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Before you remove the battery tab, 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. This also lets you choose between different menu items. When viewing the clock, this toggles the display between 12 hour and 24 time.
• 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, C will show you your daily XAI roll, as well as a brief summary of your Digimon's status.

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

• A+C on main screen. This will allow you to mute the sound on the device. Useful for school, work or other times when you don’t need beeps disrupting everything.
• A+C on clock screen. This lets you change the time. Changing time will not speed up growth on Digimon, but you may decide that your Digimon 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 Egg or Computer. This will begin the hatching process with a new egg.

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 Digimon, you can press this button to soft-reset your Digimon, which brings up the option to Load or Reset. Choosing load will make you set the clock again, reroll the daily XAI and then bring you back to the most recent saved state of your Digimon. Choosing Reset will erase EVERYTHING, so be careful.

Your device uses CR2032 batteries, make sure to have some spares handy! The battery that comes with new devices aren't always reliable, so they may die shortly after you buy a new device. Regardless of that, your progress will be saved automatically every minute, so you don't need to worry about continuing raising your Digimon when the battery dies. After putting in a new battery, just hit LOAD to restore your progress.

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

Various important stats about your Digimon appear here.

• Name - The Digimon’s name, in Japanese.
• Age - How many days your Digimon has been alive.
• Weight - How much your Digimon weighs, in Gigabytes. If you hit 99 Gigabytes, your Digimon will get sick! Eating adds weight while trainings and battles shed weight.
• Hunger - As time proceeds, or as you battle, these hearts will empty. Feed your Digimon meat to fill the hearts back up. Your Digimon starts with two hearts, and will get more as it evolves. You cannot battle if this meter is empty.
• Strength - Your Digimon likes to be at maximum strength, refill these hearts by feeding protein or training. Your Digimon starts with two hearts, and will get more as it evolves. When the strength meter is full, your Digimon's power increases by 15 (16 on Versions XA and XB).
• Effort - Every 4 training sessions you perform will fill 1 effort heart, whether or not the training is successful. Effort is very important for evolution: different numbers of hearts can lead to different evolutionary lines, so you don’t necessarily need to have full, or even any, effort hearts. Experiment and see what happens!
• Attribute - There are 4 attributes: Vaccine, Data, Virus and Free. These operate in a Rock-Paper-Scissors format, where if your attribute has an advantage over your opponent, you will have a higher chance to win than normal. If your Digimon is a Free attribute, there will be nothing listed for attribute.
  • Vaccine is strong against Virus
  • Virus is strong against Data
  • Data is strong against Vaccine
  • Free has no advantages or disadvantages
  Having an attribute advantage will effectively grant a +32 bonus to your Digimon's Power stat.
• Evolutionary Stage - There are 8 evolutionary stages, which are represented on your device with Roman numerals I through VI, as well as VI+ and +VI+. To avoid confusion, this guide generally will specify the numeric stage, but these stages also have specific terms associated with them for both the original Japanese and the localized English releases. The Stages are as follows:

  Stage	Original Name	Localized Name
  N/A	Digitama	Digi-Egg
  I	Baby I	In-Training I
  II	Baby II	In-Training II
  III	Child	Rookie
  IV	Adult	Champion
  V	Perfect	Ultimate
  VI	Ultimate	Mega
  VI+	Super Ultimate	Ultra
  +VI+	Super Duper Ultimate*	Plus Ultra*

  *These are totally official terms and not just silly references I chose to include.
• Level and Experience - Your Digimon can level up as it fights battles in Quest mode. After each battle, experience is awarded, and when enough experience is gained, a Digimon will level up. The higher its level, the more power, meter and HP it has. Level also can affect evolution. Each evolutionary stage has a set max level, and when that max level is reached, a star will appear next to your level. The max levels for each stage are as follows:

  Stage	Max Level
  I	1
  II	3
  III	4
  IV	6
  V	8
  VI	10
  VI+	10
  +VI+	10

• Battle record - Number of wins vs number of losses. It is not currently known if this affects anything, or if it's just there for reference.

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

• Power - How strong your Digimon 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. All Digimon have a base power between 4 and 220. That number is the same for all Digimon of the same species. For example, all Okuwamon X have a base power of 96. Apart from base power, having a full strength meter increases power by 16 on versions XA and XB, and by 15 on versions XC, XD, XE and XF. Power can also be increased by leveling up. That same Okuwamon X has a power of 131 at Level 8 when its Strength Hearts are full . Unfortunately, there is an issue on versions Japanese XA and Japanese XB with Minervamon X, Lord Knightmon X and Diablomon X. No Digimon's Power can exceed 255, but when these three Digimon are fully leveled and at full strength, their power would equal more than 255. Because of this, the battles do not calculate correctly, leading to unexpected results. Thankfully, no Digimon on versions XC and XD can exceed 255 Power, while versions XE, XF, English XA and English XB have a hard cap so that if a Digimon would exceed 255 Power, it will just stay at 255 instead.
• HP - How much health your Digimon has in battle. This can be increased by leveling up.
• Attack - How much damage your attacks do. Each attack animation does a different amount of damage, and how much damage is dealt is increased by leveling up.
• 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.

Pets need food to survive! In addition to the two traditional types of food, there are several items that can be gained from battles and random encounters. These items are found here as well, and can be found by pressing the A button while looking that the Meat and Protein options. Keep an eye on your weight, since reaching 99G will make your Digimon sick, and too many sicknesses will cause death.

	Meat	Basic food. Giving this to a Digimon will add one half heart to the hunger meter, and add one gigabyte to their weight.
	Protein	For strength! Giving this to a Digimon will add one half- heart to the strength meter, and two gigabytes to their weight.
	Filling Meat	This large hunk of meat will completely restore Hunger Hearts, and adds four gigabytes to weight. Using this will cause your Hunger Hearts to take longer to start decreasing again.
	Big Protein	Similarly, this will completely restore Strength Hearts, and adds two gigabytes to weight. Using this will cause your Strength Hearts to take longer to start decreasing again.
	Power Board	Increases your power while fighting in your next quest area, and adds 8 gigabytes to weight. The effect wears off as soon as you exit the area.
	HP Rom	Gives you +2 HP while fighting in your next quest area, and adds 8 gigabytes to weight. The effect wears off as soon as you exit the area.
	AP Chip	Gives you +2 Attack while fighting in your next quest area, and adds 8 gigabytes to weight. The effect wears off as soon as you exit the area.
	Seven Switch	Makes all your battle XAI rolls 7 in your next quest area, and adds 8 gigabytes to weight. The effect wears off as soon as you exit the area.
	Jumper Gate	Lets you skip straight to the boss in your next quest area, and adds 8 gigabytes to weight.
	EXP Coat	Doubles the amount of experience you get in your next quest area and adds 8 gigabytes to weight. (Not available on Versions XA and XB)

For quest items, you are only able to use one at a time. Your Digimon will refuse another quest item until you have completed a battle in quest mode.

Training is the primary way of adding hearts to the strength meter, and the only way to add hearts to the effort meter. When you do a training, you get .25 points on the effort meter, so four trainings will make a full heart, regardless of whether or not they are successful. Your Digimon will also lose at least one gigabyte of weight every time they train. If training is successful, you will also gain at least half a strength heart.

There are two training modes, normal and excite. Normal uses a fixed speed for the Attack Meter, while Excite relies on your Daily XAI roll to determine speed. The Attack Meter has an arrow that moves back and forth, and when it is stopped, this determines your attack pattern. Every Digimon has 5 types of attacks, which determine damage dealt in battles. When the meter is stopped on a taller section, stronger attacks will be used, so always try to stop on the highest point of the meter. This becomes easier as you level up, as the higher points of the meter will become wider. After the meter has been set, your Digimon will fire several shots, and be awarded a score of either Bad, Good, Great or Excellent. The results of these scores are as follows:

• Normal Training:
• Bad - +0 Strength, -1 Gigabyte
• Good - +0.5 Strength, -2 Gigabytes
• Great - +1 Strength, -4 Gigabytes
• Excellent - +1 Strength, -4 Gigabytes
• Excite Training:
• Bad - +0 Strength, -1 Gigabyte
• Good - +1 Strength, -2 Gigabytes
• Great - +2 Strength, -6 Gigabytes
• Excellent - +4 Strength, -8 Gigabytes

Battling is a HUGE part of Digimon culture, and apparently this time they're battling to be the ruler of the old Digital World or something like that. But Gran Dracumon has other plans? And then the Demon Lords attack? And the Royal Knights counter them? Look I'm just here to tell you how to raise V-pets, if the story is important to you, check it out here. There are 31 areas to battle through on your quest on versions XA and XB, while all other versions have 46 areas. One area can only be unlocked by battling Version XA with XB, XC with XD, or XE with XF. Each area has a certain number of battles, and beating all of those battles will clear the area and give you a prize. If you defeat certain Boss Digimon, you will unlock them as evolutions that can be achieved. You must defeat each Digimon in a single area without being defeated yourself, otherwise you will need to start that area over. Items will make the battles easier, as will using Digimon at higher levels and higher evolutionary stages. If a battle lasts 4 or more rounds, your Digimon will lose half a Hunger heart. If they run out of Hunger hearts, they can no longer battle. If this happens in the middle of an area, you will be forced to retire. longer areas have rest stops, so make sure to feed your Digimon at these when they come up.

The first time you go into Quest Mode each day, you will roll the XAI. The roll of this XAI will affect how much experience you gain from each Digimon that day, as well as how difficult the fights will be. Rolling 1, 2 or 3 will make the battles more difficult, but will give you more experience points. 4,5 or 6 will make the battles easier, but give you fewer experience points. 7 is the best of both worlds, and will make battles easier while giving more experience points.

Poop is such an iconic part of the Digimon experience that there are over a dozen Digimon built entirely around POOP! Your Digimon will poop as time passes, and sometimes it will unleash a JUMBO poop. Just select this icon to clean it up, and make sure you never let 8 piles accumulate, or else your Digimon will get sick!

When you choose this icon, you are given an option for On and Off, and these options do different things depending on whether your Digimon is tired, sleeping or frozen. Your Digimon will become tired every night, which is indicated by it switching between its idle and sleeping animation. Failing to put a tired Digimon to sleep will result in a care mistake. Waking a tired or sleeping Digimon will not result in a Care Mistake. All Digimon will wake up at 07:00. A sleeping Digimon will still grow, and may even evolve while sleeping, while a frozen Digimon does not grow at all. When your Digimon is frozen, its sprite is replaced with a refrigerator.

• If your Digimon is not tired, sleeping or frozen
• On  - Nothing!
• Off - Freezes your Digimon
• If your Digimon is tired
• On - Wakes your Digimon up
• Off - Puts your Digimon to sleep
• If your Digimon is sleeping
• On - Wakes your Digimon up
• Off - Nothing!
• If your Digimon is frozen
• On - Unfreezes your Digimon
• Off - Nothing!

If your Digimon gets sick or injured, this is how you heal them! There are two types of ailment: Dots and Skull. Dots means your Digimon is sick (probably because it’s TOO FAT) and Skull means your Digimon is Injured (probably because it LOST A BATTLE). When you select this icon, you choose which one your Digimon has, and it will be healed. Note that if your Digimon gets sick or injured 20 times, it will DIE. They are separate pools though, so you can get sick 19 times and injured 19 times without dying.

Information about your history as a Tamer is stored here. You have three options to choose between:

• Backup: If you are sick of looking at your current Digimon, throw it in backup to get it out of your sight for a while. Digimon in backup are essentially frozen, so they will not age or evolve. When you choose an empty backup slot, you will immediately get a new egg to hatch. If you choose a slot that already has a Digimon in it, that Digimon will change places with the Digimon you are currently raising. You can have up to two Digimon backed up at one time.
• Digimon: Here you will find a series of question marks that represent the obtainable Digimon on your device. You can raise 30 in total on the versions XA and XB, 44 on versions XC and XD, and 50 on versions XE and XF. When starting out, some numbers will be missing. These missing numbers will fill in as you unlock new evolutions in Quest mode. Anytime you achieve an evolution you haven't gotten before, its question mark will be replaced with an image of that Digimon.
• Recode: Yes, that is supposed to say Record, not Recode. These are your overall wins and battles. It only goes up to 999. Having 200 wins total will allow you unlock Beelzebumon X on versions XC and XD

Those little metal nodes on the top of your device aren’t just for show, you can use them to connect to another device! After choosing the connection you wish to perform, your device will play a jingle indicating its ready to connect. While the jingle is playing, connect the devices and press the A or B button on one of the devices to initate the connection. Make sure to hold the devices together until you hear a confirmation sound, at which point you can pull them apart and view the result of your connection.

• X - Use this option to battle against another Digital Monster X. Battling here works the same way it does in quest mode.
• Other - When battling another series of Digimon Virtual Pet, you can choose OTHER to use the original Digital Monster battle system. This simplified battle system will not take strength, power or attribute into account, and will instead use a predetermined slot from the original Digital Monster series for your Digimon, which is mostly based on your current evolution stage.

If your Digimon 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 Digimon, that counts as a care mistake. The number of care mistakes you have will affect the outcome of your evolution. Calls may occur for the following reasons:

• The hunger meter is empty
• The strength meter is empty
• Your Digimon is tired and wants to go to bed

The call light will go out after 10 minutes for an empty meter, and after 30 minutes for a tired Digimon. If an empty meter is not filled after the call light goes out on its own, your Digimon will call again after some time, which can lead to more care mistakes if not taken care of. Note that if you have sound off, calls will still occur.

It’s time to start raising your Digimon, pull that tab out! 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. After this, the XAI begins!

XAI stands for X-Antibody Indicator. Apparently it's also a pun on the Japanese word for Dice, which makes sense, as the XAI is essentially a seven-sided die. The XAI was introduced with the Digimon Pendulum X, and returns for the Digital Monster X to serve a few purposes. In Training and Quest Mode, we already discussed how it affects your Digimon's attack pattern and battle difficulty, but a XAI roll is also peformed at the start of each day. As such, when you set the clock for the first time, the XAI will roll and give you a number. That number will determine what types of random encounters can happen today. These encounters will either be battles, gifts or a visit from a Numemon bringing its own gift. Once the first roll happens, you will be shown your first egg.

Once you see a bouncing egg on your screen, hatching has begun! After 1 minute of an egg being on screen, it will hatch, and immediately beep at you because it is STARVING! Feed it, train it, or just do whatever. Literally nothing you do during this stage matters, but it’s a nice warm up. After 10 minutes, the Digimon will evolve to its Stage II form.

At this point, how you care for your Digimon begins to matter. Care mistakes are now being tracked on your device, but you won’t see a meter for that anywhere, so if you are concerned about that, you will just have to keep track separately. The number of care mistakes you make will decide your evolution paths, but the number of care mistakes you have resets after each evolution, they do not carry over.

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 Digimon isn’t frozen, so your Digimon will grow even while sleeping. So long as you don’t completely neglect your Digimon, you are pretty much guaranteed to reach Stage V. All evolutionary stages use Care Mistakes and one other metric to determine evolution outcome. Stages II and III both take Effort into account, while Stages IV, V and VI take Level into account. It is possible to fail evolution if you do not meet the requirements for any Stage VI or VI+ Digimon within 40 or 48 hours of your most recent evolution respectively. Please note that you may experience minor variances in evolution times for some stages. Note that only specific Digimon on versions XE and XF can evolve into Stage +VI+, which is only achieveable specific battles. Stage +VI+ Digimon cannot evolve further.

*These are totally official terms and not just silly references I chose to include.

Every time you defeat an enemy Digimon in Quest Mode, you gain experience. With enough experience, you level up, and each level up grants new bonuses for your Digimon. The below table shows how much experience you need for each level, as well as what bonus you receive.

All bonuses are cumulative, so a level 10 Digimon would have all bonuses seen, resulting in HP+10, Power+30 and Attack+2. As you level up, your Attack Meter will also become easier to hit, and your Digimon will use stronger attack animations.

While you aren't interacting with your Digimon, 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 Digimon for about a minute, the screen will turn off. You can press any button to turn the screen back on.

The older your Digimon is, the harder it is going to try to die. Potentially you could still keep it alive forever, but you aren’t going to. You’re going to go to a party one night and forget to freeze them before you leave. And then they will die. You monster. There are actually several ways your Digimon can die, including the following:

• Getting sick 20 times in one form
• Getting injured 20 times in one form
• Getting a care mistake 20 times in one form
• Getting a care mistake 5 times upon or after reaching the evolution window for Stage VI or VI+; or after hearts start depleting faster.
• Remaining sick or injured for 6 hours

If you hear your Digimon dying, you can save it! When a Digimon is about to die, it stops moving and lets out a series of cries that change pitch. By rapidly pressing the B button, you can stop your Digimon from dying. It takes 100 presses for it to be revived.

For those of you that couldn’t save your Digimon, you are now looking at an old school computer (or an egg, see below). Your Digimon has died and converted back into raw data. Oh well! LET’S MAKE A NEW ONE! Press A+B simultaneously to start a new egg, and the life cycle will begin anew.

If you manage to keep your Digimon alive for 48 hours after its most recent evolution, you will get a Traited Egg when your Digimon dies. After the death animation plays, you will see your Digimon leave an egg which will remain on the screen. This will grant the next Digimon a minimum level of 3 for all of its evolutions (excluding Stage I).

Versions XE and XF behave slightly differently. They still have Traited Eggs, but they will not remain on screen after a Digimon dies if you have already cleared Area 45 (as long as its not your first Digimon). The Computer will appear instead, and starting a new egg will prompt a question. Whether you answer Yes or No to this question, the Digimon that hatches will still have a minimum level of 3.