Recently I've been getting a strong urge to play some of my childhood games again. One of the few games that I keep going back to is Digimon Digital Card Battle for the PS1. Released in 2000, it wasn't received very well by most game publications then, but I always have a blast playing it. It's a spin-off game in the Digimon series, a not-Pokemon franchise that was intended to be a more masculine Tamagotchi. Gameplay-wise, it's a rather simple card game that doesn't require too much strategy, as you'll see in a bit.
At the start of the game, I got to pick a Partner Digimon and starter deck to fit my playstyle.
Amongst the three Partner Digimon available, I chose Hawkmon and the tricky Nature and Rare deck that comes along with it. As I progress through the game, Hawkmon's attacks and abilities will get stronger. Eventually, it also unlocks certain Armor digivolutions that can be activated in battle, making its stats even stronger.
Starting off in an aptly named Beginner City, the narrator prompted me to go through a tutorial with Betamon, a Digimon in charge of teaching new Tamers the basics. Being an experienced veteran at the Digimon card game, I skipped it 😂
Betamon then proceeds to explain some rules of Digi-land, the world that we're in. The world revolves around Card Battles (because how else can you save the world by playing cards?) and winning a Tournament in a City's Battle Arena will unlock the next city. Every city's Battle Arena is themed in one way or another and consists of anywhere from 2 to 7 battles. One loss and you have to start over, although longer Battle Arenas allow you to save in between battles.
Naturally, Beginner City has its own Battle Arena. I'm raring to battle and enter it immediately.
The first match is against Agumon, a mainstay in the Digimon franchise. Agumon says some big words like "I won't let you win" and "I won't go easy on you", but we all know how the battle's gonna end.
The card battle system is simple. Each player has a maximum of 4 cards in their hand, and both players' hands are always exposed. Each player takes turns being the 1st Attacker, where he will draw til his hand is full. At the start of the game, both players take turns choosing a Digimon to play. Usually, a Rookie Digimon (as shown by the R at the top-left corner of the card) is played, since playing a Champion or Ultimate Digimon directly will cause their stats to be halved or quartered respectively.
I set Palamon as my fighting Digimon of choice, and place Vi-Elecmon in the DP Zone. Digimon put in the DP zone are essentially used as fodder for digivolution of the fighting Digimon. Although I don't have enough DP to digivolve yet, I'll be able to do so in my next attack phase.
In the battle phase, each player chooses an attack to attack with. Usually, circle attacks are the strongest, triangle attacks are slightly weaker, and the cross attack has a special ability. In my case, Salamon's cross attack counters my opponent's attack if they use a triangle attack, but deals 0 damage otherwise. It doesn't make sense for me to use this counter ability, so I simply attack with the most powerful move I have - the circle attack Puppy Howling.
Before the attack is carried out, each player gets the chance to play a support card. If there are no suitable support cards that you want to play, you can also rely on the powers of the RNG and use a support card from the top of the deck although it can cause some undesirable effects. I totally missed that my opponent has a Circle Defense Disk which nullifies my attack - my attack would end up dealing no damage to the opposing Digimon.
The match continues for a while, and I finally have enough DP to digivolve my Digimon into a Drimogemon. Every time a digivolution happens, all stats and damage are reset and the stats of the Digimon on top are taken. With increased attack power, I manage to make quick work of my opponent's Goburimon.
Once a Digimon is defeated, the player who defeated that Digimon gains 1 point. Once a player gains 3 points, he wins the game. I just had to defeat 2 more Digimon to attain sweet victory!
After a few more turns, I won with a 3-1 score. Yay!
After every battle, depending on whether you fulfil certain conditions, the amount of experience points gained will be given to the Partner Digimon cards that were in the deck. For example, to get the "Last Chance Gamble Win", I would have to use the top card of my deck as a support card for the last battle that made me win the match.
The experience points only affect Partner Digimon cards, which will get stronger as they rank up.
After every match, a Prize Pack is also given. The contents of the prize pack differ depending on how strong the opponent was. As Agumon didn't make for a very strong opponent, I only got a Basic Pack which contained some common cards.
Next up, Babamon shows up with its New Power Deck as the final match of this Battle Arena. After a few tussles, I won and got the passcode to the next city, Flame City.
For winning the Battle Arena, I also got an Option Pack containing useful Option cards to include in my deck.
Before moving on to Flame City, I wanted to modify my deck a little with all the new cards that I obtained. Including two Ultimate Digimon should help boost the power of my deck a little. In battle, Digimon usually digivolve from Rookie Digimon to Champion Digimon, and Champion Digimon to Ultimate Digimon. While Ultimate Digimon like Angewomon are strong, they can become dead draws if I don't have enough DP.
And that's it for this Let's Play! I'm not sure whether there are people actually interested in Let's Plays of retro games, but I'm hoping that there are some people like me around. It feels good to be playing PS1 games again.
All screenshots were taken by me, played on the Beetle PSX core on RetroArch.