I got the oink oink! Let's Play Digimon World 3!

Training time!


Training is simple. I mean really, really simple.

You pick the stat you want to train, you pick how much TP you want to use (1, 5 or 10) and you watch the random results.

Now, as far as I know, various Digimon have different odds of raising their stats (Kumamon seems to have a harder time raising Spirit/Wisdom than Power, for example) but the gist of it is it’s completely random, weighted towards success more than failure.

I don’t think there’s a huge difference between the amounts of TP you train with – 10 seems to be roughly double the benefits of 5, and 5 is roughly five times 1. I use 5 – always have, for no real reason.

The Digimon you selected will train thrice, and if all three of those were successes there’ll be a fourth attempt with higher reward.


Also the circles will glow (though it’s more of a flicker between orange-ish and white).

And that’s all there is to it (mostly, but that’s for way later).

Since Monmon is level 4, I switch out for Renamon now.


Renamon’s high MP means she can spam her Finisher – Diamond Dust - at lower levels. It’s usually enough to kill in one hit.




She flies into the air, does a little backflip, summons the icicles and sends them at the enemy. 10-year-old-me loved this move.

(Also in the picture: The other Central Park Digimon, Tapirmon. He’s a little slower and sturdier but the main difference is the BIT)

Now, as I promised, I’m going to not grind as I usually do. Let’s move out.


On the final exit from Central Park, the eastern one, we get to the entrance to Wire Forest, as well as East Sector proper. The Digimon here are the same ones you get at Central Park, though.


Tamer Mitch: …what? You want to fight with me?
Tamer Mitch: Sorry, I don’t pick on the little guys.

Why you little…


The entrance area is a simple passageway, so further east we find West Wire Forest.


Oh, a new Digimon! Betamon’s not that special – only notable thing about it is that it drops Power Charges often.

Also, it’s fast enough to first-turn-kill Renamon with it’s regular attack. Perfect chance to try Agumon out!


I don’t know about you guys, but I think Agumon’s frontal view is a little creepy.

Agumon, as I said, is a tank. He’s not going to take more than two hits at best from anything in this area with 160 HP, though, so we better try out his Finisher – which fans of the original show will remember.

I was rather surprised at this high damage; Pepper Breath is a Spirit-based attack , which Agumon most definitely does not specialize in. The truth is, DMW3 has elemental weaknesses of sorts in the Resistances; A weakness is just a very low resistance. Usually it’s not worth figuring out, as most Digimon – even offensive Spirit-based Digimon - will have two elements at their disposal, if that.
So yeah: It’s there, but it usually might as well not be.


Treasure!

Except, not really. Shields are going to be completely useless 99% of the time; You’re better off with either a two-handed weapon or dual wielding. The other 1%? That’s when one weapon is enough to get you to 999 Power, or when you’re using a special set (which won’t be relevant until way later). This is going to be sold ASAP.


Agumon is first-turn-killed here, so I switch back over to Renamon. Digimon don’t stay dead after battles; They go back to 1 HP.


Here’s critical HP Renamon. She got the one-hit-kill with Diamond Dust, so it’s all good.


Tamer Catherine: …but I’m sorry. We’re having lunch right now!
Tamer Catherine: So let’s duel some other time.

At this point (and after a few more occasions where the enemy first-turned my guys – sometimes both Agumon and Renamon, one after the other – I realize this isn’t working. I start going back to at least grind to level 4, and get a little bit of Speed training.

But on the way…


Oh hell yeah.

At level 5, all Rookie Digimon learn their natural Champion digivolution. In Monmon’s case, this is Hookmon.


Digivolutions have multiple perks, including their learned skills, but for now well focus on the biggest one: Stat bonuses.


As you can see, by simply digivolving into Hookmon, Monmon gains 10 Power, 30 Defense, 10 Spirit, 20 Wisdom, 40 Speed and 1 Charisma. This is HUGE. He’s going to always go first for a while, he’s going to take much less damage, and his Power is already insane so he’s killing things in one hit anyway.


Better yet, we don’t even need to waste a turn to digivolve.


Hookmon’s name’s blue color indicates that we have turned on Battle Digivolve for him; This means that if Monmon is the first Digimon in my lineup, he’s automatically digivolved into Hookmon before the battle starts.

But all this stat stuff? That’s just the reasons to digivolve in general, and by extension to grind to level 5 before leaving Central Park. No, the real reason is this:





Hookmon is a Robot Pirate with a hook-hand and a revolver that fires purple energy balls.

HOOKMON is a ROBOT PIRATE with a HOOK-HAND and a REVOLVER that fires PURPLE ENERGY BALLS.

While this would be a great place to end the update, I have some more pictures to show you so if you don’t feel like reading the rest, just go ahead and comment on how awesome and silly Hookmon is.


Agumon punching things.


Renamon working on her Wisdom (which was a misclick; I wanted to train Spirit). It’s a pretty funny animation, too; It’s always the same animation, so every Digimon repeatedly ponders whether 10-8 is 2 or 5. And they can still fail at it after getting it right the first 50 times.



It’s a pity that Renamon’s so geared for Spirit attacks; Her physical attack animation is pretty awesome, though hard to convey via screenshots. She teleports on the spot, leaves the teleport in a backwards somersault right in front of the enemy, and jumps back.

(Agumon just kinda jumps over and punches/scratches the enemy)



Here’s Renamon reaching enlightment through meditation.


And a successful follow-up to a triple success. These are common – I’d say about 40% of the time, though it could be less and I’m just not remembering the ones that don’t succeed as much as I do the ones that do.

(Mind you, 33 isn't the bonus for the one success at the end, it's the total bonus to Spirit from the session)


Still, I stopped at level 4 for Agumon and Renamon – should be enough.

Next time: Card games! And then actually for real leaving Asuka.

I'm fairly certain that if you put that Gabumon card into your deck before trying to give it to that guy, the game lets you keep it. Free 5/5 card, hooray.

This game's sprites are adorable. :3

Also, hell yeah, robot monkey pirate!

It is also a zombie and a ninja? Or a hobo?

Right then! With our grinding done, let’s finally move on to Seir-

Intermission



Now that we have some gear and levels on our side, the card geeks at the store will play with us.


Everyone names their folders; We can name ours, too, which I’m sure you’ll all have plenty of wonderful ideas for.


Right now, they’re all identical.



First, you pick one of two face-down cards. I believe these are Calumon and DemiDevimon, though I’m not sure about the latter. Regardless, picking Calumon (the white one) means you’ll go first, while DemiDevimon means you’ll go second (which is often an advantage, mind).

Here, I go first.


First, both players simultaneously draw 6 cards from their decks; For every non-brown card in each player’s hand, they then receive a single S-Energy (Summon Energy) of that colour. I managed to catch it in the middle of the process, actually; It hasn’t added an extra 1 Red and 1 White S-Energy yet.
It will be a very, very long time before you have to worry about S-Energy; The only card you’ll have for a while that costs more than 1 is Divemon, who costs 2 Blue S-Energy (From now on I’ll just say the colour).


Next up is the Load phase; You can activate some Program cards at this time, as can your opponent. Since I’m playing first, I get to decide if I want to play a program first – and I do. That red square in my hand is a Trade Charge; It allows me to pick any card in my deck and put it in my hand, and then I have to discard a card from my hand. In this case, I discard the Kunemon (1/1 White Rookie) from my previous hand and fetch a Hagurumon (1/2 Brown Rookie). It’s notable that if I had fetched a coloured card, I would’ve received 1 S-Energy of it’s colour.


Next up is the Summon phase. Both players simultaneously choose Digimon cards from their hands (recognizeable by the numbers on the card).
In this case, I summon both my Hagurumon and Goburimon (2/1 Red Rookie). Since Goburimon is a Rookie Digimon, he costs 0 to summon; Champions cost 1, Ultimates cost 2 and Megas cost 3. All Brown Digimon cost 0, always.

You don’t have to summon all the Digimon in your hand; I could summon none if I felt like it.

Next up is the Compile phase. Again, you can use some Program cards here (and if you couldn’t use it in the Load phase, you can use it here, though if you can use it in the Load phase it’s not always unusable in the Compile phase. I could use that Trade Charge now, if I wanted to).

I start by using my two copies of Summon Goburimon; They create a Goburimon card that only exists as long as it’s on the field, summoning it to my side for free.


Here’s one that’s going to resolve; My opponent can respond, if he wants. you’ll notice that one has already resolved.


The situation as we both pass; I used my final card, Summon Hagurumon, to summon two copies of Hagurumon in the same way.


Battle phase. This is the conclusion; Nobody can interact with the game, we just watch our Digimon fight.

How? Well, you’ll remember the numbers on the cards; They are AP and HP, Attack Points and Health Points. the AP and HP of all your Digimon on the field are added together; Now the two sides fight. Both sides attack simultaneously, deducting each side’s AP from the opposing side’s HP. There are three possible outcomes:

-Opponent’s HP<Player’s HP: Player wins the game.
-Opponent’s HP=Player’s HP: Player loses the game. (keep in mind that HP cannot go below 0)
-Opponent’s HP>Player’s HP: Player loses the game.

There are three games in a match; best 2 of 3 wins the match. And I’m sure you’re wondering, why does a tie mean that we lose the game? Well, it claims that the reason is that you are the challenger, so a tie means you lose. Since you can’t actually be challenged by others, this means a tie is always your loss. I wonder how they resolve tournaments.

On to the battle, then.

But first!



If a player has at least three of the same Digimon on the field, they will perform a combo (which I’d rather just call a Digivolution, myself). The result is a digivolved card with the combined stats of the Digimon who created it (with more than 3 Digimon in the combo, it gets complicated; More on that when I can show it). The digivolved card’s stats are added to your totals, at which point it disappears.

(If you’re interested, a rookie combo results in an Ultimate card; Etemon is Goburimon’s Ultimate while Andromon is Hagurumon’s).

(And excuse my horrible timing; The Digimon who are performing the combo should glow)

I obviously win this fight handily.


I got an all-Digimon hand here. You can see Vegiemon (7/7 Green Champion), Palmon (2/2 Green Rookie), SandYanmamon (7/6 Red Champion), Goburimon, DemiDevimon (3/3 Black Rookie) and Hagurumon.

Vegiemon and SandYanmamon are both Champions; They cost 1 Green and 1 Red, respectively, to summon. Of course, they also provided that much by being in my hand; Champions always pay for themselves.

You’ll notice I have seven cards in my discard pile (the trashcan symbol on the right). Kunemon is there, since I discarded him; the four Programs I used are there too, as well as the three Digimon.

However, any card in your hand at the end of a game is shuffled back into your deck at the end. In the future, in harder matches, sometimes I’ll want to just give up with an unfavorable hand, using only the cards I don’t want to have in my deck anymore for the next game. This also allows some manipulation of opponents; More on that in a bit.


Oh, right, I win handily.


Most of these guys never pose a threat at this point in the game.


Upon winning a match, you always get a booster pack. Which one you get depends on the opponent.


Tamer Nacky: I just don’t have the knack for this.


Tamer Steve: This should be easy enough.



Some Digimon you haven’t seen yet: Elecmon (2/1 White Rookie), Patamon (1/4 White Rookie), Gekomon (7/5 Blue Champion),


Yanmamon (6/8 White Champion), Flarerizamon (10/9 Red Champion).

(The second picture isn't from the same match as the first because I'm bad at screenshotting)

Steve gives the same Booster Nacky did.


Tamer Steve: I’m going to get laughed at by Bill again!


Tamer Wong is a pretty cool dude.

I missed his folder’s name, but it doesn’t really matter now does it? (I’ll go back and get it later. Maybe)


Unlike the previous two who just summoned dudes, Wong has a shtick.


He uses Programs!


At the moment, though, he just uses them to summon more dudes. You’ll recognize some more new Digimon on my side: Roachmon (9/8 Black Champion) and BomberNanimon (12/9 Brown Champion).

All his Digimon above were summoned by Summon X cards; a Summon Hagurumon, Summon Palmon (which is a green card) and Summon Gomamon (Which is a Blue card). You’ll also recognize a Gomamon (2/3 Blue Rookie) on my side.



That’s really all there is to say on the matter.


Tamer Gloria: Get ready. I’m not going to lose!


Tamer Gloria holds the unique distinction of being the only card battle this early on which you have a chance of losing. This is a really terrible draw (I have a Summon Hagurumon in my hand), so I easily lose this game. Notably, had I used Summon Hagurumon, I would have had to choose and sacrifice a Digimon to put the second Hagurumon on the field – you can only ever control 6 Digimon, not counting combos.



I’m looking through my Deck with a Trade Charge here: Notice the Summon Hagurumon I’m highlighting. It’s actually vital for my victory this time!


As you can see, 4-Digimon digivolution is much better than just 3. I believe the game just adds 20 to the total AP and HP here. I’ve never tested if it adds another 20 per Digimon, or has another formula altogether; By the time I reliably achieve combos of more than 4, they’ll already hit the stat cap (99/99) when digivolving.


You may have noticed it already, but the AP is actually used up after attacking. A pretty cool touch if you ask me.



I win the next game handily, but see that 2/11 Goburimon? I used a Protect Armor on him (+10 HP to a Digimon), and as you can see Etemon got an extra 10 HP too.

Also visible: Gotsumon (2/3 Brown Rookie).


And since I missed it earlier, the three Patamons digivolve into MagnaAngemon. This is the hardest of the three games, as the total of 30 HP can be hard to beat.

Also in the picture: Aruraumon (2/2 Black Rookie).


In fact, this game, I couldn’t beat it, and moved on to game 3 (again).


Divermon (20/15 Blue Ultimate) made short work of that one. You’ll also see Crabmon (0/3 Blue Rookie).


Tamer Gloria: You were just lucky, that’s all.

Gloria gives the same booster as Wong.

Those of you who have been paying attention will ask “Wait, how come you got the same game 2 and 3 against Gloria in both matches?”. You would be right to ask that.

See, that’s the final part of DMW3’s card battles. The opponents have three separate sets of cards, each for one game; 99% of the time, that’s all you’ll see out of them. The only ways to tamper with it as far as I know are:

-Return cards to their hand; They seem to play that card first on the next round, instead of another card they could have.
-Put cards directly from their deck to the discard pile. I haven’t tried this, but I’d assume it changes things.

In other words, the AI is usually working with the same hands. This is a blessing and a curse; It can’t get unlucky with a bad hand, but you can always know what your opponent will play after just one match.

Going very quickly over the third matches for the other tamers:


Nacky just throws some more random Digimon at us. Of note: Hawkmon (2/3 Red Rookie).

>
So does Steve. Say hi to Gizamon (1/1 Blue Rookie)!


Wong runs a piece of removal; This program card (which shall remain mysteriously unnamed because I haven’t named anything else an opponent used that isn’t a Summon card so what the hell right) destroys a targeted Brown Digimon (in this case my Gotsumon). Note the sad Floramon (1/1 Green Rookie).


He also uses one of the Best Program Cards Ever: Summon Devimon. My folder in the test playthrough relied on having four of this, as well as four of Devimon; There are very few opponents I couldn’t beat.
At this point, I got 10 of each Booster we can get here. Why? Because. I’m going to continue doing this for every booster in the future, too.


Let’s get crackin’!

You have to speak to Divermon to open boosters. At this point you just choose one and get six cards. Early boosters are seldom interesting, so here are a few highlights from 01a:


Berserk Energy is the earliest removal Program you can get that targets anything. It’s pretty good early on. (A Digimon with 0 HP goes to the discard pile immediately)


Bakemon! Any Champions are good early on.


This is the first of the 02a packs, but there was nothing interesting there, so here’s a picture of the singles shop here in Asuka:


Yep: A bunch of Mega-level Digimon with huge prices (also Protect Armor for 1000 BIT, and I guess one Ultimate-level Digimon too). This shop is unique in that it only keeps this selection for a little while; It then reverts to a much more typical selection for this part of the game. I never ground out the money to get these cards here, since there’s no real point.

There’s one last thing left to do in Asuka:


We now have enough Charisma to enter El Dorado.


Ponchomon: This is an Item Maniac’s El Dorado!
Ponchomon: You’re cool. I’ll give you an El Dorado ID!

This was actually a second Charisma check, but obviously we have enough.


Rapper Mike: Only club members that are tight can enter!
Rapper Mike: We’re tight, so you can go in!

There isn’t much to do in El Dorado, but there’s a door to the east…

It’s another entrance to the Cargo Tower.


Goggles: Hey! The lift is moving!


There’s nothing at the top, either.


Goggles: This is kinda fun.

Well, that’s it for Asuka right now.

Before we go, Let’s get a quick look at our starting folder:



You should know most of these cards by now; I’ll just explain the few you haven’t seen yet.

3x Summon Goburimon
2x Trade Charge
1x Summon Hagurumon
1x Protect Armor
1x Assault Armor (+10 AP to a Digimon)
1x Yanmamon
1x Elecmon
2x Patamon
1x Kunemon
1x Divermon
1x Gekomon
2x Gomamon
1x Gizamon
1x Crabmon
1x Vegiemon
1x Tentomon (2/3 Green Rookie)
2x Palmon
1x Floramon
1x Flareraizamon
1x SandYanmamon
1x Hawkmon
3x Goburimon
1x Roachmon
2x DemiDevimon
1x Aruraumon
1x Candlemon (1/1 Black Rookie)
1x BomberNanimon
1x Gotsumon
3x Hagurumon

Card battling is my favorite aspect of DMW3 – specifically the deckbuilding, because the battles themselves are always predictable.



Next time: Seiryu City.