a true kusoge for your enjoyment from the KusogeMan NOT SRAM NO SAVEFILE HERE WHY IT ALWAYS APPEARS THIS WAY??
I got interested on testing this game because i wanted to try different rpgs for casual play and this one sparked my interest. Despite Digimon name, it has no digimon element besides the characters. Even the digivolution is useless because of many requirements and because it resets you character to level 1 with higher base stats, but ALL CHARACTERS can achieve max stats so there wouldn't really be a reason to play the digivolutions as far as i'm concerned. Can't imagine why they use weapons since they all have claws and punches and bites and their own supposed powers, it really feels like a copy paste hack'n'slash that just got some digimon franchise to make it sell some units.
Honestly, I think this game didn't raise my appreciation for Digimon at all. I hope someone TASes the other 2 digimon world games dw2 and dw3 as well.
Guilmon is the choice for its magic "power down", it lowers enemy defense. A possible improvement would be to spend some time grinding this magic, This TAS has a 30 minute advantage over the speedrun because it doesn't farm extra levels and better magic. We also dodge some truly RTA impossible stuff on it.
The route for any% goes to the first world to full completion and second world is only done to grind to level 16. Level 16 enables a sidequest that uses the final world as a basis but lacks access to its main area. Using a very precise "jump while in air" glitch while luckily defending mid air, we can actually access these areas earlier than intended ( it's luck based and more probable with better speed stat).
BASIC MECHANICS
attack
charge attack- hold A, i later found out you can use the charge with rapier to cause an extra hit if the enemy blocks to try breaking the enemy guard or change block rng
block- manually with B, but with luck you can autoblock even in the air, it's because of this feature that the double jump glitch exists. More speed stat enables more autoblock and more hits.
dash- hold B and direction twice, it pushes enemies away, i later found out you can use items inside the dash but only at the very end of the TAS
jump- X
spin attack- spin the joystick and A, it's kinda useless as it doesn't help grouping enemies and doesn't multihit.
items in L-
magic in R-
both items and magic can be ledge cancelled from what i've noticed but i only applied at the second to last dungeon this trick
enemy block is random so i try do weird action to see if the rng changes, sometimes i just give and accept a few small blocks so i can hit more often later, this is trial and error unfortunately.
equipping most item is done in one specific area of the main hub which is extremely irritating, but medals can be changed inside the worlds
POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENTS AND COMMENTS ABOUT SPECIFIC PARTS
The first world Death Valley has horrible movement by me because i didn't know i could use more directions than 8. Sorry about that lol but a lot of other tricks were also found later. This game is irritating so I didn't wanna redo it. The RNG is very static and can't be changed easily without wasting frames. The charge attack is kinda bad for fights but it's useful to break blocks.
The first world skips 2 dungeons with out of bounds to save Leomon early, this allows for early boat section. Boat has 1 monkey that gives the sidequest that we want later so we save the monkey that is relevant. The first boss guards a lot so i ocasionally use fire magic which is unblockable to hit but the problem with it is the cast time. We shorten it by blocking. Blocking also gives a little bit of invencibility after blocking.
After Leomon is saved, the smart TASer started using all directions for more clean movement. I managed to also avoid the barrel section and manipulate the boss plant into some more vulnerability. The pistol was needed only to save the monkey and the boat section normally uses it all the time, but I decided to try doing it with the sword.
The dungeon with the ogre and giant poop monsters was a good place to get more Tech.I need to get some Tech ups to equip the rapier later which hits twice. This rapier will also have slots to equip medals because I need to break a thunder barrier so I'll get thunder medal later as well. I also needed some money but I didn't know the item values so I just filled the inventory without wasting too muc time in the battles and sold everything later after grinding. The real challenge in TASing with the ogres and giant poop is some of their actions make them invencible or jump away. The final boss of world 1 has a damaging field around it, I removed the minimal area needed to strike the boss and blocked whenever it came back.
Despite getting many items for recovery, I didn't sell them and got a lot of extras so better item planning and management could improve this TAS by a few minutes perhaps. In preparation for the second world, we need to check some switches which were really hard to find casually lol. Dry land first visit I grind until i get enough tech to equip the Rapier, the second visit we grind to level 16.
I tested if respawning mummies was faster but it was slower because of loading screens. In RTA they grind more levels and a better version of Power Down, i believe the levels are useless but maybe the Power Down could be farmed here and that could diminish the RNG impact later in the game. The better version would probably hit more often as well. Despite not grinding in world 1, we have more experience earlier in the grind section at Dry land!
With level 16, I get out and go to the sidequest which we'll use to glitch into the final sections of the game. The double jump glitch is very precise and requires luck in order to get the autoblock as you go up very early in contact with enemy. I later realized I could have tried pushing enemies into walls to get them faster to help me double jump. The first double jump is to activate switches that raise platforms for the Mecha Nest and later Electro Mines(needs thunder medal for the dungeon).
Mecha nest is annoying cause there are poison enemies at the dark which also jump away. The slime monsters are also annoying but they're handled by dashing to push them away and occasional kills if necessary. A few rooms needed boxes to be destroyed to make the enemies appear. You can use Wireframe mode in dolphin to see the dark sections clearly. For enemies here, I can only crit at the last hit as they have too much health and I don't want to knockdown unless i have other enemies available to attack. The boss was kinda normal, it has a damaging shield but it wasn't a problem here.
Electro Mines are gigantic with so many floors, some are slippery. Some bosses became regular enemies here. I only realized i could dash into doors by this section. The final boss was manipulated to do less jumps with some weak but relevant magic damage. Otherwise i would wait for very long animations. I learned about charge to break guards easier in this section and you can see it against the centaur monsters mostly. At the end i get manipulate MP items to refill without going to the shop.
The final area is reached by another double jump, and some double jumps also help get to the switches. At the final section, I realized beating the spider monster was more important later since it doesn't follow you, while the robo dogs do. Imperial dramon is extremely slow to kill and hard to get the Power down when underleveled so I just went along with it.
The final boss has 3 sections, the first one is hell because i can't kill it right away, so i need to kill its extra bodies so it doesn't revive. Just TAS things that the speedrun doesn't deal with s2.
The second one guards way too much, attacks frequently and so does the third so i tried using magic randomly to get some more favorable results, with some sucess.
Thanks to tasvideos members as well for the site and my Mari which i still love and will hold dear in my heart always.
ViGadeomes: There were a few concerns about optimization, The dpad is used during the first 15mins of the TAS counting menus, dialogs, loading times so I guess at max 4 mins.
There is a known 1 min returning to Digi-Lab after rescuing Leomon.
The RNG that can't be measured for sure.
As far as I can tell, the time loss compared to the leagth of the movie is not worth a rejection. I'm still aware that it can be noticeable for a newcomer into the game but this was not done for the all movie. The known timeloss wouln't be acceptable for a next run improving this movie or in another branch of the game if those are applicable. furthermore, the WR is way behind the TAS.
With all this in mind, I accept this movie.
