Digimon Anode/Cathode Tamer: Veedramon version - Final thoughts
Wow, what a compact little game! I guess that’s pretty typical for a handheld, licensed game. This one took me around 15 hours to beat in a single week. Nice. I think gameplay-wise this was actually my favorite so far. I really enjoyed the tactical RPG battle system. It forced me to strategize a bit, so there was juuust enough challenge to make things feel satisfying. Probably doesn’t have a lot of replay value, but I’d recommend giving this one a try! (Especially if you’re a fan of the original anime because it takes place immediately after it).
Notes:
-I was kind of surprised that most of the bosses in this game were push overs. The guide I was following hyped me up for them and then the majority of them only took me one try. Even the final boss was pretty easy and left me thinking “that’s it?”
-Similar to Digimon World 2, this game didn’t really motivate me to tame anymore digimon than I needed. The game actually just gives you digimon as you go along and those suited me fine.
-Weirdly this game doesn’t really feature digivolution in the traditional sense and, aside from the boss digimon, the partner digis only go up to champion. I kind of appreciated the simplicity of this. I also thought it was clever that the digimon could psuedo-digivolve via the variables. That actually made a lot of sense because digivolutions in the anime are like temporary summons anyway.
-In honor of the V-Tamer 01 manga, I got a Veedramon and named it Zero. He ended up being my strongest partner.
-I still think the story was kinda lackluster. Ryo is just borrowing his digivice and his partner digimon and at the end they’re all like “See ya! We’re gonna go back to our REAL partners that we like more than you” lol. Also, toxic masculinity Tentomon made me sad:
-Side note: this game’s font is terrible. Look at those nearly identical ls and exclamation points!
-Millenniumon low key looks like a Xenomorph in his portrait.
-I’m not going to play Cathode tamer because it’s essentially the same game and I’ve also decided to not do the 4 bonus dungeons. My reasoning is that they don’t really seem worth it. It’s cool that you can tame the bosses, but one of the hidden dungeons requires you to complete the Digimon Analyzer which I believe requires you to link the games? I guess I could cheat to get to that point, but it still doesn’t really seem worth the trouble. If it added to the story maybe, but based on what I’ve seen on YouTube, it doesn’t.
-Loved all of the art so much! Not just in the story bits, but the variables and the digimon sprites were all great. More charming than the PS1 3D versions for sure. The world itself and the battle grounds were a little bland and repetitive, but I liked the designs of the boss dungeons (see the Milleniummon one above). Anything’s better than the horrible Digimon World 2 dungeons!
-Just as I expected, I really didn’t bother with or need a lot of the extra stuff in this game. A lot of the buildings in town I went into maybe once or twice. I never used Penguinmon trading, Piximon training, Leomon colosseum, or the digimon analyzer. I didn’t bother expanding the amount of digimon I could carry via Nanimon because I didn’t need anymore digimon. If I had access to this game in the 90s and had my unlimited kid free time, I might explore these features more, but I don’t care to do so now. I’ve got a zillion more Digimon video games to get through!
-I’m trying not to spoil myself for future franchise entries, but it sounds like Ryo will return in other games. I hope he gets justice for his blah storyline then.
