Crests

Introduction
As a Tamer, there are various items you can equip to boost your stats. A Crest (occasionally referred to as a 'tag') is a type of player-made item that grants additional stats to your Digimon in battle, such as boosted STR, DEX and CON. Although these boosts may seem trivial, they play a large role in training and fighting.

The higher your Digimon's levels become, the harder it becomes to gain experience. Before long, you'll find that fighting enemies at your own level gives pitiful exp, and that the only efficient way to continue leveling is to battle foes much tougher than you. This is where these miraculous equips come in: using Crests and Eggs wisely (in combination with Digivolution and Chips), you can take down foes several levels higher than you with ease!

Creating Crests and Eggs
Unless you're willing to shell out a couple million bits, there's no real way for you to buy Crests. Making them takes time, effort, time, patience, time, time and time. There's quite simply no easy method of quickly constructing Crests or Eggs, meaning you'll have to do the dirty work yourself. I hope you enjoy slaughtering Yokomon by the hundreds.

Firstly, you'll need the materials. Material items (here forth referred to as mats) are dropped from enemy Digimon. So far, all mats follow a simple naming pattern, and can be identified by additional text in the item description. Mats tend to drop in groups of 1-3, making it a bit less of a chore to collect them. The type of mat you receive is for the most part consistent with the Digimon. For example, Yokomon drop 'Yokomon's Pollen', while Elecmon drop 'Elecmon's Fur'. Not every "X's Y" item is a mat, though, such as 'Zurumon's Poison'.

Each Crest requires a set amount of mats. Three different types are required: a handful of mats from a slightly tougher Digimon, a fair amount from a medium Digimon, and a lot from a weak Digimon. Once you have all three, the next step is to find Babamon in the MudFrigimon Village. Getting there requires you to achieve Tamer level 20, obtain a quest in the starting area, delve into the Gateway Dungeon, and locate Calumon to receive several MudFrigimon Warp Tickets. Afterward, you can buy them normally.

When you take your mats to Babamon, you receive your Crest or Egg, which you can then equip to your Tamer. 3 Crests and 3 Eggs can be equipped at any one time.

Combination Crests
Several higher-level Crests are made from three 'smaller' crests. For example, the Courage Crest is made from Friendship, Hope and Light. For all intents and purposes, though, making them is just a matter of making the material Crests and then bringing them to Babamon like any other mat.

Leveling Crests
When you receive your Crest, you'll notice a number at the end of the Crest's name. For example, you'll probably receive a "Crest of Friendship +1". The number denotes the Crest's level.

To raise the level, and therefore increase the bonuses gained from the Crest, you need to combine two identical Crests. A 'Crest of Friend +1' combined with another +1 Friendship crest will result in a 'Crest of Friendship +2'. Two 'Crest of Friendship +2"s makes a +3. Finally, two +3s make a +4, currently the ultimate level.

Of course, this means that to obtain a higher Crest, you need to make more of the same, which means more mat collecting, which means more time and time and effort and patience and time. I told you it wasn't easy.

What are Braves? Why should I get them?
A 'Brave', known in English translations as the Crest of Courage, is widely considered to be the main Crest of use. Equipping a Crest of Courage grants a bonus of 1% STR and DEX, with the number raising alongside the Crest's level, as well as a bonus of 5% dodge/'speed', again increasing with level. It's important to note that although 1% is a small number, 1% of 500 is 5, and at higher levels this can add up to a fair 10-20 more points. Equip three Crests, and you could be seeing 50 or more extra points!

Because of this monumental additive bonus, and the fact that STR and DEX are considered the main 'fighting' stats, it's easy to see why so many people prefer Braves to other items. It shows, too: in the original Korean version of Digimon Battle, high-level Braves can and will sell for 3-5,000,000 bits!

Forging Bravery
After all that, you probably want to know exactly how to obtain these magical items. Well, this is where I'll tell you. Be warned that it takes quite a bit of effort to get even a +1 Brave, and getting to that fabled point of having three +4 Courage Crests is a lofty goal. That said, it's certainly worth your time to try.

As the Crest of Courage is a 'combination crest', you'll need to forge three smaller Crests: the Crests of Friendship, Hope, and Light. For each Crest, I'll list the items, Digimon, locations, and other notes of interest.

Crest of Friendship
Crest of Friendship effects: Increased ATK.

Ingredient #1: Floramon's Flower Paddle

Dropped by: Floramon (level 12, rookie)

Location: Forest of Learning (rightmost on the map)

Required #: 2 per Crest

Notes: Probably the easiest thing on the list. Kill a Floramon, hope it drops some paddles, ???, profit.

Ingredient #2: Gomamon's Claw

Dropped by: Gomamon (lv13, rookie)

Location: Forest of Peace (rightmost, bottom of the 'branch')

Required #: 10 per Crest

Notes: Conveniently located to the south of Floramon.

Ingredient #3: Tokomon's Tooth

Dropped by: Tokomon (level 10, baby)

Location: Maze Forest (lowest on the map)

Required #: 12 per Crest

Notes: Don't get too comfortable with these low mat numbers.

Crest of Hope
Crest of Hope effects: Increased DEF

Ingredient #1: Palmon's Flower Paddle

Dropped by: Palmon (level 11, rookie)

Location: Forest of Rest (near Floramon's location)

Required #: 2 per Crest

Notes: NOT to be confused with Floramon's Flower Paddle.

Ingredient #2: Penguinmon's Fur

Dropped by: Penguinmon (level 19, rookie)

Location: Ice Plains (probably the toughest, as you need to obtain an Ice Plains Ticket and warp)

Required #: 6 per Crest

Notes: As mentioned, Penguinmon's in a completely different area.

Ingredient #3: Yuramon's Seed

Dropped by: Yuramon (level 2, baby)

Location: Admin Bureau West/South (the very first areas)

Required #: 15 per Crest

Notes: Yeah. This is where it gets annoying.

Crest of Light
Crest of Light effects: Increased BattleLevel

Ingredient #1: Tentomon's Claw

Dropped by: Tentomon (level 14, rookie)

Location: Gateway Dungeon (the dungeon in the middle of the map)

Required #: 2 per Crest

Notes: Not especially tough, really.

Ingredient #2: Elecmon's Fur

Dropped by: Elecmon (level 13, rookie)

Location: Forest of Peace (farthest on the 'branch' of the map, with Gomamon)

Required #: 4 per Crest

Notes: A bit of a walk.

Ingredient #3: Yokomon's Pollen

Dropped by: Yokomon (level 1, baby)

Location: Admin Bureau West/South (first areas)

Required #: 8 per Crest

Notes: At least it's better than Yuramon. By the way, Yokomon is Biyomon's baby form, yet it's a plant. Wat.

Crest of Courage/Bravery
Still alive? Good. Take your three Crests to the Crest maker, Babamon, and you'll finally have your hands on a Courage Crest! Way to go. Now to do it 24 more times!

The Raw Numbers
As mentioned, making three +4 Courage Crests isn't easy. Here's where you get to gawk at just how not-easy it is.

The format is as such:

Final amount of Crests you'll have

Floramon's Flower Paddle

Gomamon's Claw

Tokomon's Tooth

Palmon's Flower Paddle

Penguinmon's Fur

Yuramon's Seed

Tentomon's Claw

Elecmon's Fur

Yokomon's Pollen

With that, here we go!

As you can see, you need a grand total of 1274 items to make three +4 Braves. Since you can only carry 100 of an item at once, you obviously won't be pulling this off in one night. Now that you have the numbers, there's nothing else I can really tell you besides to start collecting!

-Credit to AzureAngelic