Digimon Games

I remember my brother and sister playing digimon games growing up, sadly I didn't get into them. Any recommendations for a first timer?

I do! It kinda depends on how much tech stuff you're comfortable with though, and what kind of games you like.

As far as the video games, does a traditional JRPG/monster collector sound more interesting to you? If so the best way to get into the games is Cyber Sleuth, which you can get on the Switch, PS4, or Vita :3

The World games are hybrid RPG/virtual pet games. They're much harder to get into. I honestly can't really recommend Next Order, which is the "current" one and the one available on the Switch. It has weird difficulty curves and for some reason the release in the West is waaaaaay harder than the Japanese release for no reason. Like some of the opponents literally have 10x the stats in the international release vs Japan.

Imo the best World game to play period is the Digimon World Maeson romhack for Digimon World 1. It fixes a ton of bugs, makes evolution easier, and it even comes with subpatches to let you pick some different starting Digimon (like Elecmon, who's my favorite <3.) It'll be worth keeping a walkthrough on hand because it's pretty cryptic at times, but it's also the most fun.

If you're not comfortable patching roms the best version is Digimon World Re:Digitize Decode for the 3DS. It's super easy to run 3DS games through Citra and the fan translation for Re:Digitize Decode is good. The game has good hints for digivolutions, the training isn't too hard, and it has plenty of neat little quests.

The last one I'd actually recommend playing is Digimon World 1. There's no reason to play it over Maeson but if you want to see where it all started, that's pretty much it! The main problems are that you'll pretty much need a walkthrough like with Maeson, plus it comes with several game breaking bugs. It's almost impossible to complete a playthrough without getting softlocked at least once but it has the best core of any of the World games imo.

I actually enjoyed Next Order, especially when you unlocked some of the later facilities (like the Digimon Dojo, which was an absolute godsend), though I agree it was pretty tough in places (damn Machinedramon battles!), and required much more grinding than your usual World game.

Apart from the games already mentioned, I really liked Digimon World DS too. It was a bit repetetive, grindy, and same-y in the later dungeons, but solid enough to keep me entertained and hooked until the very end!

Digital Monster ver. S on the Sega Saturn is also an interesting take on the franchise, as it's more of a robust v-pet/keychain digivice simulator, being the very first Digimon game ever released.

I've enjoyed Next Order, I just have a hard time recommending it to people for the reasons I'd mentioned.

I like World DS and Dusk/Dawn aesthetically and I'd happily recommend them as Story games (I know, it's confusing. Digimon World DS was Digimon Story in Japan,) if there were a romhack or something to reduce the encounter rate, but that just drives me mad every time I try to play them.

Yeah, I guess having played the original DW (and quite enjoying it too), I don't mind this kind of repetitive grind very much hahah. Though yeah, I recall many people complained about it in NO reviews too.

Digital Monster ver. Wonderswan is a particularly interesting thing too, especially if you had the Digimon connector. It was yet another v-pet simulator, but with that side dongle you could connect your keychain v-pet with it! 

tbh I don't mind the grind in World 1 at all. Even 3 (arguably the actual first Story game I guess,) feels more doable to me. Mostly it's that they're unavoidable, common, and don't present a particularly interesting combat puzzle.

If we're going more obscure I've had a pretty good time with Anode/Cathode Tamer on the Wonderswan Color. I didn't realize that Survive is *technically* a sequel until I found out that there was an official English version of that made for Hong Kong.

Oh neat! Some Wonderswan Digimon games are actually pretty nifty, and definitely worth a playthrough!

DW3 was also nice, and I didn't mind the grind at all... I think the loading times were more annoying than the grind actually haha

Honestly the loading time wouldn't bother me so much if it actually loaded the level. Waiting through them and THEN outrunning the load so you get the placeholder tiles is awful though :D

The first time it happened when I played it as a kid I thought my game is glitching up... Man, good times hahah

And out of curiosity, have you ever tried that MMO Digimon Masters game? I remember playing that quite a lot around a decade ago. But boy, now that was a grindfest...

I remember trying it but not getting very far. Apparently it's getting a rerelease this year, I might look into that.

I used to play it a lot, although getting new Digimon was an absolute painful grindfest, not to mention having to use paid items in order to unlock some burts/megas... 

Still I'd love to check that new version out, seeing how I have fond memories of playing the original together with my friends!