Apparently, I decided to introduce three different plotlines at once alongside the multitude of new characters - Egokarp's... Everything; Katrii; and Crimson King putting Sandy Version on trial. These Battles are fine. Perfectly readable. Quite fun. The only really standout moment in them is the comedy-horror turn in Battle 59, however, which did have me responding with "Holy hell" when rereading for this commentary.
Battles 56
I do enjoy the 'Last week was a cliffhanger, so here's something that doesn't resolve that' gag that I'd apparently taken to with this era. Saying that the rest of the battle is fairly standard PB-fair, nothing particularly wrong with it, a couple of jokes that rely on knowing that Futoji is the romanized Japanese for a bold typeface which I apparently knew 22 years ago and didn't when writing this commentary.
...I think Tutorial Guy is an IRPG - A roleplaying campaign Ditto ran via IRC - reference. And a Pokémon doing a summon is basically how I handled Joey (and others) catching trainers and using their Pokémon, though I had no memory of this battle when writing that, so... I can't say I wouldn't handle it that way today.
What I would criticize is how I handled Lucifer falling to the ground after losing his wings - That really should have been:
But LUCIFER is already FALLEN!
No effect!
I... Apparently still have the sense of humour of a three year old because when rereading this I laughed at the variant of the "What's brown and sticky? A stick." joke the battle closes with.
Battle 57
Reminding the audience that the DNA Digivolving is still going on while doing something entirely unrelated for a second week in a row is a choice but not one I hate. Same with classic video game based battles - I actually attempted to do some Battles based on non-Pokemon games early in the 2022 incarnation of Sandy but they didn't quite stick for me - But I think this was actually inspired by my having played the attempt to revive Q-Bert into a platform game in the early 00s.
The rest is, again, fairly bog standard PokéBattles. Nothing particularly wrong with it, nothing particularly stands out. Doing a plot based on Crimson King's review of a Battle was a choice and a half, though.
Battle 58
A lot is happening here. The random dream dialogue going on between Davis, Dave, and Veemon is... Fine? Doesn't do anything for me today, but... Whatever. Theoretically, it's character based comedy.
Then we have the introduction of Egokarp. I actually really like this gag, but reading it back I'm not sure there was any real potential for it long term.
Then we have Katrii's card game stuff. This plotline getting cut short by me getting busy with A-Levels is probably my biggest regret about the way Sandy fizzled around 2002 since I was planning on doing a thing with Katrii where he learns to play this card game that involves capturing living beings onto blank cards, and have him accidentally trap other people onto cards at some point. I forget if I was planning on giving it the comedy-horror that concept really deserves or just playing it for laughs.
...Now that I think about it, that's basically the same concept I used for Joey's fall during A Tail of Two Youngsters, just themed differently, and I think I was planning on taking it in a different direction.
And I also teased at something significant happening in Battle 65 which is true, but not in the way I meant here.
Battle 59
...Apparently, I was planning on going comedy-horror with it, considering I immediately decided to play into the horror trope of 'family doesn't remember you'.
I don't know what it is with me at this point in my writing that seemed to keep driving me to characters that require changing the font effects constantly.
A couple of gags I probably wouldn't make today but otherwise, it's a fairly standard battle aside from the horror angle to the actual battle concept, and it's pretty fun to skip the battle with the shopkeeper. I also enjoyed the side conversation between Katrii and the Strange Presence completely side tracking the reveal of the card inventory.
...'Only pregnant once' doesn't quite work given this battle establishes that Katrii has a dead elder brother, but whatever.
Battle 60
Again, I don't think there's long term potential in Egokarp, but that doesn't mean there aren't fun side battles to have with him. The chaos control gag is also a fun twist. And then the Battle takes a musical tangent to close out which...
...I'm not convinced this is good writing - At least not in text form - It did make me laugh upon rereading it now, so... There's apparently something there to it.