For a Digimon fan who never played Digimon World DS, the game is fun, as long as you know the following (it took me a while to learn what the game was capable of):
1. you can digivolve and dedigivolve/degenerate the digimon in your party anytime, and anywhere as long as certain requirements are met.
Ex. level 22 or higher, attack must be at least 151, with at least 1500 Holy points that can are acquired by either encountering holy digimon,or letting them stay at a digifarm with certain attachable boards and/or items that you may buy.
(In the game it is written lvl 22, the or higher part is implied)
2. Every time you encounter a digimon the game automatically scans some of their data; once you've scanned at least 100 percent of a Digimon's data, the data can be converted into a digimon
3. you get to rename digimon each time they digivolve, but not always, in the beginning, when they dedigivolve/degenerate
4. you have 3 slots to equip and unequip digimon- If you unequip digimon before they digivolve or dedigivolve/degenerate you can keep those equipments and use them again; otherwise they are gone.
5. Each digimon type has only one weakess, an attack from its opposite. Light type digimon are weak against dark attacks and vice versa. There's a chart of the 8 in the mannual.
In Dusk you get to choose from four sets of 3 digimon that include insect, machiene, dark, and beast type digimon. I suppose what you pick determines which kind of digimon you will encounter the most throghout the beginning of the game. Bird, Dragon, Light, and Aquan are also in there.
The Good...
Everything I didn't like about GBA Pokemon games, is fixed with the double screens and other means.
Excellent Digimon Stat Menu System.
Digimon encountered are automatically scanned, once encuntered enough to get 100% data I can create a digimon. More data scanned over 100% equals more powerful digimon. Thus, I don't have to throw an Ultraball 40 or so times before I catch a legendary Pokemon or something.
Automatically starting at level 1 after they digivolve, makes Digimon level up faster.
Equipment can be equipt and unequipt. Just make sure that you unequip before digivolving, degenerating, or moving digimon into the digifarm. No TMs to worry about misusing.
I like how you battle 1 to 5 Digimon random at a time.
Attacks differ by how many spaces out of 5 they cover, if and how they are spaced appart, whether they are fixed or free, how many times they stike, whether the help your digimon or attack the enemy.
I like how type plays a lesser role than in the Pokemon games. I feel more free to pick my favorite digimon that I come in contact with, rather being overly consious of what type they are and what weaknesses they have. Power significantly outweighs type.
Every digimon has their own special attack, so you get to choose which four attacks stay with the digimon, while the fifth attack changes with digivolution.
Click and drag the screen with the stylus in an area when not in battle to see north, south, east, or west of where you stand. It helps to avoid dead-ends.
The story is good.
The Bad...
At one point (because of many mandatory side quests) it takes forever to get on with the story, so it requires patience for the story to progress. For me the game play out weighs the story anyway- but again, this comes from a digimon fan who never played Digimon World DS.
There may be long quests against digimon that you don't really care about, but even so the game play is more fun than Pokemon if you prefered Team 2 on 2 battles better than 1 on 1. It's 3 on ?(3 on 1 to 3 on 5)
...and the Digi Digi
Digimon have green HP for life and blue MP for attacks.
If you don't like a digimon you have, it may be possible to DNA digivolve with it another that you do like, and not have to change the name or appearence of the digimon (that you like) a bit.
When degenerating/dedigivolving a digimon I noticed that it looses about 50 points in each category except for Apptitude(the highest level the digimon can reach at it's current digivolution) which always goes up. However the dedigivolved version seems to be capable of exceeding the stats of the digivolved one, so that even before digivolving again you may have a more powerful digimon. A digimon may loose some stats when degivolving, but ultamately, there's no limit to how strong a digimon can become (by digivolving and degenerating/dedigivolving).
I found that Pressing the A button (in the digivolve menu) on a digimon or digivolution will show you new pathways that the digimon can digivolve to. Sometimes the pathways don't show up until your digimon reaches a higher level.
Press down the A button to make text on the bottom screen go faster.
On a scale of 1 to 10
I'd give the story an 8.7
The gameplay a 9.9 if you've never played Digimon World DS
The only reason I've seen for anyone giving this game a bad score is that the gameplay is very similar to Digimon World DS, therefore not new to those who have played it and the storyline is significantly delayed in progress because of a quest system.
Apparently, Dawn and Dusk have practally identical storylines and the only reason for choosing one over the other has to do with what kind of digimon and color sceme you want.
If you want any other information regarding digivolutions, digivolution charts for this game, which digimon are version exclusive, or which set of 3 Digimon you get to start out with, this one page should help. It's not complete, but it's petty extensive: gaiaonline-The-official-digimon-world-ds-dawn-dusk-thread-revised Pandamon can become Gaomon, and Hawkmon can digivolve to Shurimon with the digiegg of Purity. DNA digivolve Taomon with Karatenmon to get Kazuhamon, then DNA digivolve it with Kyubimon to go back.
Back to Digimon DuskDawn More QuestsI'll link to some of my other pages later.