I'm Stephen John Drew from Better Podcasting, a podcast about podcasting, part of the Gunna Geek Network. Just like the show you're checking out now, shows on the network are individually owned and opinions expressed may not reflect others. Find fantastic geeky shows@gunnageeknetwork.com.
And welcome to Play Comics, where once again, we are here looking at a video game based on a comic property and how well it represents that source material. And today we are here looking at maybe NFTs. I'm not sure because we're pulling out Digimon, Rumble arena.
Definitely not NFTs. Definitely not NFTs.
If you recognize that voice, then you are a cool person because you recognize the voice of Derek Gale from such wonderful shows as Walloping Web Snappers and Gimmicks and probably some more stuff, but those are the main two I listen to. Derek, how are you today?
I'm good, I'm good. I'm doing digi. Great, actually. How about you?
I'm good, too. And I mean, it's not that I think Digimon are evil harbingers of the apocalypse like NFTs are, it's just that they exist in a digital world in digital form, and nothing physical about them. And for some reason, that made me think of NFTs.
To be fair, there are some Digimon that are literally harbingers of the apocalypse. So I'm wearing Apocalymon on my shirt right now, actually, funny enough. So you're not wrong about some of them. Just in, you know, a different way, I think more directly harbinger of the apocalypse.
But what was it that made you so excited to come on for a Digimon game? Because from what I remember, you saw the list and said, ooh, Digimon. Gimme, gimme.
Yeah, I. I'm gonna be honest. I love Digimon, but I have not played many of the Digimon games, so I never actually played Rumble arena. And it's one that I'd always wanted to play but never had a reason to. And I played Battle Spirit and really liked it a lot. And Rumble arena was just sort of the console version of Battle Spirit. So I'm like, you know what? This is going to be an opportunity for me to finally, you know, relive a part of my childhood that I never got to live in the first place and play this. So that that reason, for one. And also, I just don't really have that many opportunities to ever podcast about Digimon in general. So I'm going to take the opportunity where I can get it.
Well, I'm glad I could give you that opportunity because I'm glad that I was able to find somebody who's really into Digimon like this because I've had people explain it to me and I sure. I'm not exactly sure what is going on with Digimon that makes it so different from Pokemon and any of the other I'm gonna fight with my pet dog kind of games.
Well, I think a lot of it, but I think that's one reason that I didn't play a lot of the Digimon games is I don't. I think a lot of the things that I personally really like about Digimon aren't always reflected in the games that were released in America, because a lot of the stuff that I like about Digimon has less to do with the mechanics of digivolution and like, the V pet of it all, which no shade on that. Like, I think that a lot of Digimon fans do latch on to that. And obviously it originally started as just a V pet. So it makes sense that that is still very instrumental to what it is as a franchise. But for me, I was. I was a big anime lover for Digimon specifically. And a lot of the games, I think, weren't really built on, like, the narrative of what the anime was exploring. And a lot of attracts. What attracts me to the anime specifically, especially when they're good, which a lot of them are, is that it's very, very heavily character centered and I think does a really nice job of exploring, like, personal issues that kids can go through and how they grow and sort of personify that and give iconography of that by either, you know, having a crest that represents a core trait or having their personal growth reflected on their specific one Digimon partner that they have that they have a strong connection to. So there's this, like, intense, like, friendship and partnership aspect to it that I think you don't. I don't think you get as much in a lot of other of these, like, Monster Collection franchises because it is about the Monster Collection. Like, you can make yourself have a connection with Pokemon, but you are supposed to also catch them all. And a lot of the impetus for the narrative Digimon stories is that you have your like, one or sometimes like maybe two core partners that are like your best friends for life, essentially. And I think there's something really enchanting about that. And again, the sort of connection to your own personal growth. And I think the animes really explore that really well. And then also putting that in the context of, like, apocalyptic settings where the kids are quite literally, like, saving the universe or multiverse or whatever from some existential threat, and they have to grow personally to do that. And I think that, you know, a lot of collection things don't necessarily reflect that. Exactly. And a lot of Digimon games don't, but I think the ones that do are often really good.
So are you somebody who has a small group of really close friends, then?
I mean. Yeah, I kind of do. In real life? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I've got, you know, I'm less interested in collecting. Collecting people and more having strong relationships with the people that I am. That I am connected to.
You know, I mean, I'm the same way. My wife and I are basically hermits, so it works.
Yeah, I totally get that. Totally get that.
Looking through all of this Digimon stuff, it's like, for some reason, the past few days, the NFT thing has just been sticking in my brain. And part of that might be because at the comic shop, I recently got a stack of, like, DC NFT cards from a Guess how many cards are in this pack of things contest.
Okay.
And, I mean, they had cool art, and I'm never gonna. You know, DCs already gotten their money. I can't help that part. Try to figure out what I'm gonna do with them. We'll probably just give them away to people, but sure. Just the idea of having digital pet that you could put away, it's just so weird to me because I have cats who refuse to be put away anywhere.
Yeah. Well, I think that Pokemon, I do think, are a little more animal, like, and more like pets. And Digimon, like, have their own personalities and, like, can just talk and, like, just speak in your language to you, like a person. And depending. You know, some. In some animes, they're more childlike than others. You know, some animes, like tamers, like the Digimon, have as much personal character growth and development as the humans do. And I think that that does make it a little bit different than just, like, comparing it to your cat that you're sending out to fight. You know, again, the games don't always reflect that. A lot of the games are very much like, these are just little, weird little animals that also turn into, like, sexy ladies and sexy men, too, that you can. That you can collect and then put in your computer afterwards. But. But a lot of the. But I think the shows, it is sort of like another person that you have to deal with. And some of the shows deal with the struggles of, like, how. What do I do? I have to go to school. What do I do with this giant dinosaur that's, like, hanging out my bedroom now? Like, do I bring him with me or not? You know, And I think you can have a lot of. A lot of fun with that.
All right, so let's work through this a little bit backwards here.
Okay.
Why wouldn't you bring the giant dinosaur to school? Because that's just really cool.
Sure. Because you don't want the. The government organizations to take them and do lab experiments on them. This is really the main reason. But also, when you do, as long as you keep it hidden from the adults. Yeah. You're going to make lots of friends because of it. It, like, that literally is like a story arc in Digimon Taters. So, like, I have to hide this. Oh, no. I've introduced it to my friends now. My friends love them, but maybe they love them a little bit too much, you know?
So also, this is made for children, right?
It is, but it gets pretty. Pretty dark at certain points, for sure.
And these things evolve into sexy ladies and sexy men.
Oh, yeah, look. That's another appeal of it that makes it different from. From a lot of other monster ones. They turn into, like, late, you know, look up, like, Anja Woman and Angeman and all the angel lines, like rippling muscles, lots of curves. They. They know what they're doing. And again, I think that. I think a lot of kids find that very appealing and have a lot of fun with it. You know, anything that makes it stand out.
We're both people on the Internet. We know that Rule 34 definitely covers Pokemon. So this is. Yeah, this is a strange direction. I didn't think Digimon would be going in actual canon material, for sure.
I mean, from the original anime, again, that's core children. Your. Your cat can turn into, you know, a lady that has an iron, a metal bra, and people love it, man, it's great. But they're also really. I mean, you look at, like, American superhero comics, though. Like, they're for. Also often for kids, but also often, like, kind of sexualized character designs in a lot of ways, for better or worse. And Digimon just kind of follows that thread in a lot of ways.
Wait, are you saying that Power Girls Boob Window is for sexual reasons?
Yeah, yeah, no, I know. It's a. It's a weird. It's a weird. It's a weird thought. But yeah, I think Some people would.
Argue that this is shocking. I had no idea we were going to be going in this direction. I'm also surprised I haven't cracked myself up yet saying all this.
Yeah, yeah. Look, I'm not. I'm not the only one alone in knowing that, like, it's just a fact of life that's Digimon can turn into cute. It can be a rabbit turning in or a dog that looks like a rabbit that turns into a dog that looks like a rabbit with guns for hands. Or it can be a cat that turns into a beautiful angel lady. You know, that's just. Just how it goes.
So as I'm going around getting, like, the base levels of these monsters, do I know what they're going to turn into?
No. That is. The other fun of it, though, is that sometimes it is. Sometimes it does feel really surprising. Like, Digimon, Pokemon, obviously, the evolutions are usually really straightforward. And Digimon, you know, a big concept of that is that, like, the evolution lines are not straight lines. They're like branches upon branches upon branches. And sometimes that can get a little bit annoying and unwieldy, I think, depending on the context. Like, some games are. Are built on, like, digivolve it to this. Okay, you've got this form now d Dig, evolve it, and then dig, evolve it to another form and stuff like that. And some anime, I think, go a little bit overboard with how many forms they'll throw on to their main characters. But the fun of that is that, like, at any given game or any given story or any given anime, you don't necessarily. You might get, you know, a rookie level Digimon and aren't really sure, like, are they going to go to the traditional route, you know, and. And this Digimon, you know, Dig evolves to this normal next form that we're used to. Used to. Are they going to evolve into one of the other ones that they can evolve into? Is this. Is this Godumon mega form going to be Ofanimon, or is it going to be Magna German? You know, and it's. And there's like, you know, that roulette wheel can be kind of fun because it does make it a little bit unexpected. And yeah, sometimes it is just sort of like random. Like, Gatomon is kind of one of my favorites because it is literally like a dog to a cat to an angel lady to, like a pink dragon. Depending on what route you take for her evolution, that's like the canon Digimon adventure one. And it's like, kind of insane to think about it that way, but that's just how it is. And somehow it makes sense when you're. When you're watching it.
Can't see how that would make sense. But then I also follow lots of other comics plot lines that you would probably say the same thing that I think make perfect sense. So I'll just trust you on that one.
It's like, built in, like, color scheme and elements and, like, you know, what they represent. Things like that. Oftentimes, like, there'll be little. Little signifiers that a Digimon might carry from evolution to evolution that I think helps it. But sometimes it is, like, literally random, though, so, you know, it just kind of depends. But again, that's what makes it kind of fun.
I mean, if X Men can make sense, then I think this can make sense.
Yeah, absolutely. For sure. For sure.
So it sounds like I really need to enlighten my wife on watching some Digimon.
Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I think that the animes are really good. I do think that the. The downside. Well, the downside is that some. Some Digimon animes do start a little bit slow. So sometimes it might not be bad to just, like, look up just some random episodes just to see maybe a start of a new arc or something like that. But the upside to Digimon is that most, like, anime seasons are in a totally different continuity. It's not like it's been the same story with the same characters for 25 years or whatever. Right. So, you know, and some of them are connected. Like, right now, there's a lot of movies that are released in the original Digimon adventure continuity from, like, the first two anime seasons. So, like, those are all connected, but then, like, something like Tamers. Digimon Tamers was the third season that came out, and I think a lot of people argue that that's the best one. And I think that would. I would argue that that's my favorite one as well. And that was just one standalone anime that is just really, really well built and I think really accessible because it's less like fantasy and more hard sci fi with very clear origins for their version of the digital world and everything. And you could just start that from the beginning and then keep going. I would definitely recommend that. That one just because it's. There's really no barrier for entry on it. I think it starts good and it just gets better as it goes along. But the original adventure anime I have a ton of love for, and part of its Nostalgia. But I also just think that like the original adventure anime, the reason that it struck with kids so well and why they're still making, you know, sequel movies and stuff to it now and revitalizing that original version is just because I think there's a certain alchemy to the characters of that season. Like, every character has such a clear role and there's. You can absolutely find at least one probably more of the main cast to like see yourself in and relate to. And all of them that's. And you know, that's when they, they created the concept of crests that represent a certain trait for each character and they're all color coded. And so for like little Kid Brain who loves structure, like, and categorizing it all makes that very clear and very simple. But also the plot to the original adventure, it's just, it's very straightforward save the world stuff, but save the world stuff that I think has really great character development behind it. So that one genuinely is a really good one to watch too. The only downside is that I do think it kind of takes a while to kind of like figure itself out and go from being like a very just sort of like kids anime thing with some cool aspects to like genuinely really, really good. But once it gets good, it's really, really good.
Well, I've gotten her through what a lot of people call the sludgy parts of One Piece, so I don't think starting off slow is going to be an issue.
Yeah, look, if you can get through One Piece, you can get through like a 50 episode Digimon anime. Like, it's not that bad in comparison.
I mean, I say that we're, we're absolutely loving One Piece, but there are, there are definitely some times where it goes Dragon Ball Z. And I think that they're just stretching episodes out for the sake of stretching them.
Sure, yeah, absolutely. I totally get that.
Plus, we're old and nostalgia.
Yeah.
The way that my brain works, I don't have to have watched the show. I could get into the mindset of I know what other things were coming out at this time. This is still.
Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's the thing with Digimon. I, I really, I love the dubs a lot and I think that, you know, and obviously it was like the late 90s, early 2000s anime dubs. They're not doing direct adaptations. They're changing the COVID They're, you know, rewriting certain plot elements and stuff like that, you know, trying to make it more kid friendly. And make out of more jokes and stuff, you know, so. So it's not the pure experience of the original anime if you watch the dub, obviously, as you would expect. But I. I kind of still is. That kind of is still what I always go back to and end up preferring partially, obviously, for the nostalgia of it, but also because I do think that, like, I think the Digimon dubs are like the original, you know, adventure O2 and tamers and Frontier. Digimon dubs are so uniquely good for the time because I think they found the right middle ground of, like, making it accessible to kids who've never watched anime in their life and might be a little bit resistant to something that's not, you know, purely Western American if you've never seen it before. So Americanizing it enough, you know, changing some of the music enough and, you know, lightening some of the darker plot points enough. But I think that, like, you know, the original people do the dub. Jeff. Jeff. New Morning Bob. Bill Schultz. I think both, I think, came into it with love and understanding of, like, this is a genuinely good anime, even. But if it's a thing for kids that were supposed to be kind of tampering down a bit, and so they still kept as much of the core dark elements as possible, it also kept the Japaneseness a lot more than I think any other anime at the time did, because Japan is a really instrumental part of that show. Like, so much of it is about, like, where kids in what area of Japan or what area of Tokyo or whatever kids grew up in and certain things that took place at certain areas, you know, in their childhood. Like, it's so important that they. I think they recognize, like, we can't change this. We might as well embrace it. And so, like, for me, that's kind of how I first got introduced to, like, what anywhere in Japan is like. And, like, what Odaiba is versus, you know, versus Akibara, you know, versus Nakano, Broadway, you know, what is Tokyo versus Kyoto? Like, I learned all that stuff from watching Digimon, the dub, when a lot of other anime was just sort of like, make absolutely sure that, like, rice balls are always jelly donuts. We're never going to mention that this is Japan at all, you know, and also the jokes that they had in there, just really good. It's like the old school, like, vaudeville comedy that they have that they add there that I actually like, kind of think Light livens up the show more than the original version even did. Um, so, yeah. Yeah. Anyway, all that's to say, I don't think you should. If you like that nostalgia for that time. Even if you didn't watch the anime, I think it's worth watching the dub of it because I think the dub is generally good and will give you that dose of nostalgia because it still feels like a 2000s anime while being a good dub of it as well.
Oh, this sounds like it's going to be extra fun then, because we are a household that likes to do the dubs and the subs at the same time.
Sure. Oh, I love that. That's so fun.
Yeah, I like seeing what the differences are there. And like, we have to have the dubs because Kaylee can't read fast enough and watch the show at the same time. So it's like, okay, if I'm going to watch things with her, I. I have to do dubs. I have no choice but seeing the differences in there, seeing what they change and what they don't and everything. That's just so interesting to me.
Yeah, it's always really interesting. Yeah.
Well, on that note, I don't know what we're going to do. We're going to do something with our computers while we drop some promos in for some other things. And maybe editor Chris will make this sound better later.
Hello, I'm Mark. And I'm Jasmine. And we're the hosts of Geeks Unleashed, the weekly pop culture news and reviews podcast. We review and discuss what's current in the world of comics, movies, and television. You can check us out on social media. We are eeksunleashed. And you can listen to this podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
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Cuz for Todd so loved the world.
He gave his only begotten Spawn.
Sp.
Those are some great things to check out. But first, let's finish up here. So, Derek, we are here looking at Digimon Rumble Arena, a game that was released in February of 2002, completely made by Bandai and released on the PlayStation 1. It is certainly one of the fighting games of all time.
Look, I play this for the. I have no nostalgia for this game, obviously, because I said I'd never played it before. I did play Battle Spirit, which is the Game Boy advance fighting game. That's basically just the Game Boy version of this. It's, like, very different in a lot of ways, but also very similar in a lot of ways. So. And I think Battle Spirit is, like, genuinely a really good Digimon fighting game. And this one, what I think is sort of interesting about it is that obviously, it's like a Smash Brothers kind of clone, right? Is what they're going for. Which I think that Digimon, if it were Smash Brothers, is a great idea. I don't. Like, there's. I don't see any issues with that. I think that's a really fun idea. I think that for me, like, recognizing that this game is extremely simple has not very much to it, really. So from that perspective, from, like, a gaming perspective, I think it's totally fair to, you know, be like, okay. It's like, whatever. I think, though, from. As a Digimon kid who a lot of got. Who would see Digimon games that, like, weren't really had any connection to the anime that I was watching, I had kind of a blast playing this for the first time, strictly from the Digimon perspective, because it was just really nice to see a game that was so clearly and deliberately pulling from the anime. And even the English version was taking a lot of great care to, like, match voices and delivery to what I would be hearing in the dubs. Like, I was genuinely shocked at how much voice work in this game was done by the actual dub voices from the animes, even years after the anime was already over. Because this is coming out during, you know, during Tamers, like, the third anime. And that alone, I think, gave me so much joy because it was like. I think that there was a lot of care put into that aspect of it in being like, if a kid's picking this up because they're watching the show, we're gonna give them that. Regardless of how the gameplay itself is, we're gonna give them. We're gonna make the characters look like how they look on the show, and we're gonna have the characters talk like they do on the show and say lines that they want on the show in the way that they would. And that's honestly, like, I know that seems like a really minor thing, but, like, that alone, like, really kind of made the game for Me, honestly, just as like a tie in game, you.
Know, this one, for me, looking at it, even as somebody who is not a huge Digimon fan, it's, I don't want to say frustrating because I'm not a Digimon fan, but I mean, obviously you agree. You just made that noise like, are you ready for the plot of the game?
Yeah.
They fight. Yeah, like that, like that's the plot.
Yeah. I think if there's a big problem, I mean if there's like one big problem with this, I think it's like it's, it's, it's ultimately just kind of not well conceived from a general, from just like a general perspective. It's like they came in like we're going to do a Digimon Smash Brothers, but then didn't really think through it beyond that. So yeah, there's like no narrative. The arcade mode is like so super short and I think a lot of it kind of feels padded out because you play it's a best two out of three thing, so you're playing everyone at least twice rather than. And you're not playing every digimon in the game twice. So it still feels truncated even while it feels sort of lengthened out unnecessarily because you're just playing everyone twice. And I think they cheat up a little bit with their cast of characters because it's like, oh, there's 24 characters to unlock, but like half of those characters are just the megaforms that you already have with the rookie level Digimon that you could just unlock just as their mega form so they don't dig, evolve, which is like, oh, so you're just giving me just the, the evolved form as a base form instead. It's not a new character. Like that doesn't really count, you know. And I think that, that probably future Rumble arena games like fix that because I know they add more characters to it and stuff. But like with this one, it ended up being kind of like a letdown with like, oh, the ones I can unlock is basically the ones that I already have and then a few extras scattered in. Okay. And I think that kind of feels like a problem with the whole game is that it feels like ultimately kind of an empty game in terms of what it's giving you, despite what it seems to be promising at the get go, if that makes sense.
But also it has actual voice acting in there and it actually has the digivolutions in there.
Yeah.
And it's like it has so many things that I would expect to be missing when they're missing. It's just so weird about what they included in here.
Yeah, I. I have to wonder. And again, I think it's a thing that I end up liking about it is that I think it feels like there's someone somewhere who was working on this, who was really dedicated into making this a game that has like fan service in it for people. And it's sort of like they weren't the ones in charge of making the actual gameplay itself or building the game. It was more like, okay, here's what we're given. Here's the skeleton that we have. There's not much to it, so we're gonna fill it with whatever we can get easily, which is pulling these voice actors that we have, have them record like seven lines differently. But the attention to detail with that I think is like sort of surprising because it's not just that they have all of these voice acted characters which it's that all the Digimon are voice acted. If Digimon have different voice actors for, you know, for their different forms, they bring in those different voice actors. If they're like DNA Digimon, like Omnimon or Imperial Dramon that in the anime share two voices, they bring those two voice actors in to record their lines in sync, just like they do in the show, which they did not have to do because you can barely hear it because it's like PlayStation 1 compression. But also, if there's like, you can change the costumes for, for the, you know, the digidestined characters. If you hold R1 when you select them, it'll change their. It'll change their appearance, you know, if they appear to more than one anime. So you'll have like Tai from season one in his his form versus Ty from season two in his form. But that means if they have characters who swap voice actors, like TK in the first adventure anime had a very different voice than when he's aged up. In the second anime, they bring in the voice actor for the younger version of him. Just for. If you happen to press R1, change him to younger TK, they swap his voice actor out and she's all like, what? It's Wendy Lee doing it. Who's like, you know, one of the voice acting greats, they literally bring her in to record like five lines for this younger version of TK that you might not even have ever known that you can even unlock. Because the game doesn't tell you that that's how to unlock alternate costumes. It's Almost like a little like a secret voice acting thing which is like take such attention to detail to be like, we should. We should bring her in to record this because he sounded different in the first one and give her an extra paycheck for that, you know, like. And. Sorry, I'm just thinking of every weird little detail with the character stuff. One of the costumes that they have like for Omnimon isn't just an alternate costume for Ty and Matt from like the first adventure anime. It's an alternate costume from the Digimon movie that are. That. That Omnimon first appeared in, which is a. Which are different costume sets. So like, and it's just. It's a. Like nothing about it changes the game other than they're wearing different clothes. But like the different clothes I think make me feel like, oh, you had people who were paying attention to detail. And it's a type of detail that you don't expect to get a lot of times from these types of cash in tie in games. You know, like that's someone who genuinely cared about. About the anime that they were adapting. And you can. I think you could really see that in those bits again, even while the game itself is sort of light on actual like game content. You know what I mean?
Yeah. Like this one is. There's so much. I know we don't usually hit the game. I feel like I'm saying this more and more lately that we don't usually worry about gameplay itself in your. There's so many gameplay things in here that are weird. Like, sure, this isn't just Smash Brothers compared to a complicated fighter game. This is like Baby's first Smash Brothers with the controls.
Yeah, sure.
But they take the time to get all that voice actor stuff that you just mentioned and everything. Like there's absolutely no reason really to have the different environments, but they make sure that you have the digivolutions going on and ones that actually make sense. And you know, it's a fighting game on PS1. They're not going to be able to get eight different branches off of 12 different branches of evolutions there. So you're pretty linear. Yeah, but they still had stuff in there.
Yeah. Like, I mean, I almost wonder how much of it was just like the classic like video game crunch thing. Like, like Bandai was like, okay, crank this out y'all. Were the PlayStation's about to end. PS2 is about to come out. Get this as soon as possible. And then so they couldn't add as much as they wanted, you know, just because of the weird balance of it. But there's also weird aspects to it too. Like, there's. I didn't even like, know this when I was playing the game because the game itself doesn't tell you. But like, every Digimon in this game has like a fire, water or nature type. Just like with Pokemon, like, where one is stronger or weaker against the other, which doesn't. Does not come from Digimon at all. Like, there's Digimon has an established, like, virus, data, vaccine, scene typing system for, like, the card games and stuff like that. They don't use that. They just use this weird elemental thing that's not present in Digimon normally. But then all that does is sort of mess up the balance of the game, I think, a little bit because there's like a bunch of fire characters, but like only like a couple of water characters and nature characters and just makes it so it's like, well, if you're playing with your friend, then like, if they choose a fire guy, then you'll just choose like a water guy. Then, like, why, like, what's. What's the deal? There's like, there aren't enough variations and it's, you know, I. I don't really even understand why that's there. And I think the environment, you'll also. I think you're more affected by like, fire if you're nature type or something like that in, like in the lava level or whatever, which, if there's more. If there was like more complications than that in the game, I could see that building to something really interesting for you to strategize with. Because the game is so simple, those extra elements end up being unnecessary because they just unbalance it for, like, no reason. When it's like, if this is going to be simple and straightforward, then just commit to it being simple and straightforward.
You know, I mean, I like wonky, unbalanced stuff. I will go use Dan on purpose when I'm playing Street Fighter against certain people. Like, sure, my wife and I legitimately settle minor arguments by playing Super Puzzle Fighter. And like, I will have some days where I will kick her butt using Dan because I just get lucky. But looking at this with the crunch, I didn't even think about this late PlayStation started coming out, or PlayStation 2 rather started coming out in 2000. So that was already out.
Yeah.
Like, if this game was going to be PS1, it needed to come out. Or just sit on it and wait for PS2.
Right. Which probably. They probably couldn't wait for PS2. Because then at that point they'd have to just make a completely new game because you couldn't release this on PlayStation 2, you know, and I know that again, I know, like Rumble Arena 2 comes out on PS2. I haven't played that one either. But I know outside of some weirdness with the choices for character roster, I think people tend to like that game. I think so maybe a lot of these things are built upon and improved upon when that game happens, but for this one, yeah, I think the timing of it is just. Was just really, really bizarre and I feel like had to have something to do with how, how rushed this game.
Seems to be overall looking at this one. I mean, it almost seems weird to ask you this, but what does it get right about Digimon?
I mean, like, that's the thing, you know, mechanically in terms of like, you know, the fire, water, nature stuff, like, doesn't really make any sense, but the actual. I think it's, it's funny. It's like down to the details, I think. Like, I think you kind of almost have to divorce it from the gameplay because it's like, I think just in using the characters that they're using and getting the voice actors to give their same performances, that already is like miles different than a lot of other tie in games of the time and even a lot of other Digimon games, which again, in all fairness, a lot of Digimon games are trying to be anime adaptations. They're trying to be out of the franchise. So those are still true to Digimon for being true to the origins of being V Pets or Digimon, the Digimon World games or whatever. Right? So those are sort of its own true to Digimon, but the few that come out that are trying to be true to the anime, this obviously falls into that category. And I do think that by just including the characters that they do taking the great pains to having the voice actors give their same performance and again, the sort of nuances to like voice changes with them. Like again with the TK thing or with Ken, you can swatch his costume to his Digimon Emperor version, which if you're unfamiliar with Digimon, it's one of the digidestined who starts out as a villain at the beginning. They don't just use the same voice lines. They give him like mean, angry, evil voice lines for his Digimon Emperor costume. Like, again, that's like attention to detail that I did not need going into this. I was expecting to just have my Digimon fight. I wasn't even expecting to have the kids be a part of this at all. So it's the fact that they're there at all and giving you like those little bits of fan service of like, you remember when they wore this outfit, right? Yeah. Put them in that outfit. You remember when they sounded like this, Right? We'll make them sound like this. And the esthetics, I think, as well, like this, this game comes out when Digimon Tamers comes out, which has a very different esthetic to the esthetic of the first two adventure animes. And they integrate that really well too. When the Digimon digivolve in Tamers, you have this lady voice saying digivolution and the words are spelled out and then, you know, this big sort of digital egg kind of forms over them in the anime that is replicated exactly in this game. And like, that's the same voice for the woman saying it. The same tone, the same sort of effect for digivolution that is replicated exactly. And again, they didn't have to do that because this isn't a Tamers game. This is a general Digimon anime game that. But because that was the most recent one, they're like, we're gonna riff on that one aesthetic then. And I think they, they, they do it perfectly right. And that kind of stuff is really cool. And I think it maybe is a testament to games like this where, you know, if you have to rush out a tie in game. Right. Which one of my podcasts, Lee Carvalho's Potting Challenge, talks about Simpsons tie in video games. And a big conversation that we're always having with that is that like, there's a, there's a different conversation between, is this a good game? Is this a good Simpsons game? And sometimes, like, it can be one or the other. And for. And I'm sure you have that conversation a lot here too, right? Like, it can be a great game that has nothing to do with the, with the, with, you know, the story or franchise or whatever. It's adapting with this, I think weirdly. I think there's an. I find the game fun in its simplicity, but I wouldn't argue that it's like, good, good. I think it's got a lot of problems, but I do think it's like, good if you want your dose of Digimon nostalgia from around 2002, because it gave me that, like, in spades. Like, I went into this and I'm like, it just makes me want to Watch Digimon, which the whole point of these is to like make you want to engage more with the franchise, right? And you know, so it just, it gave me good feelings to hear my. Hear my favorite characters talking and yelling at each other again and yelling their same attacks again and getting to see the mega forms of Digimon that like don't really show up very much in the shows. Like, Magna Dramon is one of my favorites, but like she has only popped up a couple of times within Digimon Adventure continuity. So getting to actually play as Magna Dramon and hear her shouting out her moveset as if she was a mainstay in the anime is cool as heck, you know, like it's so. It's awesome. And so I think, you know, giving, giving us that again, it's pure fan service, it's pure nostalgia. But like, what else are you getting like a game like this for anyway when it's a tie in game, you know. So not a great game, but I think a really good Digimon game. If you are a fan of Digimon from this time, and especially you were a fan of the dubs of this.
Time, I mean, totally ignoring anything that might just be flat out missing. Is there anything in here that this really gets wrong about Digimon?
The fire, nature, water thing? Like, obviously there are some Digimon that are like elemental in that they're literally fire Digimon or whatever. But it's not like that's not usually a huge. I guess there are some animes like Digimon Frontier is a very elemental forward, but this came out before that happened. So like, I don't know. I don't know where that's coming from for this game in this context, the element. So that's a little bit weird. I think that also it was a real missed opportunity for the levels themselves to actually be pulled from anything Digimon. Like the, the actual settings that they're in. Like I can see how you can say it's Digimon because they put like a random TV in a forest or whatever, but they, they just seem to be kind of random levels. And I don't think that. I think that it would have really easy to have something that looked like it was actually from a Digimon world or pre existing Digimon game or something like that that we've seen before. I think they kind of missed the mark on that considering all the other details they put into characters. And I do think that Digimon tends to have very clear Very, very clear, like end of the world scenarios where you have to defeat this villain to save everyone. And this one, they throw in this Reaperman guy who I think was like, was original to this game. Like I don't think he was a pre existing villain. They throw in this Reaper one guy who just fight for no reason, who I guess is just really evil. But like that's it. There's like no explanation beyond that. And I think that at the very least, like there should have been some implication that like we have to defeat this grand villain because he's an apocalyptic villain who's going to destroy the world. I think it really like even the battle spirit game like ends with you fighting Millennium Mon, who's representative of like the end of the world. Right, right. Or like the end of time and stuff like that. So it's weird that this game just sort of is just like, here's a random bad guy, fight him and then you can play as him later. Like that's very not Digimon at all. So I think it kind of gets that wrong as well. I also never beat Reapermind. I found them really hard, but I probably could have if I tried harder. I just lost patience with it.
That's the fun part of doing this. Like going in, playing enough of the game, like I need to do it before we're recording and then going back later and just, yeah, I'm gonna casually play this game some more. On one that you never thought you were gonna touch for anything.
Yeah, I mean there's a lot of characters, like I was looking up, you know, the cheat codes you can use to unlock them. And you can't use cheat codes to unlock everyone. You do genuinely have to play the game to unlock, you know, other characters. Like Black wargreymon is in this and stuff. He's really in Impmon. Like they're really fun, but you have to actually like play it in a certain order. Like, like beat the arcade mode in like different orders for Digimon to unlock certain characters and stuff. Which I think is like on one hand it's annoying because it sort of like seems like an easy way out, like just to pad your stuff out. But it's doable, you know. Like I do think it's genuinely doable with a lot of which a lot of other fighting games. I think you have to be like really good at fighting games to unlock everyone. I do think that like if I was a kid and I had all the time in the world when this came out, you know, I probably could have eventually unlocked all the characters. And I think I would have had a genuinely generally pretty fun time doing it. Just because as annoying as this game can be, sometimes the simplicity does mean that, like, it's pretty easy to just pick up and do it.
You know, Normally I would be asking if you would recommend this game as a bit of a primer course for Digimon, but I'm going to switch it up a little bit. What level course would you have this game?
Oh God, I don't know that I'd even really recommend it. Like, I guess if you, if you are, if you are already. I think you will have already needed to have watched the first three seasons of Digimon to have any appreciation for this game because that's where the details of the fan service are, where all of that lie. And I don't think you can play this any earlier and not just be like, what's ha? Why do I care about any of this? You know, I think that if you already have nostalgia for Digimon or you are watching through Digimon for the first time and enjoying it, like actually liking it, not not doing it because you have to or something like, and you watch through Tamers and are like, I'm really into Digimon, I love it, then you can pick this up and pretend like you'd watch it for the first time in 2002 and, you know, put yourself back in there and then experience playing a 2002 PS1 game. You know, I think that's really the only situation it makes sense in. I don't think this would be a really fun one for people who aren't, you know, predisposed to liking Digimon. Unfortunately.
I'm thinking I'd have this one as like a 300 level course. You don't need to be too deep into it, but you definitely have to get those prereqs out of the way.
Yeah, it's still, I think it's still a better entry point like, than some games that are just really deep in Digimon. Just like Lore and stuff. Like, you know, a lot, like a lot of the RPG games and the, you know, Digimon world games and stuff are genuinely just like hard games, you know, and can be a little bit overwhelming for it if you are just someone who's just interested in just the story stuff and just the anime. Which again, the space that I occupy is way more the anime stuff than it is like the wider expanding universe, deeper lore, RPG games and things like that. If you're someone who is just, like, interested in watching the Digimon anime because you like, kids befriending their monster friends and saving the world. Like, this falls into that specifically. You don't need to go deeper than the anime stuff to appreciate this game, but you do at least need the anime to appreciate this game, you know?
And finally, if you could take one Muppet and drop it in as a Digimon monster, who would you be dropping in there?
Yeah, I mean, it's so many Muppets, like, kind of feel like Digimon sometimes. I think that Mr. Deadly kind of. I feel like I've seen Digimon designs that kind of look like Mr. Deadly already. And he has, like. And he already, like, feels like a. Is like a weird Muppet anyway. Just, like, the way has the black eyes and everything. He'd be a really good, like, servant of one of the dark masters, you know, or something like that. Or like, one of the, like, like, not. Not the bad boss, not like the big bad that they're fighting, but, like, one of the secondary villains that pops up occasionally and gives them trouble and then eventually gets defeated or redeems himself for them, decides that he actually wants to defect from the main bad guy and then helps the kids, like, right towards the end of an arc before sacrificing himself, you know, and then they grieve him right before the end run to defeat the main bad guy. I think Mr. Deadly would fit into that role really well.
I was so prepared for you to say Animal.
And I think I was thinking Animal. I was thinking. Or not. Oh, my God. I'm calling Mr. Deadly the whole time. Uncle Deadly. It's Uncle Deadly. Mr. Deadly. I think it's a Venture Brothers character. Or not. Or Archer character. No, it's Uncle Deadly. My God, I hate. I'm so mad that I called him the wrong name this entire time. Uncle Deadly. But, yeah, no, I think Animal is, like, a good answer. But I think it's also, like, almost, like, too easy, you know, because it's just like, yeah, of course. Animal would be, like, tear stuff up as a Digimon. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I've definitely go with Uncle Deadly.
Well, Derek, it has been great talking to you about all of this. If people want to hear more from you, where else can they find you? Around the Internet?
Sure. You can find me most places at Derek B. Gail. I'm on most social media platforms under that name. I have a bunch of podcasts that I do with the Glitter Jaw Queer Podcast Collective. The big ones. I do I do Walpole Web Snappers, where Doug and I go do deep dives into every Spider man cartoon ever made. I have gimmicks, which my co host David and I. David's been on this podcast before, but we go through structure breaking and gimmicky experimental episodes of television. I have Lee Carvalho's Potting Challenge that I mentioned, where my host Tommy and I go through Simpsons Tie in video games, along with video game history and pop culture history. And I also have SCRY onk, which is a Godzilla movie marathon that I do with my friend Doug, where we are going through the Godzilla films and Godzilla related films results. All those. Find those anywhere you get your podcasts.
And as always, we'll have links to all that stuff down in the show notes. Because clicking links is so much easier than trying to remember how to spell things.
Absolutely.
Especially when you're looking at 4 or 5 or 6 or 10 or however many podcasts it is that Derek is up to these days. I have no idea because I don't feel like trying to count that high. But for me it's really easy. If you want to get a hold of me, just head on over to playcomics.com there's links to all the social media things and the website is getting a little bit of a redesign because I broke something. And I figure that's a good reason to do a little bit of a redesign. But all the same cool information will be there because peek behind the curtain. A lot of that information is there because I want to have quick access to it and it's an easy way for me to do that. One thing that you can find really easily on there, though, is a list of the things that I'm looking to get booked the soonest. So if you want to be a guest on the show, you can check out that link. There's a link down in the show notes or there is a page if you go to the menu underneath the guest spots, there's, you know, be a guest and there's that list there. So, you know, look for something for yourself, look for something for a friend of yours, just somebody else who will let you know anything like that. And we'll try to make something happen. If you want to help support the show, then you can be like Dan McMahon or own a lit class and give the show money because unfortunately it does cost money to run podcasts. But I like doing this, so I'm gonna keep doing it no matter what you do. But please, if you can't give money then give exposure. Even though I can't pay my rent and exposure or buy food with exposure, I can make the show reach more people. So friends, enemies, random people on the street, whatever, just tell them about the show because it's fun. Don't forget the Play Comics is on the Gunnag.com network, home to such wonderful shows as Legends of Shield where pre pretty soon we're going to be looking at Daredevil because Daredevil will be starting again. So we're going to be looking at the show because it'll be coming out and that's just how we roll over there. If you'd like the music that I'm rudely talking on top of right now, head on over to BackyTrack GG to check out all their great music and maybe grab something for your own project. But most of all, just grab a game, grab a stack of comics, and go find yourself a new favorite character. So Derek, we are looking at that's a little box of dice that my mic picked up and I don't know if you heard it, but it bothered me.