Digivolve your PlayStation controllers and prepare to shuffle your way through the most wonderfully confused identity crisis in gaming history, because this week on Play Comics we’re tapping into the pixelated card-battling chaos that is Digimon Digital Card Battle for the PS1! Released in 2001 when every entertainment franchise on Earth was racing to cash in on the trading card game gold rush sparked by Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh, Bandai decided their digital monsters deserved a piece of that sweet, sweet card-slinging action. The twist? They didn’t just adapt the existing Digimon trading card game – oh no, that would be far too simple. Instead, they created an entirely NEW card game exclusively for this PS1 title, because apparently someone at BEC thought “You know what kids collecting physical cards really need? A completely different set of rules that only exists in digital form!”
What emerged was a gloriously polygonal fever dream where Veemon, Hawkmon, and Armadillomon became your partners in a card-battling odyssey through Battle Arenas, all while you sacrifice Digimon from your hand like some kind of digital monster cult leader gathering “DP” (Digivolve Points, not whatever your brain just went to) to evolve your creatures into increasingly ridiculous forms. It’s rock-paper-scissors meets card game mechanics meets “please stop making me grind the same battles 300 times to unlock the secret final boss.”
Joining us for this digivolved discussion is the phenomenally talented Sahoni from Bramble Wolf Games! When they’re not busy crafting games that actually mean something or channeling their Queer and Indigenous (ᏣᎳᎩᏱ ᏕᏣᏓᏂᎸᎩ) storytelling magic into unforgettable tabletop experiences, Sahoni brings their narrative expertise to help us understand how this PS1 oddity somehow convinced an entire generation that carrying around 30 digital cards was infinitely more practical than the hundreds of physical ones weighing down their backpacks.
So crack open that PS1 jewel case, practice your best “I’m going to pretend I understand these Support Card effects” face, and prepare for an episode more entertaining than watching the same Digimon battle animation for the 47th time. We’ll explore whether this card-game-that-never-was actually honored the spirit of the Digimon franchise, or if it just left us wondering why we couldn’t trade our digital cards with friends like we could in literally every other TCG game of the era!
Learn such things as:
- If watching the same PS1-era polygonal battle animations 300+ times builds character or just destroys your will to live?
- Why the game forces you to read tiny PS1-resolution text on cards and whether that counts as an accessibility nightmare or just “authentic retro experience”
- Why creating a brand-new trading card game that only exists in one video game is either pure genius or complete madness (spoiler: probably both)
- And so much more!
You can find Sahoni on Bramble Wolf Games, on Tumbler @sahonithereadwolf, or on BlueSky @Sahoni.
If you want to be a guest on the show please check out the Be a A Guest on the Show page and let me know what you’re interested in.
If you want to help support the show check out the Play Comics Patreon page or head over to the Support page if you want to go another route. You can also check out the Play Comics Merch Store.
Play Comics is part of the Gonna Geek Network, which is a wonderful collection of geeky podcasts. Be sure to check out the other shows on Gonna Geek if you need more of a nerd fix.
You can find Play Comics @playcomics.bsky.social on Bluesky, and in the Play Comics Podcast Fan Group on Facebook.
A big thanks to The Monitor Tapes and Nerd Best Friends for the promos today.
Intro/Outro Music by Backing Track, who might actually be the champion my friend.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Burden
The Burden is a documentary series that takes listeners into the hidden places where justice is done (and undone). It dives deep into the lives of heroes and villains. And it focuses a spotlight on those who triumph even when the odds are against them. Season 5 - The Burden: Death & Deceit in Alliance On April Fools Day 1999, 26-year-old Yvonne Layne was found murdered in her Alliance, Ohio home. David Thorne, her ex-boyfriend and father of one of her children, was instantly a suspect. Another young man admitted to the murder, and David breathed a sigh of relief, until the confessed murderer fingered David; “He paid me to do it.” David was sentenced to life without parole. Two decades later, Pulitzer winner and podcast host, Maggie Freleng (Bone Valley Season 3: Graves County, Wrongful Conviction, Suave) launched a “live” investigation into David's conviction alongside Jason Baldwin (himself wrongfully convicted as a member of the West Memphis Three). Maggie had come to believe that the entire investigation of David was botched by the tiny local police department, or worse, covered up the real killer. Was Maggie correct? Was David’s claim of innocence credible? In Death and Deceit in Alliance, Maggie recounts the case that launched her career, and ultimately, “broke” her.” The results will shock the listener and reduce Maggie to tears and self-doubt. This is not your typical wrongful conviction story. In fact, it turns the genre on its head. It asks the question: What if our champions are foolish? Season 4 - The Burden: Get the Money and Run “Trying to murder my father, this was the thing that put me on the path.” That’s Joe Loya and that path was bank robbery. Bank, bank, bank, bank, bank. In season 4 of The Burden: Get the Money and Run, we hear from Joe who was once the most prolific bank robber in Southern California, and beyond. He used disguises, body doubles, proxies. He leaped over counters, grabbed the money and ran. Even as the FBI was closing in. It was a showdown between a daring bank robber, and a patient FBI agent. Joe was no ordinary bank robber. He was bright, articulate, charismatic, and driven by a dark rage that he summoned up at will. In seven episodes, Joe tells all: the what, the how… and the why. Including why he tried to murder his father. Season 3 - The Burden: Avenger Miriam Lewin is one of Argentina’s leading journalists today. At 19 years old, she was kidnapped off the streets of Buenos Aires for her political activism and thrown into a concentration camp. Thousands of her fellow inmates were executed, tossed alive from a cargo plane into the ocean. Miriam, along with a handful of others, will survive the camp. Then as a journalist, she will wage a decades long campaign to bring her tormentors to justice. Avenger is about one woman’s triumphant battle against unbelievable odds to survive torture, claim justice for the crimes done against her and others like her, and change the future of her country. Season 2 - The Burden: Empire on Blood Empire on Blood is set in the Bronx, NY, in the early 90s, when two young drug dealers ruled an intersection known as “The Corner on Blood.” The boss, Calvin Buari, lived large. He and a protege swore they would build an empire on blood. Then the relationship frayed and the protege accused Calvin of a double homicide which he claimed he didn’t do. But did he? Award-winning journalist Steve Fishman spent seven years to answer that question. This is the story of one man’s last chance to overturn his life sentence. He may prevail, but someone’s gotta pay. The Burden: Empire on Blood is the director’s cut of the true crime classic which reached #1 on the charts when it was first released half a dozen years ago. Season 1 - The Burden In the 1990s, Detective Louis N. Scarcella was legendary. In a city overrun by violent crime, he cracked the toughest cases and put away the worst criminals. “The Hulk” was his nickname. Then the story changed. Scarcella ran into a group of convicted murderers who all say they are innocent. They turned themselves into jailhouse-lawyers and in prison founded a lway firm. When they realized Scarcella helped put many of them away, they set their sights on taking him down. And with the help of a NY Times reporter they have a chance. For years, Scarcella insisted he did nothing wrong. But that’s all he’d say. Until we tracked Scarcella to a sauna in a Russian bathhouse, where he started to talk..and talk and talk. “The guilty have gone free,” he whispered. And then agreed to take us into the belly of the beast. Welcome to The Burden.