Is Digimon World Dusk as Good as I Remember? 

These games could really use a remaster/remake with some QoL additions. I love Dusk but I've never been able to complete it because of the grinding.

Surprised you didn't talk about the incredibly lengthy evolution process of some Digimon. Yeah, Lunamon into Dianamon is straight-forward and only requires some grinding, but try to get ZeedMillenniumon or Apocalymon to understand true pain.

1:19 I love how all of the fandom that remembers this older game has just fully embraced the mistranslation/typo that is Night Crow as the team name. And for those unaware, the Team Names were supposed to be Light Fang and Night Claw

Post-game was the best part. And the real magic of this game was the sheer amount of digimon you could actually collect. Demon lords, Royal Knights, Great Dragons, Fallen Angels/Archangels, Olympus XII...It was a hell of a grind (and I believe some of them required multiplayer to get), but honestly the post-game was fun as hell, and just having the opporunity to have so many cool digimon. I remember grinding through so many battles while having so much downtime as a kid...great times.

Honestly, I'm not surprised you struggled so much. It looked like you were refusing to engage with the game's mechanics. I mean, imagine playing Pokemon, but never using the pokemon boxes for example. You seemed to be approaching the game like it was a totally different subgenre. Monster Taming games are mostly about, you know, taming and raising mons. Heck, the whole point of the side quests locking you out of main quests was to teach the player to relax and take their time. Mainlining the story instead of meeting the game on its own terms kinda makes it obvious that you'd struggle.

Grimmon is still one of my favorite digital entity villain, it's not a true digimon, being born from the virus I believe it went around digi areas collection data from other digimon and was able to create a physical form. Also if im not mistaken it's main goal is to destroy all data because it was the reminent of Chronomon: Destroy mode. It wants revenge against real beings for defeating it and then Grimmon being a virus just wants to erase every.

One thing I loved about the Dawn and Dusk games was you really felt the power increase after digivolving. You get so much stronger, and because you start back at Level One, your stats go up so fast.

if i recall there is also a fairly long post game which explains alot of the questions you have like the chronocore core and that question about a traitor but you need to get further ahead in the digimon tournement for your tamer ranks and i think you need to start keeping mental notes cause i think that you start needing to go to places that dont have out right quests for them all the time

While I absolutely love Dusk and have really fond memories of playing it in middle school (alongside a friend who had Dawn), I totally agree with the critiques. I replayed these games about a year ago and definitely found aspects tedious and grindy. As a kid, it's not as big of a deal. I had a lot more time on my hands then, so figuring out the maps and leveling my mons wasn't as daunting a task. I remember not caring for the side quests even back then, however... But I think that's a major weak spot even in the modern Digimon Story games. Cyber Sleuth (and Hacker's Memory by extension) is cool and all, but *man* I hated how many side quests you had to do to progress. That being said, with Dawn and Dusk, I personally remember feeling a sense of accomplishment by facing the grind and getting powerful digimon. (I had a reserve team of Zeed, Moon, and normal Millenniummon at one point, if that tells you anything) It really made it feel like my victories and evolutions were earned. Plus with Dusk, I could partner up with digimon that were typically portrayed as villains--but we were actually the good guys here! I thought that was a fun flip of expectations and it's what drew me to Dusk over Dawn in the first place... and what keeps me returning to it every so often. I missed out on the true 'Digimon World' games as a kid owing to not having the systems (and despite being a HUGE fan of digimon), so this was my first 'real' chance to partner up with some digimon and hold the fate of the Digital World in my hands, so to speak. It was a bit of childhood wish fulfilment for me, heh. The games *definitely* have their flaws, but I think my young self was able to flesh out the gaps in plot and the tedium of the quests with some imagination--and a lot more time on my hands than I have now, ha ha.

While I understand not wanting to go through more grinding, the post game has some of the best fights. The demon lords, royal knights, and even the protagonists from the show of the time. I also really enjoyed the amount of different digimon you could acquire and digivolve.

I want to make a comment about the map design. So, for different missions, chests and NPCs will show up in certain areas. So if you’re doing a Union Quest in a new area and you see “dead ends” or spots that empty, chances are a NPC or chest will spawn there when you do a certain Species Quest.

Dawn and Dusk have their issues, I can't really deny any of the problems you bring up. I think for me though I just don't mind. Yeah the games are grindy, but grinding isn't too for me since I usually put something on in the background to watch or listen to. As janky as the map designs are, I find all the locations distinct and memorable. Especially the ones that have multiple parts, such as Macro Sea connecting to Access Glacier and Thriller Ruins having the mansion area. The map theme definitely goes hard, but my personal favorites are the Sunshine City theme and the digivolution lab theme. And yeah, just wanted to agree the sprites are top tier and one of my favorite parts of the game.

I wish this game was less grindy/slow/clunky It's not bad IMO, but I feel it would be actually really good after someone do a QoL Patch.

My biggest problem with these games is that they love gatekeeping digivolutions. Like why do i need to have piedmon before being capable of digivolving into It? I'm not against grinding but this is just disrespectful

You should play the prequel, Digimon world DS. It still has some of the same flaws, but it's for the most part a lot better. The narrative is more straight forward and less padded, it explains who chronomon is, and is still pretty fun.

I always find the "Well why is character trying to take over the world?" critique a bit weird cause like, some people are just power hungry and will take power or try to when given the chance sad as it is, it's like asking why "character wants to steal the riches from the dungeon?".

I love that each version has different bosses and areas, makes them feel a bit unique also the union leaders being gender switch is cool. I know digimon don't have genders but the ones chosen do lean towards feminine and masculine.

A peak piece of digimon media. Dawn and Dusk are still by far my favorite games in the franchise. Hopefully we get something like this in the future.

20:48 Some of the stuff Grimmom said there is just general Digimon lore. Digi-Entelechia was the secret towards evolution that Calumon posseses, ans Yggdrasil is the god of the Digital World (even tho he doesn't appear in this game).

You can use the move command to not only move your digimon into different orientations on the battlefield to get different bonuses with their passives. Depending on how many panels away certain Digimon are from other Digimon they will support and give bonuses to their teammates. You can also use the move command to swap one of your Digimon out with one of your Digimon in your reserve. She say one of your Digimon goes down and you don't want to revive it you can swap it with one of the ones in your backup. When you're in the maps you can use your stylus as well to drag the screen around to fully see the map without having to move your character as well by the way. The Farm island is a massive part of this game and it helps your Digimon grow faster get better stats and even skip Evolutions possibly and you only mentioned the music from it. Last thing to explain is the gates. Those Gates stop you from going into "dark areas" the Digimon in those areas are higher level and different species that are a little bit harder to fight will appear only there as opposed to the rest of the map. Sometimes you need to go there for side quests or for the main quests but most of the time they are a optional difficulty bump or if you're looking for different species to get scans on. Generally overall I mostly agree with the review. It is really grindy and kind of a time-waster but it is kinda fun as well.

For newcomers in any of the DS Digimon World/Story games. There is a mechanic where you touch and drag your screen to see the path ahead of you. If you don't want to have this labyrinth experience that was said in the video, just use it a lot, it will make your life so much easier. I see a lot of people that don't know or forget that this mechanic exists, and it makes a LOT of difference for your experience.

Something I want to point out that you skimmed over is the story differences between Dawn and Dusk. The overall story is almost the exact same in each game... but not in the way you would first assume. It doesn't just flip the teams' roles in the story; Dusk gets taken over by the big bad regardless of which game you are playing. Dawn also does not start at the tournament section, but rather has a section before it, and gets it's areas in a different order. All in all, they actually did the games in a way that there good reasons to play bothe besides just "get them all".

I remember when I got all my digimon stats to 999 and beat the legendary tamer quest no trouble

It actually took me like 10+ hours of playing dusk to realise you can drag the map around a little to try and scout ahead. Makes running into a dead end not so bad

There is a last part of the the story that is after the end game that try to explain some more of the story. It mostly were the difficulty get turned up to 11 and has 4 options mirror variance of maps. That were I believe is we’re the true ending is in Digimon Dusk, although it is my opinion on if it is a true ending or extra content.

dude, i grinded the heck outa this game, it helps to have a friend to play against. Fun fact actual names of the teams are Night Claw and Light Fang, but because japanese L and R sounds it got changed.

This isn't the full story. The Julia plotline is continued in the 7 Demon Lords sidequest, and Chronomon does appear in the postgame. He's the most difficult enemy, and your reward for defeating him has to do with the digi-entelecheia. Once you realize what that is, it makes more sense.

I remember how my sister and I got these games. We went into a Game Stop and saw both versions in the bargain bin. I took Dawn and my sister took Dusk. Both of us fell in love with the game, and sometimes we replay them, even to this day.

I remember this game. Beat it twice, doing 100% the second time (or as 100% as you could without Wi-Fi). I realized that the main problem with the game was its ATROCIOUS encounter rate - having a code on that allowed you to turn Encounters off/on at will made the game experience SO MUCH BETTER.

So MGaogamon is actually "Mach" Gaogamon (Mach like speed not machine) Good review!

Dawn/Dusk aren't perfect but I love them. I have replayed them many times.

I recently replayed Dusk after many years of not playing it since my childhood and eventhough I put 35 hours into the game and completed all sidequests and main quests including the legendary tamer one I have to agree with you… I really enjoyed my time with it but I just don’t have the patience for the absurd encounter rate and the amount of species EXP grind you have to do in order to get some mega evolutions, its really stupid With that being said I still really love the game and eventhough it has many apparent flaws I just can’t hate it because its my childhood and I really enjoyed it despite everything, I just wouldn’t recommend it to someone who’s not a digimon fan tbh

Still the Digimon game with the most playable Digimon in it. It was dumb if you wanted to fight hardest extra boss after beating you had to play one local or online match to unlock the quest for it though.

You should really try out Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth. They're the next entry in the Digimon Story games, which is what the DS games actually are, their names were changed to World in the international release, which is the other main series of Digimon games, Digimon Story being focused on RPGs like this one. Even though it's a different world and story from the DS titles, it's the best that Digimon RPGs have been, and it's really, REALLY good. There are two games, base Cyber Sleuth and Hacker's Memory, both of which were given a single complete edition on pc and consoles a few years ago, which includes both games in one package. I can't recommend it enough.

A lot of the game stuff is explored after you beat the game. The post game is incredible.

Dawn defined my childhood

So, fun fact, if you actually pay Kowloon Co yourself, out of your own funds (good luck actually *having* that much though...) you can skip the boss battle and get a unique item! ...though it's not a very useful item. It's low level, and it's technically better than most low level equipment, but it's completely outclassed by the high level items available to you by that point.

“Night Crow” is a translation error. In the Pocket Manuel, that comes with the game, it’s called “Night Claw.” Light FANG and Night CLAW make much more sense as names for dual factions. Why did this happen? Try this: - Say “Night Claw” in the most stereotypical Japanese, Engrish accent you can. (I know, it’s awful of me to write that, but I can’t expect you to understand how Japanese pronunciation works). - Pay attention to what you are saying, and it sounds like “Night Craw.” - Skew the emphasis a little bit, and “Night Craw” sounds like “Night Crow.” This is unfortunately very common for Digimon names too, like “Goburimon” is literally Engrish for “Goblimon” Same for Kurisarimon (Chrysalimon) and Arukenimon (Arachnemon).

I loved dusk. Played it so much as a kid, I remember there was a tournament mode. I would grind so much to get the coolest digimons.

Just a wild guess of mine, but i've always had a hunch that, with how the story went, they probably had sequels in mind while writing Dawn/Dusk, and that the story in them was foreshadowing what was to come. Guess we'll never know for real.

I beat this game about a year ago, and honestly, at the end I was REALLY burned out on the game, and when I beat it, I put it away and never looked back I started playing because it had ZeedMilleniummon on it Never got it tho

The one thing I disagree with you on is this new age assertion that: character development = character progression = a positive character arc. I like the *character development* for the kowloon gang. And yes, that's character development. Seeing them as shady and working for the villain, only for you to eventually discover that they are loyal business men that'll do what they can for a client and even have some honor beyond that, is character development. Fleshing out a character is developing them.

Man, I'm actually jealous that you got to finish the game lol. I think I ended up losing my copy of Dawn at the ChaosGallantmon fight, and mycopy of dusk from MANY years ago got up to MaloMyotismon I think. God, I want to play it again... But I really can't justify buying it again lol

I loved this game especially post-game but can't find time to replay it since the story takes a long time (random encounter & poor map designs) - but it remains in my top 3 Digimon games, I really loved it while playing it so long ago

I love that Dusk and Dawn literally told different stories

I used to play the hell out of this game. Beat the game hardest digimon It reason why I love this digimon! And best Digimon is Lunermon

It was interesting seeing your side of this i dont remember struggling with any of the fights since i was always overtraining my digimon i remember to get lilithmon i had to go back and forth 78 times to get the evulution requirements and to go up the ranks for the arena was so cool like the one where they are all megas intraining form. I also loved the fact that they didnt let you get the mc digimon which forced me to have to make a unique team. anyways great video subscribed.

Amazing review and discussion about the game! I remember playing this one and yeah it has a lot of issues. It’s still fun but I can’t help but think how everything could have been improved to make the experience more enjoyable. Like the map design and random encounters

hey

I have played the hell out of this game and have made realy hard to obtain digimon like chronomon and zeedmilleniummon. I just wish that the game had like a repell thing like digimon. Allso kaloon Co theme slaps.

I remember playing/trying dusk and dawn version and not finish it. I didn't like it as much as the original Digimon World ds one.

As someone with 100% mission completion: no

I think if they remake it, they could make a chunk of the maps procedurally generated so some of the tedium of revisiting it is alleviated

the worst thing is that you didn't even fully explore digivolution at it's core. You can do armor, dna, and change the forms of certain mega's to make them EVEN stronger then ever, your dog has a rather badass form you didn't explore whatsoever. I will agree on one thing, the game can be a waste of time, but what the game makes up for is just overall training your digimon and making them the coolest digimon ever. That was kinda the whole point to that game at least for me anyways, at some point I do wish to play that game again but actually try to just give me the most swagger team I could ever grab and just nuke the last boss easily. Also i coulda sworn there's a secret boss fight that relates to what the bad guy says before he died....hrm...I could be wrong I guess, oh well, I'd have to play the game myself to remember.

So little thing that was never made clear - Digimon World Dawn/Dusk is a sequel to Digimon World DS.

I think giving improvement ideas actually isn't futile, as a group of modders are working on enhancing the games, the list you gave sounds entirely plausible for them to do. As for your final thoughts overall, I agree on almost everything, except that "from one of your own" bit, your leader actually IS infected, you just save them before your faction can be infected like the other side was. Its what you do in the Glacial map. I also fully agree the game has aged HORRIBLY and you basically need to have grown up with the DS Story games to enjoy it. I'd never recommend someone who isn't a massive Digimon fan to play it if they didn't grow up with it.

i wanna say 3 thing: 1-you where WAY WAY WAY underleveled, wonder how your backup team where Megas and stronger than your 3 starters. 2-about the locked gates that lead to empty spaces, these areas is used for other side quests, you just focus on main quests and didn't explore the world enough. 3-The MOST EMPORTANT thing about the game is it's actually 2 games, not like pokemon style of red and blue, but actual story differents: for starters in Dawn you play as Koh (the guy you fight in the tutorial ) and you experience the story from the other team view, BANDAI leterlly split the story between two Cartridges, you found out your answers in the other game (YMIR and Chronomon) and yes Raigo is the Traitor and you beat him in Dawn.

The M in MGaogamon actually stands for Mach not machine. Mach referring to "the speed of sound." I thought it was machine when I first played through it too.

A fair and thorough explanation of one of my favourite games as a kid 😭 I have to agree that a lot of the game mechanics and structure of dusk/dawn don’t really hold up but nostalgia always keeps me coming back 🤫 Loved your take my friend! 💕

Fun fact about running around and finding dead ends. Since the main game part was on the touch screen you could touch and drag to look ahead around your current area. So you could see dead ends sooner then later. Personally I loved Digimon World DS/Dawn/Dusk the most out of the digimon games since it has the best digimon 'feel' to it in my opinion. I like when Digimon have their own world that really feels like there world being a odd mix of nature and technology for landscape. The other games on the other hand I feel Cyber Sleuth was too pretty boy anime art style with a hacking theme with digimon thrown in. Survive has the digimon act as mythological creatures instead of lifeforms in a digital world. I guess I prefer when Digimon are considered lifeforms from a digital world as opposed to just digital lifeforms in cyberspace if that makes sense.

it stinks and offends me that digimon sunburst/dawn was disrespected and Koh was easily forgotten and never to appear on 3D As well as other heroes as well. for girl like sayo to appear on sleuth! It's awful for japan to do that! coronamon and his evolutions need more respect! not make him stuck on xros wars.

My biggest problem with these games is that it gives you ZERO information on how it’s mechanics even *function.* For example: DNA Digivolution No information about stat requirements, how it affects the fused Digimon’s stats, or which Digimon can fuse together to make new Digimon All of that stuff needs to be looked up on the Internet. It’s *nowhere* in the game. Digimon games have never explained their mechanics well, but this, on top of the wishy-washy localization quality… It goes way too far.

My only big issues with Dawn/Dusk are that: 1. The grind for certain Digimon can be absolute hell if you're trying to get them in your team for the final boss of the main story. You can need, like, 50 or 60K experience for a specific species of Digimon (for those that don't know, experience was divided into Species Experience, and there were 8 different Digimon species, and while you could level up from experience regardless of which species that experience was obtained from, for Digivolutions, you needed varying amounts of experience for specific species) at a point in the game where the best place to farm that species' experience only nets you anywhere from 100 to 500 per fight depending on the enemy encounters. 2. There really isn't much to do in the postgame. Yeah, there are a few extra sidequests and Union Quests, and yes, there are a few hidden sidequests that only show up if you have specific Digimon of specific personality types in your DigiFarm, but once you've done all that, there's nothing else. 3. Digimon hatched from DigiEggs tend to break the game in half due to having notably higher stats than your starter Digimon or anything obtained through converting scan data.

Man, as a kid I had so much time on my hands when I played this game with Constantly degenerating and digivolving my Digimon long before the final boss. I basically curb stomped it. But yeah, I love this game and is still my favorite Digimon in terms of Gameplay. The quests and map design are awful, and having a Map at all while exploring would have been nice. But I still love it regardless. Dianamon ended up being my new favorite Digimon ever since.

I play through these games at least once a year , and i have no problems but the exp grinding is HORRENDOUS. Plus a port or remake would make a bunch of improvements form the base game for sure

man, I see people in the comments complaining about grinding, however, I've never had that problem (didn't use the arena codes before u ask) in fact I've completed this game several times on both versions, personally, my biggest complaint with the game was some few quests like airdramon or basically having to google to figure the swamp or take way longer than you need.

It took u to the final boss to realise that u can change ur digimons to the ones in reserve?☠️

Digimon version of multiple choice: 1) "We should email for plot" 2) "I should email for plot"

this reminded me about the translation of Lost Evolution that's coming out... eventually... copium

I wish these DS games would get a remaster treatment. I loved the original game, as well as Dawn and Dusk

It's weird but i just realized, there's a subset of digimon games where humans are just are just living in the digital world with no explanation.

Here’s another secret for you. If you have the 100,000 bits needed to pay for his services, you can do just that so you don’t have to fight him and instead they give you the KowloonBlade, a weapon with a Level 10 requirement that gives the following boosts: +16 Attack, +9 Defense, +10 Spirit, and +7 Speed.

So.....its cyber sleuth? But for ds. Loved this game back then btw can defo tell ur not realy a digimon fan but I liked the vid

Digimon World Dusk/Dawm was everything I wanted Digimon World 3 to be, and it was on a portable console. It may be a bit barebones as an RPG in general, but still a great Digimon game. And hey, you did a solid summary of the game, I had fun listening.

33:11 Chronomon is last boss in digimon world ds, its make apperance in digimon story lost evolution and rise able.... the story overall feel a bit in another universe while that story in digimon world ds is another universe...that game i play after completing digimon world dawn 😂 it feel abit more tedious to play too... and digimon story lost evolution kinda sequel to this digimon world dawn and dusk, its release only in Japan, kinda sad i heard people said they fix alot of problem that happen in dawn and dusk... and more digimon rooster...

I know I’m late to the video but what emulator did you use to play the game? I used to have it for my ds but lost the cartridge and I’m dying to play it again but all the emulator sites look super sketchy

I remember getting ImperialdramonPM in Dawn, yes I do not have life in middle school

I loved playing this game, but honestly, the grinding was a bit of a double edged sword in my mind. You've gotta do grinding to meet Digivolution requirements, yeah. But apparently as long as your patience can handle it you can potentially grind almost ANY digimon to have 9999 HP/MP and 999 in everything else. In theory, this may be fun for the purposes of letting you continue to use Digimon you like or want to meme with in comparison to those with the best stats (i mean just look at the Platinum Tamer Certification fight where the Imperialdramon Paladin Mode's allies are just two In-Training digimon... that are still fully capable of handing your ass to you if you don't grind). However, allowing that many Digimon to have maxed stats across the board kinda removes some of the individuality from them, and means you're typically looking for anything with the best traits to grind up to that level. I'm all for being able to increase stats to certain limits, but those limits should vary by Digimon in order to give some others the ability to shine in battle. To a lesser extent, sometimes the big bosses that take up three zones in battle are easier than those that are just another befriendable Digimon, cause an AOE attack that hits more than one zone will potentially just hit it 2 or 3 times even if it doesn't normally due to how the zones work. (also i kinda wish the new form of Ophanimon [and ChaosGallantmon if you're playing Dawn] you fight right before Chaos Brain became befriendable in later games)

Fun fact - “Night Crow” is a mistranslation in the English games, the teams are actually called Night Claw and Light Fang

Hey. This video. Is. Fucking good

To this day... still want the MC's Hat (Also love this game)

Shit man I put like 1000 hours into this game back when I was 12

i cant remember the plot of the post game for the life of me, but i know when i was younger it was the coolest thing to me, and i felt SO rewarded finishing the post game story. you should consider a part 2 covering the post game!

One thing I feel like people don't understand is that because "catching" mechanic requires you to see a possibly rare Digimon 10-20 times, depending on rookie or champion. And digivolving to mega requires you to de-digivolve and level up again. The high encounter rate is actually helpful in that. I don't feel like it's too much because, this is a game for a different generation and style of gaming. People now run through the whole game on a stream. Back then you were supposed to playing it while watching tv, play it in the car, on or on the way to school. It was supposed to be taken in bite sizes. It's like watching Sailor Moon and saying it's too much filler. Yes, you weren't supposed to binge Saturday morning cartoons.

If only GraceNovamon was a thing when this came out

This needs more views

I remember playing this game on my Ds and loving it much more than pokemon.. the many hours i spend to level up then devolved just to increase the aptitude so i can get the Mega requirements ☺️

digimon world ds was also a wild game,, while not having to grind as much as dawk & dusk, the game felt a lot smoother even if you did have to defeat all seven great demon lords in a row without resting in between

its grindy, but damn if those battle sprites arent among the coolest on the ds

I recently had played Dawn, and damn I feel you on finding lillymon. God I wanted to choke the breath out of those stupid little pixels that basically told me "Your lillymon is in another castle"... Grrrr.

I believe in Julia supremacy too my brother

uhhh gaomon's ultimate isnt metalgaogamon its machgaogamon

the way for me to fix it : half spawn rate 1.75x for exp

from my experience with Digimon games, its heavily dependent on a person's love for Digimon. with the world games, story games, and the newest Survive game, its all clearly made for people who already love digimon. which makes it hard for new people to get into the franchise. With people constantly comparing it to Pokemon, they instantly make judgement calls to drop the game. Digimon Dawn and Dusk have major problems but for people who love digimon like, myself dont mind one bit, cuz digimon (honestly, there might be something wrong with us). Though, for the average person, it may be a turn off.

Love the editing in this vid. And ya Dusk ver is better

Now THIS brings me back

you dont see your own digimon in battle? pass.

imagine if it get remake with smoothest graphic.

In Dusk I almost always pick up a mushroommon that way I can degenerate it down and then set it on the track to get Lilamon which as a 3 tiles powder move that can hit twice. A great large boss killer for me. Though yeah usually I find myself having done quite a few degenerations by the time I get to my ultimates and you can get a ton of stats by going back down to rookie after having gotten a few strong moves. Plus the earlier you get a full team the more exp they get even if you don't use them on the final team. I would often cycle out my whole team from front or back or just switching some in once they were stronger.

I really appreciate the caleb city refrence