I'm bringing back Digimon reviews! This one was actually more or less done for a month or so, but I was a bit too lazy in formatting the order.
It's a bit of a shame that, after Savers, the Digimon franchise basically went into a period of having nothing particularly interesting out until the next anime comes up in 2010, and that is going to be one hot mess of a controversy. The franchise basically settled into just churning out mostly video games and trading cards at this point, but at this point they ended up releasing perhaps one of my favourite Digimon media ever -- Digimon World Dawn and Dusk! Or, as they are known in Japan, Sunburst and Moonlight.
I don't normally talk a lot about video games here, but these are perhaps some of the most commonly-discussed video games for Digimon that I've seen out there other than the first three "Digimon World" series, and being a game for the DS allows it to have a relatively large amount of Digimon both new and old, with a cast of 397 Digimon. There's also a bunch of newer virtual pets that showed up at around this point, but other than the exception of a couple of new Ultimate levels, they don't offer anything new to talk about.
Anyway, while most of Dawn and Dusk do involve pre-existing Digimon, they do have their own 'exclusive' evolutionary lines. Keep in mind that this article is basically covering 2008 through 2010, because... there really aren't that many new things that pops up between Savers' end in 2007 and Xros Wars' release in 2010.
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Sunmon
The Baby II form (these games do away with Baby I's entirely) of Sunburst/Dawn's exclusive evolutioanry line is Sunmon. Who is... a little sun-blob with a little candle flame on his head. Nothing much to say here. it's honestly almost expected.
4/10.Coronamon
Dawn's main Child-level partner that you must get as part of your team of three is Coronamon here, who is... a humanoid monkey-man-thing with random accessories glued to his fist and forehead, with fur that are wiggly like flames. I really don't want to shit on Coronamon here, but there was a distinct reason why I picked Dusk -- and that's not because all the cool bugs and demon Digimon are easier to get there, but that's because Coronamon is really kind of not something I want running around on my screen for my entire playthrough. Coronamon's evolutionary line is cat-inspired, so I'm actually baffled why they didn't actually add more cat features to Coronamon's design. Certainly wouldn't make him look any less horrible as opposed to this rather messy look. I dunno... Coronamon feels like the bad knockoff mammalian version of Charmander, and that's not a good thing to look like. Coronamon's lore is kinda neat, noting that he's born from "the fusion of sun-watching data", which is kinda fun. I think he has a brief cameo in Xros Wars? Ultimately, though, it's not my thing. 4/10.Firamon
Firamon is the Adult stage and... god, it's cluttered and awkward-looking, yeah? It's miles and miles better than the blandness of Liamon or Liollmon or whichever one of them is the Adult stage. LoaderLiomon and BanchoLeomon's pre-evolved forms. Firamon is a winged fire lion with a fuckton of random belts and accessories, and I kinda feel like they could've toned down the accessories a bit. It's not a bad concept, but Firamon here really looks like they could've done a couple extra revisions before finalizing the design? It's entire profile is just an exercise of saying "this is a lion, he can control fire" in as many different ways as Firamon has accessories.Also is that Pokeball on his back leg, above that weird leg-skirt?
3/10.Flaremon
Flaremon is the Perfect-level evolution, and it's... it's kinda expected, you know? The lion-man... stands up? It's at least distinct enough from Leomon and its variants, with Flaremon being far more heavy-set with cool-looking bent beast legs, and the armour on Flaremon look signifcantly more futuristic than the various Leomons' more fantasy-inspired (or street punk, in BanchoLeomon's case) look. I'm not quite sure what those red-and-white siky things that sort of just hover above Flaremon's arms are, though. Not really all that much to say here, it's a design that, like Firamon, really feels like they could've revised a fair bit. 2/10.Apollomon
Here's the Ultimate-level evolution of Coronamon, and, yes, both version-exclusives evolve into a member of the Olympos XII. Thankfully, unlike the horrible effort they did with Marsmon, Mercurymon and Minervamon, at least both Apollomon and Dianamon actually make sense, y'know? Apollo is a complex Roman deity, but he is the god of the sun, so having Apollomon basically be a sun god is at least faithful to the source material. His design is... it's honestly kind of boring, kind of a Gundam lion-man-robot with a huge lion hair-mane, that weird shrine-thing jutting out of his head and flames shooting out of it, but Apollomon at least looks somewhat pleasant compared to the cluttered and messy Firamon and Flaremon. I'm not 100% sure why he suddenly turns into a robotic/metallic humanoid, though, and I really wished that the evolutionary line shows this off a little.Apollomon would play a major role in Xros Wars, where Apollomon is introduced as the ruler of Bright Land, and he is a major force that shows up for an entire arc where he struggles against the enigmatic "Whispered", who turns out to be his own evil personality. We'll cover that when we get to Xros Wars, yeah?
4/10.Moonmon
Like Sunmon, Moon-moon here is the expected blob baby. He's not an actual moon, though, and looks more like a drop of water plopping into a body of water. It's an... interesting thing to design a moon Digimon, because of the associations that oriental cultures sometimes give between the moon and water -- and the entire line is able to use water and ice moves in the game, which is neat. Again, pretty simple and charming, but not much to really say.
4/10.Lunamon
And Lunamon here is a lot more adorable than Coronamon! Instead of just having a generic humanoid-monkey figure and attaching random details, Lunamon is actually working off from a specific mythology -- the rabbit in the moon, and Lunamon's design has the distinct rabbit ears, and while she's not entirely a rabbit-girl, the design from the dress-like lower body, the distinctive-looking head and face, and even the accessories all really build into a far more pleasant design. Lunamon isn't like my favourite Child-level Digimon of all time or anything, and I really think they could've done something more interesting with her, but she's a lot more memorable and neater-looking than Coronamon is. Anyway, Lunamon has had time to grow on me, considering that I played Digimon World: Dusk for a fair chunk, for the simple reason that I like Lunamon so much more than Coronamon. 6/10.Lekismon
And unlike the pretty random evolution from a bipedal fire boy into a four-legged winged lion to a two-legged non-winged lion man to a lion robot-god, the evolution of Lunamon's line is a lot more gradual and make a fair bit more sense. Lekismon does have a wee bit too much accessories going on, especially the sheer amount of shit sticking out of the back of her head, but Lekismon is still ultimately a pretty decent humanoid rabbit-warrior. She's perhaps a wee bit too cluttered, but I actually kind of like her... although I suspect part of it is because, again, the entire Lunamon line has had a fair bit of time to grow on me.Lekismon is described to being a playful fighter, jumping around to toy with her enemies, and her personalities apparently waver like the phases of the moon. The entire Lunamon line, by the way, apparently manipulates water and ice. While it could be a clever nod to how the moon affects tides or something like that, I just kind of think it's just there to be a contrast to Coronamon's fire-manipulation. Most of Lekismon's attacks shown in official artwork involves her shooting icy shards. Could've used a lot less random crap on her back, but eh, she's all right.
6/10.Crescemon
The evolution from Lekismon to Crescemon make a neat change from a bipedal rabbit into a more humanoid figure -- Crescemon still has the rabbit ears and rabbit legs, but is slowly gaining more humanoid features. And a bunch of weapons, too -- a neat spear-glaive thing and a shield, both of which, of course, are shaped like crescent moons. Crescemon still has a wee bit too many accessories and things going on, jutting out from her back, but it's not as bad as some Digimon out there. Apparently she can combine her spear and shield to form a bowgun? I'm not quite sure how that works, actually. I don't like Crescemon as much as the rest of Lunamon's evolutionary line, but she's still an inoffensive design, I think.Love those bunny face roller blades, by the way.
5/10.Dianamon
Lunamon's Ultimate form, Dianamon, takes her name from Diana, the goddess of the hunt that is also sometimes associated with the moon. Also, and more obviously than Apollomon, she's turned into some kind of a robot here. Dianamon is noted by her bio to 'preside over water and ice', something that... I dunno, doesn't really fit into the whole moon theme? She does use a lot of water-element skills in the game, and she is apparently able to cool down the surrounding temperature into absolute zero. I do kind of like the sheer amount of random crescent moon images that they snuck into Dianamon's design, from the moon-shaped spear ends, to the moons on her shoulders, to the actually hilarious crescent moons with sleepy faces that make up her entire lower legs. I'm pretty sure those moon-legs gain Dianamon a whole point on their own. 6/10.Grimmon, ChaosGrimmon & ExoGrimmon
The main antagonists for both Dawn/Dusk is this dude, Grimmon, who is this game's "oh no, mysterious Digimon that has never been seen before" monster. Unlike most other video-game-exclusive villains not named Millenniummon, though, Grimmon actually got proper official artwork! The Adult-level Grimmon is probably my favourite, being a giant snake robot with a gigantic fanged mouth, robot-laser wings, a cannon for an arm and an ax for another. Really love the the skull-face that he has. It's not the most creative design because we've seen this body shape multiple times in Digimon's history, but it's the neatest-looking one.
The other two, which some sources note as being Perfect-level and Ultimate-level respectively, are fought one after the other as part of a boss fight rush. ChaosGrimmon is the weird half-red, half-blue humanoid figure, although I do appreciate that all three Grimmon forms retain the laser-robot wings. It's honestly kind of generic and I genuinely forgot ChaosGrimmon exists until I was looking up the a list of Digimon. ExoGrimmon is sorta generic, being a robot dragon standing on two legs, but he does look relatively neat looking. It's not a design I dislike, anyway. Overall... I don't really have much to say here. Grimmon and ExoGrimmon look decent, and they are all pretty neat-looking enemies to face off as a one-off video game enemy.
7/10.Click below for a bunch more video-game exclusive stuff, including the entire Dracomon line!
Chicchimon
I'm not sure why the design team behind Dawn/Dusk decided to introduce a brand-new Baby II Digimon, but we do. Chicchimon is... well, he's a chicken blob, which we already have a couple of -- Pororomon or whatever Hawkmon's pre-evolution is, as well as whatever Falcomon evolves from. I dunno. This is kinda cute, but at the same time also kinda generic. Chicchimon's whole presence is just to be a pre-evolution for Penmon and Muchomon, which is genuinely surprising that they'd go all the effort to make a new Digimon for those two. (In my day, we had to evolve Penmon from Tsunomon!) Chicchimon would receive his own specific evolution later on, though not for a while. 2/10.ChaosDukemon: Core & Ophanimon: Core
Yeah, just gonna lump these two together. Depending on which game you play, one of the boss fights is the other team you're not playing. If you're playing Dawn, you fight the Dusk team's infected ChaosDukemon, and if you're playing Dusk, you fight the Dawn team's infected Ophanimon. ChaosDukemon Core's basically an off-colour ChaosdDukemon and is kinda boring, whereas Ophanimon Core is honestly what I kinda wished the original Ophanimon was -- Look at how much cooler Ophanimon Core is by just setting parts of it on fire!
Ultimately, though, both are pretty bland repaints, and mostly just an excuse to buff up a boss enemy that's stronger than a regular Dukemon or Ophanimon.
3/10.Petitmon
This entire evolutionary line was introduced as part of the "Digimon Championship" DS game, which is more of an updated version of virtual pets, focusing less on adventuring and more on raising your pet and having them fight. Petitmon's evolution line is introduced in a "Digimon 10th Anniversary" event, I think? Petitmon is kind of an obvious baby dragon-blob that's a smaller version of his Child-level evolution, Dracomon, but at least Petitmon has something adorable going for him -- his one, single feet! I just find that pretty damn cute, how this is a blob with two wings, two horns, and hops around in a single feet. Ultimately, though, not much to see here. 4/10.Babydmon [a.k.a. Babydramon]
The Baby II form is this surprisingly complex-looking Babydmon (pronounced baby-do-mon). I mean, I guess it fits the role of a baby dragon well? I dunno. It feels genuinely underwhelming to me, although I do like its funny little deer horns and the fact that it has no arms or legs. Is it another "seahorse" joke? I feel like it might be. Anyway, I really have not much to say here... Babydmon is a pretty neat looking baby dragon, and I do feel like despite all my earlier gripes, it does look different enough from Dracomon to feel unique. I like the weird wispy tail. 4/10.Dracomon
There is admittedly something pretty basic about Dracomon here. Like, if you said "Child-level dragon digimon", Dracomon is probably pretty close to whatever you have in mind, even if you've never seen him before. I guess it's kind of obligatory at this point, considering Agumon was more of a dinosaur, Guilmon was more of a baby kaiju and Ryudamon is just pure shit? I do like that Dracomon combines both Western and Eastern dragon influences, though, having the deer horns that Eastern dragons have with the bat-like wings of Western dragons? I dunno. Dracomon feels kinda bland, but I think it's kind of meant to. Dracomon is noted by its profile (and its evolutionary line) to be the progenitor of all -dramon type Digimon. It's kinda boring, but I kinda like the story behind him, I guess. Dracomon's whole gimmick is that he apparently has a specific scale called the 'Gekirin', which, when touched, will cause Dracomon to basically go on an unstoppable rage. It's a pun since Gekirin can be read as either 'reverse scale' or 'imperial wrath'. Also, instead of hoarding treasure, Dracomon apparently eats gemstones.Dracomon makes an unexpected major appearance in Digimon Xros Wars, where he ends up being rescued by our heroes of Blue Flare from a group of Devidramon, and ends up being a constant ally, initially helping out because he's got knowledge of local terrain, and later on just as an additional fighter in the pretty large army of Blue Flare. Ultimately Dracomon isn't my favourite design by a long shot, but a pretty neat one. Sometimes you just have to have "just a dragon child" design, you know?
6/10.Coredramon Blue & Green
In the original game that Dracomon showed up in, he is able to evolve into two different Adult forms (in addition to other -dramon types, of course), which are Coredramon: Blue and Coredramon: Green. They both look pretty identical, and are basically just a pretty expected, generic version of a dragon. Four legs, serpentine neck, bat wings, huge tail, dinosaurian head, horns. We do get a fun little detail where apparently the amount of 'dragon data' in a Digimon's code is part of what makes -Dramon species Digimon, well, -Dramons, but both Coredramons basically have 100% -Dramon data, making them a pure-bred dragon. Okay, then. They're both inoffensive and pretty generic dragons, and apparently the difference in their scales is because of the amount of gemstones that Dracomon eats? I dunno. They're neat, simple designs, and I don't mind that, it's just that we're a couple hundred Digimon in and we've had way too many dragon or dinosaur monsters that it's just slightly underwhelming, y'know? 4/10.Groundramon
Thankfully, their evolved forms are far, far more interesting! If you go with Coredramon Green, the Perfect-level evolution is the pretty bizarre-looking Groundramon. Groundramon's main body looks like just any dragon out there, albeit with a big fuck-off mace for a tail, but the fun, wacky detail of having two gigantic bulbous fleshy claws as wings just adds a whole lot of bizarre charm to Groundramon. It's apparently to help Groundramon dig and tunnel through the ground, since it's an earth dragon. There's really not much lore overall in his bio, just noting on how it loves to live in underground tunnels and is viciously territorial, but I do find the idea of a dragon that has evolved some extra appendages -- what used to be 'wings', too, to contrast its alternate-evolution brother -- to better suit their environment to be fun, and this is such a bizarre, wacky take on a subterranean dragon as opposed to the many, many different 'dragons made out of earth' variants in fantasy . 8/10.Breakdramon
WHOA WHAT? Yeah, this was not at all what I was expecting when I saw Coredramon. Breakdramon here has gone from the most generic-looking dragon, to a dragon with wing-shovels, to this... this insane giant made entirely of construction tools, cobbled together into the vague shape of a dragon! What the fuck! It took me a while to look at Breakdramon and to really appreciate what the fuck is going on here. You've for tendril-tails ending in giant drills, drills for back-spines, you's got a long neck shaped like a construction vehicle, a drill on the nose, a giant bulldozer shovel jutting out of his chest, and Groundramon's wing-claws have changed into these excavator-like appendages. That's... that's pretty damn creative! Look at that face, too. I mean, really look at that face. It's got some of the OG 'tortured monstrous fleshy being inside a robot' bit that we haven't seen in a long while. And it still has the general configuration of a four-legged dragon, which is just dang awesome!The backstory is neat, too, where Breakdramon wants to 'destroy everything on land', and it has apparently hacked the data for various construction equipment which it has used in evolution, and has lost all of his emotions in doing so, truly becoming a mindless machine of destruction that only exists to destroy things until it rusts away. "Nothing remains standing where Breakdramon has passed through" indeed -- the visual of Breakdramon does really sell the fantasy of a monster that is reduced into nothing but the desire to destroy and nothing else. Breakdramon would show up in Xros Wars as a particularly memorable villain of the week, being pretty hyped up by the cast as an unstoppable monster. A decidedly less impressive one shows up in Xros Wars: Hunters as a pretty crappy villain of the week there.
10/10.Wingdramon
Coredramon Blue evolves into Wingdramon, which is... a bit less memorable than Groundramon, I'm afraid. I do like the fact that it's holding these wacky orbs, but Wingdramon feels like a pretty obviously boring concept. It's just a dragon, but with large wings, and a more humanoid body shape. I do like the lore given in his bio where apparently Wingdramon's scales can "block gravity", allowing it to fly without actually using his wings. Oh, and it's also got a lance on his back. It's... it's kind of a well drawn dragon, I suppose, but after the pretty creative Breakdramon and Groundramon, Wingdramon just really looks bland and uninspired. That said, Wingdramon actually looks like a more organic evolution for Airdramon, considering the shape of his face, which might just be a coincidence, but I do like that. 6/10.Slayerdramon
Well, all the creativity that went into Breakdramon has to come from somewhere. Slayerdramon here is... he's just a generic humanoid knight with a dragon face. Which we already have in various forms with Darkdramon, Dorugoramon, the other Dorugoramon, Examon, Dynasmon, ShineGreymon, WarGreymon, and probably a couple others I forgot. Again, Slayerdramon isn't objectively horrible, but it's a design that we've seen so many times in Digimon, and it doesn't really bring its own unique spin into things beyond a vague lore that Wingdramon evolves into Slayerdramon after completing a 'trial of the four great dragons'. The bio adds nothing interesting to Slayderdramon's lore, either, sounding like a bad toy advertisement for the different things that Slayerdramon can do with his big, phallic multi-segmented sword Fragarach (named after a sword from Irish mythology). He at least looks somewhat decent, I suppose, which makes him not get completely zero marks from me. 3/10.Ogudomon
As this weird master of the Seven Demon Lords (or the fused form of them, in some games), Ogudomon tends to be the main antagonist in many random spinoff games, like Digimon Collectors and some arcade games. I personally kind of find this underwhelming in the same way that Apocalymon is kind of underwhelming. A weird, non-humanoid primal evil that is 'beyond' all the members of a pre-existing set of super-evil villains is interesting, but Ogudomon has no real personality or backstory, and a randomly powerful enemy that exists just to be a randomly powerful enemy. I do feel like they really could've done a lot better in giving us Ogudomon's backstory, or to tie it in with the Seven Sins, but eh, at least it's design is weirdly cool. I am not a fan of the handwave-y backstory, but definitely a fan of the design.
5/10.VictoryGreymon
Both VictoryGreymon and ZeedGarurumon show up in the pretty bland final chapters of the manga Digimon Next, released to promote the Digimon Twin virtual pets. I dunno. This is just a design that just doesn't do anything for me -- I was okay with the X-Antibody version of WarGreymon, because that is a neat variation, and ShineGreymon is pretty neat, but VictoryGreymon here straight-up just looks like a bad draft of "how can we make WarGreymon look different?" And apparently that's by making him look so, so much worse.
0/10.Z'dGarurumon (a.k.a. ZeedGarurumon)
Thank god that Bandai seems to have realized this, and never actually made any sort of Omegamon variant (probably named something anal like VeeZeedOmegamon or some bullshit like that) featuring these two piss-poor wannabes. Like, I still give Z'dGarurumon some points because at least it changes enough to look more like a variation instead of a ripoff, so he gets a better mark.
3/10.Burpmon
Huh. This is different. Apparently in the Digimon Twin games, if your Digimon eats too much and becomes overweight, it evolves into a Burpmon, which is more of a 'state' that the Digimon gets stuck in until you get it to lose weight? It's always hungry, but it won't be satiated by food, and it will infect other Digimon into being a Burpmon? It's a weird concept that I kinda wished was explored a little further, but Burpmon is just kind of a one-note joke that is never brought up ever again. 3/10.
That's all for now! Next up is going to be the 'soft reboot' that the franchise gets in 2010 with Xros Wars, and that's... that's going to be kind of a mammoth to go through. We'll take a brief break before we come back with that.
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