Video Game / Digimon World

Digimon World is a Digimon video game for the Playstation. Released by Bandai in 1999, as a result it is based more on the Digimon Virtual Pets rather than the better-known anime series.

The main character is pulled through his V Pet device into the Digital World and is then tasked by Jijimon to rescue File Island from the corruption they have encountered. The majority of the Digimon have become wild and the only city has fallen into disarray.

The majority of the game revolves around the player raising their Digimon, much like the Virtual Pets. The Digimon the player raises must fight wild Digimon in order to try and return them to the city.

It was followed by a variety of different sequels, as well as a card battle spin-off. Digimon World Re:Digitize and Digimon World -next 0rder- are direct sequels to this game, following the original gameplay much more closely.

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Digimon World provides examples of:

• 100% Completion: Hoo boy. Getting all the medals in the game is the closest it has to 100% Completion, and to get every last one of them, you have to: beat the final boss, win every single one of the arena cups at least once, play for 10 in-game years, collect all of the cards, recruit all the recruitable Digimon, catch one hundred fish, raise every single obtainable Digimon and get a perfect score of 10 in curling.
• Affably Evil: Some of the random Mook Digimon you run into are like this. One RedVegiemon casually asks you "Where you from, homie?" before battling your partner.
• All in a Row: Partner Digimon generally follow you at all times.
• And the Adventure Continues: After beating Machinedramon, the player character goes home, but some time afterward gets summoned back to deal with Analogman's leftovers.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • The starting Digimon you get is stronger then most rookies fresh from Digivolution, and is 0 days old. This will give you some leeway for training before you can increase the gym's efficiency.
  • The Drimogemon sidequest is a useful source of stat gains and bits when you are just getting started. The Goburimon also don't start fights while you have a cart just to make it easier.
  • Birdramon's transport to the Misty Trees leaves you right outside Toy Town. So if you have a Numemon you don't have to drag a mon weaker then a rookie through a high-level area.
• Always Accurate Attack: Techniques that locks into the target such as Magma Bomb and Tear Drop, or that covers the entire screen like Winter Blast and Heat Laser is unavoidable, but still can be blocked.
• Awesome, but Impractical: A couple of powerful finishers.
  • One of them is Giromon's. It's supposedly the most powerful in the game, but the way it functions prevents it from being useful a lot of the time. Unlike most finishers, which are guaranteed to hit the enemy when successfully launched, Giromon creates and throws a bomb into the ground, and the enemy has to run into the bomb to take damage. However, due to battle mechanics, you have no control over the direction Giromon aims. Combined with the fixed range of the throw, in smaller areas Giromon is likely to throw into the scenery (or even off-screen) where the enemy can't even reach.
  • Another example and candidate for strongest finisher is Digitamamon's finisher, Nightmare Syndrome. It creates a ghost that inflicts damage on contact. The problem is that it flies randomly, so it either runs out of power, hits the enemy, or hits your own Digimon.
  • Powerful techniques in general. Many of them take several seconds to charge, which is plenty enough time for the enemy to attack, interrupting the technique. The fact that your Digimon's MP is drained as soon as the attacking animation starts could mean that your Digimon may be out of MP before it has hit the enemy once. Of course, there's nothing keeping you from using this tactic against the opponent...
  • Digivolution items are a quick, easy way to make your Digimon digivolve to a specific form, and can be a very easy way to get an Ultimate-level Digimon. However, they don't provide the stat bonuses or increased lifespan that natural digivolution would confer, so the resultant Digimon will invariably end up extremely underpowered and won't live long. This is averted, however, by the Monzaemon suit in Toy Town, which does give stat and lifespan bonuses for no effort, which makes it just as awesome as it sounds.
• Ax-Crazy: The recruitable Giromon in Factorial Town is... unstable, to say the least.
• Back Tracking: In order to recruit certain end-game Digimon, such as Leomon and Ogremon, you have to backtrack to certain places you've visited before.
• Bears Are Bad News: WaruMonzaemon, the villain of the Toy Town storyline, who kidnapped their leader Hagurumon.
• Becoming the Costume: This is what happens if you have a Numemon and take it to the stuffed Monzaemon toy in Toy Town. The transformation has no negative effects on your Digimon, though, in fact it turns a (usually) useless monster into a potential Disc-One Nuke. It's virtually the only time when the game will give you an Ultimate level Digimon as a Partner for free.
• Beef Gate: You can go to many different locations starting off, but some of these areas are either guarded by a required fight against a Champion or higher leveled Digimon or have higher leveled Digimon that are incredibly difficult to sneak around.
• Big Eater: Many Digimon, such as Numemon and Tyrannomon, tend to demand large amounts of food to stay happy. Because of this, beginners and even veterans might find it difficult to support these two in the early stages of the game, having to spend a good amount of time looking for food and training their Digimon.
  • The Kunemon found in the forest next to File City manages to eat several trees on his own (which does save the tedious journey to the bridge).
• Bizarre Taste in Food: You know those piles of poop that your Digimon leaves behind if you fail to take him to the bathroom in time? They make nice little (or not so little) snacks for Numemon and Sukamon.
• Body Uploading: The protagonist is literally bodily sucked into the Digital World, though a handheld "V Pet device".
• Bonus Dungeon: Back Dimension.
• Boring, but Practical: Moves that have short attack animations. They often aren't very powerful or flashy, but make up for it by being much quicker for the Digimon to use, allowing them to even out the lack of power, not having to worry about their attack being interrupted, and can interrupt opponents during their attacks. Sonic Jab, despite being a weak move, is considered one of the best moves a Digimon can have for these exact reasons.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Many of the bosses, especially towards the end of the story.
• Broken Bridge:
  • Quite literally. The bridge next to File City has long since collapsed from disuse, but can be rebuilt after you meet Coelamon.
  • There's an invisible bridge by the Overdell Cemetery. You can't cross it until Yuramon tells you it exists.
  • A pile of rocks by Mt. Panorama. Fighting Meramon will clear them away, allowing access to most of the rest of the island.
• Carnivore Confusion: Digimon, regardless of species, do not eat each other. They do eat meat, but it's grown on a farm. Literally, it grows out of the ground like a plant. Even more confusingly, the farmers growing the meat are all sentient plants.
• Chekhov's Gun: The Rain Plant, which grows in Palmon's meat garden every now and then, aside from being a useful battle item is also a part of recruiting Veggiemon.
• Cherry Tapping: A few moves are fast, deal little damage, and consume little MP. Spamming these is actually a viable strategy, as the attack speed will interrupt almost every attack the opponent tries to throw your way and you won't lose a lot of MP.

• Cosmetic Award: The medals.
• Covers Always Lie: The PAL cover recycles promotional artwork of the 7 partner Digimon from Digimon Adventure together. Even overlooking the implication that this game has anything to do with the first anime series (which it doesn't), Tentomon is not a playable partner, just a common enemy from a single area, while Gomamon isn't even in the game.
• Cruelty Is the Only Option: Want Frigimon to come to the city? You're going to have to take a Fresh or In-Training 'mon to Freezeland and find the right spot to stand in. It's the only way to get Frigi's attention.
• Crutch Character: Centarumon is the easiest Champion leveled Digimon to get^note only requiring 100 brains, a weight of 25 to 35, and less than three care mistakes and has decent stats, making it the easiest and most worth-while Champion to shoot for early on. Getting its ultimates are a little more involved, however, and once you unlock easier ways to get stats, it's often better to shoot for other Digimon lines in the late game.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Given that the only indicator of a Digimon's power is where they are or what level they are at, ones like Piximon tend to tear Rookie and Champion Digimon apart if you aren't aware of what they're capable of.
  • The fight against Numemon in Factorial Town's sewer, for the Numemon, since by that point the player has to have already fought and defeated several much more powerful enemies.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Most Virus type Digimon, or Digimon that were evil in the TV show, are perfectly sociable as long as they're not Brainwashed and Crazy. The biggest example is probably Myotismon, who loves to entertain his guests, has a rockstar-like reputation and is a bit of a Reluctant Mad Scientist. Then, of course, there's your partner, which can take on all kinds of demonic or monstrous shapes but will be your loyal bodyguard at all times.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Your Digimon dying of old age doesn't really have any serious effect, but dying in battle means they might forget some techniques.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Many of the Digimon you can recruit need to be fought first. Afterwards, they'll magically regain their memories and agree to join the city.
• Developer's Foresight: To explore all of Great Canyon, you have to walk over an unstable piece of rock in order to fall down to a lower level. After the fall, the protagonist asks his partner if he's okay and apologizes for not being careful, but if your Digimon is currently in a form that possesses wings, the protagonist will instead call him a cheater for flying down unharmed.
  • Angemon has hints for almost all recruitable Digimon, excluding Agumon and the ones found at Mt. Infinity. This includes Digimon that a player would be highly likely to recruit before him, like Palmon and Betamon, especially seeing how Angemon is found in a fairly challenging dungeon that's restricted to Vaccine-type Digimon.

• Difficult, but Awesome: The Greymon line has some of the best stats in the game and can absolutely floor even boss Digimon, but they also have some of the strictest evolution requirements in the game, often requiring mammoth stat grinding and a weight level that will require you to have the money to spend on buying meat for them.
• Digital Avatar: Everything is digital.
• Disappeared Dad: It is never informed whether or not the protagonist has a father, only his mother who writes the letter at the beginning and is seen after beating Machinedramon is present in the game.
• Disc-One Nuke:
  • If you're lucky when your Digimon dies, there is about a 10% chance of it Digivolving to a Bakemon. This can give you a champion days earlier than usual. Many speedrun strategies actually recommend getting one.
  • Provided that you know what you're doing (most likely because you looked up a guide), it's actually possible to raise an ultimate from your first Digimon. This means you can potentially access many of the game's higher-level areas and sidequests very early on, which makes it possible to beat the game before your first Digimon dies of old age.
  • Vademon is probably the easiest and possibly unintentional Ultimate to get. Just have a Digimon with over ten days and scold or praise it with a 50% chance to digivolve. It has a solid stat boost and has a full movelist of Mech techniques to learn.
  • It's also entirely possible to hit their bonus conditions for battling by complete accident, likely while grinding to learn special attacks. This could give you a MetalGreymon or Megadramon by coincidence.
• Discount Card: You get a 10% discount from the city's shop if your Digimon is Fresh or In-Training.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The Happymushroom increases your Digimon's happiness, but may make him sick. Wonder what kind of mushrooms they are.
• Dub-Induced Plot Hole: A minor one at the Grey Lord's Mansion. After you find Myotismon lying half-dead on his room, he asks for food. Now, while every other Digimon in the game eats the meat that grows on File City's farm and the other random vegetables and mushrooms lying around the game world, Myotismon will refuse any of those, and only accept the "steak" in his fridge. Why would he prefer starvation to eating the food you're already carrying around is left unspoken. That is, unless you're playing the Japanese version, which specifically labels said steak as "Blood-Dripping Flesh". Since he's a vampire Digimon, it makes sense he'd nourish himself by drinking blood, but you wouldn't know that from the translated text.
• Dung Fu: Filth-type moves, as well as Numemon and Sukamon and variations thereof.
• Dynamic Loading: Every time you switch to a new area.
• Early Game Hell: As it takes some time to unlock the vendor that sells portable potties, and upgrade the meat farm to sirloin level, a large chunk of the early parts of your adventure will likely involve a lot of running to toilets and constantly scavenging for mushrooms (or using most of your money to buy meat). Especially annoying if your first partner ends up digivolving into Tyranomon, who eats a lot compared to other Champion-level Digimon.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: Mostly for Digimon that were introduced in this game. Examples include:
  • RedVegiemon is simply a Palette Swap of normal Vegiemon. Later entries in the franchise gave it a more distinct design, with a different face and spiked club-like growths at the ends of its arms.
  • Cherrymon's face looks nothing like the modern variant's, lacking the moustache, Glowing Eyes of Doom, and possessing a stitched-shut mouth. It also lacks the cane and cherries on its branches (making the dub name a Non-Indicative Name) and it has legs instead of a bunch of roots.
  • Guardromon is bronze and silver in color, rather than being copper-red all over, and has red eyes rather than green. It's also less round than the modern variant, though this may be due to graphical limitations.
  • Phoenixmon lacks the Holy Rings around its legs.
  • Sha(r)mamon is a very dark brown in color with a green mohawk, rather than dark green with a light green mohawk. Possibly changed to make it look less like an example of Hollywood Natives.
  • Machinedramon has a silver head with glowing red eyes, rather than a dark gray head with empty eyesockets. The glowing eyes reappeared in -next 0rder- as a Call-Back.
  • Tankmon's upper body is bright yellow, rather than light brown with camo paint spots.
  • The paw on Jijimon's staff looks like a Garurumon's paw, rather than being a generic yellow animal paw.
  • Meteormon is a dark brown Palette Swap of Gotsumon rather than a white one.
  • Brachiomon is dark gray instead of orange and it has a bony protrusion on its head rather than a horn.
  • IceDevimon is dark blue rather than white.
  • MoriShellmon's body is brown rather than dark green.
  • DemiMeramon has no hands and is instead simply a fireball with a face.
  • Muchomon's beak is yellow rather than green.
  • MasterTyrannomon is a black and taller recolor of Tyrannomon, rather then grey and covered with scars.
  • WaruSeadramon's helmet conceals his eyes behind dark screens, which makes him look like he's using sunglasses.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: As the game was made fairly early on into the franchise's lifespan (before the first anime even came out), much of it may come across as strange to fans of the franchise, especially those introduced through the anime.
  • Palmon cannot digivolve into Togemon (who isn't even in the game).
  • Whamon is a Champion and not an Ultimate ^note Though it would be established later on that Whamon at both levels coexist as variants of each other.
  • MetalGreymon (Virus) was the "original" MetalGreymon; its orange variant MetalGreymon(Vaccine) did not exist yet, as it was created for the 'Digimon Adventure' anime released a few months after this game.
  • Ultimate(Perfect) is the final level of evolution rather than the Mega(Ultimate) and Ultra(Super Ultimate) levels. Again because this game debut a few months before the anime introduced evolution levels beyond Ultimate.
  • Machinedramon was originally classified as an Ultimate-level Digimon when it made its debut in Digimon World, after Digimon Adventure anime, it has been consistently classified as a Mega-level Digimon.
  • The very title of the game is one. This is one of the very few instances in the franchise where the world the Digimon inhabit is not called the Digital World, but simply Digimon World instead.
• Easing into the Adventure: Early on in the game, the first few bosses can be beaten by a Rookie, or a just digivolved Champion, with little fuss, and the local monsters aren't anything to write home about. Betamon and Coelamon can even be convinced to join the city just by talking to them. Then, when File City's prosperity reaches fifteen points, Greymon shows up...
• Elemental Powers: Most of the techs.
  • Playing with Fire: Fire techs.
  • Bare-Fisted Monk: Battle techs, with a Dishing Out Dirt tech thrown in for good measure.
  • Shock and Awe and Blow You Away: Air techs
  • Poisonous Digimon, Big Creepy-Crawlies, and Green Thumb: Nature techs.
  • Making a Splash and An Ice Digimon: Ice techs
  • Extra-ore-dinary and Energy Weapon: Mech techs.
  • Dung Fu: Filth techs.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: It's there, but it's subtler and more complex than most examples of this trope, to the point where the game doesn't even tell you about it.
• Endless Game: Probably. The 10 year Glitch sometimes makes the game unable to reload a saved game after the 10th year of gameplay.
• Engrish: One of the arena cups is described as the 'Metaric Cup'. While a quick glance might give the idea that it's simply a misspelt version of 'metric', some fans think it's an Engrish translation of 'metallic'. Bizarrely, either of them could be the correct translation, as the cup is for cyborg Digimon.
  • And some of the attacks, too, like "Metal Sprinter/Splinter" which throws small computer pieces around the screen.
  • For whatever reason, the intro screens for the different cups were left untouched in the international versions. The result is Engrish in spades, including such gems as "WHO's A MOST COOLER ?", "COME TUGETHER !!" and " "CRAPPER's" CUP".
• Event Flag: This can lead to some almost Unwinnable moments, most noteably the Greymon fight which a player may encounter when having just a In-Training.
• Extreme Omnivore: Using items on your Digimon partner is represented as it eating said item. This includes floppies, evolution items, and even the portable potty.
• Famed In-Story: After a while, your character starts getting a reputation around the island. Though this does lead an incredibly powerful Greymon to Jijimon's doorstep looking to fight you...
• Fantastic Racism: Some Digimon don't like the Analogue, i.e. the player.
• Fishing Minigame: It will make you want to gouge your eyes out with boredom, and is full of Guide Dang It! moments. The rewards are worth it, though.... Also, to unlock access to Beetle Land, you must fish for the Lake Guardian, MegaSeadramon.
• Flunky Boss: Ogremon never fights alone, he's always accompanied by two other Digimon, usually a pair of Agumon. The third time, in Whamon's Cave, he's got a Gabumon and a WaruSeadramon.
• Forced Transformation:
  • The Flat status affliction causes a Digimon to revert to a two-dimensional appearance reminiscent of the old Digimon virtual pets. Until they change back, they are limited to a weak attack and cannot block, though they're invincible during the change animation.
  • There are some undesirable digivolutions at Champion-level. They have lower stats than their previous forms, and occur when your Rookie doesn't meet the requirements for any other Champion (Numemon), has both its happiness and discipline reach zero (Nanimon), or poops a 16th time outside of a toilet (Sukamon, and this evolution happens the 16th time your Digimon poops out of a toilet regardless of its evolution stage). When you get a Sukamon, the King of Sukamon at Trash Mountain will change it back, though.
• Friendly Fireproof: Averted for enemy Digimon. Their attack can damage their own allies.
• Friendly Neighbourhood Vampires: Myotismon looks like a blond Bela Lugosi-style Dracula, owns a spooky mansion with coffins as furniture and a lab, and likes discussing matters over food. Also a really nice guy.
• Game-Breaking Bug: Oh so many in the US version. While most of them aren't quite at the level of "game-breaking", the game is absolutely crawling with bugs. The most commonly cited in that version is the jukebox bug, which crashes your game if you try to play it.
  • Some NPCs (especially the ones in the bonus areas in end of the game) will trap you in endless loops of dialogue that you can only leave by holding your left control away from the monster and rapidly pressing X to try to skip through the dialogue. If you're trapped in a corner and can't get past then your only hope is to reset.
  • It is entirely possible to advance Ogremon's questline before beating Meramon at the Drill Tunnel by recruiting Coelamon and forcing Yuramon's rumour about the invisible bridge at Overdell. If Ogremon reaches Drill Tunnel before Meramon is defeated, then the latter will become unrecruitable for that playthrough. While not really necessary to complete the game, this will lock the player out of 100% completion, and also deprive them of a very handy shortcut to Mt. Panorama.
  • Due to a programming oversight, the Mojyamon at Freezeland scoot ever so slightly in the player's direction every time they are interacted with. If a player interacts enough times with them without moving, they will trap the player within their collision box. If this happens, the player will be unable to move, and they must either use an Auto-Pilot or reset their game to escape their grasp.
  • Starting at 700 Brains, a Digimon will start getting MP Consumption Bonuses after battle every 100 points, plus at 999 brains. The intended behaviour is for the Digimon's techs to cost 5% less MP for each MP Consumption Bonus they get. However, in the US version, the message letting the player know of the bonus lacks a terminating character. This essentially crashes the game as it tries to render on screen data past what would normally be shown. You don't even get a chance to save: you might as well just reset the game after getting the notification.
  • Due to how the geometry of the maps is handled, it's entirely possible for an in-battle Digimon to be able to phase into normally blocked-off areas through faulty spots in the terrain, but then be unable (or unwilling) to go back out. If no Digimon participating in the battle can reach each other with attacks (or even be able to get close enough to each other to trigger a ranged attack), then you're essentially soft-locked as Digimon cannot phase through terrain during battle. If this happens during a boss fight, where the "Flee" command is disabled, you might as well just reset the game and lose progress.
  • Ogremon's fortress is normally accessed by talking to the guard at the entrance; in the PAL version, or at the very least some versions of the French one, the guard cannot be talked to, making Whamon and Shellmon impossible to obtain. While this doesn't make the game impossible to finish, it makes it harder as you'll have less Digimon to send to File City.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: The game addresses the fact that certain Digimon are simply too big to be partner Digimon. The non-battle NPC versions of these Digimon are full-sized, while the partner and battle character versions are smaller.
  • Kokatorimon's special is stated in canon to turn its target to stone. In-game, the recruitable Kokatorimon even lives amongst eerily life-like statues of Digimon, the implication being all but actually spoken. However, neither the Kokatorimon boss nor the playable ones can permanently turn anything to stone.
  • While in some cases requiring luck alongside very deliberate planning, it's completely possible to have a Digimon be unable to use a technique that they, by all means, should be able to. Like a big fire-breathing dinosaur that suddenly "forgot" how to sustain a steady stream of fire. Outside of their special attack that is; that specific instance is fine and won't ever be forgotten.
• Get on the Boat: Or rather, Get On The Whamon...
• Get Out!:
  • KingSukamon tends to say this after you get him to devolve your partner.
  • Much of the Digimon in Mt. Infinity say this.
• Ghost Leg Lottery: Centarumon in the aptly-named Amida Forest will snipe at you for half of your partner Digimon's total HP if you don't follow the rules of the lottery as you move through it. The sign in the previous screen that showcases the layout of the forest ahead is a clue to the format and rules, though players unfamiliar with Amidakuji may not find it helpful. You don't know if you're taking the right path until the very end, and reaching either of the wrong ones will send you back to the start.
• Global Airship: Birdramon's movement service.
  • Important to note that it is a One-Way Trip, where you'll need to walk back or use an Auto Pilot.
• Goldfish Poop Gang: Ogremon's team.
• Gone Horribly Wrong: Myotismon's experiments result in a SkullGreymon who ends up taking his creator captive. The skeleton dragon mellows out a bit after you defeat him, though.
• Gratuitous Japanese: Basically, nothing but the text was translated - every occurrence of Japanese in the graphics are left as is. This is particularly confusing when Ogremon's gang takes over Drill Tunnel, as the player character reacts angrily when he notices that the sign on which the tunnel's name reads has been altered. The problem is that the sign is just a part of the background graphics, entirely in katakana and no translation is given for what is says when Ogremon takes over, potentially leaving quite a few non Japanese-speaking players slightly confused.
  • Speaking of the player character, his few voiced lines during actual gameplay are also left undubbed, resulting in him shouting "Yatta!" after winning a battle and saying "Oyasumi" when letting his Digimon sleep even in the international versions.
• Gratuitous Spanish: Some Muchomon, in their pre-battle quotes.
• Gravity Barrier: Partially averted in that you have to fall to get into a certain area of the game.
• Great Offscreen War: A hundred years ago, some humans appeared on File Island, and tried to take it over. The island's inhabitants rose up and fought them off. Of course, when you consider that Digital World time goes way faster than 'analog' time, that could be not too long before the beginning of your adventure...
• Guide Dang It!:
  • While the manual for the game does mention that Digivolution can be affected by how you raise your Digimon, it only gives a few hints for three Champion-level Digimon, with the rest requiring you to figure it out yourself. While some of the connections can be made intuitively (eg. feeding your Digimon more food than normal makes it more likely to evolve into a heavier Digimon), there isn't any real hint as to how to specifically get any Digimon. Even worse, one of the main factors that determine evolution is the number of care mistakes you make, where not doing enough, too much, or any at all can drastically change your results. It bears mentioning that the condition requirements for HerculesKabuterimon^note 50-60 weight, no more than 5 mistakes, 0 battles, at least 40 techniques learned, Phoenixmon^note 25-35 weight, no more than 3 mistakes, 0 battles, at least 40 techniques learned and MegaSeadramon^note 25-35 weight, no more than 5 mistakes, 0 battles, at least 40 techniques learned weren't discovered for years.
    • This evolution FAQ clears up a lot of the mystique around the game, such as how to Digivolve properly, what care mistakes are, how to raise and lower weight, etc. Tiredness, sickness, and losing battles not being care mistakes were only discovered 17 years after the game came out. And even following the guide, it is still *very* easy to wind up with a Numemon even if you felt like you've done things perfectly.
  • Recruiting certain monsters can be this too. For example, Frigimon. The game tells you to head to Freezeland with a Digimon who can't stand the cold. All well and good. It never mentions that you have to stand on a very specific spot in one area of Freezeland to meet Frigimon.
• Haunted House: Grey Lord's Mansion, which has spooky music music and Digimon like Bakemon hanging around it, complete with a graveyard in front of it. It is owned by Myotismon. It also houses Skullgreymon, Myostismon's creation, and looks suspiciously like an expy of the mansion from Resident Evil.
• Heel–Face Turn: It is hinted that Digitamamon is either the son or Digitama of Machinedramon himself, hence why he is so powerful. Despite this, however, he isn't evil, and instead decides to work at the City's Restaurant.
• Hidden Mechanic: In addition to evolution conditions like certain stat barriers and battle techniques learned, the game also has conditions for Care Mistakes and battles won, which aren't described or featured in the game at all. If a certain Digimon requires over 50 battles won it's best to keep a count yourself.

• Hoist by His Own Petard: Analogman 'dies' as a result of his own weapon.
• Hot-Blooded: Our nameless hero does not have many lines, but he challenges enough powerful Digimon to a fight and rushes into so many dangerous situations that we can safely assume he sits comfortably among the other Digimon protagonists. Sometimes the game gives you the option to be more prudent, but this is usually the inferior choice.
• Humans Are Bastards: The Big Bad is a human and pretty much a predecessor to Akihiro Kurata. The hints given in the backstory state he's not the only human who's come to File Island looking to enslave everyone.
• Ice Magic Is Water: Aquatic Digimon like Coelamon and Seadramon are classified as Ice type. Likewise, Water-based techs (Water Blitz, Aqua Magic, and Tear Drop) are treated as Ice techniques.
• Implausible Deniability: When you first encounter Palmon, they'll try to insist they're a flower repeatedly, eventually attacking you for bugging them.
• Inevitable Tournament: Although there are battle arenas, they're not required to recruit Digimon. Non-combat tournaments are.
• Infinity +1 Element: Mech, the only specialty restricted to Ultimate Digimon (barring the enemy-only Guardromon). In addition to being exclusive to the strongest Digimon, all Mech techniques are hard-hitters that consume a lot of MP, with the exception of Full Power/Potential, which is the best Status Buff tech in the game.
• Insane Troll Logic: A great many Digimon. In fairness, they are being driven mad. Andromon in Factorial Town is a major offender, refusing to admit there might be any kind of problem.
• Intrepid Reporter: Shellmon, once joining your city, will make a bulletin board where you can read news.

• In-Universe Game Clock: An in-game minute lasts for a second, and thus a day theoretically lasts for 24 minutes (provided you don't train or allow your Digimon to sleep). The day itself is divided into four sections: morning, midday, sunset, and midnight. 30 days make up a year; there are no months or seasons. Lampshaded early in-game.
• It's Up to You: While the Digimon you persuade and recruit will help you in their own small way, you are the only one who will actually explore the world, recruit more Digimon, and stop Analogman regardless of how powerful the Digimon you've recruited are.
• Jerkass:
  • Ogremon is this when you encounter him in the Great Canyon area. He ambushes you and tries to steal all your belongings. Worse, it's three against one and a pretty difficult fight if you're just starting. Also after you take over his fortress, he will steal Whamon's cave and later the Drill Tunnel where he'll have a Heel–Face Turn if you defeat him again.
  • The Weedmon from Monochromon's shop minigame are the stuff of customer service nightmares. They usually ask for meat, the cheapest thing you can sell, can still call the price too high and ask for a discount and if you fail to meet their demands, they storm out. It's a wonder Monochromon hasn't banned the things from his store yet.
  • King Sukamon doesn't like you and doesn't want you to stay in his Trash mountain. Luckily you don't have to fight him or anything and you can stay even to sleep if you want to.
  • The Otamamon in the swamp, which insults you over and over again until you attack it.
  • WaruMonzaemon who took over Toy Town and stole Hagurumon For the Evulz.
  • The main bad guy is of course a complete one.
• Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: Something is causing Digimon all over the island to gradually lose their memories and go berserk, and you have to find out what.
• Joke Character: Sukamon, Numemon and Nanimon are utterly useless in battle, and their stats take a hit during evolution. That said, Sukamon can evolve into Etemon, Nanimon into Digitamamon, and Numemon into Monzaemon, if the player knows what they're doing.
• Kamehame Hadoken: When a humanoid Digimon, such as Meramon, fires a Prominence Beam, it looks like this.
• Kill It with Fire: Meramon's plan is to set off the volcano he lives in, and collapse the island. Fortunately, he doesn't succeed.
• King Mook: KingSukamon, ruler of Trash Mountain, is basically a giant Sukamon with a crown.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Many of the Digimon forgot their life in the city after they left. Some even forgot how to speak.
• Let No Crisis Go to Waste: The reason Ogremon is attacking people is because he thought since the island was done for, that made it fair game to do whatever.
• Limit Break: All the "Finisher" attacks.
• Luck-Based Mission: In order to recruit Monochromon, you must make 3072 BITS worth of profit working in his shop. The customers that will come in, what they want, and to some extent their reaction to the price you offer them is entirely up to RNG. In order to even have a chance of reaching your goal you not only need to overcharge as many items as possible, but you also need to get at least a few customers wanting medicine (the most profitable item), with hopefully as few of your customers as possible being Weedmon (as they generally won't respond well to charging higher prices for goods) and praying that none of the customers walk out on you for overcharging. If you fail you essentially waste 8 hours of in-game time and only get a small amount of profit, with no choice but to try again and hope for better luck.
  • There are three recruitable Digimon (Mamemon, MetalMamemon, and Piximon) who appear randomly on certain maps. The chances of finding them are around 3%, meaning if you want to recruit them you have to enter and exit these maps several times until you get lucky. Not helping matters is that even if you do find them, unless you have a very strong Digimon and a lot of healing items, you probably won't be able to beat them, as they're all Ultimate level Digimon who are very tough.
• Made of Iron: The Gabumon in the Misty Forest is much tougher than his level would suggest.
• Magikarp Power: The "filth" Champion Digimon (Numemon, Sukamon, and Nanimon). All of them are designed as punishments for failing to raise your Digimon correctly in some way, with unpleasant designs and attacks mostly revolving around flinging poop at enemies. However if you're willing to put in the time and effort, each of them can digivolve into a powerful Ultimate.
• Megaton Punch: The second strongest Battle technique in the game.
• Mind Screw: The true ending if you go through the Back Dimension. It's explained in the spin-off, Digital Card Battle.
• Mirror Match: Possible but rare; you can fight a recruitable version of your Digimon.
  • Especially common with the first boss, who is an Agumon, which is one of the two starter Digimon.
• Money for Nothing: One of the Yeti-like Mojyamon in Freezeland will trade your relatively cheap recovery items and easy-to-catch fish for hugely valuable stat boosting items. These can be sold for a lot more money than the previous items cost.
• Mr. Exposition: Jijimon, then later Cherrymon, who fills the player in on a few details.
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Your Digimon can only have three techniques equipped at a time, while enemy Digimon can have four. However, this is most likely purely for technical reasons - all Digimon have four move slots, but the fourth slot is taken up by finishers for the playable Digimon. As most non-boss enemies don't have finishers, they can use the fourth move slot for other techniques.
• Narnia Time: Time passes much, much faster in Digimon World than in the human world, and no matter how many Digimon years it takes for the protagonist to defeat Analogman they'll always return home on the evening of the same day they left. Digimon World, being one of the earliest adaptations of Digimon, was also one of (if not the first) to establish that the Digital World runs on this trope.
• Never Say "Die": Digimon are said to 'fade away' if they're slain, although this is justified as they don't die, but rather regenerate into a weaker Digimon.
• No Cartoon Fish: Zig-zagged. Though fish Digimon such as Coelamon exist, non-sentient fish exist as well, which you can fish and use as a source of food.

• One Bullet at a Time: Only one projectile per Digimon is allowed onscreen. For example, a Digimon can't use Spit Fire again until after the first one disappears.
• Opening the Sandbox: When the game starts off, you can only explore File City and the surrounding forest. If you find Coelamon you can get across the river to the jungle, and if you explore Drill Tunnel you eventually can unlock the way through Mt. Panorama, after which the rest of the island is your oyster.
• Optional Boss:
  • Megadramon, who can be found on the second-to-last floor of Mt. Infinity, and fought. He's not relevant to the storyline, and can be skipped, he's just sort of there.
  • Digitamamon, who can be found on the top floor of Mt. Infinity after you beat the game.
• Overhead Interaction Indicator: A Pictorial Speech-Bubble appears above your Digimon expressing its various needs, such as food, sleep or going to a bathroom.
• Palette Swap: Many of the 'NPC' versions of playable Digimon are slightly different colors to the playable characters (the "best" example being Betamon to ModokiBetamon; the latter's colors are just a lighter, more saturated version of the former). The toy versions of Agumon come in two variants - they're not palette-swapped, but one is partly transparent.
  • These palette swaps actually became official Digimon, appearing in later video games, the trading card game and even in the anime.
• Pintsized Powerhouse: Piximon, Mamemon, and Metalmamemon, each being Ultimate-level Digimon, definitely qualify. All of them are really small, but they are all Ultimates. They're also pretty tough to recruit, having to go back and forth on screens until you finally see them, and then attempting to take them on.
  • Giromon is also small, but is different in the others in that he doesn't randomly appear. Despite this, he's an incredibly powerful boss, having access to DG Dimension and an ultimate that is one of the most powerful in the game, albeit hard to aim.
• Player Personality Quiz: How the game determines whether your starting partner will be Agumon or Gabumon. However, the quiz is notably shorter than most examples of this trope - you are only asked two yes/no questions, with the second question depending on your answer to the first one.
• Pokémon Speak: The recruitable Bakemon in Overdell Cemetery can only say slight variations of "Bake".
• Polar Penguins: This game introduces Penguinmon to the franchsie. An NPC one lives in Freeze Land and runs a curling minigame, and as the player's partner Digimon, one of its evolutions is the snowman-like Frigimon. According to lore found elsewhere, it was discovered in an Antarctic base's computer.
• Power-Up Food:
  • The meals you can buy at the restaurant all increase your Digimon's stats a bit. Can be abused for rather game breaking results thanks to a certain Good Bad Bug.
  • This is the first game in its series emphasizes raising Digimon like pets, not least of all by keeping them well fed. Throughout the game, you'll find a whole host of different meats, mushrooms, fruits, vegetables, and fish, with which to feed your Digimon in order to satiate their hunger and fatigue, increase lifespans and various stats, and restore HP and MP. Some of these can make them sick, though.
• Pre-existing Encounters: You can often tell if a Digimon is recruitable because of this. An example is the Agumon whom you encounter the second you enter Native Forest, and Greymon who will come fight you in the city once the prosperity value reaches 15 points.
• Promotional Powerless Piece of Garbage: The only way to legally obtain MetalEtemon was to participate in a Japan-only raffle that offered memory cards containing his Digivolution item, Metal Banana, as prizes. Despite his incredible rarity, gameplay-wise MetalEtemon is just a Vaccine-type recolor of normal Etemon with the exact same movepool.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • ShogunGekomon, who forgives the player for attacking the annoying Otamamon, and points him in the direction of Cherrymon, even giving him the means to get through the forest to find him.
  • MasterTyrannomon, who tells Tyrannomon to cut the crap and makes him join File City, while allowing the player access to the Speedy Time Zone.

• Rule of Three: A Patamon can be found by Trash Mountain spoiling for a fight. After three tries, it can be convinced to join the city.

• Save Point: Whenever your Digimon sleeps.
  • Justified Save Point: In Jijimon's house.
• Saving the World: At least, the Digital one.

• Secret Test of Character:
  • The whole point of Monochromon hiring you.
  • And Centarumon shooting at you.
• Sequence Breaking: Certain characters in the final few sections of the game appear regardless of whether or not you've done the quests which would presumably be required. Leomon, for example, gets a small role in the ending sequence regardless of whether or not you've spoken to him, and although the Grey Lord's Mansion quest introduces Devimon, a Digimon fought as a boss in a different part of the game, it's possible to do them the other way round.
  • In addition to this, advancing the Ogremon subplot to the point where he takes over the Drill Tunnel before you recruit Meramon makes Meramon unrecruitable and the post-earthquake shortcut to Mt. Panorama permanently unavailable. Under these conditions it's still possible to beat the main storyline of the game, but you can no longer unlock all the medals and can't achieve 100% Completion.
• Side Quest: The whole game is made up of mostly optional quests, as there are only two Digimon you must recruit to get to the final main dungeon. The other numbers can be made up from any of the quests.
• Shout-Out: To note:
  • Grey Lord's Mansion Lobby and Dining Room are recreations of the same rooms on Spencer Manor. Moreover, both mansions are littered with undead monsters, both have traps and secret rooms, both have secret laboratories hidden within them, and there's even a superpowered undead horror lurking within said laboratories (Skullgreymon on Grey Lord's, T-002 on Spencer's). Basically, Grey Lord's is a kid-friendly version of its Resident Evil counterpart.
• Sound Test: Giromon's jukebox. However, it is rather infamous for crashing the game if one attempts to use it in the North American version of the game. It works just fine in the PAL version, though.
• Spell My Name With An S: Analogman, not mon.

• Status Effects: There's your workaday poison, stunning and confusion effects, but there's also a bizarre status effect where the affected Digimon briefly turns into a flat, pixelated Virtual Pet version of itself. While in this state, it can only attack with weak but occasionally disruptingly fast pixel attacks. While transforming in and out of this state, the monster is completely invulnerable.
• Stupidity Is the Only Option: More than once, to boot. Getting insulted by a bratty Otamamon? Let him have it. Bringing a sick Digimon who can't stand the cold to the local Slippy-Slidey Ice World? Brilliant idea. Walking to a clearly unstable piece of land on the edge of a cliff? Even better!
• Suicidal Overconfidence: To the point it's annoying.
• Summon Everyman Hero: How the game begins.
• Take Over the World: Analogman's goal, apparently, was to enslave Digimon and take over the Net World with them.
• Talk to Everyone: Almost subverted when Angemon is recruited, as, between him and Jijimon, you can just about work out where the heck to go next via fairly obscure riddles. Shellmon's bulletin board can also offer further guidance from there.

• Tank Goodness: Tankmon are enemies found in Toy Town.
• The Day the Music Lied: After defeating Ogremon in Whamon's cave, he suggests he'll join the city, and the usual jingle starts playing... except he was lying, and runs off to commit more crimes.
• The Power of Friendship: The final battle is Analogman's attempt to prove that slave Digimon are better than friend ones.
• The Voiceless: Your partner is the only Digimon who doesn't talk, although the speech bubbles expressing his various needs are implied to be speech.
• Training from Hell: In Trash Mountain, you'll find one of the little gyms scattered around the game world. This particular gym makes your Digimon dive into a giant pile of poop and stay there to somehow increase their MP.
  • It's also notable as being the only training exercise that decreases your Digimon's happiness when you do it. They REALLY don't like having to wade around in poop for an hour.
• Translator Microbes: Mentioned early in the game; the player's character thinks he's speaking his own language, but other characters claim he's speaking theirs.
• Tunnel King: The Drimogemon living in Drill Tunnel.
• Underground Monkey: Some of the Palette Swapped NPC Digimon are this, for example the Snow-Agumon and Mud-Frigimon. Their recolorings and skillsets are implied to be adaptations to their environments.
• Undying Loyalty: Your partner. No matter how much of a cruel and heartless bastard you decide to be to them, he always follows the player and will fight to the death for them.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Kunemon asks the player for food. If you give him any, he'll attack you. He'll join the city afterwards, though.
• Universal Poison: Inflicted by some Nature and Filth techs. Anything inflicted by it will take damage over time and only walk during a fight.
• The Unintelligible: Vademon and Bakemon. The latter however will become intelligible if you have a Bakemon of your own.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable: It's possible to get stuck if you leave Jijimon's house after talking to him when Prosperity is over 15 or 50, as a powerful Digimon attacks you with no warning until you defeat it. The event flag only triggers if you chat with him, and since doing so is the only way to gauge your progress, many players had untrained Digimon fighting major bosses by accident.
• Video Game Caring Potential: On the long run, it pays to properly take care of your monster. Not only does it usually result in better digivolutions, but full happiness and discipline increase the Digimon's lifespan and the amount of time it can wait to poop once the appropriate speech bubble shows up, respectively.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: Alternatively, you can deprive your Digimon of sleep, scold them hundreds of times for no reason, and even make them crap themselves. Some of these are required at least once if you want to complete the Digivolution chart. Oh, and did we mention you can do this to the baby level Digimon? Note that neither of said actions will go unpunished, but still...
• Viral Transformation: Suggested to be how Analogman transforms Digimon into copies of Machinedramon, and powered-up ones at that.
• Virtual Ghost: Analogman.
• Vocal Dissonance: Despite being a lizard, Betamon meows when happy. It does sound more reptilian when angry, though.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Meramon is the first taste of how most of this game's bosses roll. At 2600 HP, he has twice as much HP as the previous boss and he's loaded with a variety of damaging skills that outpace your own. You're expected to have a Champion before you fight him, but even if you do, it's fairly likely Meramon is beating you in both damage and health. It will take either a fair bit of grinding or a good deal of consumables to overcome him.
• Warmup Boss: Agumon. He has very little HP, weak skills and is prone to running out of MP surprisingly quickly. He's even less dangerous than some of the mooks in the area.
• Wham Episode: The northern parts of the island are when it starts becoming pretty clear the mass amnesia is not just something that's happened, but deliberately. Moreso as you get to Toy Town and Factorial Town, when it's revealed not only have humans been to File Island before, they've attacked it.
• Wham Line: When Birdramon appears, she mentions "other humans", but doesn't elaborate. This is the first hint there's ever been any humans around before "you".
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • The Glacial Time Zone plot revolves around meeting and fighting Meteormon, who once being defeated doesn't join the city, but goes to wander the island. He's never seen in the story again.
  • During the fight with Ogremon in Whamon's cave, he's joined by a WaruSeadramon, who disappears after you beat him, and isn't heard from again.
  • To recruit Nanimon to the city you have to see him five times in five different locations. In all five he will ask who are you and leave. After the fifth meeting he will join to the city, but once you go and ask Jijimon about it, he will tell you Nanimon came and then left. Note that you can actually see him hanging around the back of Agumon's Item Bank after he joins the city. However, there is no legitimate way to interact with him ever again, and whatever he's doing (or not doing) is left a mystery.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Frigimon calls you out on bringing a Digimon who can't stand cold to Freezeland. He refuses to come to the city until you come back with a Digimon who doesn't mind the freezing climate.
• Where It All Began: Mount Infinity, the final dungeon, is accessed from the very zone where you first gain control of your character. However, it's behind a Broken Bridge until you get 50 prosperity points for File City.
• Wide-Open Sandbox: The game is surprisingly non-linear◊ for a PS1 era game. Starting off you can either go to Drill Tunnel and unlock the Gear Savanna, which in turn unlocks a bunch more areas to explore, or you can unlock the jungle area, which itself branches out into many more different areas. While there are Digimon guarding these areas you won't be able to fight without grinding up a champion Digimon first, there's nothing outright stopping you from doing areas in any order you wish.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: From information gathered by Andromon and the player's speculation, apparently time runs more slowly in the digital world; the ending implies your character has only been there for a few real-world hours, and he theorises that that's why he doesn't have to eat or sleep in that world. Confusing this is the fact that it has its own time system, which works on a cycle of approximately half-hour days.
• You Have Researched Breathing: For some reason, even filth-type Digimon have to learn how to toss poop at their opponents. Even assuming filth-types would be the only ones capable of doing it on command, most filth techniques are just Digimon flinging crap in different ways, or farting. Better yet: filth Digimon have to learn how to use their bodily wastes either by watching Digimon in mid-level areas do so, or by having the player explain it to them in detail.

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