1) You only get one - With the exception of a few games, the whole point is you get one partner. With Pokemon the whole point is just to train them and get as many of them as possible. Digimon gives you only one. You need to take care of it like it was a real pet (In the Tomagotchi’s and Digimon World One). Feed it, clean up its crap, give it medicine. It depends on you to grow and get stronger. The bond between a human and his/her digimon is much stronger than a pokemon trainer and their pokemon. You don’t care about stats or moveset.
2) They can talk - A badass monster that can blow stuff up AND talk to you. That also improves the bond between Digimon and human.
3) Appearance is better - Compare Woobat to Demidevimon. Case closed.
4) Digivolving is deeper than evolving - Unlike Pokemon, every digimon has a chance at digivolving. They all have fresh, in training, rookie, champion, ultimate, and mega forms. No digimon is left out. Digivolving depends on your relationship with the digimon. If you treat it like shit, it doesn’t reach it’s full potential. It can actually become a mindless beast if you mistreat it. If you take care of it then it can be as strong as it can be. Plus two digimon can dna digivolve and reach unbelievable strength.
And also let’s be honest. Everyone who plays pokemon has that one pokemon they like that has a shitty evolution. You only evolve it so it’s stronger, while secretly yearning for it’s older form. With digimon you can have it go to the ugly, but extremely stronger form and then have it come back to it’s cute rookie form you have grown to love.
5) Attempts at evolving - Most pokemon games are pretty much the same. With the exception of setting and online stuff, the games are the same. Digimon at least made the attempt to change the series with each game. Some decisions weren’t that good, but at least they try change. Digimon World one is drastically different from Digimon World 2. Pokemon Red and Pokemon Gold are basically the same thing with just some small add ons.
6) Digimon don’t die - You may be reading this and saying “Pokemon don’t die either!” You’re right and wrong. They only faint in the games because you make them fight you cold heartless bastard. You make them faint and think nothing of it. It is said that they die (Lavender Town, Manga, Anime, etc) but no one has any negative feelings about it really. If you fuck up with a digimon and it dies, it isn’t gone forever. It gets reborn. That means you have a second chance. A chance to make things right. A chance to be a better partner.
7) You don’t see the same character all the time - Okay this is more of a stab at the anime than the games. In the digimon series each season focuses on new characters (Although season 2 and to a minor extent season 3 did have references to the first season). You don’t see Tai running around with his Agumon for 12 years not growing in age. No, Digimon knows when each character’s story ends. They don’t drag it on for several years.
8) Your goal has purpose - In Digimon your job is to stop evil that is causing problems in the digital world. In Pokemon your job just to be the best and catch them all. Hmm let’s see. Which is a better goal? Saving a world and all it’s inhabitants or catching 400+ creatures to be the better than everyone? I’d go with saving the world. Sure your character in pokemon stops the bad guys. But that’s not your main goal. Your main goal is to ”Catch em’ all!”
9) No legendaries - While there are digimon sovereigns, the 13 holy digimon, and the 3 celestial digimon, you can’t catch them. You don’t end up with them as partners. Their job is to rule over and protect the digital world. They don’t stop their duties to become the pet of a 10 year old kid like the legendaries in Pokemon. You can’t fucking capture the God of the digital world and use it to battle another guy who has digimon just for shits and giggles. No they keep their jobs.
10) No Master Ball - This ties into the previous reason. Even if you could capture a digimon sovereign, it at least puts up a fight. In pokemon you can literally capture the fucking god of the Pokemon world without it putting up a fight. They made a little ball that can capture God. That is the biggest bullshit ever. There isn’t a master ball in digimon. There isn’t an easy solution to capturing digimon.
11) Little to no hacking - Let’s be honest. Everyone knows a guy who hacked a pokemon game to give them 999 Master Balls, 999 rare candies, a legendary with 999 stats and an impossible moveset, and/or some other bullshit. With digimon there isn’t really a need to hack.
Most people play digimon games legit. With pokemon a lot of people hack it. Even using pokesav to just get a pokemon with the right EV/IV spread is tampering with the game. Digimon doesn’t have that problem. People don’t boast about level 99 Wargreymon’s they modded to have moves MetalGarurumon knows. But with Pokemon people have no problem bragging about the Level 100 Arceus they hacked.
12) Digimon didn’t really sell out - Digimon didn’t sell out like pokemon. It was the digivices, a card game, the video games, the tv series, a manga, one movie in theatres, and action figures.
Let me go over what pokemon has done.
Nintendo giveaway events at gamestop, underwear, cereal, poptarts, dolls, action figures, little electronic pokeballs with minigames that were terrible, board games, tv series, comic, video games, like 12 movies in theatres, school supplies, McDonalds & Burger King toys, posters, pokedex, bed sheets, pillow cases, bath toys, and candy.
It’s kind of disgusting at how much Pokemon shit there is. Digimon did make a lot of shit for it’s fans. I’m not saying it didn’t. But Pokemon wen’t completely overboard with it. In fact there’s so much Pokemon merch that it’s worthless. You could get a copy of Red Version for like $10. Digimon World 1 however is like in the $30s used. A pokedex is like $25. A digivice can go for $50. The amount of pokemon stuff devalues most of its merchandise.
13) Music is better - Okay this one is more opinion based. The music in digimon is pretty damn good. The songs they play during the fight scenes are very catchy and suit the mood. Pokemon plays the same battle song over and over. And after season 1 of Pokemon the music turned to shit.
14) Fans aren’t ignorant to both series - Okay let’s get this out. Pokemon came before Digimon. However they are completely separate in origin. Pokemon started out as a comic which turned into a game and finally the monster it is now. Digimon was created as a boy version of Tamagotchi’s. Bandai realized that Tamagotchi’s weren’t as popular with boys. Then they made Digimon so they can use Tamagotchi’s to fight. It wasn’t created to copy Pokemon or anything like that. Bandai saw that the Digimon franchise was popular and made the tv show and games we love today. I know a lot of Pokemon fans who don’t know the origins of Pokemon or Digimon and because of this they think Digimon is a shameless rip off of Pokemon. In fact if you compare the series they are in fact quite different. A good portion of Pokemon fans don’t know any of this.
15) Having a Digimon makes you special - In Pokemon everyone and their grandmother has a Pokemon. In Digimon if you have a digimon it mean something. It makes you special. No average joe can have a Digimon (I’M TALKING TO YOU YOUNGSTER JOEY).
16) Digimon is much more likely to happen than Pokemon - Digimon takes place in a world inside the internet. The odds of someone creating a program that creates the digital world is much more likely than a mouse that shoots lightning existing. People could theoretically have Digimon in the future. It is possible that they’ll look just like the actual Digimon from the series too. The odds of scientists genetically mutating animals to have the powers they have in Pokemon is much less likely. And even if they did, they wouldn’t look like the Pokemon do and they wouldn’t evolve either.
17) Digimon all have signature moves - Each Digimon has their own signature moves. This is cool because it makes them unique. You don’t see every Digimon shooting a fire ball and calling it Pepper Breath. In Pokemon a lot of them learn the same moves. Very few Pokemon know moves exclusive to them. It makes them less cool. For example when your charmander learns flamethrower you get excited and think it’s cool… up until you realize 100 other Pokemon can learn it too.
18) More relatable characters - Ash is generally a two dimensional character. He just wants to be the very best. It’s kind of hard to relate to him. Sure we all have dreams we want to achieve but so does everyone on a tv show. With Digimon the protagonists have back story. They have depth. Each character represents one of us. Each struggling to overcome their hardships. The crests they’re given represent traits that are strong within them. The traits that can surface if they confront their problems. They struggle to overcome personal problems to be the best they can be. And these problems aren’t just because their neighbor was a dick to them since they were babies. These problems are caused by real problems a lot of people face. I don’t see Ash Ketchum struggling with the fact he’s adopted or that his parents separated and his father took his younger brother. This brings it all back to a point I mentioned earlier. Ash, like most of the protagonists in the game, want to be the very best just to be better than everyone.
(Source: sunday-under-glass)
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