I loved Digimon World 1, but had trouble getting into Next Order. I think the game not being top down made it harder for me to memorize and navigate.
One thing that always confused me about Digimon though was I didn't know what was supposed to be the main product as a kid. Like with Pokemon everything was in service of and funneled you to the games. My mission was to catch them all and become a Pokemon master. I never felt that cohesion with Digimon.
In Japan the virtual pets and card game always seemed like the staple for much of the franchise, but everywhere else in the West it was definitely the anime that was the heavy lifter since neither of those former stuff took off outside of Japan.
I imagine it was probably due to Japan being a smaller, more compact country a local game like the V-Pets flourished more easily alongside having a healthy scene for the card game.
Speaking of the card game the Japanese version is different than the watered down English version but I've never found a solid description of how the original version works...I know the PS1 card Battle game isn't 1:1 to the real Japanese card game, though there was a Wonderswan card game which I believe came closest.
