow” is a mistranslation in the English games, the teams are actually called Night Claw and Light Fang
Good video. I love this video format. Full game playthroughs in a review style. Gold.
I remember never being able to learn how to navigate that damn swamp!!!
But overall I loved these games growing up! I played Dawn and restarted loads of times until I got Dusk!
Then I just roided out Dawn completed the DigiDex unlocked loads of things via Wi-Fi connections and passwords!
Dusk was the game I would restart and sometimes I would transfer powerful mons and just speed run the game!
If they were to remake or remaster it, besides more mons I would want them to add the hacking skills from Cyber Sleuth Hacker's Memory, giving us ability to turn off encounters, force encounters, or even accelerate!
Edit:
OH GOD I FOGOT ABOUT THAT LILLYMON QUEST!!! I legit missed the dialogue telling me she was in my first playthrough and had to go to TH-cam for the location after hours of going through every DAMN MAP!!!
I remember getting ImperialdramonPM in Dawn, yes I do not have life in middle school
My only big issues with Dawn/Dusk are that:
1. The grind for certain Digimon can be absolute hell if you're trying to get them in your team for the final boss of the main story. You can need, like, 50 or 60K experience for a specific species of Digimon (for those that don't know, experience was divided into Species Experience, and there were 8 different Digimon species, and while you could level up from experience regardless of which species that experience was obtained from, for Digivolutions, you needed varying amounts of experience for specific species) at a point in the game where the best place to farm that species' experience only nets you anywhere from 100 to 500 per fight depending on the enemy encounters.
2. There really isn't much to do in the postgame. Yeah, there are a few extra sidequests and Union Quests, and yes, there are a few hidden sidequests that only show up if you have specific Digimon of specific personality types in your DigiFarm, but once you've done all that, there's nothing else.
3. Digimon hatched from DigiEggs tend to break the game in half due to having notably higher stats than your starter Digimon or anything obtained through converting scan data.
I think if they remake it, they could make a chunk of the maps procedurally generated so some of the tedium of revisiting it is alleviated
Dawn/Dusk aren't perfect but I love them. I have replayed them many times.
I remember playing this game on my Ds and loving it much more than pokemon.. the many hours i spend to level up then devolved just to increase the aptitude so i can get the Mega requirements ☺️
They DESTROY ANY POKEMON GAME,INCLUDING SCARLET AND VIOLET!!!!HACK THEM!!!!
I played them about a month or so ago myself and I have to say that while I agree with some things (story, map design, quests, etc) a lot of the enjoyment out of the game is all the things you can do on the side, grind to get new digimons/digivolutions, optimizing farming, the secret farm quests, DNA/Armor Digievolutions, the tournament arenas and some other things, as some people have pointed the real enjoyment you can and should be getting out of this game (at least for Digimon fans) is just the incrediby huge variety of Digimons you can get and try out, just seeing the sprite works of 300+ digimon was really worth the grind and fun.
I have fond memories of this game too, despite its need for polish, and I agree that it has a top tier soundtrack. My favorite theme by far is Darkmoon City, but Process Factory does take second place. ❤
Honestly, the Digimon Story games need remakes. The first two could use some improvement with the gameplay and with the plot's execution, whereas games 3 and 4 were never released overseas...
the worst thing is that you didn't even fully explore digivolution at it's core. You can do armor, dna, and change the forms of certain mega's to make them EVEN stronger then ever, your dog has a rather badass form you didn't explore whatsoever.
I will agree on one thing, the game can be a waste of time, but what the game makes up for is just overall training your digimon and making them the coolest digimon ever. That was kinda the whole point to that game at least for me anyways, at some point I do wish to play that game again but actually try to just give me the most swagger team I could ever grab and just nuke the last boss easily.
Also i coulda sworn there's a secret boss fight that relates to what the bad guy says before he died....hrm...I could be wrong I guess, oh well, I'd have to play the game myself to remember.
I think there is a fight against Chronomon, but that's tied to a request that requires you to have played multiplayer at least once before you can take it, so idk if that can be accessed now
digimon world ds was also a wild game,, while not having to grind as much as dawk & dusk, the game felt a lot smoother even if you did have to defeat all seven great demon lords in a row without resting in between
I love that Dusk and Dawn literally told different stories
I kinda like that too, how they made their variants vary more unlike the Pokémon variants. I’m saying this as someone who is a fan of old Pokémon (not the new ones, I don’t have Cybersleuth yet, but I noticed it’s better than Pokémon SwSh and SV)
Sorry for not saying anything at all while watching, but that’s not a dead end in PalleteAmazon. It’s actually a pathway meant for a side quest in the game. That quest, in particular, is The Wing Ring where you have to deliver said ring to a Penguinmon, but accidentally give it to the local Muchomon instead, forcing you to fight it to get the ring back and deliver it to the blue bird Digimon.
To answer on PrinceMamemon, yes it is a mega level digimon and is the final evolution of Mamemon. It's most identifiable signature move is Smiley Warhead.
It's weird but i just realized, there's a subset of digimon games where humans are just are just living in the digital world with no explanation.
Now THIS brings me back
I recently had played Dawn, and damn I feel you on finding lillymon. God I wanted to choke the breath out of those stupid little pixels that basically told me "Your lillymon is in another castle"... Grrrr.
Man, as a kid I had so much time on my hands when I played this game with Constantly degenerating and digivolving my Digimon long before the final boss. I basically curb stomped it.
But yeah, I love this game and is still my favorite Digimon in terms of Gameplay. The quests and map design are awful, and having a Map at all while exploring would have been nice. But I still love it regardless.
Dianamon ended up being my new favorite Digimon ever since.
So MGaogamon is actually "Mach" Gaogamon (Mach like speed not machine) Good review!
Digimon version of multiple choice:
1) "We should email for plot"
2) "I should email for plot"
As someone who has over 200+ hours in this game this was such a good game. Mind you about 10-60 hours was spent on grinding to get my digimon to level 100 ( some still did not even get their. And do not get me started on how long it took me to get all of the bursts mode evolutions plus ruin mode for greymon along with a high enough level and stats. This is the first and only game I ever went try hard mode on and I can't even do online with it anymore 😪
I always figured the maps were made that way because they needed areas to spawn quest NPCs so they built them like that and then probably came back later to figure out where bosses and NPCs would spawn, and then noticed they don't have enough NPCs to populate all the dedicated areas
Here’s another secret for you. If you have the 100,000 bits needed to pay for his services, you can do just that so you don’t have to fight him and instead they give you the KowloonBlade, a weapon with a Level 10 requirement that gives the following boosts: +16 Attack, +9 Defense, +10 Spirit, and +7 Speed.
Because the digimon's level goes to 1 after digivolving or degenerating, your exp curve shortens. I.e. it takes 2 exp to go from level 1 to 2, and 6 to go from 2 to 3. Later in the game its incredibly easy to go from level 1 to like, 20 in a single battle. This boosts your stats a lot. If you ever go back to this game, you should digivolve and degenerate more. Not only does it boost your stats but it makes grinding was easier.
I wish these DS games would get a remaster treatment. I loved the original game, as well as Dawn and Dusk
to this day, i still love this game. i just beat it at 55 hours after a ton of grinding and making Mugendramon/Millenniumon. it's not 10/10, but it makes me happy. i binged the last half of it the last few days and aside from some actual GARBAGE like requiring metalseadramon to get mugendramon and kuzuhamon to get sakuyamon, i had an amazing time. it's extra fun, and i'll always love it.
If only GraceNovamon was a thing when this came out
I had Dawn an while I love lunamon Lightfang and the dawn characters, including your rival being in night claw or night crow with the typo, holds a special place for me
If you decide to check out another Digimon game, I'm sure you've been recommended Cybersleuth already! It's essentially a spiritual successor and kinda-sequel to Dusk (SPECIFICALLY Dusk) made around five years ago. It's much more generous with experience and its difficulty curve is not nearly as terrible, it's become one of my favorite monster collecting games along with it's sequel.
My takeaways:
1. Maybe don't rush through the game as fast as you can without training.
2. Skipping through dialog tends to make it hard to understand the story. The story is actually pretty straightforward.
3. Wandering around areas and exploring is kind of the point. That ded end you encountered is where the end of a side quest takes place later on
These games are pretty fun and a great way for any digi fan to collect their favorite mons.
Love your video though man. Thanks for posting.
I think giving improvement ideas actually isn't futile, as a group of modders are working on enhancing the games, the list you gave sounds entirely plausible for them to do.
As for your final thoughts overall, I agree on almost everything, except that "from one of your own" bit, your leader actually IS infected, you just save them before your faction can be infected like the other side was. Its what you do in the Glacial map.
I also fully agree the game has aged HORRIBLY and you basically need to have grown up with the DS Story games to enjoy it. I'd never recommend someone who isn't a massive Digimon fan to play it if they didn't grow up with it.
That music edit of the factory theme is so true though
I'm glad you appreciated this game as much as me
The Farm Island theme reminds of a couple of themes from E.V.O. on the SNES.
the post game should just be called the grindhaus. Transfield is an interesting design for an area, and the boss gauntlet showcases some of the best designs in the game. But the following legendary tamer quest is so damn difficult, grinding is no longer a recommendation, but a necessity. Transfield becomes a prime place for grinding. I forgot what the city looked like, all i knew was transfield. I had to digivolve and degenerate my megas down to rookies and back up to push out the lvl cap, only for a chance at completing the final quest. There are some fun easter eggs and references to the anime in the mission which is a tournament, and there is some closure to what ChronoCore was referencing in his last moments... but it is not worth the effort.
I play through these games at least once a year , and i have no problems but the exp grinding is HORRENDOUS. Plus a port or remake would make a bunch of improvements form the base game for sure
Not the MachineGaogamon instead of MachGaogamon 😭
+ loved your vid💓
imagine if it get remake with smoothest graphic.
This is one of the games that benefits greatly from emulating with speed up. Which is the case for all the major Digimon games I keep replying. Dusk/Dawn, World 1, World 3. All of them are a blast to play with speed up and some cheats to remove big annoyances.
They're so much fun in fact, I forget just HOW tedious the games are without. As a kid with endless time and no responsabilities you can just grind away for hours, but as an adult they're impossible to play without. Lol
from my experience with Digimon games, its heavily dependent on a person's love for Digimon. with the world games, story games, and the newest Survive game, its all clearly made for people who already love digimon. which makes it hard for new people to get into the franchise. With people constantly comparing it to Pokemon, they instantly make judgement calls to drop the game. Digimon Dawn and Dusk have major problems but for people who love digimon like, myself dont mind one bit, cuz digimon (honestly, there might be something wrong with us). Though, for the average person, it may be a turn off.
It 100% is though from what I remember is that you also needed to play the original Digimon world DS game if you want to understand lore I think? Mainly the lore Grimmon brings up. Or just look it up.
I kinda don't understand this comment. What exactly the specific of this term means. Like, what's the difference, for example compared to pokemon itself ?
The funny this is that the same goes for pokemon. As an rpg, pokemon regularly fails to hit the bar in a lot of ways, and even the fanbase has a tendency to constantly point out all the negatives in the games, but because it's pokemon, they're always willing to get it.
@@mistydono3482 I tried Digimon World DS but I didn't really like it so I didn't bother finishing the game. Dawn and Dusk, however, I enjoyed and I have replayed them many times.
@@ikhwanmauaja1184 There's way too many to list them all. For example: the setting, gameplay mechanics, the tamer-monster relationship, and story themes. A direct pokemon-digimon comparison is about as viable as a direct pokemon-SMT comparison.
I have played the hell out of this game and have made realy hard to obtain digimon like chronomon and zeedmilleniummon. I just wish that the game had like a repell thing like digimon. Allso kaloon Co theme slaps.
This needs more views