Video Game / Digimon Adventure 02: D-1 Tamers

Digimon Adventure 02: D-1 Tamers is a WonderSwan Color game based on the Digimon franchise. It's the third title in a miniseries of Digimon games for the console following Ryo Akiyama, and it's the one which gets to the point: how he dimension-hopped out of Digimon Adventure into Digimon Tamers.

Shortly after the previous game (Digimon Adventure 02: Tag Tamers), Ryo is visiting Ken during his illness. Ken prompts him to check his computer, which contains a strange quiz. After completing it, Ryo is dragged back into the Digital World, where he's informed that three of the Four Holy Beasts have turned evil and the fourth requires the help of a suitable Tamer to challenge its former comrades. To that end, it established the D-1 Tournament, a challenge pitting Chosen Children and Tamers against each other to determine who is able to assist the Holy Beast in battle. Ryo participates, but little does he know what truly waits at its end...

Gameplay is similar to its predecessor, but with some tweaks: combat is now turn-based three-on-three matches, with Jogress evolution being required to obtain strong Digimon.

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Tropes:

• The Ace: Many of the other participants in the tournament consider Ryo this, and considering he's the only one who's had any success at fighting Millenniummon it's not hard to see why.
  • Broken Ace: Ryo winds up as this at the end, after the perceived betrayal by the Holy Beasts and the Chosen Children. He goes off to fight Millenniummon anyway, but a lot of characters (Taichi especially) notice he's no longer quite himself.
• All There in the Manual: The third part of Ryo's story; this is the part which covers his actual act of canon immigration. It also ties into his massive demeanor shift between his appearances in the first two games and in Tamers.
• Anti-Frustration Features: If you ever need to run from a dungeon for whatever reason, your team will be completely healed on your way out. Also, in the final section of every dungeon from the Toy dungeon onwards, there's a rare item that occasionally spawns that gives one Digimon five jogress points, which makes evolving digimon much easier. Oh, and due to the way the jogress system works, you can jogress Toyagumon with just about any digimon to give that digimon a free jogress point.
• Chick Magnet: There has to be a reason why Mimi invited Ryo on a date after the tournament.
• Child Soldier: Ryo is treated like this by the Chosen Children and the Four Holy Beasts.
• Despair Event Horizon: Being forced to sacrifice Digimon who'd fought at his side throughout the tournament was bad enough^note  Unless you specifically brought along a useless digimon for the sole purpose of sacrificing it, which makes this Gameplay and Story Segregation, but Ryo crosses this when he learns that the whole tournament was a sham, the Four Holy Beasts had tricked him, and the Chosen Children found out but said nothing until the whole story came out.
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Strong enough to kick both Ryo and Millenniummon out of this dimension.
• Famed In-Story: Ryo is already known as "The Legendary Tamer" (the same title he has in Digimon Tamers) among the Chosen Children for his success at fighting off Millenniummon.
• Guide Dang It!: Want to get a specific Digimon that isn't a random encounter? Want to fill up the Analyzer? If you don't have a guide, HAVE FUN SPENDING THE REST OF YOUR LIFE JOGRESSING DIGIMON!^note  This guide and these resources are both quite helpful in that regard.
• Heroic BSoD: This is how Ryo takes his treatment from the Holy Beasts.
• Hijacked by Ganon: Though really, given the whole game series is about fighting Millenniummon, this is hardly a surprise or a spoiler.
• Infinity -1 Sword: Digitama 33, AKA the Milleniumon Digitama. It's easy to get, and results in a digimon whose power at Champion \ Adult level rivals most Ultimate \ Mega digimon. All you have to do to get it is find two Raremon and Jogress them together. This creates digitama 33, which can eventually evolve into Milleniumon himself with enough Jogress Points. If you're too impatient to take advantage of that, Raremon itself is the only digimon in the game that needs no jogress points at all to evolve past Champion \ Adult level. This gets you either Metaletemon or Kingetemon, both of which still have much higher HP and DP than even digidestined digimon do (although they require a LOT of experience to somewhat balance this out). You can catch Raremon at the Graveyard Dungeon as a rare encounter about halfway through the game.
• Infinity +1 Sword: AND IT'S A DOOZY! Four Digimon^note  Archnemon, Mummymon, Volcamon, and Masterveedramon in this game have over 2000 health and 700 DP. To put this in perspective, the final boss has 3000 health and the most expensive technique in the game costs 62 DP.^note  Not to mention that most Mega \ Ultimate level digimon have less than 1000 HP and 250 DP. Getting them takes FOREVER, though.^note  Where to even begin? Let's start with the "easiest" one, Mummymon. In order to get him, you have to jogress two sets of two raremons together, and then jogress the resulting two digimon once they reach child level. Then you have to do it again. Then you have to fuse those two digimon together. As for Volcamon, to get him, you need to merge two sets of two Ogremons together, and also merge two sets of two devimon together, then wait until the resulting digimon are child level, then merge the resulting digimon from the Devimon set together, and the resulting digimon from the Ogremon set together. Then you need to raise those two digimon to child level and merge them together. Lastly, fuse the resulting digimon with Raremon. Whew. As for Archnemon? You need to jogress two Volcamons. Which means you have to do everything that's just been described, TWICE. This means you need EIGHT Ogremons, EIGHT Devimons, and two Raremons. Oh, and jogressing two Volcamons is the ONLY way to get Archnemon, regardless of what any guides say. Or you could just use Deadly Sting. Except for Masterveedramon. All you have to do to get him is see and own 50 different digimon. This gives you Red (for seeing 50) and Gold (for owning 50) Veedramons that you can fuse together to get Masterveedramon. Just don't give him enough Jogress Points to evolve past Adult / Champion. He gets much, much weaker if you do.
• Interface Spoiler: Whichever Holy beast is said to be corrupt is just defined by the answers you give in a questionnaire at the start of the game, tipping off the player that maybe there's something else behind the plot....
• My God, What Have I Done?: Taichi feels guilt when he realises that Ryo is undergoing a Heroic BSoD due to being forced to sacrifice three of his own Digimon and feels betrayed by the Four Holy Beasts and the Chosen Children.
  • The epilogue mentions that after Ryo's disappearance, the Chosen Children scoured the Digital World in an attempt to find him. It's easy to imagine several of them doing so out of a sense of guilt.
• Sadistic Choice: In one of the dungeons Ryo can enter in order to train, he's horrified to discover that to leave he has to choose to sacrifice one of the Digimon that helped him take on the tournament. He has to do this three times.^note  Or you can leave said digimon in storage and substitute it with a useless digimon.
• Senseless Sacrifice: Ryo wouldn't have had to sacrifice three of his partners if he hadn't been instructed to use a dungeon that wouldn't let him out otherwise. Upon learning that the whole tournament, including said dungeon, was nothing more than an over-the-top training regimen, Ryo is stunned and disillusioned by the fact that the Holy Beasts (and the Chosen Children) deliberately put him into such a situation.

• Suicide by Cop: It isn't difficult to imagine that when Moon=Millenniummon self-destructed and caused a rip that started sucking everything in, Ryo (exhausted and betrayed) didn't even try to save himself.
• Taking You with Me: Millenniummon, to Ryo.

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