Backlog Game Reviews 4: Digital Monster Ver.S Digimon Tamers (Sega Saturn)

  Hey there, and welcome to Backlog Game Reviews. The next game I'll be taking off of the backlog is Digital Monster Ver.S Digimon Tamers for the Sega Saturn. This game was only released in Japan in 1998. It's the first Digimon game ever made. It seems not a lot of people in Japan or outside of Japan know about this game. There's close to no information about it on the internet. Is this game a hidden gem that never made it outside of Japan? Or is it not worth your time? Let's find out!

Intro cutscene.

     As always let's start with the story. The game's story is explained in the instruction manual and in the intro cut scene. You're better off reading the instruction book because the text in the cut scene moves so fast you won't be able to read it. I guess the developers knew the story wasn't that important and just wanted you to hurry up and start the game.  

 

Intro cutscene explaining how Digimon quickly became popular.

 

   In this game, you play as a boy whose age and name is never mentioned. The world is now connected through the internet. With the rise of the internet a program called Digimon was made. Digimon were meant to be electronic pets, but hackers started using them to commit crimes. People also started to train Digimon and compete in battles with them. These people were called Digimon Tamers. Your goal is to become the top tamer. To do that you're going to have to win 4 tournaments. When you win a tournament you'll get a medal. You'll also have to defend your medals from hackers who will try to steal them from you. 

The intro curscene shows five medals, but there's only four tournaments to fight in.

 

     It's a pretty simple story. Collect all the medals while fighting off hackers and become a top tamer. Considering this game was released one year before the anime, and all they had to go off were the Tamagotchi toys it's not bad. Let's talk about how the game plays.

  

The desktop screen. You'll be looking at this screen for most of the game.

  This game isn't terrible but I do have some complaints. Let's take a look at them one by one.

   The main thing I don't like about this game is that it tries too hard to be a Tamagotchi simulator. Digimon were originally a line of virtual pets called Tamagotchi. You would take care of them, and battle them with your friends. This game tries to recreate that experience. In that regard, it does a good job. The problem is that it doesn't make for a very fun game. When you have things to do like feed, clean up after, or train your Digimon it's kinda fun. But there are times when there's nothing you can do and just end up staring at your TV. You can't train your Digimon if it has max stats or if it's tired. If it's not hungry or doesn't need to go to the bathroom then there's nothing you can do. All you can do is wait for something to do.  

The gym. There are four different exercises to choose from.

  You can raise 4 Digimon at a time. That'll give you more to do, but you'll need a lot of money before you can raise more than one Digimon. Even if you have enough money it's almost impossible to raise more then 2 Digimon at a time because you'll be too busy. You'll have to buy a caretaker robot to help you take care of your Digimon. The robot will feed and clean up after your Digimon, but now your back to having nothing to do. So you either have nothing to do or too much to do. You can speed up the flow of time in the options, but it doesn't help that much. You'll still have a lot of free time on your hands. Speaking of having nothing to do that brings me to my second complaint. 

A happy Tanemon with a caretaker robot.

   The next complaint that I have is that time freezes too much. You have a clock in the top right corner of the desktop screen. As time goes on days will pass and your Digimon will get hungry, have to go to the bathroom, and after a couple of days will die or evolve. It's a pretty straight forward system, but it has one major flaw. Time only passes by when you're on the main desktop screen. There is a number of things you can do in this game. You can train your Digimon at the gym, you can shop online, read emails, fight at the Colosseum, or play a mini-game for extra money.

The Botamon mini-game. Swat the flies and don't let them wake up Botamon.

   It's a good thing that time stops when reading emails or shopping. That means you can take your time and don't have to rush. But time stopping when your at the gym or fighting seems like a huge oversight. Let's say you trained your Digimon to exhaustion at the gym. You can't train anymore because it's too tired, and you can't fight at the Colosseum because it's still too weak. The only way to get rid of exhaustion is for your Digimon to go to sleep. Because time stopped when you were at the gym all you can do now is sit and wait for it to go to sleep.

 

A tired Yuramon.

    Now let's say your Digimon has max stats and you want time to hurry up and go by so your Digimon will evolve or die. If time didn't freeze at the Colosseum you could go there and fight. You could earn money fighting and you could kill some time. But time does freeze when you fight. So you can't pass the time while earning money. You can fight all you want and earn all the money you want. That sounds good, but what happens when you don't need any more money and you have max stats? Again, all you can do is sit at your desktop and wait.  

The colosseum map.

  There are more problems that arise from time freezing when you're not at the desktop, but I think you get the point. You spend so much time just waiting and doing nothing. It gets really boring really fast.


  The next thing I didn't like about this game is that evolving is nothing more than a cosmetic change. Digimon can evolve up to 5 times in their life span. They start out as a fresh level Digimon after hatching from an egg. They then evolve into an in training level Digimon. The next stage is rookie, after that is champion, and then ultimate.

Punimon evolution line.

Poyomon evolution line.

Yuramon evolution line.

Botamon evolution line.

                                          
   You would think that your Digimon would get stronger when they evolve, but they don't. Their stats don't change, their stat caps don't even increase. All that happens is that they look different. If you have your gym upgraded enough you can easily get them to max stats before they become a champion.
            

Agumon's stats before evolving. I didn't train him at all.

                                           

His stats after evolving into Devimon. The scond to last stat is his bond with me. Its at 10 because I brushed him after he evolved.

                          
    If your rookie Digimon is at max stats and can curb stomp ultimate level Digimon, then what's the point of evolving? There is none. Unless if you just want to see all of the Digimon in the game. Or if you just really love a certain Digimon. All Digimon share the same stat cap so evolving them is unsatisfying. It would feel so much more rewarding if they got stronger from it.
 

    My last complaint concerns the hackers in this game. Throughout the whole game, you'll be randomly attacked by hackers. If you lose to them they'll steal items and money from you. You'll always be attacked after winning a medal. If you lose at this time they'll take the medal away from you.

 

The mook hacker. You'll be seeing alot of this guy.

                   
    They're never really a threat, all of the hackers are pretty weak. They're just annoying because they attack you so often. And just like everything else, time freezes when you fight them. They do nothing but waste your time. The frequency of their attacks really needs to be turned down.

The super hero hacker. He'll attack you if you have a Digimon like Devimon.

     I've spent a lot of time complaining about the game but it's not all bad though. Let's take a look at some of it's good points.

    One thing that this game really does well is its presentation. The whole game takes place on your computer. You take care of your Digimon on your desktop. You drag your mouse across the screen to click on icons. You click on your Digimon to interact with them. You can customize your computer to your liking. There are multiple different backgrounds to choose from if you don't like your desktops default background. You can also change your mouse icon.

  

The Desktop screen.

   You buy items from an online shop. There's even a downloading screen when you buy something. You can go to a Digimon forum and read about news and tips on raising Digimon posted by other users. You can interact with other people through Emails. Your responses are limited but as time goes by you build an online friendship with some these people. Reading emails is fun, and whenever I got a new email I would always read it as fast as possible. 

Online shop.

  I really like this design choice. Its a perfect fit for a Digimon game. It feels like your actually using a computer. The Sega Saturn mouse peripheral is also compatible with this game. Using that instead of a controller would really make it feel like you're playing a game on your computer.

 

Email List.

  Another thing this game has going for it is that all of the Digimon are well animated and full of personality. Every Digimon has it's own individual animation when something makes it happy or angry. They also all have different sleeping animations.
 
 

Sleeping Angemon and Devimon.

  These animations really bring the Digimon to life. They feel like real living pets and not just programs.
 

   The last thing that I liked was the battle system. It's not great but it's likable. Your Digimon take turns attacking each other. Before you can attack your Digimon's wait bar needs to fill up. Your speed stat is what determines how fast the wait bar fills up. After the wait gauge fills up your Digimon will randomly do one of two attacks. A long-range attack or a close-range one. The defending Digimon will either dodge or do a counter-attack. They can only counter close range attacks.

  

The prebattle screen

   You're able to cheer on your Digimon by mashing the buttons shown at the bottom of the screen. Cheering your Digimon on will fill up the gauge at the bottom right. This gauge will fill up faster if you have a high bond with your Digimon. When this gauge fills up you can give your Digimon one of three commands. You give a command by pressing the A button, B button, or C button. Pressing the A button will turn your next attack into a critical attack if it connects. The B button will fill your wait gauge and let you instantly attack. Pressing the C button will guarantee that your next attack connects.
 

The Battle screen.

  It's a pretty simple battle system that seems like it would be boring, but it's actually pretty fun. It's hard to explain why but I like it.

   Overall this game has a lot of flaws. It does a good job of being a Tamagotchi simulator, but it doesn't do that good of a job at being a fun video game. You spend too much time doing nothing and just looking at your Digimon. The game would have been a lot better if time didn't freeze when you fight or train at the gym. If this game was released today as a mobile game it wouldn't be that bad. This kind of game just doesn't work for a console. I wouldn't bother with this game. The only reason you should play it is if you want to try out the first Digimon game.

  That's all I have to say about this game. It's interesting to see where Digimon got its start as a video game. It's too bad it wasn't that great of a game. Thanks for reading! Next time we'll be looking at a game on the PC Engine. I hope to see you again at Backlog Game Reviews!

 

 Here's some extra pictures.