Games

Hell yes. The first game is infamous for all the internet areas being particularly labrynthian and looking all the fucking same. Also some pretty heinous translation errors. That all improves as the series goes on, but don't feel bad using maps in the earlier games during the "run all over the place in the net" backtracking sections.

Also, save every map transistion out on the open net. The games don't make it explicit, more as rumors, but boss rematches are hidden with invisible triggers out on the net. Usally they're down dead ends but not always. So you can occasionally end up in a surprise stronger version of a boss fight just trying to get from place to place. That can suck if you aren't ready and haven't saved in a long time. But those are also how you get the high powered boss chips, so they're worth it once you're ready.

Be aware that each game has hidden content that you aren't expected to figure out on your own just through the game itself. These are very much products of their time, and lean into the sort of old internet forum stuff with rumors and theories and helping each other out using those external info sources. When you get to the navi cust games where you arrange tetris like blocks to enable skills, there are codes to shrink almost every block that you'll only ever find now by looking them up. Post game stuff effectively requires using guides at this point in time since there aren't the digital equivalent of playground rumors about these games out on forums anymore.

The later games will start splitting content across versions like Pokemon, but with actual story changes as well. Mostly different bosses in the run through the main plot, but there are some weird choices like majot plot critical scenes locked to one version or another.

When you get to those ones I'd reccomend looking for fan patches/romhacks that try to make things more cohesive, and look up the "canon" game of the versions if you don't want odd plot holes like characters refering to previous events you didn't play, or an entire fucking main villian just coming back like "Somehow, Palpatine returned." because the scene explaining it is version specific.

Lastly, chip codes are more important than the game makes clear. If you want to break the battle system over your knee and make it cry, look up program advances and build your deck for them.