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English Season 1 Logo.
Digimon is a Japanese media franchise encompassing video games, virtual pet toys, anime, manga, films and a trading card game. It takes place in a digital universe with digital monsters that live in said universe. Digimon was created by Akiyoshi Hongo, and the company that publishes the video games is Bandai (now Bandai Namco Games); while it's anime is made by many developers. The goal in most of the video games is to save the digital world from danger.
History[]
Digimon started out a little virtual pet that you had to take care of. It could die of age, hunger, sickness, or it could get injured from fighting. The series was inspired by Tamagotchi. It was made in Hongo's mind "A Tamagotchi for boys...". Most of the Digimon games are in a role-playing actions game format (despite the series starting as a life simulation series), but the series also has a number of other genres including life simulation, adventure, video card game, strategy, fighting and racing games. The first actual video game Digimon World was released in 1999 on the PlayStation, before the anime, in Japan. It was later released worldwide the following year.
The first game Digimon games on Nintendo system were the spinoffs on the Game Boy Advance. It took until 2005 when Digimon World released for the GameCube. The Digimon World series is the main entries in the series with these games revolving around raising Digimon partners.
The Digimon World DS game, known as Digimon Story in Japan, was the next entry in the series and spawned the second main subseries. These games are more akin to its competitors like Pokemon where the player journeys the digital world, training various Digimon in a RPG turn-based system. The Digimon Story series would be the primary Digimon video game series until 2013. However, localization on consoles was put on hold with the lackluster results of Digimon World Championships.
Digimon World Re;Digitize would return the series to its roots with its pet-raising mechanics. However, the game was not deemed enough of a success to localize. There was a movement to try and get this game localized which led to Bandai Namco to bring over Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth soon after launch. It was enough of a success that Bandai Namco greenlit a follow-up almost immediately. Meanwhile, the 3DS received a one-on-one battle RPG spinoff based on the ongoing anime series, Appli Monsters.
There was a long gap between the Switch ports of the Cyber Sleuth games and Digimon Survive. This gap was in part due to misaligned development visions and delays from the pandemic. After switching developers, Digimon Survive released in 2022 to moderate success. The series producers announced there would be a number of new games to be released in the near future, starting with a port of Digimon World: Next Order.
Japanese Seasons 2-6 logos.
List of games[]
- Digimon Virtual Pet - Not really a video game, but a spun-off franchise.
- Digimon World - First Digimon game on a console to be released world wide
- Digimon Battle Spirit (Game Boy Advance) - First Digimon game on a Nintendo handheld platform.
- Digimon Battle Spirit 2 (Game Boy Advance) - Sequel to the previous game.
- Digimon Racing (Game Boy Advance) - First and only Digimon game to focus on racing.
- Digimon Rumble Arena 2 (Nintendo GameCube)- Similar to Super Smash Bros. Melee.
- Digimon World 4 (Nintendo GameCube, PS2, Xbox) - First Digimon game on a Nintendo home console.
- Digimon World DS (Nintendo DS) - The series debut on the Nintendo DS.
- Digimon World Dawn & Dusk (Nintendo DS) - sequel to Digimon World DS.
- Digimon World Championship (Nintendo DS) - Last localized game for several years
- Digimon Story Lost Evolution - (Nintendo DS)
- Digimon Story: Super Xros Wars Red/Blue - (Nintendo DS)
- Digimon World Re:Digitize: Decode - (Nintendo 3DS) - First return to the World series of games in 8 years
- Digimon Universe: Appli Monsters (Nintendo 3DS)
- Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth (Nintendo Switch) - First localized Digimon RPG in several years
- Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker's Memory (Nintendo Switch) - Spinoff to the original Cyber Sleuth bundled together in the Switch release
- Digimon Survive (Nintendo Switch) - Spinoff in the series focused on tactical role-playing battles and story-driven visual novel segments
- Digimon World: Next Order (Nintendo Switch)
Cancelled Games[]
- Digimon (Wii) (Wii)
| Digimon series | |
|---|---|
| Console games | Digimon Rumble Arena 2 • Digimon World 4 • Cyber Sleuth • Digimon Survive |
| Handheld games | Battle Spirit • Battle Spirit 2 • Racing • World DS • World Dawn and Dusk • World Championship • Story Lost Evolution • Super Xros Wars • World Re:Digitize • Universe: Appli Monsters |
| Related | Bandai Namco Entertainment • Pokemon • Monster Rancher • Tamagotchi • Yo-kai Watch |