>>36170203As a long time Digimon fan, I admit that yes, Digimon's complicated evolution shenanigans - as a more convoluted Tamagotchi - is what kept it from having the staying power Pokemon had. Not only did you run the risk of not getting the badass Digimon you wanted because one stat you overlooked was just a bit too high, but they also died, meaning you'd have to start all over again and hope you'd get it right the next time. While branching evolutionary paths were great and allowed there to be a large variety of different kinds of Digimon, it'd have been better if there were clues on how to get the Digimon you wanted and didn't have to deal with the caring and death thing.
Also, Pokemon chose to do this cross-generational thing where you can carry over Pokemon from one game to another, and then into future generations of games. That gave encouragement to keep playing across multiple games because you could bring your long-time favorites or even shinies over from earlier games. This was because Pokemon had a centralized system that was identical between all the games.
Digimon never had this. Every game was an entirely new experience with different Digimon, so there was never any point in forming any emotional connection with your partner, because you'll never see them again once the next game is out. Worse still, each game was mechanically different from each other. DW1 was a raising sim where your care and choice of stats determined evolution. DW2 was a fucking dungeon crawler, you could persuade wild Digimon to join you, and what they evolved into depended entirely on the DP system. DW3 was a JRPG. It just goes on like this.
It's like Pokemon is Mario and Digimon is Sonic. One consistently provides a specific, satisfying gaming experience, while the other struggles to make modern games and their best ones pander to their original forms.
