#wonderswan ryo

[izzyizumi]

{cap by Me} / @izzyizumi (Please ASK before Using)

"It matched wits with the {Chosen Child} {Koushiro[u] Izumi} on several occasions"...

When your Fav gets mentioned randomly or not! in a new Journal official entry in relation to specifically Mugendramon, because Adv Eps 48~49 totally weren't all about this encounter.

"The demand for Mugendramon resulted in subsequent roles"... (That Too.)

(No but seriously this is a cool name-drop, glad to see Koushiro['s wits] got {canonically} recognized {again}!)

[slutpoppers]

Digimon Digital Monster

Anode Cathode Tamer - Wonderswan Color (2000)

I started this game and I havent finished the first boss Devimon yet 😭 But I made these gifs to compensante the under representation for those retro ah games ❤️💕

Featuring from left to right: Tentomon, Palmon, Gabumon, Tailmon, Agumon, Patamon, Piyomon, Gomamon.

Botamon, Mojyamon and Tyranomon, Pabumon, ToyAgumon and Petimeramon.

[otakween]

Digimon Tamers: Brave Tamer - Final Thoughts

Phew! If you're wondering why I've been quiet for a bit, it's because this game took me 3 weeks to beat. It was kind of grueling at times. It definitely assumes that you played the previous 3 (or 4 if Anode and Cathode count for 2) games and does NOT baby you at the start. It definitely wasn't my favorite game in the series, but the fact that it did away with the terrible old Jogress system earned it a lot of points in my book. There are still some Wonderswan games to play, but I think that's really it for Ryo games! Thank goodness :)

Notes:

Major downgrade from D1 Tamers visually! D1 was so colorful and exploring the world was actually interesting. Brave Tamer follows the Digimon World 2 strat of making every single dungeon pretty much identical and the hub world is bland as heck as well. You don't even need to travel to get to the dungeons you just walk up to the same hole every time. Lame.

Thank God this game lets digimon level up and evolve normally. It basically follows the Pokemon style of evolution. In previous games there were bullshit level caps unless you jogressed a zillion times. This game still has that dumb mechanic where your digimon devolves into a baby. I get that that happens in the show, but it felt pretty silly in the game. They get back to normal pretty quickly after a few battles.

Digimon recruitment is limited to borrowing digimon from digidestined from the various anime series. What an awkward concept. Ryo comes out of nowhere to save the day and then each partner digimon is like "See ya partner, I'm ditching you for Ryo!" I'm just imagining the characters that are left partner-less facing certain doom after Ryo leaves lol. Maybe it's one of those situations where they're only gone for a few minutes due to dimension hopping.

The card slash system (based on the Tamers universe of course) was interesting, but kind of annoying to figure out. After I got a handful of strong cards I couldn't be arsed to keep trying new jogress combos.

Speaking of taking the lazy route, I didn't use the majority of the digimon I recruited once LOL. It's more efficient to just stick with the same digimon for the whole game unless you want to spend a lot of time grinding, so that's what I did. I ended up with only mega-level digimon at the end which is frustrating because MegaloGrowmon and Taomon were at level 30! (They upgrade to mega at 31).

The bosses were strangely easy in this game (except for one that took me like 5 tries). What made it hard were the frickin' labyrinthine dungeons (the last one is TIMED! Evil). I have a terrible sense of direction IRL and in video games so the dungeons in this game were torture for me. You have to traverse up to 5 floors and sometimes there are so many dead ends and roadblocks that it takes what feels like an eternity. Also, there are random battles every 2 seconds that increase the suffering. In the later game I planned my route ahead of time by figuring out where the boss was on YouTube and mapping backwards from there. Here's a screenshot of me and my map in MS Paint:

(By the way, I always play Wonderswan games in windowed mode or else they look wonky. This time, that really came in handy).

I had to use multiple guides to figure out some of this game because the most popular walkthrough wasn't very good. It barely gives you any instructions on getting through dungeons, which was what I really needed.

Most scandalous part of this game was when Millenniummon called Ryo his lover (koibito)? Whaaaaa...?

I didn't realize that this game is a prequel to Tamers so I kinda did things out of order, whoops! I didn't realize that Cyberdramon was supposed to be the outcome of a Monodramon/Millenniummon jogress. Makes me want to rewatch some bits of the anime...

There was so much dramatic build up for the final battle and then it was so easy? I didn't even need to use the 10 low-level healing items I stocked up on. Oh well, guess I was well prepared.

Of course there's a post-game where you can scan all the digimon you missed, but that just seems silly. They're not partners in this game, they're cards. If I can't a raise a digimon I don't really see the appeal in collecting them all. (I mean I guess I wouldn't see the appeal in raising them all either, but the cards seem like even more of a waste of time).

The Wonderswan games have always been my fave digimon games but this one felt simultaneously half-assed and overly complicated. I'd give it like a 5 or 6 out of 10. Let's call it a 5.5.

[digimon-v]

I finished translating a full playthrough of Digimon Tamers: Brave Tamer and I wanted to share it here.

This isn't translated in-game. What I did was play it through in Japanese and then, using a translated script, made text box images to overlay in a video editing program.

I am no a video editor, I'm barely a let's player, but I wanted to be able to have a series of Brave Tamer with the English subtitles. I wanted to be able to read along with the action like the other WonderSwan games that were translated.

The script I used came from here:

Please, give them thanks and support for translating this game ♥

[405mon]

Card Slash, Ryo! (Digimon Tamers) Back with another Digimon fanart. This time it's Ryo Akiyama, with a slightly updated outfit from the Digital World! As usual, done in Clip Studio.

[koushirouizumi]

mE SINGING JUN'ICHI KANEMARU "DIGITAL SURVIVOR": SurVIVE THE World!1!!1 Can "THE THINGS" I must prOTECT FEEL THE "rEALITY"???? GET THrOUGH THE World!!! IN *THIS* World, the "ANSWER" is ONLY IN *MY* HANDS AND *NOWHERE ELSE* Survive The World - I'm SEARCHING FOR IT.

[threadmonster]

I could make a whole presentation on why Digimon Tri is just a big retcon official fanfiction. Shout out to whoever put in the egg timer joke tho.

[skydigiblogs]

honestly thought i would have a lot more to say about adventure 02 but like

i just finished episode 50 and the jist of my thoughts really are "yeah this is better than i remembered it being"

overall, an extremely ambitious follow up to digimon adventure, balancing a lot of plot points and an attempt at having a more cohesive storyline than "bad guy of the arc but suddenly it's apocalymon." in 02, most of the bad guys lead from one to another, in a way that seems much more intentionally thought-out than everything up until the dark master's arc in 01. even the one-off antagonists (dark ocean and demon's crew) played into the larger narrative, and weren't necessarily treated as one-offs so much as chances to expand the scope of the lore and use it to the narrative's benefit.

(although i do think it's a bit sad we never saw follow up on demon going "oh, you all are going to regret sending me to dagomon's ocean SOOOOO much")

also a lot of lore. so much lore. 01 introduced the fact that homeostasis has a bunch of agents that look like gennai, but a2 kept suggesting they're all copies (put a pin in that for my tri rewatch, much as i am loathe to rewatch that one). there wasn't any elaboration, but it is an interesting idea, and unfortunately i understand why it was kind of hastily noted and dismissed (the world tour arc had a lot to get to).

also the dimensional makeup of the digimon franchise got a lot more fascinating in 02. in 01 gennai mentioned that the gate could lead to all kinds of different places, but 02 actually takes that a step further in the lore, showing us the dark ocean and the dimension of dreams (even mentioning that the latter is pulled from by the digital world).

but it does maintain some of the problems i had with the original adventure in that i do wish more of the kids got to see their mega forms. :/

(i know tamers fixes that somewhat, then frontiers backpedals, but. you can't get me to rewatch frontiers lmao.)

furthermore, it does kind of suck that we're still left to wonder about ken's adventures in the digital world. we see ryo and millenniumon in his flashbacks to the adventures, but for audience members who missed out entirely on the wonderswan games, it makes it so we have to trust wormmon's word that ken was a kind person in the past. it's shown to an effective degree in the show, especially with his flashbacks to his childhood after the chimeramon arc.

it also makes narrative sense that they didn't feel the need to go over a story that's already happened, because that likely would have taken too long for 02, which already had so much going on. but maaaaaan. i do not want to play the wonderswan games, frfr (though i know there are fan translations out there for 'em).

i do love ken's arc though, as frustrating as him struggling with self-doubt is to watch. i'm glad the writers didn't make it seem too easy for him to forgive himself, because that's hard even if you weren't the vessel for like. All That Shit. i'm giving this boy a weighted blanket and hot tea.

tl;dr: compared to the oftentimes fever-dream like qualities of 01, 02 feels a lot more narratively focused in its story, and i think that really works to its favor. not a flawless season, but none of the digimon seasons are. a successful sequel to 01, much more so than i remembered from my last rewatch of the dub in 2020.

[vobomon]

If Digimon 02 is ever rebooted and given a new "story" in the form of a remake (y'know similar to Digimon 2020 was a remake of season 1) then I have some wishes that'd I love to see happen.

And yes, this is a list that revolves around Osamu Ichijouji and all that sweet, untapped potential in his character.

Make Osamu into a Chosen Child/Digidestined. Not going to lie but he deserved a chance at having a Digimon. There are plenty of siblings (both older and younger) within the Adventure canon that have Digimon partners. I think people justified Osamu not having a Digimon partner nor being chosen because he never "saw the fight against Diaboromon" but lets be completely honest with each other. Osamu was always on the computer... so how would Ken have seen the fight using the computer? Y'know the computer that Osamu owns and would have surely been there to witness the same thing alongside his brother.

Give Osamu and Ryo Akiyama some interactions. What am I saying? They might as well try to include Ryo's whole story (from the wonderswan games) into the actual plot because it makes no sense why he hasn't gotten his chance in the spotlight. And although I never watched Digimon 2020, I was told that Millenniummon does show up as a villain. So that's the perfect way to set up Ryo for showing up in a Digimon 02 reboot... right?

Explain how the Dark Spore affected Ken. Personally I think it messed up his memories of Osamu which is why they seemed so negative from Ken's standpoint... but I'd love some confirmation on whether Ken just remembered his brother through a negative lens... or if there was some sort of emotional issues going on between the two of them.

Expand on Osamu's character. He has so much potential and honestly, would be a perfect example of "Gifted Child Syndrome," right? I want to see the pressure of being the "genius child" get to him and he experiences burnout... among other emotional problems that mirror the experiences that Ken goes through.

That's all that things that I can think (at the moment) for this list. But that may change later. Sorry for all the Osamu stuff, by the way. I just really like his character-- okay thank you, I'll see myself out.

[digi-lov]

Today releases the EX-03 Draconic Roar Set! And it contains this nice Agumon card!

Agumon EX3-027 by Takase from EX-03 Theme Booster Draconic Roar

This is a reference to the Ryo WonderSwan Games Anode/Cathode Tamer. In this game Ryo is teaming up with Taichi's Agumon. It's referencing the scene when Agumon shows up on Ryo's computer. You can see Ryo's desk just like in the games, and the chair has his bag hanging over it too.

While being not very known in the West, due to the WonderSwan, and by extension its games, never having been released outside of Asia, this would be a very recognizable reference for (older) Japanese fans, as the games were very popular.

Might be worth noting that Agumon doesn't actually jump out of the computer in the games.

[curedigiqueen]

Why I think Ryo is the Ken of Survive.

Obviously, all the Survive kids are meant to reflect one of the 8 original Adventure kids. However, the characters aren't completely one to one, as each of the characters are in fact, unique characters in their own right. (Most evident I think is in the fact I'd assign basically every character except for Miyuki a different crest from their adventure counterpart). But they do echo the basic archetype of the role each adventure character played in the series. For the most part this is self explanatory, some more than others.

Takuma is Taichi Minoru is Koshiro (Less obvious but that's a separate point) Aoi is Sora Shuuji is Joe Saki is Mimi Kaito is Yamato Miu is Takeru Miyuki is Hikari

However, Survive has 10 important human/digimon partnerships.

The sole adult of the group, the professor, even bares some resemblance to a rather important "old man" of adventure, Gennai. An old man who knows a lot of their situation, was involved in the "inciting incident" looks after the kids to a certain extent, but is rather unreliable and has amnesia regarding some very important things he should know. Of course original Gennai isn't even really human, and therefore doesn't have a digimon partner, (Jijimon also takes on some Gennai traits imo) but Akiharu I would still say parallels Gennai.

However, Ryo doesn't match any of the original adventure cast. But I think it is fair to say he resembles Ken. Ryo has a worm digimon. Ryo has a family member whose death deeply affected him. Ryo is grumpy and aggressive, while hiding a secretly gentler and hurting side. Ryo is self-destructive, at the cost of his partner.

Ryo can't be Adventure Ken really, because Adventure Ken doesn't really exist. But Ken isn't exactly an 02 kid in the way Daisuke, Iori and Miyako are. A reoccurring theme in 02 is the difference in outlook between the Adventure kids, the Adventure and 02 kids, and the 02 exclusive kids. And so Ken is in no way one of the original Adventure kids, but there is something to be said of the fact that his (executive meddling hellscape) backstory reflects experiences of Takeru, Hikari, more than it does the other 02 original kids. He even has an associated crest. In many ways, Ken is a retroactive Adventure character, without actually being an Adventure character. Ken in the context of digimon Adventure 02 is very much so an example if a character like Takeru had been driven to the darkness, who then had to be rehabilitated by a set of characters with an outside perspective. Really that is what all of 02s Jogresses is really, the new kids helping the more experienced kids deal with their unprocessed issues. Miyako helps Hikari look out for herself, Iori helps Takeru stop lashing out in anger from keeping his emotions hidden, and Daisuke helps Ken see value in his own continued existence.

Which is why I think Ryo is a homage to Ken. It's not the "Adventure Ken" that theoretically exists, the little boy wondering around the digital world with Wonderswan Ryo or whatever did or did not happen in that unreliable backstory, but 02 Ken, the Ken after the trauma, who needs SOMEONE to connect with him to help save him. He's the sole character who is taken from 02 era rather than the first Adventure era. And 02's themes are in this character. Ryo dies in part due to hopelessness and depression. He is unsavable the first playthrough. Unsavable in the initial adventure context. The original context where the focus is on survival and connection with your own digimon. Wormmon couldn't Save Ken alone. just as Kunemon couldn't. Both Wormmon and Kunemon die in desperate attempts to try and save their partners (really from themselves). But Ryo is saved from death when you can manage to become friends with him. When you connect with him, not unlike how Daisuke managed to save Ken. And from there, Ryo manages to save other people (Shuuji) from falling into that same despair, not unlike how Ken tried to reach out to the dark spore kids. It's noteworthy that of the 3 initial endings, the moral route is the closest to the truthful route, but aside from Ryo and Shuuji has one key difference. It ends like the original Adventure did, the kids and their partners separating, while the truthful route has the kids and their partners living together, invoking the 02 ending. While the Harmony and Wrathful routes do also bear a resemblance to 02's ending, just relatively less optimistically, Harmony and Wrathful routes involve the failings of personal connections. The failure to understand each other. Ultimately the truthful route resolves peacefully, even the big bad reconciling with his sister, no longer feeling the need to lash out at others. Ryo is the factor that takes this adventure and adds a bit of 02 to it, 02 in this context being the importance of connection. 02 being what makes the happy ending.

It's not a 1 to 1, after all, all of the characters are different from their adventure counterpart, and take pieces from one another. For example, its Minoru that has the parental divorce backstory, and Miyuki is a protective older sister to the professor, not a younger sister to Takuma, and the Professor is the most curious about the digital world's nature, and is the one with the digimon partner Gabumon. Saki is the one hesitating the most about going home at all rather than being the one to bring it up the most. I'd say Ryo also has elements of Joe in his fear of his partner and for being an unreliable older kid, and Shuuji has elements of Ken in his cruelty of Lopmon, and insistence on authority and desire to measure up against an older brother with whom he has a flawed relationship. Really none of these kids match up one to one with the adventure kids, and that's great, but I think it is fair to say that as far as analogies go, Ryo does draw from Ken.

02 is an extension of Adventure, and despite their differences in plot, theme and character arcs, no discussion of Adventure will ever be truly complete without discussing certain elements of 02 in relation to that, particularly 02s epilogue and what it means thematically. Ryo is a reflection of Ken, and how his story and needs were a reflection of the themes of 02, and how those themes were built off of the themes of Adventure. How Ken needed something that was not as prevalent in Adventure. Naturally, I think the "truthful" story of survive, would have to be a route that includes elements of 02 no matter how faithful it is to other Adventure themes otherwise.

[broken-clover]

A Brief Summary of Digimon's Sixth Rangers (At Least up Until Fusion Because I Dunno Shit About Fusion)

Hikari Yagami/Kari Kamiya: Was actually supposed to be here from the get-go but called out sick to 2/3 of the plot. Don't worry kiddo, you get to come back for Season 2 (Great!) and thus get twice the psychological trauma (Less Great)

Ken Ichijouji: Being a star athlete, academic genius and a jack-of-all-trades is no match for the power of brother issues and latent homosexuality.

Ryo Akiyama: Neat reference to the Wonderswan games!...Why is he here? What's his role in the group dynamic?...Look it's this or we psychologically torment the middle schoolers some more, pick your battles here

Koichi Kimura: Brother issues...2! We lost the homosexuality but replaced it with 50% more kittycat and near-death experiences.

Ikuto Noguchi/Keenan Crier: Digimon Tarzan is real and he wants you to get the fuck out of his house

[firedragon1321]

Missing Digidestined Theory

Hi and welcome to my humble abode. Tonight at 4 am, I'm going to (try) to make sense of some Digimon shit. Namely the number of Digidestined in Adventure's world, and how that correlates to a certain statement from the producers. This is entirely headcanon, possibly AU, and also made at 4-6 am. It also contains spoilers for the new 02 movie. There is a brief mention of child death. And it ends with complaints about the timeline and epilogue.

EDIT: This is no longer solid for several reasons, mainly conflicting information in 02 the Beginning, the presentation of clear AU as a theory, and the use of a ship blog as a source. On the first, I had not seen the movie yet (and now have doubts that Lui was really "the first", but that's a theory that basically ends in "Daigo/Maki's group were still first"). On the latter two points, I really should know better, and I apologize.

I have closed notifications due to some rude behavior, so I won't see any updates on this. However, I also deleted the original edit mentioning that since it itself was rude. There's really no reason to leave this up, except I like the idea generally and for archival purposes. If you still wish to read it, it is stored below. Just get ready for 40 year old Lui, lol.

I'll hook you with this- there weren't five Digidestined globally in Maki's time. There were eight.

This goes off a statement from one of the producers. You can read it all here.

Basically, the number of Digidestined worldwide would double. This ensures everyone would have a Digimon partner by 2027 (aka, the epilogue).

Doing the math- the number would exceed the global population (approximately 8 billion people) in 2020 (becoming 16,777,216 to be precise- 2019 cuts it close with 8,388,608, but the math is not wrong either way).

The exact statement says this "doubling" occurred from the Parrotmon incident forward. I personally believe that's BS because Willis exists. He receives Gummymon and Kokomon around the same time that the original Botamon spawns. There's also Meiko, Ken, and Ryo (depending on how you interpret the WonderSwan games). Meaning the number of Digidestined is higher than 8, and possibly already doubling.

Let's assume Lui is the first Digidestined. He seems to be around his early 20s (or ages really well- maybe it's Maybelline). Then Daigo and Maki's team came after him. Then Adventure team and so-on.

This all rides around this comment, as there are no official ages for Daigo, Maki, or Lui and we need them. User SharpeBB from With the Will points out the following, which I used as it's the only logical explanation I can find.

So based on this theory- assuming they were 11/12 when they were chosen, and Maki's age in the flashback is as SharpeBB claims, the original Digidestined would have set out on their mission in 1987 (using the age of 9 as a baseline for reasons I will explain later and computing in Maki's age of 21).

I assume for this theory that Maki was a Digidestined for at least two years prior to losing Tapirmon (referring to the flashback involving the Harmonious Ones). My tri. knowledge is a bit rusty. But since that flashback occurs in the Digital World, I'll have to assume she met Tapirmon in the real world, there was time fuckery similar to Adventure, adults were looking for the members of that team in the Real World, or any combination of the three.

So- 27 (Maki's age) minus 9 (assumed age when first she became a Digidestined) is 18. 18 years before tri. in 2005 was 1987.

There are five of these "original kids"- Daigo, Maki, and three unnamed ones. But you may notice that five is not an even number, nor a multiple of two. The lowest number of Digidestined that must exist globally at that time is eight. This doesn't mean for Maki's team specifically- they could be in another country, like the numerous American Digidestined.

So going backwards- there would be four Digidestined (globally) in 1986, two in 1985, and one (Lui) in 1984.

Incidentally, Lui was born on a leap year...which 1972 is. Using the baseline of 12 years (based on the above image), he would be 40 in 02 the Beginning. Let's just say he ages well.

So I bet you're tired of BS- let's get to the meat and potatoes. How many Digidestined really exist by the time of Adventure? Well, with 12 years between 1987 (original Digidestined) and 1999...the answer is 32,768.

Remember that not all Digidestined go to the Digital World. Some of this number might have died (we can't rule out "accidents" in the Digital World entirely, nor death via other means). Others might have stayed in the Real World and never went to the Digital World. Still others might have let their inner child- and partner- die (see Kizuna). But given the time gap between Daigo/Maki's team and 1999 alone, I don't think all 32,000+ of them were twiddling their thumbs.

There's more threats out there that we don't know about. There's more dead kids than we can fathom. And worse still, this only accelerates the amount of time until everyone has a Digimon. It would exceed the global population in 2009 with 16,777,216- that same number from the start- three years before 02 the Beginning.

Yet we can see that this is not the case. Ukkomon's MO is to give everyone a Digimon partner, which the world is not ready for. Recall that the production team claims the worldwide doubling occurred starting with Tai's team. Including those eight and the four outliers I mentioned, everyone would have a Digimon by 2019 (with an estimated 12,582,912 partnerships- this exceeds the global population). In 2012, this number is merely 98,304. Which makes sense for the Ukkomon plot.

So I wasted your time. Except...

I still feel this math doesn't account for things like Daigo/Maki's team and Lui. The producer's math states there are 64 Digidestined globally by 2002. But this cannot be the case as how do the Digidestined from before- or even kids like Willis- factor in? Like, they fit numerically, but how did they find their partners? Why were they chosen? Especially those before 1999, if it all connects to the Botamon in Japan? Also- assuming Lui is as young as he looks (i.e.- around Davis's age) makes Maki older than him...which makes no sense, given the average age someone becomes a Digidestined and her own assumed age.

It makes more sense for Lui to look really good for forty than the entire timeline does if we assume that the doubling began in 1999.

And this is because of two issues. One is "left hand not talking to right hand" throughout the Adventure timeline. There's simply no communication between departments (especially for the WonderSwan games, the canonicity of which is flaky even in my own personal timeline). This has resulted in other plot holes throughout Adventure canon.

Another is a hardcore determination to keep the epilogue canon, despite conflicting elements from tri. on forward. The link at the very beginning attempts to explain the epilogue, yet includes some absolutely bonkers explanations for things like why Matt became an astronaut (basically, there's extraterrestrial threats made in response to digivolution, and the Dark Masters are implied to be one of them, despite actually being linked to Apocalymon- is he also an alien???).

There was supposed to be a season 3 that would have evened out a lot of this (I'm afraid I forgot the link- if someone has it, let me know so I can add it). But we never got it, so the epilogue will never make logical sense. Almost all attempts to canonize it cause batshit lore to enter the chat, or it simply does not mesh with batshit lore from tri. onwards.

Both of these elements cause massive plot holes that make the 1999 doubling pace simply not work. So I'll play with this AU/headcanon some more. Besides, I personally find the idea of Digidestined hiding for decades interesting...

Thanks for surviving to the end!

Edit

Fixed a calculation to include Meiko (forgot her by accident.).

[antirepurp]

reminiscing about digimon tamers for a moment and specifically ryo's inclusion in it. it's such a double-edged thing because for the people who played the wonderswan games that must've been the coolest shit ever but when i watched tamers he was just. such a nonsensical character for the most part? because he ends up coming from nowhere and is suddenly just as important as the cast we've followed from the very beginning, and even gets involved in the final showdown and given a similar set of abilities as the protagonists. i know he does a lot of wild shit in the wonderswan games because he'd the player character and you need to make the player feel important in the grand scheme of things, but it just doesn't translate well when you take that concept into an anime. idk maybe if the wonderswan games got localized and were available to a wider audience he would've gone over a lot better in tamers? maybe i'll look into emulating those and look for a translated version and then like ryo better afterwards

[digimon-v]

Digimon Anode Tamer Maps

Everyone seemed to appreciate my Adventure PSP maps, so I decided to go ahead and do the same for Anode Tamer.

[otakween]

Digimon Anode/Cathode Tamer: Veedramon Edition - 5 hours in

Another long-ass title I have to type out. Also, another name that only sounds cool to Japanese people, but to English speakers it's just like "wtf am I looking at?"

Anyway! I started playing the Wonderswan Digimon game! I think this game was an attempt to use the Pokémon model of having two versions of pretty much the same games with a different variety of mons in each. (Only ever seen Pokémon and Yokai Watch do that). I honestly can't remember which version I selected, but I'm only going to do one of them. Judging by the walkthrough I'm using, it seems like this will be a short one. That's already a plus in my book. I'm enjoying myself so far.

Notes:

-First impressions of this game were very much a mixed bag. On the one hand, I really like the art/graphics, but I was very frustrated to not be told wtf was going on, like with Digimon World 1. I did end up picking things up pretty quickly, but I don't think a newer kid's game would ever be this vague. Also, the music is very annoying and repetitive.

-I didn't expect poor Ryo to get so ripped off! Gennai calls him a "chosen child," but then is immediately like "here, have this hand-me-down digivice and Agumon." Lame! I get they're trying to tie it into the anime, but they still could have given Ryo his own stuff. Oh well, maybe that changes later.

-Plot-wise we have a similar issue to Digimon Adventure 02, why can't the OG kids just help? -big shrug-

-I groaned when Gennai welcomed me to the digital world lol. Hate that dude.

-Now that I've gotten used to the battle system I'm having a lot of fun. I haven't played a ton of tactical RPGs (I briefly played but didn't finish Disgaea) so seeing that that was the play style made me a little nervous.

-Already some improvements over Digimon World 2 (even though this game is older): taming digimon is less painful, when you lose in a dungeon you can just try again instead of getting a game over screen, very easy to fast forward through things and the battles aren't as painfully slow, and I haven't hit any annoying storage limits (yet). Earning money, skills, and stat increases come pretty quickly so grinding is satisfying too.

-There's a lot of extra stuff in this game I'll probably just ignore. It seems they wanted this game to be very social, but I don't have anyone to play with, so I obviously won't be exploring the multiplayer features. No clue what the analyzer does.

-I'm 4 dungeons in and there are only 13 of them. It's still kinda tricky for me to predict how long this game will be though because I'm assuming future dungeons might take many tries.

-Sooo this game was officially released in English by Bandai Asia, but I don't think the US ever got the Wonderswan, so I guess it was for English speakers in the East only. Weirdly I was watching an anime the other day and they suddenly mentioned the handheld. I was like "what are the odds!?" (Anime is Haiyoru! Nyaruani: Remember My Lovecraft-sensei. It's really bad, don't watch it lol)