Okay, Spinal. Like I said, time to give your story a proper review. This is coming from someone that has knowledge of Digimon(or at least I like to think so, lol), so this might have a few more criticisms than I usually do. Or maybe not, because I’m still a lousy critique. Regardless, I’m gonna do it now.
Chapter 1
Starting things off pretty simple. This chapter is only for character building, in this case, the protagonist. It’s fine to take your time to present his personality, someone that’s a loner, but still wants to have some friends, and his mother is nowhere to be seen(maybe she’s dead?). He seems to be pretty calm, at least.
Now the part of this chapter that’s related to the actual plot. The computer is glowing. First things first, you typed “Cerulean” capitalized, I’m not sure if this is a grammar error, but I felt like you should know. Second, this is pretty common in Digimon, actually, mostly in the second series, Adventure 02, so you have the right idea here. Someone screaming help is also common. I know you have almost no knowledge, but it seems you got the tropes right, congratulations. I have no idea if you researched this part before writing, but nonetheless, it makes sense.
And the protagonist shows his personality during this last part, wanting to help. Also, I noticed another error during this segment. You typed “You’re computer”, so unless the protag’s dad is some AI thing, you should fix that.
Overall, this is a good first chapter if you know your Digimon stuff. Even if that’s not the case, you set up a good mystery with the computer voice, so anyone not familiar with Digimon can enjoy that as well, in other words, the first chapter did its purpose well.
This should be enough comments on the first chapter, I’m moving on to the next one now.
Chapter 2
We interrupt this Digimon fic to bring you the quiz from PMD! Jokes aside, you hit the nail during this quiz section, although I did catch a few errors here and there, I can't exactly remember most of them now, but it's things like words that shouldn't be capitalized and stuff like that.
The voice seems pretty mechanical, and I suppose that makes sense, being a digital being. The reactions to the quiz are also good, you wouldn’t just answer a random voice that kidnapped you. This scene was also pretty funny to me, since the answers didn’t actually come from the protagonist, instead the voice just took a few words from him and said they were the answer. It made me chuckle and I loved how it was handled. Of course, that also includes the best part of this entire chapter: his name is Murder. I cannot stress this enough, this was a genius choice and anyone that tells you otherwise is just wrong. Sadly Digimon don’t have names, so we can’t even have more jokes like this.
This is a plot that’s also pretty common, sending kids(or maybe teenagers?) to the Digital World because apparently nobody there can fix stuff properly. You’re doing pretty good for someone that knows so little, it’s stunning, really. Also, I’m pretty sure you don’t know this, but let me tell you something that’s actually pretty genius: the voice described Murder as the “arrogant type”, and Dracomon can evolve into Examon, one of the Royal Knights. Said Royal Knights are one of the most arrogant beings on the franchise, so I guess that voice was spot on, lol. I know you’re not planning on making him evolve, but I wanted to let you know about this small trivia.
Chapter 3
Alright, our first trip into the Digital World. Nice job describing things, they can be a bit random sometimes, but usually the world is divided into “folders”, I suggest you take a look at the wiki so you can have a better idea about that. The world itself can vary between all series and even games, but the wiki should contain some general information that’s common, I think there’s a few locations that don’t change. Of course, you can just make your own, nothing wrong with that, really.
Armadillomon is a good boy, but uh, yeah, Murder was on the wrong here. Even if he was mad, you can’t just go around murdering people whenever you feel like it. Regardless, holy shit, his plan actually worked. I’m surprised, but chuckling for a bit. Although… There is something I should probably mention, it’s gonna take a whole paragraph, but alright.
Digimon don’t actually have parents, at least in most of the media. They don’t understand the concept of families and children, they go through an endless cycle of death and rebirth. When they’re deleted, they turn back into an egg and are sent to the Village of Beginnings, where they hatch and are off to the world. Of course, there’s exceptions. During one of the latest seasons, one of the main characters has a goal of finding his parents, and there’s even fics where they do. Usually it’s described as the parents’ data joining together and creating the child. I’m not saying you’re in the wrong here, but researching those things can help with your story.
Enough for this one, I’ll be moving on to the next chapter.
Chapter 4
Hm, the reaction to having his body changed makes sense, at least for me. And then we have a lot of exposition, that’s fine. So this world is very much PMD but Digimon? You have guilds and all that. Alright, I can take that, it’s a pretty good idea, does that mean the higher organizations are guilds as well? Hm, I’m curious, you have my attention.
And of course everybody still believes Murder is his actual name. Now that I think of it, you never said his human name, so I guess Murder shall be his name forever, I love this idea so much. It shouldn’t work, but it does.
Alright, so they have a mission to rescue Sakuttomon’s kid,to be honest, when I went on to search for what Digimon Sakuttomon is, I got a little weirded out by this scene. See, Sakuttomon is an In-Training Digimon, it’s not even a Rookie, think of it as a small baby, not a newborn, but not a child yet. It means that it’s basically a baby who lost a smaller baby. I get that you’re using the “Digimon can have babies” headcanon, and that’s fine, but in this case, I think you should have at least a Champion-level one to be a parent. Basically, the levels are like our ages, the higher the level, (usually) the oldest the Digimon is.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, I’m only saying this because I took the time to search what that Digimon was, a casual viewer won’t even notice this, but keep this in mind for future chapters.
Chapter 5
More worldbuilding in this one, I suppose. I couldn’t help but feel like they just popped in at the dungeon’s door, but ok. To be honest, I’m curious about how you’re gonna explain how the dungeons formed. Since it’s Digimon, there’s a lot of good ideas for how you can do that, I’m sure you’ll be able to handle that pretty well, so I’m not gonna question, I’m just here for the ride.
Okay, the Agumon mission got a chuckle out of me, but I should mention that you spelled it as “Augmon” during a few of the sentences. If that’s just Murder being stupid, it’s fine, otherwise, it’s an error and you should probably fix that.
Anyway, the interactions between Armadillomon and Murder are funny, I love how he’s just super confused about what the fuck is happening in this strange world. He’s gonna have a breakdown sooner or later and honestly, I’m all here for it. This will be fun to read, I think. I also liked the detail of the dungeon wall being a forest, it’s so random that I’m snorting after reading that part. I can tell you’re having fun with this fic.
There’s not much to comment on this chapter here, it’s mostly dialogue and character building, so I’ll just move on to the next and final chapter of this fic(for now).
Chapter 6
And I arrived at the last chapter, which also happens to be the one where they go to a dungeon for the first time. I’m curious as to your headcanon of how the dungeons work, but I’m invested in it at the same time. INstead of becoming a digi-egg, the ferals just… die. That’s brutal. Also, they call out the attacks, like Digimon usually does. Honestly, I think you’re free to remove that trope if you like, but unlike Pokémon attacks, everyone has their own, so it might be for the best that you’re using that trope.
Hm, I’m curious, they’re doing the Agumon mission or the Sakumon mission? I think it’s the latter, but just for reference, maybe have a comment on that?
Having the illusion of free will creeped me out for a few moments, so uh, good work with that part.
Okay, so one thing I think you should do is add a bit of an “encyclopedia” at the end of the chapter, showing what Digimons you used during it. This can help someone that doesn’t know every single one of them, and it’s a nice bit of trivia that could add to the experience. Your choice, really.
Well, I’m ending this review here. Overall, I think you’re doing great, considering you’re a newbie at Digimon lore. Keep it up and your fic should be better, I recommend you read other Digimon fics to get more information, or just check out the wiki. If you do check the wiki, I recommend you check out “wikimon”, it’s the bigger one and has way more info. With that in mind, I’ll be off for now, loved to read this fic, the bite-sized chapters help with the experience and I can absorb the information better this way.
