After a series of long delays and more than four years in active development,Digimon Surviveis finally here. The response to the game so far has been somewhat mixed, with some players praising its beautiful presentation and others bemoaningits divisive visual novel style. The latter is perhaps an unfair criticism considering the game was never billed as having anything but, although that’s not to say that it doesn’t still have its fair share of problems.
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For every well-realized and unique mechanic that can be found throughoutDigimon Survive, there is an equally enraging element or poorly-implemented idea just waiting to frustrate players. It’s far from a bad game and is arguably right up there with some ofthe very bestDigimongames of yesteryear, though it’s hard not to feel just a little disappointed given how easily avoidable some of these problematic pitfalls were.
Loved: The Darker Narrative
Having first debuted all the way back in 1997, theDigimonseries is now more than a quarter of a century old. As the franchise has aged, so too have its fans, to the point where a significant portion of theDigimonfanbase is now made up of fully-grown adults. With this in mind, it makes a lot of sense for a modernDigimongame to tackle more mature and darker themes than its predecessors, and this is an area in whichDigimon Survivedefinitely doesn’t disappoint.
ThePokemonseries has at times tried to cover darker topics, perhaps most notably in the sixth generation games,Pokemon X&Y. Despite the darkness of the Pokemon war and AZ’s ultimate weapon though, it always felt as though the games were being held back by their need to appeal to a younger audience. Thanks to it targeting a Teen rating rather than an E for everyone,Digimon Survivehas no such issues and is arguably a much better game for it.
Loathed: Digivolution
There’s an awful lot to love about how Digivolution works in theDigimonworld, but the way that this is implemented inDigimon Surviveleaves a lot to be desired. To be clear, there’s nothing inherently wrong with having playersuse Enlightenment Slabs to trigger Digivolutions in Free Digimonor having Partner Digimon Digivolve as part of the main story. Unfortunately, however, each system has a few fundamental flaws that should have never made it through to release.
The item needed to Digivolve a Rookie Digimon to its Champion form doesn’t become readily available until Part 9, by which point, players have long since begun to encounter Ultimate Digimon. This arguably encourages players to replace their ‘mons rather than continuing to train them as they wait for an evolution item that, as far as they know, may never come. As for Partner Digimon, even afterunlocking their most powerful Digivolutions, they’ll always enter battles in their Rookie forms, which pretty much guarantees that they’ll be acting last on the first turn of every battle after a certain point in the story.
Loved: The ‘Catching’ System
ThePokemonseries has changed a lot sincePokemon Red&Blue, but one thing that’s remained largely the same is the way that players catch new Pokemon. Beating a Pokemon to within an inch of its life and then chucking a magic ball at it can be fun and all, but, at the same time, it can quickly begin to feel a little samey, especially for long-timePokemonfans. To avoid this type of repetition,Digimon Surviveoffers a much more interesting take on befriending new creaturesand it really does help to make each Digimon feel unique.
Having players earn a Digimon’s trust through conversation was an excellent idea and is one that, for the most part, was really well-realized. To be clear, it does still have its flaws, such as some of the optimal responses being completely random and the fact that there’s a chance for the Digimon to flee from battle even if players answer all of its questions perfectly. Despite this, though, it still makes for a very welcome change to the status quo and is one of manythings that thePokemonseries could learn fromDigimon.
While playingDigimon Surviveon Switch, it takes more than one minute to load up a Free Battle from the map screen. Heck, even restarting a battle takes around one minute, due both to the long load times and the need to re-select a team each time one does so. These loading times are a little better on other platforms, but given how basicDigimon Surviveis when it comes to graphics, the fact that so much of the game is spent on loading screens really is unforgivable in this day and age.
For comparison, a battle inPokemon Sword&Shieldtakes less than ten seconds to load up, with players ready to act almost immediately after the battle triggers. Due to the aforementioned issues with Digimon fleeing when players try to befriend them and how rare some of them can be to encounter, those hoping to befriendevery Digimon inDigimon Surviveare likely to be restarting battles an awful lot, with those ‘one minute’s quickly starting to add up.
Loved: The Replayability
With three different routes on offer during a player’s first playthrough and a fourth one becoming available in New Game+ mode, there are plenty of compelling reasons to replayDigimon Survive. Some players, for example, will want to see the game’s true ending, with others simply hoping for a second chance atkeeping their favoriteDigimon Survivecharacter alive. Whatever the case, there’s an awful lot of content here for those looking for a game to sink some serious time into.
Better still, New Game+ mode makes it easier for players to skip through certain sections and also allows them to carry over a lot of their progress when it comes to levels and such. As a result, minimal time is wasted on replaying identical sections, with players instead able to focus onexploring new routesand the hard-hitting narrative beats that come along with them. The game may have its issues, but its implementation of New Game+ mode definitely isn’t one of them.
Loathed: The Meaningless Choices
A lot of emphasis was placed on the significance of player choice during the buildup to the release ofDigimon Survive. Sadly, the game falls a long way short in this area, with most of its decisions feeling hollow and pointless. Those which affectthe playable character’s Karmawill only have an impact at one specific point in Part 8, and, even then, the individual choices themselves are irrelevant, with a scoring system being used to determine which routes players can take. That’s just the tip of the iceberg though, as some of the game’s other ‘choices’ are even more meaningless.
At a few different points inDigimon Survive, players will be faced with two options, with their placement in the narrative suggesting that they’re going to be incredibly important decisions. The first of these choices isn’t too bad as it can technically affect the difficulty of the battle which follows soon after it. The next, however, is completely pointless whichever way one looks at it, withthe playable character flip-flopping almost immediatelyif players don’t choose the option that the game wants them to. Sometimes, giving players no choice is better than giving them a pointless one.
Digimon Surviveis available on PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Switch, and PC.
