Previous Post: https://peakd.com/hive-140217/@kephler/lets-play-digimon-digital-card-battle-1

Continuing from where I left off the last time, I had finished the Battle Arena in Beginner City and was headed for Flame City, the home of Fire Digimon. Adding some of the prize pack cards to my deck, I was ready to rock! One of the strongest cards now in my deck was Angewomon, which had high HP and attack and countered Dark Digimon well. The only problem was that it took quite a few turns to be able to digivolve into Angewomon, being an Ultimate card.

Enter Flame City

The creators of this game seem to lack imagination when it came to naming their cities - first Beginner City, now Flame City? And it looked exactly like how it sounded with a frying pan on top of a shoddy little tree stump. A curious sight indeed.

I enter the Battle Cafe to meet Davis, a Digimon tamer who seems to be finding weird things happening at the Battle Arenas of many cities. It's honestly quite interesting to see how story progression in older JRPGs work; you enter a foreign land with no friends and no kin, and all the random NPCs start asking you for favors or telling you random things 😂

Either way, in order to get to the next city I had to defeat all the battlers in the Battle Arena. Before I could enter the Battle Arena, I talked to a mysterious-looking... lady flower? She refused to give her name and simply warned me that "strange things are happening". What helpful advice!

Flame City Battle Arena

The battlers in Flame City's Battle Arena primarily use Fire decks containing Digimon with high attack and low health. Could I stand up to the heat with my slightly-modified Nature and Rare deck?

It turns out that I could! Their decks were no match for mine, and I promptly took the Passcode for the next city, Jungle City, from Veemon, the final battler in the Battle Arena. It was a swift and decisive victory against these Digimon.

Returning back to the Battle Cafe, Davis rewarded me with a Digi-egg for my Partner Digimon, Hawkmon. With this Digi-egg, whenever I played Hawkmon in battle, I have an option to Armor Digivolve it into Halsemon, a much stronger Digimon as compared to Hawkmon, but weaker than some other Champion Digimon. Neat!

At this point in time, a Fusion shop was unlocked, allowing me to fuse 2 cards together to produce different cards. At this point in the game, I don't have many cards and fusion probably would not help to improve the deck further so I skipped it for now. The Fusion Shop will make re-appearances later with added features, so I'll wait until then.

Enter Jungle City

Are you seeing the trend in the city names yet? Jungle City - and all you have is a half-cut stump. In the Battle Cafe, I was greeted by Keely, a friendly pink-haired girl with odd-looking headgear. Was this type of headgear ever popular before? It's a head-scratcher.

She goes on to say that the Battle Arena feels strange, with the original Battle Master of the Battle Arena, Veedramon, being replaced by some evil Digimon. With some psychotic powers, Veedramon also turned from this nice old Digimon into a mean and nasty one. Wonder how that happened, but we'll never know. All Keely wanted me to do was to go to the Battle Arena and experience this weird occurrence for myself. So I did.

Jungle City Battle Arena

The Battle Arena in Jungle City featured Digimon with decks that were of the Nature type - no surprises there. Nature decks tend to include mid-powered Digimon that were able to Digivolve quickly due to less DP being required for digivolution.

Against my newly-acquired Digi-egg, Hawkmon digivolved into Halsemon and was a beast. Even though my opponent could digivolve quickly, they were no match for a flurry of deadly attacks by Halsemon and the option cards that supported it.

I made quick work of the first two opponents before facing Veedramon, the original Battle Master of Jungle's City Battle Arena. He seemed to be uninterested in having a proper conversation but was totally down for a Card Battle. Guess that's just how things work in the Digi-land here, huh? Beating him to a pulp (figuratively, of course), I go on to meet the first antagonist of the game - Wormmon.

Sure, Wormmon looks cute, but don't let looks deceive you. He claims that "nothing is wrong", but we all know what we need to do - to defeat him and get our passcode to the next city. Plot progression always reigns first, am I right?

One victory later, Wormmon shows his true colors and... refuse to give me the Passcode. What? He says he doesn't know anything about a Passcode. What a bummer...

Returning back to the Battle Cafe, Veedramon has finally come to his senses and would then give me the Passcode to Igloo City. He invites me to challenge the Battle City again, claiming that he "wasn't in his right senses" back when I defeated him. Cool, but a victory is still a victory.

Enter Igloo City

Igloo City is definitely more igloo and less city. It's just a damn igloo sitting in the middle of nowhere. To get some warmth (and plot progression), I enter the Battle Cafe.

Cody, a little boy with dead-looking eyes, tells us that he heard that the one behind all the strange happenings in each city have got to do with someone called the "Digimon Emperor". This "Digimon Emperor" seemingly wants to conquer Digi-land... for whatever reason.

Guess who else is in the Battle Cafe? The odd rose lady from before. How'd she get here so fast?

I guess she likes being cryptic and all because she just tells me to gain more experience or something. Who are you to tell me what to do anyway? Regardless, the Battle Arena is now open for battle and I dive in headfirst.

Igloo City Battle Arena

The card battlers in Igloo City focus on - you guessed it - decks with primarily Water Digimon. Water Digimon have high health, but comparatively low attack and requires more DP for digivolution.

In this Battle Arena, I faced my first roadblock, Whamon. My Digimon weren't dealing nearly enough damage to finish his Digimon due to their high HP, and he managed get a Megaseadramon on the field.

Megaseadramon was a beast. Standing at 1870 HP, it would take 7 deadly attacks from my weak J-Mojyamon to defeat it. I had no way to come back, and Megaseadramon helped sweep the battle and won 3-0 against my deck. Damn, I really need to put some work into my deck.

My collection of cards so far was still pretty small and I don't have nearly enough cards to form a different deck. My next plan is to go back to the Battle Arenas that I fought to grind out some cards to strengthen my deck. Notably, Beginner City's Battle Arena gives out Option Packs after the Battle Master is downed, containing Option Cards that are hard to obtain elsewhere. I'll be back, Whamon!

Divider Pixel Art from Pinterest

All screenshots taken by me on the RetroArch PSX emulator.