Introduction to the Pendulum Cycle
Contents
Introduction
Menus & Controls
Growth Modes
Weight Management
Connections
Other Info & Myths
Rosters
Evolution Guide
Extras
Note: The official instruction manual uses English dub terminology and names to refer to the Cycle and its Digimon, so that’s what I’ll be using here.
- Status: This menu shows you your Digimon’s information. Press B to cycle forward, and A to cycle in reverse through the pages. Age and weight are on the first screen, followed by the Hunger, Training, and Strength bars. After that is the number of battles won, total, and a win rate percentage. The final screen shows your Digimon’s Type (Va/Da/Vi) and either an O or an X telling you if it can or cannot Battle or Jogress.
- Food: This menu lets you select either Meat or Bread to feed your Digimon. Bread restores 1 Hunger Heart and gives +1 to weight, while Meat restores 1 Training Bar and gives +2 to weight.
- Training: Use this menu to raise your Digimon’s Training Bars, which then will raise its Strength Hearts. (5 Training = 1 Strength) You can either play a Training Mini-Game, or have a practice battle against an random Digimon. (More details below.)
- Connect: This menu lets you either connect to another device to battle, scan, or Jogress. (More details below.)
- Poop: This cleans up all poop on the screen.
- Light: Turn the light off when you Digimon wants to sleep, or turn it off while it’s still awake and it will fall asleep after 30 minutes.
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Medical: Select the top option to cure your Digimon’s illness, or the bottom option to repair its injury. It may take multiple attempts. Each attempt will lower your Digimon’s weight, successful or not.
- Clock: Press the B button on the main screen to see the clock.
- Press A to view the Alarm.
- Press A to toggle the alarm on or off.
- Press B to adjust the alarm.
- Press C to confirm the new alarm time.
- Press C to return to the Clock.
- Press B again to close the clock and return to the main screen.
- Press C to toggle between 12h and 24h time formats.
- Press A + C to adjust the time.
- Sound: Press A + C on the main screen to mute and unmute all sound.
Special Mode VS Normal Mode
The Pendulum Cycle has two modes of growth. Special Mode and Normal Mode. Special Mode is the state from Egg until Rookie, while Normal Mode is Rookie and higher which eventually reverts back down to Rookie at the end of the day. This daily growth and reversion of Normal Mode is what’s considered to be a “cycle”, and is the namesake of the device.
During Special Mode, the Digimon will hatch from its egg into Fresh-stage. After 1 hour, it will evolve to In-Training, and after 60-90 minutes more it will evolve to one of 3 Rookie-level Digimon, entering Normal Mode. How evolution to Rookie is determined is still unknown.
Once a Digimon has reached Rookie and begun Normal Mode, it will attempt to evolve every 60-90 minutes, with that timer resetting each time it succeeds. At the end of the day, when it falls asleep naturally, it will revert back down to the Rookie form it achieved at the end of Special Mode. (Note: Pausing the clock before a Digimon would sleep, then reactivating it at a time past when it would normally wake up will prevent reversion. This is known as “clock pausing”). That means the only way to get a different Rookie-level Digimon is to reset the device, or wait for your Digimon to die. Either way will let you hatch a new egg, play Special Mode again, and possibly get a different Rookie.
Evolution in Normal Mode is determined mainly by your Digimon’s weight stat. Keeping your Digimon’s weight within a certain range is the key to reaching the evolved stage you want, so managing weight is very important on the Cycle. (Tips on that detailed below) Additionally, Care Mistakes and training seem to be important, though this is still being researched. What is known, is that too many Care Mistakes can prevent some Evolutions from being possible, and Care Mistakes are reset to 0 when a Digimon evolves, as well as at the end of the day when it reverts back down to Rookie.
One other factor that can limit Evolution, is something known as “Stress” in the official manual. The full impact of Stress, as well as how it is tracked is still being researched, as there’s no in-game measurement of it. What is currently known is that keeping a Digimon awake for extended periods of time past when it wants to sleep (this includes the “clock pausing” exploit), as well as waking a Digimon via shaking, will cause Stress. Also, having too much Stress built up seems to prevent Evolution entirely.
How to Affect Weight
- Poop -1lb
- Bread +1lb
- Meat +2lb
- Training -2lb (MegaHit -4lb)
- Battling?
- Passing of time -?lb
- Medical Treatment -?lb
Training Styles
Practice Battle: Force a battle against a random opponent. The only opponents you can face are Digimon that can be raised on your device. Mega-level Digimon will only appear if you are at least Ultimate-level. Battles progress just like a Random Encounter. (Canceling the battle is fine and will not count as a loss or Care Mistake.)
Training Mini-Game: This is a game to raise Training bars, as well as being a great tool to practice shaking a MegaHit Count, as your Count is shown on screen after shaking to confirm how many times you shook the Cycle. The mini-game is different on each version, but is functionally the same. The changes are only cosmetic.
- v7 Deep Savers: Break blocks. Break them all for a MegaHit.
- v8 Wind Guardians: Shoot for distance. The shot will continue off-screen for a MegaHit.
- v9 Nightmare Soldiers: Smash a rock. Destroy it entirely for a MegaHit. (The Digimon will continue off-screen)
- v10 Metal Empire: Lift a weight. Lift it all the way off-screen for a MegaHit.
A MegaHit fills 4 Training bars.
Connections
There are 3 options in the Connection menu on the Pendulum Cycle. VS (to battle another device), Jogress (to fuse with another device), and Scan (to scan into a compatible device).
The Pendulum Cycle…
Can battle with:
- Digimon Pendulum Cycle (Will function like Battle Training or a random encounter?)
- Original Digital Monster ‘97 (Uses original/’other’ rules)
- Digimon Pendulum (Uses original/’other’ rules)*
- Digimon Analyzer (Analyzer shows an ERROR)
- D-Terminal [JPN] (D-Terminal shows an ERROR)
Can Jogress with:
Can be scanned with:
- D-Terminal [USA]
- D-Gather
* An original Digimon Pendulum will almost always win, as it will act as an illegally overpowered Monzaemon.
Jogress Combinations
- Vaccine + Vaccine = Vaccine
- Vaccine + Data = Vaccine
- Vaccine + Virus = Data
- Data + Vaccine = Vaccine
- Data + Data = Data
- Data + Virus = Virus
- Virus + Vaccine = Data
- Virus + Data = Virus
- Virus + Virus = Virus
- Rookie-level Digimon each have 4 possible Champion stages. The two that share its type (Va/Da/Vi) and one of either other type.
- Waiting for the Call animation to stop counts as a Care Mistake. (~5 min)
- Stress is counted by hours awake, not by sleep. So pausing overnight means it’s awake for two daytimes, resulting in being stressed.
- We do not yet know if ignoring a Random Encounter counts as a Care Mistake.
- Stress and Care Mistakes might be the same thing. There’s still a lot to learn about the Stress mechanic.
Digimon Roster
ver.7 Deep Savers
- Pichimon
- Bukamon
- Gomamon
- Crabmon
- Syakomon
- Ikkakumon
- Dolphmon
- Seadramon
- Coelamon
- Gesomon
- Octomon
- Zudomon
- Whamon
- MegaSeadramon
- Divermon
- Scorpiomon
- MarineDevimon
- Dagomon
- ???
- MarineAngemon
- MetalSeadramon
- Pukumon
- Vikemon
- Plesiomon
- Moon=Millenniummon
ver.8 Nightmare Soldiers
- Mokumon
- DemiMeramon
- Gabumon
- Candlemon
- DemiDevimon
- Apemon
- Garurumon
- Meramon
- Wizardmon
- Devimon
- Bakemon
- Mammothmon
- WereGarurumon
- SkullMeramon
- Pumpkinmon
- Myotismon
- Arukenimon
- Phantomon
- SkullMammon
- Boltmon
- Piedmon
- VenomMyotismon
- MetalGarurumon
- DeviTamamon
- MaloMyotismon
ver.9 Wind Guardians
- Nyokimon
- Yokomon
- Biyomon
- Palmon
- Mushroomon
- Veedramon
- Birdramon
- Togemon
- Kiwimon
- Woodmon
- RedVegiemon
- AeroVeedramon
- Garudamon
- Lillymon
- Blossomon
- Deramon
- Cherrymon
- Garbagemon
- Phoenixmon
- Rosemon
- Gryphonmon
- Puppetmon
- Valkyriemon
- AncientTroymon
- Ghoulmon
- Choromon
- Kapurimon
- ToyAgumon
- Kokuwamon
- Hagurumon
- Greymon
- Deputymon
- Tankmon
- Clockmon
- Guardromon
- Mechanorimon
- MetalGreymon
- Andromon
- Cyberdramon
- Knightmon
- BigMamemon
- Megadramon
- WaruMonzaemon
- WarGreymon
- MetalGarurumon
- Machinedramon
- HiAndromon
- AncientGreymon
- AncientGarurumon
- AncientSphinxmon
Click here to view our Cycle Evolution Guide.
Pendulum Cycle ver.8 Nightmare Soldiers manual
Download full manual as .zip
Interior Photos