Earlier this month, Bandai Namco was released Digimon survives which was developed by HYDE, Inc. The game is a visual novel and hybrid tactical RPG and follows a group of humans who end up encountering Digimon and having a huge mystery ahead of them. The game is now available on Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4 and Xbox One (affiliate link) via their digital stores or resellers including GameStop (affiliate link) and the Bandai Namco team was kind enough to provide me with a Switch copy for this review even though all thoughts and opinions are strictly mine.
Digimon Survive features a hybrid visual novel and tactical RPG set in a mysterious world filled with dangerous monsters and deadly battles that will test your ability to survive.
After getting lost on a school trip, Takuma Momozuka finds himself transported to a world inhabited by fierce enemies and new allies. Join Takuma and his friends as they fight to get home. Create your own story in this compelling visual novel with turn-based combat.
This game is definitely a mixed bag in my opinion. To begin with, it is very long. I have sunk hours into the game and am barely scratching the surface of anything. This will be a strength or a weakness depending on your attitude. Another mixed part is that there is no English dub. Like most (if not all) Bandai Namco games, they use a Japanese voice cast and so you can add subtitles in your language. Again, this is something that might be annoying for some while others are enjoying themselves. I’ll start my review with my cons and then conclude it all with what I see as the pros.
The first scam I will raise is the tactical aspect of RPGs Digimon survives. The mechanics and the battle system are fine. They’re nothing to write home about, but they’re not terrible, except that some of Digimon’s key partners are basically useless due to their slowness / how their attacks work. I understand that variety is good in these games, but when I face more battles with Kunemon literally doing nothing due to how little movement he has and his attacks don’t have good range, I get frustrated. Also, battles happen so infrequently that it’s a bit disappointing. The game is marketed as “a hybrid visual novel and tactical RPG”, but the latter only appears to take up about 20% of the gameplay. I just wish it was a bigger part of the game. Also, while it’s nice that there is an automatic battle option if you don’t like tactical combat or can’t take care of things for whatever reason, I wish you could speed up the automatic battle and it’s not that great at understanding the moves. best.
Another aspect I’m not a fan of is that you have three stats, Morale, Wrath, and Harmony, but the game doesn’t explain them at any time other than a vague mention of how the choices you make will affect your effectiveness working with others and things like that. Thankfully, Attack of the Fanboy has a nice and very short explanation on the mechanics of Karma points.
Thirdly, I like the idea of being able to talk to opposing Digimon and potentially recruit them. It annoys me when I feel like I’m trying in the dark to get the right answers. There are times when I swear I have the right answer based on the context, but then I end up offending the Digimon and losing every chance to recruit them. A little more refinement in this system would go a long way.
Where Digimon Survive shines in my opinion is the visual novel aspect. The story is very compelling and incredibly well done. The team did a great job of making it even more interactive than other games in the genre. You make decisions in conversations that affect your relationships with others, sometimes you have to pull out the camera to find hidden objects or monsters, sometimes you are given some freedom in the order you interact with people, there are points where you can just do free battles and grind that experience and more. There are times when you just want to rush into the next battle, but overall, the visual novel experience is nice, which is great since you’ll be spending around 80% of your time in it.
Art is great too. The character design, settings and pretty much everything about the visual aspect of the game is positive. There are also some animated cutscenes that are really fun and I wish there were more to help break up the monotony of having the portraits of the characters talking.
At the end of the day, if you are looking for a tactical RPG, Digimon survives not the best choice. If you’re looking for a visual novel with good interactive elements here and there and a compelling story, this game is solid for it. Yes, I wish the tactical elements of RPGs were a little more prevalent or stand out more, but as it stands, the game is good if you have the right expectations. What has your experience with Digimon survives state?
by Tommy Williams
Source: Geek Tyrant
