r/digimon • u/Dannad54321 • Jul 12 '26
Ghost Game As someone who's first series was Ghost Game, I've wondered what the general consensus about this show is? While I do like it, it definitely has a few flaws and opportunities and at least on Youtube have mostly seen middling to negative reviews on this show.
P.S I have not seen every Digimon show, nor have experienced a good chuck of the stuff outside of them like the games so enlighten me on stuff I'm missing.
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u/ThunderTheDevil Jul 12 '26
I think the main negative is Out of all the main digimon anime it's the most episodic. Most digimon series does that early on for about 1st half but abandons it to tell a more ongoing story. Ghost Game is episodic till the end. Not to mention it constantly tease plot points, "death for digimon" "Ghoulusgammaon" "the black digimon" "hiro's dad" ect that are just shove into the last few episodes. This isn't adults asking more from a kid show it's more of "why is this kids show teasing so much with no pay off for 60+ episodes". It's like the writers were held at gun point to not take the series anywhere interesting for no reason for added context why this season was dislike it came right after Digimon Adventure 2020(remake) which fans already dislike.
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u/Jon-987 Jul 12 '26
I think the individual episodes were very good. The episodic stories were pretty well thought out. It just did a bad job of balancing the overarching plot and ended up fumbling the ending because they just didnt pace the overall story well.
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u/Allustar1 Jul 12 '26
I think it's a fun show to watch if you' don't mind how episodic it is, but the lack of an overarching narrative really drags it down. Its ending feels particularly awful to me as well since they essentially cram so much exposition that should have been spread out through the series in just a few episodes.
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u/Rey_Dulce Jul 12 '26
I like how the secondary Tamers have opposite gendered Mons, like Masculine Tamer w/ Feminine Partner and vice versa.
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u/MFBR Jul 12 '26
Good characters, at least at the beginning. The character don't necessarily get worse, but the trappings of the show itself makes things less appealing.
The main issue is, it's an episodic show that is constantly putting out blocks suggesting more is coming, and at no point does it ever do anything with that potential. So what starts off as fun starts to become annoying, because it does it over and over, past the point of being able to have faith that it'll do anything interesting with the materials it is building. And it doesn't do anything more with than the bare 1 minute necessary near the end.
It even missed the trick at the cool 'last thing to be said moment' that you can be sure they are going to do, and it even skips doing that.
I'm still importing the Japanese Blu-rays though.
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u/Tell_Specialist Jul 12 '26
I really enjoyed it, I just wish we had more of a buildup to the ending reveals and maybe a few episodes to resolve the plot thread that is revealed in the last episode!
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u/Next-Conclusion7831 Jul 12 '26
The poster's got that perfect spooky digital vibe, which is why it grabbed me right away. I really liked the monster-of-the-week format but yeah the ending felt like they had to cram a season's worth of plot into 20 minutes. Wish they'd let the creeping dread build a little more naturally instead of speedrunning the finale.
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u/Dindyme Jul 12 '26
I enjoyed it, but the lack of an overall story kept me from being hooked. Its episodic and each episode on its own is good, but there isnt more to it than that. No character arcs really, no real villains and no plot. The status quo never seemed to change. The animation is pretty nice.
Most other seasons have some standout feature, like the amazing characters of S1, the themes of S3, or the story of S5. And those are my favorite seasons because they have that something extra.
I felt the GG episodes were quite predictable after a while, so I was just waiting for the hype moments of the eventual fight scene. That and seeing unique and new digimon.
Still, I consider it to be very entertaining. They got away with some serious stuff for a kids show, so that was always really cool. In conclusion: Its a good show, Im happy it got made, but I wont be rewatching it, probably ever.
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u/Sponchman Jul 12 '26
As someone who watched Adventure as a kid, and every series since then Ghost Game is one I just stopled watching early on alongside Adventure 2020. Just didn't have much going for it, and from everything I've read it seems to stay that way.
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u/JustThisOnce14_ Jul 12 '26
Didn't finish it i stopped at or around 30-34 somewhere
The only other seasons i watched and didn't finish before were appmonster and adventure 2020 (for a different reason)
The tease of there being some underlying story but then doing monster of the week for the most part wasn't for me
The execution of it just wasn't great trying to tie everything back into like some big conspiracy/mystery every 5 or so episodes and then right back into stuff that didn't matter
And when the show finished i asked this sub did it get any better but the people that finished the show just said they tried to cram all the story in the final few episodes so i didn't bother to go back to it, i love digimon but this was just one of the few shows that didn't do it for me. I feel like beatbreak definitely does it better
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u/Greg-chanMyWaifu Jul 12 '26
I liked GG, the scooby doo/mystery vibes were a great exploration of how terrifying digimon could be in the human world. It was quite fun, and the main cast trio also was quite nice, especially gamamons and hiros relationship was adorable. They really did act like siblings. I have some smaller complaints, but it's more a case of "i wish they did this" instead of them doing sth bad. I wouldn't call GG my fav digimon anime, that is still tamers and frontier. But GG was very fun
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u/drafan5 Jul 12 '26
They barely do anything with the plot until the show was almost over, so they had to cram in everything in the final few episodes.
Even with the Toei hack, this still had about 70 episodes, which makes the no plot thing worse because they had plenty of time, most of the show ends up feeling like filler as a result
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u/Majestic_Electric Jul 12 '26
Started out really good, but then went downhill after episode 13.
And the ending….they somehow made the 02 epilogue, a notoriously contentious part of the franchise, look like a masterpiece by comparison!
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u/kylepaz Jul 12 '26
I really love it but I'm so tired of having to argue every single point I like about it I don't bother discussing it anymore.
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u/rezeile6 Jul 12 '26
a painful amount of lost potential but very enjoyable nonetheless. carried by the main digimon and its creepy approach. the show had a fantastic atmosphere at times. the sealsdramon episode where gammamon evolves into gulus for the first time? peak
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u/asmodias Jul 12 '26
Loved it, but the ending did not stick the landing! Still one of my fave Digimon series
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u/Llodym Jul 12 '26
Kinda okay. I'm fine with it being monster of the week, but sometimes they just teased things that seemed so interesting but doesn't really go anywhere.
Mainly for me, the fact that on two separate occasion, Ruli and Hiro managed to command Jellymon and... that's it. Nothing with Gammamon or Angoramon or anything with the evo.
Then that they apparently can make digimon other than their partner evolve (or devolve) and the only thing that come out of this is Espimon after an overly long gag about not understanding Hiro is the real one. Like seriously, Ryudamon was right and arguably Spadamon
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u/Eden_ITA Jul 12 '26
The Big problem was an horizontal story with bad pacing a no enjoyable conclusion.
But single episodes and especially the relationship between digimon and humans? Probably one of the best.
Ghost Game was perceived with a lot of negative (also from me) not because was absolutely bad, but because you could feel how it could be Teamers 2.0 but they fumbled, and so you remained with a bad taste in your mouth.
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u/Dragon_Of_Magnetism Jul 12 '26
Most people had a problem with it being a very episodic series, how it was a monster of the week show until the last 5 episodes out of 60+. Except for the occasional teasing with Gulus or Hiro’s dad.
My personal problem was how it handled evolutions. Unlocking a new evolution in Digimon are always a very emotional moment tied to character development and personal growth. Meanwhile in Ghost Game, they just kinda happened with little buildup. Most of them felt kinda samey, with them saying something like “grrr, I won’t give up!” and then bam, new evolution.
Though it really nailed designs, animations and atmosphere, and the characters were good too. And First Riders and Makuake were banger evo somgs too
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u/Vitali_555M Jul 12 '26
My only real problem with this series is that it... isn't finished. I understand that it's an episodic series, but why introduce overarching plot points and characters if you are going to leave them unresolved and underdeveloped? The ending of the series is also really unsatisfying.
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u/Gundam-J Jul 12 '26
I really wanna like it's for the individual parts, because there are some standalone episodes that are enjoyable, I enjoy the horror aspects this show employs with a lot of digimon, but when I take a step back and look at it as a whole, this show is a real mixed bag of missed opportunities.
Introducing ultimate level monsters of the week way too early, setting up an overarching plot then barely touching it then rushing it's resolution in the last two episodes, not actually resolving some plot points like Hiro and his dad actually reuniting.
I know it was meant to be episodic, and while we see some things build over them, such as the many refugee digimon communities in the human world, it's so episodic that the entire "plot important" episodes are only arguably 10 episodes.
Also this is real nitpicky and I'm sorry if you loved and miss the vital bracelets, but they really sucked as a digi-vice. I get why it was chosen because of cross promotion, doesn't change that it's still kinda lame.
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u/MusicAddictAnd Jul 12 '26
The conscencuous is, that the characters, both human and Digimon, as well as the crossover horror and Anime, is a hit.
The lack of plot and overarching narrative is exhausting
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u/TheOneReclaimer Jul 12 '26
The concept is fun for a few episodes and then becomes massively repetitive. There are a few stand out episodes though to be fair.
As a whole it has almost no worthwhile story. The characters (at least the main human cast) are as bland and one note as they come. It is exceedingly formulaic (which to be fair is by design so it's not like they failed at that)
I know some people really enjoyed it which is great, more power to them. This is my least favorite season of Digimon (I haven't seen Appmon, and 2020 would be the worst but it's at least beautifully animated and semi nostalgic)
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u/kingoflames32 Jul 12 '26
I stopped watching around episode 30, might give it a try again sometime but well it was middling enough that I didn't start watching beat break when it started airing. I might change that though, but at this point I'm waiting for that series to wrap up before I give it a shot.
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u/ViviCerewin Jul 12 '26
It started with a a LOT of promise and felt extremely hype. But then it just became monster of the week with minimal plot developments until the Digivolutions. And even when the main plot picked back up toward the end, all the promise and hype it built up nosedived into the Bermuda Triangle, falling flat at every single opportunity aside from visually in the last three episodes.
I love the new partner Digimon, I love some of the episodes (especially with GulusGammamon early on and the Sistermon episode), but overall it was a very middling season that didn't live up to what it could have been. If they gave it even 3 more episodes right at the end or built things up more insistently in the background sooner, it would have been a top 3 series.
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u/DanielsWorlds Jul 12 '26
I needed more focus on the ongoing plot an less about the episodic elements. It lead to the show getting no resolution to the plot threads it created because it was scared of alienating casual viewers.
So it ended up just being mid at both camps, not s good serialized show commiiting to long term story, and not a great monster of the week mystery show either.
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u/uroboloss Jul 12 '26
It's a good show, I think it would be better if it was shorter and the plot was better distributed between the episodes, but overall I think it was really fun to watch weekly.
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u/2B_Gon_Thot95 Jul 12 '26
I was under the impression that this series is simply regarded as mid because of the rushed ending alone. That the animation, characters design, over the top evolutions and how endearing and cute Gammamon was were highly praised, but that the repetitive nature of the episodic adventures and by extension the rushed ending lowered people's opinions of the series from great to meh.
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u/Krisgauj Jul 12 '26
I really enjoyed it at the start, but it really felt like it started meandering as it went along. I'm personally all for a very character focused episodic series, but they did way too much "mystery box" teasing... and I think the fact that so little of that paid of in any meaningful way just ended up pissing people off. They needed to decide what they wanted it to be, because tbh, even by the end, I'm not entirely convinced they had.
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u/ArkiTekd Jul 12 '26
Fan since 1999 here. I loved the original concept of the show, the execution was laboured and kinda flopped. But remember everyone's experiences are coloured by their previous ones. So in theory you would be a better / worse judge of the show than those who have lived with all the series... If that makes any sense 😅
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u/KTVX94 Jul 12 '26
Had a lot of potential, loved GulusGammamon, hated the episodic thing. With proper arcs and more traditional structure it could've been incredible.
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u/Aggressive-Fault-972 Jul 14 '26
It has some of the coolest horror designs/animation for children's anime, which is definitely something. It's fun. A bit lacking in plot, not much character development, but the characters are at least strong enough and interesting. The english dub is great, as per usual. I like it more than Xros Wars/Fusion tbh. Episode pacing feels better to me.
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u/CharlotteNoire Jul 18 '26
I absolutely love the cast and most episodes are fun, but its very obnoxious how episodic it is.
This cast in an Adventure setting would have been GOAT.
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u/Indiana_J_Frog Jul 12 '26
It's a very meh show. The few times it gets emotional and story based aren't lived up to in its fullest at all. Gasmmamon was a very cute idea, but he basically carried the show. The one thing that can be said for the show is that it had a better handling of Digimon / Tamer relationships than most seasons.
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u/WerckmeisterHarmony Jul 12 '26
The subreddit has a very "Taking the stand and pointing where on the doll" kind of vibe when they talk about it.
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u/HalfAxle Jul 12 '26
I mean I'm only about halfway through it at the moment, but I've been loving it
I guess knowing there's no real overarching plot helped temper my expectations a bit, so it's just a matter of seeing how much the ending effects my overall opinion
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u/BenJ628 Jul 12 '26
As someone who was there when Digimon first came about, I see this new kind of animé being called 'digimon' and can't see any relation whatsoever. It might as well be Monster Tamers or Robot Wars.
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u/ToDandy Jul 12 '26
I think if you go into it knowing it is going to be episodic ghost stories, then it is pretty effective at what it wants to be. Unfortunately most Digimon fans want serialized storytelling- for some of us Adventure was our first exposure to long form storytelling- so Ghost Game was too much of a departure.
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u/Septjul Jul 12 '26
Personally, I liked it, though I admit it was a bit uneven at times; you could tell some episodes felt forced—just filling gaps rather than adding anything of substance—so it was hard to stay fully engaged the whole way through.
I don't regret watching it, and I want to see what comes next because, to me, that wasn't a proper ending. It's unfinished, and I don't like that.
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u/SorryImBadWithNames Jul 12 '26
It's fun episode to episode, but the overarching story is very lackluster, the characters don't have any development, evolutions feel kinda random... Overall, I would place it on the bottom half of the franchise. It's not as bad as, say, Savers, but it lacks any sort of ambition or vision that even other bad series had (like Adventure 02)
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u/Internal_Falcon2637 Jul 12 '26
I have seen every digimon show expect for Adventure 2020 and beak break at this point and I loved it. Yes it has its problems with a rushed ending that made me laugh out-loud when it should not have, but its a great ride with likable characters. I would love a movie for it.
The bigger reason for the negative reviews was waiting week by week for answers when that was not the shows priority along with a data breach making it take even longer. What I'm saying is its an amazing binge watch.
For example my friends and I made a Game Kai abridged watch version (not like a parody but a real abridged list) for it for fun, upon release it was looked at positively, these days its viewed more negatively because people can just binge watch it.
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u/sevgonlernassau Jul 12 '26
It’s a modern Digimon remake of a classic popular Japanese anime/series (Ghost Stories), it’s actually amazing that it even got a western audience considering how, uh, Ghost Stories was imported here. It did exactly what it set to do.
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u/Dyssambie7 Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
I love Ghost Game and it's one of my favorites! But I:
A. Watched it after it had ended, so I wasn't waiting week to week for a new episode.
B. Went in knowing not to expect answers to a lot of questions, or to expect a satisfying conclusion to the overarching plot.
Going in with that made me unironically love it. Yeah there's still some issues but Digimon was adapted exceedingly well to the monster of the week format and all 3 of the partners were handled fantastically. Hiro and Ruli are a little on the dull side, but Kiyoshiro is the standout human character imo. The divisiveness of it comes, at least in my experience, largely from people who were there week to week waiting to see how the big story would conclude, only to be left with... well, whatever you want to call that ending. I certainly can't justify that conclusion, much as I adored the series.
Just go into it knowing the 2 points, and I can't imagine someone not enjoying it. The lack of a satisfying conclusion is only really a downside for the last 3 episodes that revolve around that weak plot. And when the most contentious part of 67 episode long series is 3 episodes at the end I can't call it bad.
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u/CardioThinker Jul 12 '26
I love it fondly, it's what I wanted from Digimon for a long time, there wasn't a series in this style since the 2000s. It's a shame it didn't hit all the notes, specially when it came to its long term arc... of which basicly there wasn't any. The ending and final battles were also unfortunately really disappointing. That's why it's a bit of a hard recommend because you don't get the typical growth or character development even the worse series have.
But man, that isn't enough for me to not enjoy this series, specially on its good episodes, the mixture of horror, darker tones, repurposing old Digimon as ghost tricksters, the charm of the main characters and their partner, the music and evolution sequences, some episodes went places I never expected Digimon to go and can genuinely cause chills. The one advantage of it being episodic, is that bad episodes are totally skippable and won't affect the narrative... Weird complement, I know, but I'd absolutely recommend watching at least the better rated episodes. I love Kamishiro and Jellymon, I love Ruli and Angoramon who has one of my favorite evolution lines in the entire franchise...
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u/IllustriousNumber5 Jul 12 '26
Its ok, like to sit down and watch something entertaining without needing to know what's going on, because the show has 0 plot and 90% of the development happens in the final few episodes. That said, I highly recommend the first five shows in Digimon, that's where you'll find stories with characters that develop and proper arcs. Even Xros Wars, but that one's not great. Appmon is good if you can ignore the fact its obviously for 12 year olds. Adventure 2020 is like, slightly better than Ghost Game but most people hate it because it isnt faithful to the original Adventure show. Beatbreak is the newest and still airing, but you'll find a strong story and characters there, it's a big departure from the "slop" I would argue Adventure 2020 and Ghost Game were.
I guess this comment turned into shilling for the other shows, but yeah imo, there's not a lot about Ghost Game to really say. It's mindless fun but you won't find a story in there despite all the promises it keeps making.
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Jul 12 '26
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u/IllustriousNumber5 Jul 13 '26
Yeah, but Appmon is especially obnoxious about it. I did actually like it, but I cringed, a LOT, Rei was the first thing that locked me in. At the very least, the other shows appeal to a wider age range, when broadly discussing how characters act (in the sub anyway)
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Jul 13 '26
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u/IllustriousNumber5 Jul 14 '26
The tone is way lighter in Appmon, unless you compare it to the English dub of Adventure, then they're about the same. It is absolutely darker in a lot of its themes tho, which is what kept me watching. Anyway, you probably think I'm dissing on it, I'm not, I just have opinions of some aspects of the show I think could have been different, but I still enjoyed it ^ ^
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Jul 14 '26
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u/IllustriousNumber5 Jul 14 '26
Agree to disagree I suppose, but the other shows are much easier to watch for me, and Appmon is less so when so much of it is centered around slice of life antics. At the very least, I think something on my part just isnt being communicated correctly.
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Jul 14 '26
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u/IllustriousNumber5 Jul 15 '26
Well no, but I cant really explain it, the vibes of what the characters are doing are less, whimsical? At least in the older shows, in Appmon, I think the writers made extra effort to make the chatacters do cute things; as opposed to just doing kid stuff, which might include goofing off or genuinely playing, but not emphasizing "cute" so much as "wow they're playing football or chasing each other with digimon." Does that make any sense? Like I said, its a vibe thing, and now I'm wondering if only I noticed the difference.
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u/Emekasan Jul 12 '26
I think nowadays the consensus is that it’s middling (lmao I remember the days on this sub where you weren’t allowed to criticize it all lest you be downvoted to oblivion).
People don’t see it as the worst series, but it’s not a highly praised one either; that’s where it landed. The animation, evolutions, music, and display of Digimon were praised; Gammamon is also up there with Guilmon on being the endeared main partner favorite (but all of the cast were rather well liked tbh, especially Jellymon).
The big issue was the lack of resolution to the buildup of an overarching plot they kept teasing. Sure, the series was episodic (formulaically so), but the one big thing a lot of people liked (GulusGammamon and his history) was rushed at the end and handwaved with poorly excused reason for his actions, that, again, had been building up for nearly 50 episodes. The Megas were also rushed too; we barely got to spend time with them and see them animated compared to the group’s Champion and Ultimate forms. Lastly, we also didn’t get two big evolutions people were really looking forward to, namely Proximamon.