Going Digital! Digimon World Dawn Part 1

Going Digital!  Digimon World Dawn Part 1

Hey, guess who’s got a new game?  DID YOU GUESS ME?!?!  BECAUSE IT’S TOTALLY ME!

Ahem, so yeah, my copy of Digimon World Dawn for the DS showed up yesterday and I got to start playing it today.  I have a pretty long history with the Digimon games, playing all five of the playstation games and beating all but Digimon World 2.  It’s very much a love hate relationship, as in I love them and then they try to tear apart my heart and soul with murderous, monotonous gameplay over and over again.

Anyway...we start our quest by selecting the Japanese pack, which consisted of Coronamon, Reppamon and Karatenmon.  Apparently we are part of the light fang organization and all are running late for some kind of important battle.  We’re in a hole, down 2 matches to none and need me to win three in a row...pressures on!

Except not really because everyone on our team is incompetent as hell and we wreck our three opponents in a row.  This puts us in the final as we face off against another member of...Night Crow, I think it was? That battle is actually kind of difficult but nonetheless our team prevails!  Partying and drinks all around!

However, this is short lived as some freaky dark energy egg that can’t stop cackling breaks in and dedigivoles pretty much everyone and crashes several parts of the city.  Even our team is effected even though we are home, which forces Reppamon and Karatenmon to dedigivolve to Kudamon and Biyomon.

Anyway, our guild leader is completely at the mercy of the nightmare egg when we show up.  It seemed like this would be a hopeless boss fight but it was actually very easy...quite the plot/gameplay segregation there.  Anyway, rebuilding time and three members of Light Fang are not satisfied with this, so they run off into login mountain and completely ignore orders...I’m sure that won’t bite them in the ass.

Inevitably, we have to save their asses from a pissed/brainwashed Aquilamon (one of my favorites so I would have been perfectly okay with him murdering them, but alas) which was a relatively tough fight but not too bad. Our team mates are punished with doing the rest of the work themselves...serves those losers right.

Anyway, we are introduced to to the concepts of quests after this and our helpful Digimon at our home, Gatomon, apparently really loves tea...so yeah, that’s a thing.  Rest of the time was basically just spent recruiting more Digimon and starting out my farm so I can raise my team to be the best it can be!  There are a lot of mechanics in this game, so hopefully I can keep up with it all.

Anyway, enjoying the game so far and eager to see how it develops!  Also, I’ll be playing this along with Gladius and not replacing that game (in fact i’m about to play that some more after I post this) so...no worries for anyone who was enjoying that playthrough.  

Anyway, current Digimon will be posted after a read more...see ya everyone!

Current squad

Biyomon: L17 Terriermon: L7 Kudamon: L18 Hawkmon: L17 Lopmon: L1 Coronamon: L24

Farm Digimon

Monodramon: L16 Kokuwamon: L12 Palmon: L7 Demidevimon: L6

So I bought some games

Went by a used video game store today and a few games for the PS2.  These include...

Dragon Rage: A game I had literally never seen before but you play as a dragon so...automatically awesome

Zone of the Enders: A game I had at least heard of.  It's some kind of space mech shooter and made by Hideo Kojima of Metal Gear fame so...could be good.

Gladius: A game I literally thought I had to be misremembering from my childhood.  It's a Gladiator based Turn based strategy rpg that I played a demo of like...12 years ago.  Very excited to find it again and at a pretty decent price.

So yeah, gonna test these games out and see what I think, may chronicle my progress throughout whichever one I decide to progress in first.  

That's all, BYE PEOPLE!

Going Digital!  Digimon World Dawn Finale!

After many hours of grinding, work, grinding, heartbreak, grinding, grinding and more grinding, this game has been defeated!

I had surprisingly taken care of more plot then I expected in the previous update so there are really only two plot missions for this update.  One was to go to Proxy Island to meet up with...whoever the leader of Kowloon Co was (the leader of Waruseadramons group).  This leads us into an area that is disappointing in pretty much every single category.  Not fun to navigate, not many interesting digimon and not a good exp spread either...love you too Proxy Island.

After stumbling around for a while, we eventually sneak up on Waruseadramon...singing...about how he’s not such a bad guy...did I mention that I love him?  Anyway, he takes us to his leader and we fight Gaiomon again...who is no match for us obviously at this point.  And honestly...I forget if we had to fight there leader or if he just agrees to help up.  After forking over 100k bits, he agrees to have his company work on a bridge to help us get across to Darkmoon city so we can end this!

Which leads to the intensive hours of grinding in order to get my ideal team for the finale!  However, tiredness of grinding, lack of good Holy exp areas and just general bullshit caused me to shuffle the team around a bit, finally leaving me with this final team.

ImperialdramonBK Eaglemon Gryphonmon Saberleomon Jijimon Dorugoramon

We go talk to our leader and he reveals that All the Night Crow members are crowding at the edge of the bridge looking to come in after us.  Glare tells Waruseadramon to come up with a lock to keep them out while we sneak in.  Spinomon successfully does this while Sayo and Waruseadramon have some very stealth adventures together.  And by very stealthy, I mean not stealthy at all, leading them to entrust us with the task of sneaking in and saving everyone!

I WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN WARUSEADRAMON!

Anyway, once in Darkmoon City we need to defeat three different tamers in order to get a master ID to get into the admin room or whatever.  This is where I may have overgrinded just a tad, as it took just one round of attacks from my team to defeat each of the three tamers.

We head into Night Crow’s lair before being thrust into a fight against a possessed Chaos Gallantmon, who predictably falls easily.  However, now that we’ve injured him, that means Chaosgallantmon can break out from his spell...apparently I don’t freaking know. This leads the little floating core thing that possesed him to float off into the final dungeon.

After being thanked by the leaders of the opposing team and them admitting I’m the only one who can save all their sorry asses, I head into the final dungeon!  Again, pretty easy, a little confusing but certainly not the worst area in the game as far as that’s concerned.

Oh look, it’s Grimmon again...woooooo.  Anyway, he get’s possesed and turns into...some thing and the final boss fight begins!  And this is where I DEFINITELY realized I overgrinded when his hits are doing about 20 damage each...Thanks for overpreparing me, every other Digimon game ever...

Anyway, he falls and then digivolves and tries to put us under some kind of spell.  Of course, this is where THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP BAILS US OUT!  Luckily, the last boss is at least a little challenging, being able to wrack up over 100 damage per hit and put our team to sleep so i got at least a little resistance.  Nonetheless, he falls and we are victorious and are treated to credits that lasted longer then both phases of the final boss fight combined!

So yeah, That was Digimon World Dawn!  A pretty fun game, if a bit on the easy side.  Then again, I suppose one of the Digimon games had to be easy eventually : p

Have a couple ideas for what I’m going to play next, neither of which are RPG’s!

Going Digital! Digimon World Dawn Part 2

Hey everyone!  I’m here with part 2 of my impressions and progress on Digimon World Dawn.  Honestly, probably made too much progress before doing this update but whatever.

So, plot!  Our guild leader, Glare (Little Ominous name for the leader of the Light Fang’s but whatever) orders us to go with two veterans to a new location to figure out what’s going on.  The mountain itself wasn’t too challenging but things got a little hasty at the end.  Once again, a laughing demon egg shows up to ruin our day and first throws a Sassaromon at us (who get’s easily dispatched) before attempting to throw something much larger and several Sand Yanamon at us.  Luckily our back up shows up to handle the hoard while we dismiss the big boss.

So that brings us little info other then laughing eggs like being evil.  Next, we are sent out to Loop Swamp, which was the first real typical sharp difficulty curve that Digimon games like to pull so far, both in enemies and stupid terrain.  This was made somewhat easier by the fact that I slowly scouted out the terrain while grinding my team up to make sure they didn’t repeatedly get their asses handed to him.

At the end of the long winding bull shit loop, we encounter my favorite character of this game so far by a large margin, WaruSeadramon.  Basically, his interaction with you boils down to “Hey, got that virus you ordered to destroy the town.  Wait, you aren’t the client? Fuuuuuuuuuu” We then defeat him in a boss fight and he gives us a shiny in exchange for not telling the Union about his actions.  Secret’s safe with me bud!

Unfortunately, the character I’m playing as was not as much of a fan as I was and promptly rats him out.  This leads to speculation that the Dark Crows may be up to something (the rival gang I suppose) since communication is cut off from them.  This means we get sent to Resistor Jungle I believe to meet up with the Dark Crows and see if we can figure out what is going on.

Predictably, this goes worse then imagined as the Dark Crows we encounter were brain washed (WOOOOOOO). After promptly kicking two of the underlings asses, Sayo (the girl we fought at the beginning) shows up to bail one out and claims we are the villains and the Dark Crows fight for justice.  We bat her back with relative ease and Glare calls in to tell us all to get the hell out of there.

So that’s that as far as plot goes so far.  I will say though, there is kind of an interesting dynamic going on between co Light Fang leaders Glare and Ophanimon.  Pretty much every interaction between them has one of them giving an opinion on the situation and the other just spouting elipses.  I feel like one of them is going to be involved with the reveal as to what’s going on here so I’ll be interesting to see if that’s the case or if I’m totally just reading too much into this (probably the case)

As for game mechanics, starting to see where the grindyness comes in to play here.  Not only do you need to level up your digimon (which isn’t THAT hard...yet) you also have to make sure they get experience of the right type to make sure they can keep moving up the evolutionary level.  Luckily, I’ve figured this out relativley early on and have been devoting a fair amount of time to it and I feel like my party is cruising for the moment.  We’ll see if this continues though.

Anyway, enjoying the game so far and looking forward to playing more.  Team below the read more!

Current Party

Raremon: L11 Firamon: L38 Dinohumon: L34 Lopmon: L19 Guardromon: L1 ToyAgumonB: L11

Island Digimon

Reppamon: L37 Kotemon: L21 Dorumon: L21 Impmon: L19 Candlemon: L19 Garudamon: L11 Piximon: L1 Flymon: L36 Grizzmon: L31 Gwappamon: L7

ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!?!?!? Gladius FINALE

You read correctly folks, this overlooked gem has been conquered!

Finally on the world map again, we make our way into Roanor, where we are once again greeted by Ludo.  Valens and he exchange some words before we throw down for the last time.  What proceeds is a pretty easy battle where our main four outnumber Ludo and his two lackeys.  Despite Valens getting triple teamed to start and quickly defeated, we down the former friend with ease.

Following this, we finally meet Muutis face to face.  He brags about how he will control the dragon and doesn’t care about what happened last time before facing us in battle.  Despite him having us outnumbered, his team falls quickly, treating us to a cutscene of him struggling to his feet while Nephellia (WITCH LADY) approaches from behind.

BAM, STABBED IN THE BACK!  Muutis cries out before going limp and Nephellia thanks us for playing our parts before a warp tunnel opens up below him and the Dark God emer-JESUS WHAT IS THAT?

Okay, it may be worth looking up the dragon from Gladius because it looks insane.  It’s basically a three layered beast with a bunch of soldiers sticking out of the bottom, four faces in the middle with some weird six armed lady above them and then the Dragon on top of that.

So yeah, needless to say it is quite the sight : p

The first stage of the battle we have to use Ursula and Valens along with three members of our choosing.  Obviously I roll with Zod, Eiji and Langston.  This however...does not go well.  There are eight soldiers to beat and the dragon is breathing an area of effect fire attack that will hit anyone who isn’t right underneath it.  The soldiers can also counter attack and hit both spots infront of them with a knockback effect.

The first time, everyone died except Ursula, who has regen when she get’s to critical and the soldiers couldn’t do enough to finish her.  However, the thought of losing Zod and Langston did not sit well for me so I decided to restart with a much better plan.

Instead of lumping everyone together, I spread everyone out (and subbed Urlan for Langston) so that the fire wouldn’t hit a large member of party members.  Each of the four melee units would pick a side and focus on two soldiers at a time while Eiji would hang back for as long as she could avoid the fire and provide support.

This was going better, Valens still got knocked out quickly but Urlan was able to handle his wall with Eiji’s help and Ursula was doing fine.  Zod was hanging in but struggling.

GUESS WHO FINALLY REMEMBERED HE CAN HEAL HIMSELF?!?!?!?

So yeah, using Hibernate I was able to keep Zod alive and get him to finish off his wall before he and Ursula teamed up to finish off the wall Valens failed miserably at handling.

Once the soldiers fall, we are treated to a cutscene of the dragon beginning to sink into the ground, putting the four faces into the firing range.  After a brief chance to change equipment and purchase abilities, we are ready for round 2!

Round 2 was much easier, the face’s themselves don’t attack but summon hell cats to go after you.  They must have gotten the memo that Zod was the danger beast as they triple teamed him right away.  The faces have poor defense though so they were quickly demolished with no one going down this time.

After another cutscene, the Dragon is all that’s left.  The team assembles and we charge into what is...a laughably easy final battle.  The dragon has no defenses and seems to be unable to stand any hits (Eiji’s long shot doing 250 to him).  His attack animation was pretty neat though, where he basically ate Urlan and took about 200 HP from him.  After 2 rounds, Eiji strikes the final blow, sealing our victory!

As the dragon fades back into hell or whatever, Nephellia...does a twirl before disappearing...alright.  Ursula begins to float into the sky as Valens cries out for her, revealing that for peace to be established, a sacrifice must be made.  So she floats into heaven or something while also putting the other Valkyrie spirits at rest.

This then cuts to Ludo and Nephellia plotting their next move and making out...not the most rewarding note to go out on but whatever.

So yeah...that was Gladius!  It was a fun game and I’m glad I was able to pick it up!  I may play Valens story at some point but I think I’m done with this game for now.  Got to finish up Digimon Dawn and then we’ll see what I play next from there!

Rarely known early-art for the first generation of Pokémon

I thin I gained some of my new followers thanks to the Pikachu post, so I figured I’d share some other interesting Pokémon stuff.