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Before you turn on your device, it’s important to know what the buttons on your device are. The three buttons to the right of the screen are; from top to bottom: A, B and C. Their functions are as follows:

• A - Select: This lets you cycle through the different icons at the top and bottom of the device.
• B - Confirm: Once you have highlighted an icon or menu item, press B to confirm that selection. If no icon is highlighted, and you are not in a menu, B will show you the clock.
• C - Cancel: If you have an icon highlighted, C will cancel the selection, making it so no icon is highlighted. If you are in a menu, C will take you out of the menu. If no icon is highlighted, and you are not in a menu, holding C for 2 seconds will bring up the Settings screen. Holding the C button longer will let you power on and off the device regardless of whether any other buttons are also held. A sound will play before the device powers off. The Power menu item should be used instead for powering off to ensure the data saves properly.
• USB-C Port: Used for recharging the device. For best results, use a USB-C to USB-A cable, avoiding any USB-C PD cables. Any standard 5v charging brick should work fine. For best longevity, try not to let the battery drain too low or charge too high. In real-life usage, charging for one hour once a week is generally enough, but your usage may vary.

Sometimes you can press two buttons together to create a different effect. The following combos exist:

• A+C on main screen. Mutes the device, which can also be done from the settings menu.
• A+C on clock screen. This lets you change the time. Changing time will not speed up growth on Monster, but you may decide that your Monster goes to bed later than you like. Change the clock to better match up with your personal schedule, it doesn’t necessarily have to be the real time after all.
• A+B on a Grave. This will allow you to hatch a new Monster

That’s the reset button! You shouldn’t need to push it very often, but if at any point you think you want to reset your Monster, you can press this button to soft-reset your Monster, which brings up the option to Load or Reset. Choosing load will make you set the clock again, and then bring you back to the most recent saved state of your Monster. Choosing Reset will erase EVERYTHING, so be careful. The top option is load, the bottom option is reset. If you choose reset, the top option is confirm, the bottom option is cancel.

Your progress will be saved automatically every minute, so you don't need to worry about continuing raising your Monster when the battery dies. After recharging the battery, just hit LOAD to restore your progress. To ensure data saves when powering off the device, use the Power option in the Settings menu rather than holding down the C-Button for 10 seconds.

WAIT! Let’s make sure you know what the Menus are first.

Various important stats about your Monster appear here.

• Age - How many days your Monster has been alive.
• Name - The name of your Monster, in Japanese.
• Hunger - As time proceeds, these hearts will empty at a set rate, which can be seen by clicking on that Monster in the Evolution Guide. Feed your Monster meat to fill the hearts back up. Your Monster can eat more than the number of hearts, and continuing to feed it until it refuses to will result in an Overfeed, which will make it take longer for its hunger hearts to start dropping again.
• Strength - As time proceeds, these hearts will empty at a set rate, which can be seen by clicking on that Monster in the Evolution Guide. Your Monster likes to be at maximum strength, refill these hearts by feeding protein or training. When at full strength, your Monster will receive a bonus to its Power stat, which can be seen the Power section below.
• Effort - Every 4 training sessions you perform will fill 1 effort heart. Training is very important for evolution: different numbers of training can lead to different evolutionary lines, so experiment with different amounts.
• Energy - Your stamina, this is required for battling. If you have no Energy, you can’t fight. Energy is completely restored by sleeping for at least 8 hours, or restored by 1 by feeding 4 Protein. You can see how much Energy each Monster has by clicking on that Monster in the Evolution Guide.
• Win Ratio - Your percentage of wins compared to losses. A high win percentage is required to reach Stages V and VI, and you need to make sure to do at least 15 battles

In addition to the above stats, the following stats aren't displayed on the Stats screen, but are still important.

• Attribute - Normally Digimon devices have different attributes assinged to each Digimon, which will result in advantage bonuses depending on battle matchup. On this device attribute technically does exist, but all Monsters are given the 'Free' attribute, which means they will not have an extra advantage or disadvantage against any other Monster or Digimon.
• Power - How strong your Monster is. If your power is higher than your enemy's power, then your attacks are more likely to hit. The higher the power difference, the higher the liklihood of each hit connecting. Each Monster has a Base Power that can be seen by clicking on that Monster in the Evolution guide. All Monsters of the same species will have the same Base Power. In addition, having full Strength Hearts will grant a bonus to power, as will hatching from a Traited egg. The below chart displays how much is added to power for each evolutionary stage.

  Stage	Strength Hearts	Traited Egg	Both
  III	+5	+5	+10
  IV	+8	+8	+16
  V	+15	+15	+30
  VI	+25	+25	+50
  VI+	+25	+25	+50

  See the Battles section for a breakdown on how hitrate is calculated.
• Care Mistakes - How many care mistakes you make by missing a Call. This stat resets on each evolution back to 0. See the Call section below for more information.
• Protein Overdose - How much Protein you have fed your Monster. Every 4 Protein counts as 1 Protein Overdose, which will increase the liklihood of your Monster getting injured in Battle. The maximum value for Protein Overdose is 7. See the Heal section for more details.

Pets need food to survive! Monsters can be given two types of food:

• Meat - Basic food. Giving this to a Monster will add one heart to the hunger meter. You can overfeed by feeding 10 more meat after having full hearts. Overfeeding will give you a bonus 60 minutes on top of your Digimon's loss cycle before hearts decrease again.
• Protein - Giving this to a Monster will add one heart to the strength meter. Every four Protein will increase your Energy and Protein Overdose by 1 each.

Training is the primary way of adding hearts to the strength meter, and the only way to add hearts to the effort meter. Every four trainings will add one Effort Heart, regardless of whether or not they are successful. Likewise, both succesful and failed trainings count for evolution. If training is successful, you will also gain a strength heart. When you initiate the training, press A or B to stop the meter. If you stop it when it is full, the rock is destroyed and training is successful. Training animations can be skipped, which means that the required amount of training for evolution can be rapidly obtained by mashing the button.

There are two methods to fight on the Digital Monster Color Monster Hunter 20th Edition.

• The first option is Quest Mode, which allows you to take on a series of areas. Each area consists of a several Monster battles ending with a Boss. If you beat the boss, you gain the option to take on the next area. The winner of each battle is the first Monster to land 3 hits against its opponent. Each individual battle in an area counts as one battle for evolution.
• The second option is Communication, which allows you to battle against another Digital Monster Color, Digimon Pendulum Color and Digivice -25th Color Evolution- devices. Once the screen says BATTLE, connect the two devices by the prongs on the top and press the A or B button on one of the devices. Whoever lands all four hits is the winner (the first three hits will always land on both Monsters, the final hit is the deciding one). Make sure your device is sufficiently charged when doing communication battles. Also note that the Digital Monster Color Monster Hunter 20th Edition cannot battle against any devices released prior to the Digital Monster Color.

In order to Battle, you must have at least one Energy, and must evolved to Stage III or higher. Whether you win or lose, your Monster has a chance to become injured after battle, and getting injured 15 times will result in death. See the Heal section for more details.

Except for the first three hits of a Connection Battle, which area always guaranteed, whether an attack will land or not is determined by the hitrate formula. This formula can be repesented as follows:

hitrate = ((playerPower * 100)/(playerPower + opponentPower)) + attributeAdvantage

• hitrate - This numer represents the chance of your hit connecting, out of 100.
• playerPower - The current Power value of your Monster. See the details on the Power stat in the Status section above.
• opponentPower - The current Power value of the opponent Monster.
• attributeAdvantage - Equals 5 if you have an attribute advantage, -5 if you have an attribute disadvantage, otherwise equals 0. Monsters on this device are of the 'Free' attribute, and thus will not have an advantage or disadvantage when battling, even against other Digimon devices.

You can calculate your hitrate by clicking here.

Your Monster will poop as time passes: every 3 minutes at Stage I, every 60 minutes at Stage II and then every 120 minutes for the rest of its life. Just select the Poop icon to clean it up, and make sure you never let 8 piles accumulate, or else your Monster will get injured! Remember: Poop and injuries are NOT Care Mistakes, but too many injuries will kill your Monster.

When you choose this icon, you are given three options.

• Lights - This allows you to turn on or off the lights. When a Monster falls asleep, the lights should be turned off right away to avoid a care mistake. If your Monster is asleep and you disturb it by attempting to feed, train or battle with it, it will wake up. Waking a sleeping Monster does not count as a Care Mistake. After being disturbed, the Monster will fall back asleep after 10 minutes. All Monster wake up on their own at 8:00 AM.
• Cold Mode - Freezes your Monster, pausing it. Monster do not age, evolve, lose hearts or call out while frozen, until you choose to unfreeze them.
• Backup - Allows you to put your current Monster in backup to raise a different one. If there is currently no Monster in backup, you will get a new egg. Otherwise, when you backup your current Monster, you will receive the one you previously backed up, but it will have empty strength and hunger. A Monster in backup is treated the same as being in Cold Mode.

Monster can get injured from battling or from accumulating 8 poops. When your Monster is injured, it will have a skull floating next to it. When this happens you can use this option to heal them! Select this icon to heal your Monster. If your Monster gets injured 15 times, or remains injured for 6 hours, it will DIE. For battles, you have a 1/16 chance of getting injured whether you win or lose. For losses specifically, that 1/16 chance is increased by another 1/16 for every Protein Overdose you have, for a maximum of 1/2. Every 4 Protein fed creates one Protein Overdose.

If your Monster needs you, it will call out to you with a few beeps, and this icon will light up. When this happens, act fast! If the call light goes out before you take care of the Monster, that counts as a care mistake. The number of care mistakes you have will affect the outcome of your evolution. For evolving to Stage III or IV, your number of care mistakes is a factor in determining what Monster you evolve into. For evolving to Stage VI, too many care mistakes will prevent you from evolving at all. Calls may occur for the following reasons:

• The hunger meter is empty
• The strength meter is empty
• Your Monster is asleep and wants the lights turned off

The call light will go out after 10 minutes for Hunger or Strength, and after 1 hour for sleep. Note that if you have sound off, calls will still occur. If an empty meter is not filled after the call light goes out on its own, your Monster will call again when its timer for that heart meter runs out again, and can result in another care mistake. A Monster will only call one time for sleep, regardless of whether or not you turn out the lights. Hunger and Strength depleting at the same time will result in two care mistakes if you don't fill them, even if you only receive one call.

The Settings menu can be accessed by holding C on the main screen for two seconds while no icons are selected. There are four options.

• Background - Allows you to select which background to use from those available. Additional backgrounds can be unlocked by meeting various conditions, see the next section for details.
• Brightness - Change the intensity of the backlight to one of 5 steps.
• Sound - Default is loud, but can be changed to low or mute. Note you can also mute by pressing A+C on the main screen with no icons selected.
• Save and Power Off - Saves your current progress and turns off the device. You will be given the option to load your data or reset it when turning the device back on. The top option is load, the bottom option is reset. If you choose reset, the top option is confirm, the bottom option is cancel.

The device offers several backgrounds to swap between. Additional backgrounds can be unlocked by fulfilling specific requirements. This table shows all available backgrounds and how to unlock them. See the previous section for details on changing backgrounds. Backgrounds do not change based on time of day.

	Available by default
	Evolve into Rathalos (Young)
	Evolve into Tigrex (Young)
	Evolve into Nargacuga (Young)
	Evolve into Zinogre (Young)
	Evolve into Gore Magala (Young)
	Evolve into Mizutsune (Young)
	Evolve into Rajang (Young)
	Evolve into Khezu (Young)
	Clear Quest Mode Area 1
	Clear Quest Mode Area 2
	Clear Quest Mode Area 3
	Clear Quest Mode Area 4
	Clear Quest Mode Area 5
	Clear Quest Mode Area 6
	Clear Quest Mode Area 7
	Clear Quest Mode Area F

It’s time to start raising your Monster! Once you've turned on the device by holding the C button, you’ll get a cute little splash screen and be asked to set the time. Use A to change the hours, B to change the minutes, and C to stop setting the clock. You will then see your very first Egg . After 8 seconds of an egg being on screen, it will start hatching. Unlike most Digimon V-Pets, this initial form hasn't quite broken out of the egg yet, and does not need looking after. After 2 minutes, the Monster will evolve to its Stage II form.

At this point, how you care for your nearly-hatched Monster begins to matter. It won't get hungry, lose strength or sleep, but you can still train it which will be the primary way of affecting the next evolution's outcome. Which Monster you get will also be dependent on what time of day it is. After 20 more minutes, the egg fully hatches and will immediately call due to its hunger and strength hearts being empty. If it's past its bedtime, it will be asleep. Care mistakes are now being tracked on your device, but you won’t see a meter for that anywhere. If you are concerned about that, you will just have to keep track separately. The number of care mistakes you make and how many times you train will decide which Stage IV your Monster will evolve into.

Evolution will occur at set times, based on when the previous evolution occurred. The times are as follows:

The timer ticks as long as your Monster isn't frozen or in backup, and will even progress during sleep. So long as you don’t completely neglect your Monster, you are pretty much guaranteed to reach Stage IV. Stages V and VI require battling to reach, and these battles must be completed within 36 and 48 hours of it evolving respectively. Additionally, not only do you have to battle, but you have to have a good win percentage. The minimum win percentages for Stages V and VI is 40%, but a higher win percentage increases chances of evolving further. Having an 80% Win Ratio will guarantee evolution into Stages V and VI, but you must also meet Care Mistake requirements, as well as a special condition for evolving into Stage VI. Stage VI Monsters cannot evolve further.

Upon evolution, the following stats will reset: Care Mistakes, Trainings, Overdoses, Injuries and your number of Battles for evolution. Win Ratio will persist across all evolutions.

Note: The manual technically refers to each evolution stage as a 'Phase', rather than Stage. For the sake of consistency across this site's guides, I have opted to stick with the more commonly used term of 'Stage' for this device as well.

While you aren't interacting with your Monster, it will move around the screen doing different animations. These animations are all just there for show, and don't mean anything by themselves. If you don't interact with your Monster for 16 seconds, the screen will turn off. You can press any button to turn the screen back on. The screen will also turn on by itself when the Monster calls you, poops or evolves.

Potentially you could keep your Monster alive forever, but you aren’t going to. You’re going to go to a party one night and forget to put them down for a nap before you leave.  And then they will die. You monster. There are actually several ways your Monster can die, including the following:

• Getting injured 15 times in one form
• Remaining injured for 6 hours consecutive in one form
• Leaving the Hunger or Strength hearts empty for 12 consecutive hours in one form
• Having 5 or more Care Mistakes when or after the evolution timer for your Stage IV or V Monster runs out without having fulfilled the requirements for evolution
• Having 5 or more Care Mistakes when or after your Stage VI or VI+ Monster has been in that form for 48 hours

Once your Monster finishes singing its dying song, you are now looking at a grave. Your Monster has died and converted back into raw data. Oh well! LET’S MAKE A NEW ONE! Press A+B simultaneously and just like that, a new egg will hatch. Note that while hearts would begin dropping at a faster rate after a certain point on other devices, this never occurs on the Digital Monster Color Monster Hunter 20th Edition.

When a Stage V or higher Monster dies, it has a 30% chance of leaving a Traited Egg. The egg will appear on the screen behind the grave of your Monster, and the Monster that hatches from it will receive a bonus to its Power. Details of that Power Bonus are in the Status section above.