Despite stubborn Pokémon player's beliefs, the Digimon card game does not Digi-suck.

A few days back, I had a bunch of extra money ($200 to be exact), and I found a few starter decks of the Digimon: Digi-Battle Card Game at my local Toys R Us. Seeing that I had that whole pile of cash, I'd thought I'd spare the $10 to buy it. Some of my friends at school called it a waste of money, but they just aren't open to trying something new (or maybe their pathetic hatred for Digimon has closed their doors on new things).

At the risk of sounding very unpopular, I thought I'd review the game. And I admit, I don't hate it the game. [dodges cans and broken bottles thrown by loyal Pokémon fans]

Anyway... At first look, it looks like a Pokémon TCG rip-off. But let me assure you, it's not. The only thing the same between the two games is that it's a one-on-one battle between two Whatever-Mon, but the similarity ends there. Anything else like "Digi-volving" would have been called "evolving", but then copyright laws prevented it.

The game is fairly simple, but only because there's not much game text on each card. First off you win by scoring a certain number of points. First to 1000 points wins. You gain points by "offline-ing" a Digimon (equivalent to knocking it out). The bigger the Digimon is, the more points you score. You also gain points for Digi-volving (equivalent to Evolving) a certain Digimon.

Digi-volving is different than in Pokémon. You have to meet a certain requirement to Digi-volve (which can easily be met). Also, a lot of Digimon can sort of "cross-breed" to Digi-volve. Think of it like Eevee and it's other evolutions.

As for damaging, well... there is no damage dealt in the game. Defeating an opponent is based on who's got a high power. And by the end of the turn, whoever has the higher power (either through Digi-volving or through the use of Power Option cards [aka Trainers]) wins the round. Sound pretty easy, right? No damage counters and what not to worry about. The attacks themselves work like the old classic game, "Rock-Paper-Scizzors". If your opponent has a certain type of Digimon, your Digimon has a certain attack against that kind.

Turn taking is also different. Instead of like in Pokémon, there are 4 different stages to a round. In one stage, one player does something, then the other, and then it goes to the next stage. It sounds complicated, but after one quick game, you'll get the hang of it.

There's also a couple of other different thing to Digimon, but I haven't totally studied the rule book yet. No one at my school wants to play me...

Conclusion: This game is, well... it's different, I can tell you that. It has an original game engine, which is hard to come by these days. The game engine is so original, it really doesn't rip Pokémon TCG off at all in any way. If people at my school weren't so stubborn about Digimon, I'd probably have a few people to play with at school.

Personally, I like the game. [dodges more cans and broken bottles thrown by loyal Pokémon fans] Just because it has Digimon means nothing to me. If it stared Pokémon, it's still be cool (maybe cooler). (Actually, I don't hate Digimon either. This is a real shock, isn't it?) Of course, I'm still loyal to Pokémon, however the Digi-Battle Card Game has turned my head to something new and different.

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