Digimon Anode/Cathode: A rough beginning of a franchise.

 

Digimon Digital Monsters Anode/Cathode Tamer can best be described as Pokemon Conquest but made for the GB Color, and with the general writing of the original Red/Blue games. A relic of it’s time that would be a kickoff point for the franchise on the hand held, and remain a strange part of the digimon franchise as a whole decades later.

Digimon Anode/Cathode follows young boy Ryo Akiyama who, on Christmas eve, is contacted by the Digimon Agumon, who is seeking someone to take his partner’s digivice and help save his friends. Ryo agrees and gets a proper explanation.

Following the original Digimon adventure anime up until the battle with Machinedramon, in which he fused with a Chimeramon, resulting in the Digimon God of Time, Milleniummon. Using it’s new power Milleniummon quickly captured all of the digidestined and their partners except for Agumon. With no partner of his own, Ryo must rely on the power of Tai’s digivice to recruit enemy Digimon to Ryo’s side, while rescuing the digidestined and their partners.

From here the gameplay loop, and I do stress loop, begins. Ryo enters an enemy stronghold, selects up to 3 Digimon, and battles the enemies on each floor until the stronghold is cleared. Battles are not a traditional RPG setup, but closer to fire emblem. There can be up to 3 Digimon on either side. These three digimon must cross over a large isometric battlefield to properly engage the enemy. Combat comes down to one attack, with critical attacks being named, though the animation is still the same and there is still a chance for the opponent to dodge. Alongside that Digimon can use special moves known as Variable Moves, or use items to recover stats, HP, or VP, this games version of MP. Ryo can also use the digivice he received to potentially recruit enemy Digimon to his side. Where Digimon breaks the standard is in the fact that there is no leveling system, Digimon are static throughout the entire adventure, and all Digimon lack skills to start with. Skills are obtained via team setups and RNG. If two specific Digimon are in the team, they have a chance of learning a Variable Move, a technique of a higher level diamond that can be used at the cost of VP. These moves have varying effects, from dealing damage, healing, altering stats, and inflicting status effects. These variable moves can then be passed on to other team members as they are used in battle. Thus the only grinding you will end up doing is to have a team of your favorite mons with all the variable moves you think you’ll need, which really only comes down to whalemon’s healing. Ryo can also use items instead of having the Digimon act for their turn. Items are solely based on recovering HP, VP, stats lost via enemy effects.

This loop and grind is made easier by the fact the game allows you to have the computer fight instead of you doing the combat. This is both a pro and a con, as while it makes it easier for one to grind without having to be forced to sit through the grind, I found myself placing the game in auto, as I had no reason to do otherwise when the AI played fairly competently; only finding myself having to get involved in end game strongholds because they lasted for so long that the Digimon ran out of VP and could not heal themselves without my input.

If nothing else, I must praise the sprite quality of the game. Each Digimon has two combat sprites, attacking and blocking and all of them look great. In the menu and field, Digimon have smaller sprites that indicate when the Digimon are suffering from status effects and closely resemble the V-pet sprites that Digimon originates from. Adding to this the fully colored cut scenes that look straight out of the original anime makes it at least pretty to look at, even if it’s quite bland.

It would not be unfair to call this game kids first fire emblem, in the same vein that Pokemon would be a kids first jrp, at least back in 97. As for today, the game has very little to offer in terms depth, but if you want to kill time you can spend a long time grinding out variable moves and completing this games version of the pokedex. Which for a kid might have seemed great fun, playing this game over and over while getting to make a super strong team of their favorite Digimon with a whole list of moves to use. For the more modern groups this game is a relic of an era that’s more of a fun little thing to look back at; see where the Digimon games started out than a forgotten gem of the wonderswan.

TLDR Digimon Anode/Cathode is a relic of it’s time that has some great detailed sprites, but not much else. It’s a relic of the times and an interesting look at the earliest games of the Digimon franchise, but even for hardcore fans of the franchise it’s not something one needs to play. A diet fire emblem with less strategy in both maps and unit compositions.