That Green Dude

Several days ago I was asked by Jake from the Couch Bandits asked if I would like to submit a gaming memory to their huge gaming memory project. The aim of the project is to get 100 gaming memories from gamers of all types from around the world.

Well, I finally have time to sit down and write now that things have settled down so I thought I would contribute to this project. Choosing my favourite gaming memory is not easy as I have so many. I’ve been gaming for over 20 years and as you could imagine I have many fond gaming memories.

As I was trying to decide which gaming memory would be the most fun and entertaining, one memory kept coming to the front of my mind. The joy I felt when I FINALLY recruited Monochromon in Digimon World 1.

Digimon World tasks you with rebuilding File City, a place that was filled with Digimon. Most of the Digimon that once resided there have now left because of a mysterious evil power that is threatening the Digital World.

Some of the Digimon require you to fight them before they join the city, some will want you to get something for them and there are several Digimon that want you to do something for them before they join the city. Monochromon is one of the Digimon you need to bring back to the city and he is arguably one of the most frustrating Digimon to recruit.

In order to get to Monochromon and his shop, you need to cross an invisible bridge at the Great Canyon (the invisible bridge blew my mind when I was a kid). Once you arrive at his shop the dinosaur looking Digimon will tell how running the shop is hard and that he doesn’t sell much. That’s probably because it’s in the middle of nowhere, it’s hard to get to and there are feral Digimon outside that will attack you but hey, what do I know?

Anyway, in order to get Monochromon to join the city, we need to get a profit of 3000 bits before the day is over. Now, this might not sound all that difficult but trust me, it is. There are three items you can sell meat, portable potty and medicine and they are worth 50, 150 and 1000 bits respectively.

What you ideally want is a lot of monsters asking for medicine but that doesn’t always happen. Now I may have the worst RNG luck in the world but I would usually get either one Digimon purchase medicine or none at all. If you didn’t sell medicine, you pretty much failed. The lack of Digimon wanting medicine was annoying but not as annoying as failing it and being unable to try again straight away. Yes, if you fail you had to wait until the next day in order to try it again. I remember getting so frustrated that I was swearing at my TV, coincidentally Digimon World was the first game I swore at.

However, success did happen, I reached the target profit and recruited Monochromon to the city. The joy, the elation, it was unmatched. I remember running downstairs and shouting at my mom and dad (who were watching TV at that time) and shouting at them “I did it! I did it! I finally got Monochromon!”. My parents would usually have told me off for interrupting them but they were happy that I did it, although I think they were more happy for the fact I would stop complaining about it.

I replay Digimon World 1 every so often and guess what? Monochromon’s shop still gives me trouble now. I guess some things never change.