This was such a weird game... it was developed before the original anime aired so a lot of the traditions that exist in Digimon now either didn't exist or were different when it was made, and the end result is just... really really weird when you're used to post-anime Digimon. I always loved this game though, it was this game me and my now-best friend bonded over as kids and when we finally beat the game together after god knows how much time spent on it the high five was hard enough to shatter mountains. I loved finding new Digimon, working out how to recruit them and watching File City get bigger and full of more cool buildings and conveniences as I did so, I loved when my lil Digi digivolved into something new and awesome unexpectedly, I loved the diverse world it had and how more of it opened up as you progressed. Everything in the game felt like it shaped itself around you and how you progressed, and you could open things up in a totally different order to someone else who played the game and have a totally different experience as a result, which was unusual at the time. The translation was pretty terrible though and the English was often broken, but that just makes it oddly charming.
Major downside was they seemed to put ideas in without regard for how they would actually be to play, which resulted in a lot of frustration. Monochromon's shop can go STRAIGHT to hell.