>>48324328I can understand it being there to emulate Tamagochis' limited lifespan, but PS1 Digimon kinda force you through a very boring training grind phase that has 0 actual challenge and pretty much 0 strategy outside of looking up which threshold to reach for a specific digivolution.
The grinding phase need to either be (somehow) made as fun as the exploration&story phase, or at least massively shortened so you can actually make use of most of your pet's lifespan.
Dunno, a pseudo roguelite with a character that is guaranteed to die on a timer doesn't seem like a great starting point, not with a "you are supposed to care about him" setting at least.
I would legit prefer a classic "when you die you die": it's more emotionally impactful than "arbitrary timer is up!". Maybe add a system of permanent damage so at some point or another you have to retire your mon and it stay in the village for 1 or 2 generation, providing some minor stats bonus depending on how far your adventured with him.
>>48324341I fully agree, but at least Pikachu is cute *enough* that any random-ass TV hostess can give it a hug without knowing shit about the character, which is what matter for this kind of advertising.
And we got lucky, iirc they wanted to make fucking Clefairy the mascot initially. 