This thread is for various documentation of Digimon World 2 speedrunning in case any creator of a history documentary needs some facts researched. Be sure to put in any obscure fact you think is necessary.

Try to imagine Karl Jobst's voice reading this. Or ThaRixer or Summoning Salt or whoever your favorite commentator is.

Digimon World 2 was once considered "Nearly Humanly Impossible to Speedrun". The obvious reason would be due to its length. This is not entirely the case, given that longer runs, such as "Nemesis%" in Final Fantasy 10, were done regularly around this time. In addition to being very long, players are at the mercy of the game's brutal RNG. Floors are randomized and can either put you at the opposite end of a Floor Portal or right next to it, and when trying to Capture a Digimon, there is a chance of the one you want not even being in the Domain. There's also the fact that Items you shoot at Digimon can be rejected, and even when the biggest of three Hearts possible is hovering above a Digimon, there is still a not-so-slim 1-in-8 chance that they can refuse to join. Given the amount of Digimon you need to capture in a run with a fast route, this starts to add up, and problems caused by bad RNG can be very costly to outright run ending.

In addition to that, Digimon World 2 is very unrefined and unforgiving with its mechanics. Most RPGs at the time were refining their mechanics to be more inviting and less daunting. Digimon World 2 goes in the opposite direction, even bringing back Ineffective Attacks seen in some NES RPGs, where attacking a defeated enemy in the same turn results in your attacker missing and wasting an attack on nothing. In addition to that, Running Away is also quite the troublemaker. During each turn, your protagonist Akira has the option to just Give Orders to Digimon, Use either the Z Cannon (to attack enemies) or the ShooterGun (to benefit your Digimon) before Giving Orders, or Run Away. You only get one use of each per turn, and if you try and fail to Run Away (again, it's entirely up to luck), your Digimon will be defenseless against hits from the other team of Digimon before you get another chance on the next Turn. Obviously, enough failed Run Aways can put you in danger, deplete recovery items, and add minutes to the run.

One aspect of annoying mechanics is status effects, particularly being Confused. Being confused is awful, because when you are confused in Digimon World 2, your Digimon will always hit themselves or their allies. Unless you cure Confusion, it can last the entire fight, causing problems for you in addition to the onslaught of enemy attacks. I bring this up because one of the Digimon you are required to battle, three separate times in the game in fact, is Raremon, who will Counter Attack with Buffalo Breath, which Confuses whoever it hits. One battle with a Raremon is in the Coliseum, where the Z Cannon as well as curative items are not allowed, meaning you will most likely have to take a Buffalo Breath to the face or two, which is brutal. Confusion can be cured with Electro Thread and prevented entirely with an Interrupt, but these are aspects of the game that aren't intuitive without knowledge or trial and error.

Another thing that turns people off of Digimon World 2 is the amount of special items you need to destroy game-blocking barriers, some of which are invisible until you run into them or press X/O right next to them. You are given no indication of when one is about to come up, and even if you've played the game before, it's still annoying to have situational Missiles and BugZaps take up space in your already strictly limited inventory. Being short a Missile or two and having to take a much more roundabout route to Floor Portals tends to be a common occurrence in speedruns, due to the lack of routing research done on being prepared for this reviled mechanic. On some parts of File Island, the game's second half, Bugs that fall from the ceiling are impossible to avoid if you don't have the correct type of BugZap, which you need to just guess as it's random in each Domain attempt. Unless you want to sacrifice inventory space to carry several of each type of BugZap, you will just have to eat them. This is especially bad because one type of Bug is the ReturnBug, which randomly dumps 1-3 Digimon, permanently removing them for the remainder of the Domain. This has even happened in a WR run mentioned below. This aspect of the game is so hated, mods will remove it entirely.

There's also the problem of attack animations taking too long. This is obviously a major factor of why the game is so lengthy. Each attack is accompanied by several seconds of a Digimon standing there doing nothing, followed by an attack animation. This is excruciating to sit through in the early parts of the run, let alone later when battles will regularly consist of 3-on-3 matchups and attacks will regularly hit or heal all three Digimon on a team, with some moves even affecting all six. The upside is that this gives runners plenty of opportunities for breaks, but runners must still remember turns where they Ordered one of their Digimon to use an Interrupt attack. Runners can potentially get up to go get a drink during a long turn, only to come back to discover an idling menu asking them if they want to use an Interrupt attack on an enemy. You can technically take breaks during long turns, but you should probably still pay attention to when they're over so you don't add too much idle time to the run.

Speaking of things taking too long, much of Digimon World 2 is padded out with copious amounts of required grinding. This means you must do many of the slow battles to level up Digimon, and for some reason, the Digimon can't gain more than one level per battle, even if they have enough EXP for it. When this happens, you must do one more battle for the next level(s) to register. This is especially true when your team gains a new Rookie later in the game, and you need to do easy and safe enough battles to have your stronger Digimon carry the new one. This will happen a lot due to the fact that the game has an important feature called DNA Digivolution, essential for optimized runs. This is when you fuse together two equally powerful Digimon (such as two that are both at Level 22), sacrificing them both for a single Rookie inheriting the same moves, but reverting to Level 1 with stats to match. You will need to do a lot of grinding if you want things like the special Okuwamon who can use DuoScissorClaw and missile attacks, or a Whamon who can use Tidal Wave, Horn Buster, and Twig Tap, mentioned later below. This isn't a confusing mechanic, but it is something that can make large parts of the run quite a slog unless you figure out a way to weave it efficiently into other important Domain expeditions.

The first speedrunner brave enough to attempt Digimon World 2 was KHeartz back in 2014, with a time of 30:38:36. That's not a typo- Digimon World 2 really is that long. Make no mistake- this run was terrible. The most impressive thing about it is that it existed. Even KHeartz himself said the run could have been 10 hours shorter through fewer mistakes and resets alone. He did this as part of an effort to speedrun every Digimon game. He was active on 1 and 3, but only did this one run of 2. Still, two years would go by before someone else beat this time. ZChaotix was also running the game, and barely missed the WR.

In 2016, ZChaotix was the next to hold the WR with 24:29:36, cutting quite a few hours through better play, but with a route that was nothing to write home about. Later that year, AzureFlame4 began doing attempts on the game- one every weekend. While this was happening, SmartBall did one attempt and finished his run with a time of 22:14:13 shortly before Azure did, and Azure was only 90 seconds off. He never ran the game after that. SmartBall introduced a new routing innovation that's still used today- the Double Okuwamon. When an Okuwamon becomes Level 22, it will gain an attack called DuoScissorClaw, one of the most useful attacks in the run. DuoScissorClaw attacks all three enemies and reduces their defenses. Digimon's attributes can only be buffed or debuffed two times, so two Okuwamon can make enemies' defenses as low as they'll go in one turn. Much of the game is trivialized by the ability to use DuoScissorClaw with two Okuwamon.

One thing I haven't mentioned until now is one consequence of long runs- it's difficult to get one without a recording issue. Early speedruns of Digimon World 2 are split into multiple parts. SmartBall's first WR in the game is in one part, but has several recording errors with unnecessary time costs to fix. This is especially a problem given that one of the game's regulations is to finish runs in a single segment (more on that later). In 2017, SmartBall would finish another run, 20:09:33, this time a single segment run that also has no recording errors and was the first clean run of the game.

2018 is when players would start to get good at speedrunning Digimon World 2. ZChaotix got a new PB, 17:31:40, one with excellent gameplay, little to no idling in menus, and more efficient and thought-out weaving of progress, Captures, and grinding. In addition to the two Okuwamons, there was also a Whamon able to use Tidal Wave, which is similar to DuoScissorClaw, except that it lowers enemies' damage output instead of weakening their defense. It also inherited Horn Buster, MetalGreymon's useful Interrupt move, and Woodmon's Twig Tap, which drains enemy health equivalent to the amount of damage it did, very useful for Coliseum battles where items become unusable and there's no opportunity to heal in between battles unless you Leveled Up, which completely recovers the individual Digimon that leveled up. Speaking of Coliseum battles, some of them were done earlier in the game rather than all at the end to get good rewards earlier. This new route made the game a breeze compared to previous ones, and was much faster and more consistent. This run would remain the World Record for two years until SmartBall broke it again in 2020.

Speaking of routes, one major barrier to entry for Digimon World 2, besides not having enough time for it, is having enough resources to even know where to begin. Six years after the game had first been run, there were still no Guides. There were plenty of Digimon speedrunners with ambitions to run Digimon World 2, but no example to follow, given that each run of the game up to that point used a different route. That's when Princess Rescuer came in to meticulously copy each Domain, Shopping, Capture and Digivolution choice off of ZChaotix's PB and put it into a Guide. Shortly after, it had provably helped a new runner, The Wavy Commander. Although Wavy's run was segmented, and therefore did not qualify for the leaderboard, it followed the same route used in ZChaotix's WR very closely. It didn't do it as well as ZC, but the potential for copiable routes had been proven by that run.

In 2020, SmartBall introduced another innovation to Digimon World 2 speedruns- not just a new route, but the first ever proper grind of the game, where many attempts were done within one day of each other. SmartBall was trying out a new super-secret route, which he only had the opportunity to do runs months apart with before the grind. SmartBall was nearly about to quit and never attempt the game again before Landail streamed it and renewed interest. After several failed attempts making it a little further each time, it cut it very close with a 16:59:58. Not only was this a new WR, but it was also much less refined than ZChaotix's PB, proving that the potential for improvement was much greater. One late-game domain in this run even loses one of the Okuwamon to a ReturnBug, finishing the Domain with only one Okuwamon and a Piddomon, yet it was still much faster. The route was just that good, though still one that required a consistent grind to get. This also resulted in the first route written by a top runner of the game. ZChaotix's route is still an option though, as it's more consistent, something every runner of Digimon World 2 desperately needs, especially if they aren't planning on dedicating themselves to it. Still, there is much more to go with Digimon World 2, seeing as how every World Record has started with a different number of Hours and have all used different routes. It has only started getting optimized in the past couple of years and very few skips/glitches have been discovered in what is a very unrefined game that probably has a fair few more.