People wanted a monster taming rpg a la Pokemon but instead they got a raising sim, a dungeon crawler, a smash clone, a card game and a very tedious rpg, I think if they improved on DW1 with each sequel or just made a similar rpg to Pokemon they could have landed a bigger success.
Also I kind of blame the US for the localisation of the Anime making the series look like a lame Pokemon knock-off.

I blame lack of general direction.
Not only the games, but also the anime was all over the place without coherent settings between each other.
You'd never know what to expect from the next Digimon game, there were no gameplay guarantees, or even quality guarantees, because they were not building each game on top of feedbacks from previous entries, they were just throwing everything at the wall to see if it sticks

>>12274750
Because Digimon in general wasn't as popular as Pokemon. Hope that helps.

my digimon also turned into that slime. fuck that game

The digimon dying every 15 days was a huge fucking problem in tediousness. Combined with the lack of direction. Having your very immediately observable progress just fucking due in front of your face is the kind of shit most people don't tolerate unless there's huge reincarnation bonuses. With DW doesn't have. Nobody cares about the subtle progress markers like money or birdra teleports carrying over when this giant problem immediately stares all incoming players right in the face. I would argue this single mechanic destroyed any of Digimon's ability to get a gaming foothold in that era.

>>12274750
This game is so mysterious and charming. I played it last year but it felt like I was playing it 20 years ago

>>12274923
Training gets a lot more manageable as you progress. Kabuterimon and Kuwagamon boost training, Vegiemon sells edible items that do the same and Pixiemon also sells the training manual. IIRC there are also a permanent training boosts that you get by training with baby or in-training digimon, but I'm not 100% sure about how these work. The stats of your previous dead digimon carry over to your new digimon albeit heavily reduced, but again I'm not sure of the details. Basically a digimon with shit stats will become a baby with shit stats whereas a digimon with great stats will become a baby with "okay" stats. The training slots being fixed so you randomly can't win is complete bullshit. Having a higher chance of getting an ultimate if you have more than a certain number of moves learned is another weird mechanic. The game is full of them and most of them are either unintuitive or completely hidden from the user. One of the greatest games ever and one hell of a casual filter.

>>12274923
I like how obscure the mechanics.

It is rare that you get rare items, rare techniques or rare digivolutions but when it happens you just think "Holy shit". You can go through the entire game without seeing 90% of the secrets. I think they really got this right.

>>12274750
The games simply weren't as fun as pokemon game, people call it a pokemon rip off but boy I wish they had ripped off the pokemon games instead of being "genre fluid"

>>12274750
>why wasn't a glorified tamagotchi as popular as a card game?
Gee I dunno maybe because tamagotchi is for girls and sissys.

>>12275148
Imagine your pokemon dying and you have to catch a new one after a certain amount of time in the in game g/s/c clock. Absolute retarded decision. It doesn't matter how clever you can get working around that mechanic to progress it's so stupid on its face it guarantees you won't have a market next to pokemon.

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>>12274750
BC we didn't even get half of the games my guy.

>Also I kind of blame the US for the localisation of the Anime making the series look like a lame Pokemon knock-off.

Yeah that was no good. But kids were acting like white girls about it plenty of pokemon stuff is ripped right from other Japanese media.

>>12274779
World 2 was a POS for sure. But we didn't even get the SRPGs, the Wonderswan rpgs, or the season 1 rehash made into an rpg.

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>>12275268
Yeah that's because Digimon are Tamagotchi just like the original Tamagotchi they die of old age. Shit was built to be a fad and worse a spin off of a fad no less.

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>>12275251
nah everyone had one back then, you are acting zoomish.

>>12275148
nah, pokemon sucked hardcore.

>played red/blue, but wanted more of an adventure like in both manga
>played snap and it was shit
>played stadium it was ok, more so a post game for r/b with no exploration
nice battles though
>refused to play yellow because it was basically a mod
>finally play gold and I was amazed at the mechanics
>not getting crystal because I am not buying the same twice with dlc
>refuse to get Stadium 2 because it's going to be the same shit as stadium
> between the two year gap between G/S/C and R/S discover rpgamer.com and find out about other rpgs like Bof,FF,Arc the Lad, Dragon Quest, etc.
>they are having adventures like in the anime and manga
>Better monster game in Arc the lad, but no one played it here because it got to the USA too late
It also had a far superior battle tower, 4 years before it appeared in crystal
>I wish pokemon was like this
>I see R/S on display in toys'r'us and it looks like shit in comparison in comparison to other rpgs on the gba
>say fuck it and buy ffta instead
>a bunch of bullshit shill games like puzzle league, channel, trozei and dash released
when other series have good side games and it isn't a minefield

>reused 64 models and shitty graphics in both gamecube titles
>A few years later I try mystery dungeon and it's alright
Sad thing is that another developer made a game with a better ost, sprites and story than
the gamefreak.

> want to give the series a chance again with D/P
>get battel revolution included as a gift as well
>Static sprites after mystery dungeon
>bullshit natures?
>reused N64 models on the wii
> invisible iv/ev grinding just to get a decent online battle?

>say fuck it and turn my back on the series entirely

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>Early Pokemon
>Simple and straightforward, even the dumbest kid on the playground can at least just solo starter their way through the game.
>Nailed their core gameplay on the first attempt and every game after was just refining that.

>Early Digimon
>Too mechanically obtuse and grindy for the average kid to put up with. See all those "I got a Numemon fuck this game" stories the past 25 years.
>Spent like a decade flopping all over the place regarding just what a "main" Digimon game should even BE before they finally settled on the World/Story split.

>>12274750
First-mover advantage

>>12275349
Didn't work for DQ in the west

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>>12274750
not enough (or good) marketing