Digimon Survive: Specifications
a program: Nintendo Switch
price: $60
release day: 28 July 2022
Type: a visual novel / turn-based strategy
In Digimon Survive, a group of teenagers are trapped in an alternate world, desperate to make them home alive. Your choices will determine who lives and who falls victim to the mysterious monsters that inhabit the earth.
In Bandai Namco’s latest Digimon game, players will find a blend of visual novel and turn-based strategy game. It’s a narrative-driven adventure, full of unforgettable characters and having a dark, twisted story with real stakes.
However, the good but not great battle system holds it back, despite some great visuals and a solid story. The slow pace can suck the momentum out of the trip at times, and revisiting the same areas can often feel stressful.
Overall, though, Digimon Survive has a story worth trying. The maturation of the plot is a welcome surprise, and the battle with ever-evolving digital monsters is a winning formula. It’s the kind of game that looks ripe to be considered a “hidden gem” in a few years, but it’s still worth playing today. Find out why in our Digimon Survive review.
Digimon Survive Review: How To Play
There are three basic stages to Digimon Survive. Most of the game is a visual novel. Players can expect to invest most of their time observing the story, as it plays like a simple animation. There are a lot of dialogues to read, and you will sometimes hear them out loud in Japanese with subtitles. The experience is more focused on watching and reading than on playing.
This does not mean that the visual novel aspects of the game are purely negative. There are options and conversation options that appear occasionally. Your choices will affect how certain scenes are shown, and how relationships develop between the hero and other survivors. These, in turn, will determine how the story progresses and which of the multiple endings you will experience.
Digimon Survive operates like a point-and-click adventure, away from long storytelling periods. During these times, you can move from one area to another and interact with other characters, often building the relationships mentioned above. You can also check points of interest. Many of them are benign, but some have useful objects or monsters hidden in them. The game will telegram any primary characters or objects with a red exclamation point. This is useful if you want things to keep moving, or if you’re trying to search every nook and cranny while you can.
Finally, the game has a battle system. Battles are relatively rare in Digimon Survive. When they occur, the view turns into a 3D grid. Monsters populate the stand-alone map, and you can choose which of your Digimon to take part in base-turned battles. Each monster has two types of attacks: a standard type, and a more powerful version that may apply status effects or hit from a larger range. Positioning units to hit the enemy’s flank or rear causes additional damage. Most units also have an archetype, such as focusing on damage handling or navigation.
Battles in Digimon Survive are few and far between, which might be the best, given how simple the battle system is. There is one interesting wrinkle: Digimon can temporarily evolve in the middle of battle. This consumes the limited strength meter that fuels special attacks, but the increase in stats you get in return is important. The time to deploy this ability is one of the few strategic choices players have to make, as the rest of the battles are just a ring of surrounding enemies and bombarding them in submission.
Digimon Survive Review: Story
The story in Digimon Survive is engaging, as well as surprisingly dark and mature. The Survivors are trapped in a world full of monsters. Each character is generally well personified, with strengths, weaknesses, and traumas from the past affecting how they try to survive. The characters feel alive, and it’s easy to get invested in their struggles.
The weight of your decisions is always there, and that’s a big part of why the story works. Building trust during moments of quiet rest is key to keeping your friends alive during stressful life-or-death situations. You will only have a limited time to interact with the characters, and it is impossible to talk to everyone. The game forces you to make tough choices about the people who catch your eye, and you won’t be able to keep everyone alive in one game. The narrative doesn’t pull the punches. Your choices can make the difference between which characters survive, or die a violent and brutal death.
Sometimes the story can go on. Having to restore the same basic conversations frequently disrupts speed. Expect to talk to the same people over and over to progress past important scenes. It’s unnecessary and hurts storytelling.
Digimon Survive Review: Visuals and Audio
The visual novel aspects of Digimon Survive look amazing. The character and level artwork look clean, crisp and detailed. The faces of the characters are emotional, and small amounts of movement help to effectively convey feelings and reactions. Expressions of horror, in particular, seem profound and effective.
Turn-based battles trade clean 2D artwork for 3D character models. This is not nearly as visually appealing. All the characters adopt a short squat “chibi” style, and look more like Funko Pops than people. This is a stark contrast to the realistic proportions throughout the rest of the game, and a poor fit for the life-or-death stakes in the story.
The game’s music is generally excellent. The way the audio tracks convey the mood is effective, especially in moments of fear or depression. In Digimon Survive, the music works in equal measure with the visual storytelling, enhancing the overall experience. The soundtrack starts to feel a little tired by the end of a 30-40 hour show, but that speaks volumes about the limited number of tracks, not their quality.
Digimon Survive Review: Verdict
Digimon Survive is a visual novel first, point-and-click adventure/strategy game second. As a visual novel, it is engaging, mature, and aesthetically pleasing, the music impacts the feelings of the characters at home, and the weight of your choices may affect you long after you’ve been laid down.
However, the turn-based battle system is simple, and the border lines are shallow. It’s also the worst looking aspect of Digimon Survive. Fortunately, it’s an infrequent diversion, and not a staple of the experience. If you can get past the asymmetric combat, there’s a solid character-based experience in Digimon Survive.
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