Today’s nostalgic Digimon was actually the reason I started looking at nostalgic Digimon. What can I say; Digimon World 2003 was totally my thing!
B is For…
Bearmon
I have an overwhelming sense of nostalgia for Digimon World 2003; it’s by far the game I’ve put the most amount of hours in throughout my entire gaming life.
I’ve been wanting to pick him as a Digimon to talk about for quite a while. I already mentioned wanting to choose Bearmon for my ‘B’ for underrated Digimon but couldn’t really call him underrated as he had appeared in games, movies, and the TV show itself.
Digimon World 2003 was going to be a birthday present, but I was able to get it a few days earlier because I was really brave and got some vaccinations (if memory serves me correctly).
I remember that night fondly; I ecstatically slid the disc into my Playstation and proceeded to watch the most adorable and exciting opening video to a game that I had ever seen.
Of course the opening video made my decision on which starter pack to pick – the Maniac Pack, where I first encountered Bearmon.
Bearmon was a hard favourite throughout the game and was most certainly my most useful and strongest Digimon in my team. I remember the excitement when I first was able to DNA Digivolve Growlmon with Grizzmon to form BladeGarurumon (the former dub name of KendoGarurumon. Honestly, it would have been a better name because he DOES seem to have roller blades).
In addition, Bearmon evolves to GrapLeomon which I’m pretty sure is one of the few Leomon variations with a low death count. His natural evolution is even to Marsmon – a god.
A quick anecdote about Digimon World 2003: I absolutely loved how you could not only have multiple evolution paths, but you could also evolve to whatever Digimon you had unlocked, even though I always found myself just drawn to one path (Bearmon -> Grizzmon -> GrapLeomon -> Marsmon), I really enjoyed that I could have Bearmon evolve to DigiTamamon or Devimon if I so desired.
I mentioned in my last post about how I had a pretty large sense of nostalgia for Digimon Frontier, so boy was I excited to watch the Digimon Frontier movie and see Bearmon in a fairly major role!
Speaking of Frontier, I’m not sure what the advertising was like for other countries, but in Australia, Digimon World 2003 was advertised as a ‘sneak peak’ of Digimon that would make an appearance in the ‘next season of Digimon’.
Fast forward to a few years ago when I was watching Digimon Adventure Tri Part 4 for the first time…
I’ve already written about my love for the original children back story in Part 4, so I won’t go gush about it too much here.
I was overwhelmed with nostalgia to learn that Bearmon was on of the partner Digimon of the original chosen. The moment re-awoken so much adoration for this Digimon.
In fact, I was so overwhelmed, I even missed that fact that Daigo was wearing goggles around his neck.
Also, to top it all off, his hat says ‘BEARS’ on it. What’s better or more memorable than that? I wish Bandai would release it as merch – I’d wear it everyday.
So what’s the most nostalgic Digimon for you that begins with ‘B’?
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