The long wait for Digimon Survive is finally over, with players at last able to dive into this unusual entry in the series. Fans expecting the usual fare from a Digimon game might be understandably disappointed, but for those with an appetite for visual novels and tactical RPG combat, there is plenty to get your teeth sunk into here. It might not be the best Digimon game you can buy, but it is certainly one of the best visual novels to come out this year. From the writing to the visuals, this is an exceptional title, provided you know what you're getting ahead of time.
While it features creatures familiar to Digimon fans, this title stands as a departure in tone and genre from previous instalments. Digimon Survive serves as a mystery visual novel with surprisingly dark imagery. Particularly in the opening chapters, the game is closer to a horror story than we certainly expected. There are even a few jump scares mixed in to contend with.
As the title implies, this is a story of survival, with player decisions impacting which characters make it to the closing chapter. The game’s central characters are primarily middle school students on a class trip. Their plans to visit some historic ruins are scrapped when an earthquake blocks the path. Instead, Takuma and his classmates are led to a nearby shrine. Aided by the Digimon companions that they meet, the students find that they are in another world with seemingly no way home.
It is a straightforward premise but Digimon Survive offers plenty of branching storylines to explore based on decisions that players make. Siding with certain characters can boost Takuma’s stats and even strengthen his relationship with other members of the cast. These stats manifest themselves in the way that their Digimon digivolve and the boosts that they give each other on the battlefield. It is a really solid, organic way to make the visual novel portions of the game feel important and valid rather than just a wall of text to slog through to get to the combat.
Make no mistake, Digimon Survive is a visual novel with tactical RPG elements mixed in rather than the other way around. You will spend the majority of your time reading and listening to the solid voice cast rather than fighting other Digimon. The biggest criticism we have of the game is the long gap between the game’s initial combat tutorial and the next time you use those mechanics. The first several hours of Digimon Survive are spent on the visual novel sections, and it isn’t until you get through the entire prologue that the battle system shows up again. The pacing picks up from there, but it makes the opening hours of the game feel slow when compared to the chapters that follow.
If you’ve played games like Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics, the combat in this game will hold very few surprises for you. Positioning and strategy are paramount, with Digimon able to boost allies or shield them from blows if they are adjacent to them. Digivolving can give your Digital Monsters a massive boost in stats and attacks, but it slowly drains their SP so it needs to be used sparingly, especially in early levels. Most combat encounters can be beaten with a change in strategy; we thankfully didn’t have to do much grinding to overcome the challenges. It would have been nice if the combat didn't feel quite as tacked on to the visual novel aspect of the game, but what is there pushes the story forward nicely.
Most of Digimon Survive’s main cast have a Digimon partner that accompanies them wherever they go, but there are plenty of others that can be recruited to your cause through the game’s Free Battle system. When you see a Digimon you want to recruit during a Free Battle, simply select the Talk option from the menu and target your desired creature. A minigame in which players select a verbal response to the Digimon’s statements follows; the correct responses will net you a better chance at recruiting them at the end, but the choices sometimes feel too random to predict. If you want to catch every Digimon in this game, you’ll need to invest a healthy amount of time to do so.
Combat isn’t the only dangerous thing you’ll do in Digimon Survive. The game’s visual novel portions offer choices for players to make that can impact more than just stats and affinity. Making certain choices can result in characters dying and their Digimon companion disappearing from the game forever. Characters mourn their friends and lament their choices along with the player who made them in one surprisingly mature and heart-breaking plot development. You don’t expect that kind of darkness from this series, but it works well to remind you of the cost of survival.
While the combat in the game doesn’t pack many surprises, the writing around it does. We’re reminded continually that these are children in this harsh environment who are fighting for their lives. They come to blows and push back against each other, react harshly to the stress of their situation, and rally together in a wonderful way that is, by far, the highlight of Digimon Survive. You believe in the friendships you’re seeing and, as a result, stress about how your choices will impact them. The occasional typo in the text doesn’t change the fact that this is a very well-written and well-presented story.
When you’re not fighting or reading, you’ll be exploring the strange, time-displaced world the characters find themselves in. Most of these sections are easy to navigate, but they do offer the chance to uncover some secrets. The most interesting mechanic in the exploration portions is the use of the character’s smartphone camera to uncover hidden creatures and environments. Essentially, it will take several playthroughs to find everything that Digimon Survive has to offer.
Conclusion
Digimon Survive is one of the best visual novels to come out so far this year, with plenty of heart and tension to carry you through to the final act. Fans looking for an engaging story with well-written and presented characters that deal with life-and-death situations will enjoy the ride, while players focused on the combat will probably find that the game comes up short. Despite its sluggish, padded start, Digimon Survive is well worth the long wait.
Comments 55
I'm a Digimon fan but i can't stand VN games so i shell be skipping this but i'm glad its good for those that do like them.
Wait, this is a Bandai Namco game that actually let you take in-game screenshots?
Wow, those exist after all.
Only a few hours in myself, (Xenoblade 3 taking all my time), but definitely agree with the beginning. It is sloooow. Also not a fan of the whole investigate thing. Feels a bit unnecessary most of the time. And the typos, and general weird phrases being used.
Do have to give some major props to whoever did the art-style for the game, cause it is gorgeous. Also very surprised how much of it is actually voiced. Feel like Bandai has actually done a really good job, but sadly seem like they had no faith in the game, so they barely did any promo of it.
So...it's really just a visual novel with some combat from time to time... What a disppointment, I thought this would be a Devil survivor x Digimon...
Finally a Review! Sounds nice... Like a "wait for a big discount and get it" kind of nice
This game is going to suffer greatly due to poor advertising. Most people thought it was going to be a strategy game with visual novel elements, not the other way around.
...no mention of the performance? So is it good or not?
Now if I can only find one of the five physical copies Bandai Namco printed. This might be the most hard-to-find retail release ever.
I like myself a good story so this is right up my alley. It's not all about battles and flashy animations and I expect the people complaining about the reading aspect are young kids who hate doing their homework in the evening when they get home from school.
I’ve heard a lot of great things about this one. I may jump in after I finish Xenoblade in 20 years.
Meh. Maybe once the price drops below 30 or 20 euro's.
It's a nice chance of pace for the IP might check it out once I finish Pokemon Legends: Arceus and Nexomon 1 & 2.
Thank you for the review !
Sounds good. Tempted to get it, haven't played either a Visual Novel or a Digimon game in a while, although may wait for a discount.
Only cons for me are performance and some loading times. It runs at 20 fps in some battles and can drop to 15 fps with certain attacks. And loading into a battle can take between 20 to 30 seconds (it's around 2 seconds in the ps5). Hopefully, they release some patch to improve the performance, at least.
I've no experience of digimon games, manga or otherwise. Would enjoyment of this be much impaired by that
Finally a review! Sounds pretty good to me, think I might take the dip!
what if i've never play/watch digimon? is it only for fans?
No visual novel is worth more than $20. VN reviews should be a sub-category separate from video games.
For example: this VN is an 8. But inly when compared to other VNs. Because it isnt a game.
Too bad this game seems to be absolutely buried by Xenoblade hype. I wouldn't have gotten it otherwise because VNs are not for me, but I hope it does well enough.
@Sonos Well, there is a strategy game stapled to this one. It's not deep or challenging, but there is gameplay pretty much once a chapter plus free battles if you want to collect mons that really aren't worth using compared to the story mons since there is overlap with evolutions. Unless they die. Like, I wouldn't buy it for the gameplay because it's painfully bland, but it isn't just a visual novel.
I've played half of it by now. It'd be a better show than a game. Not because it's a visual novel, but because it's generally a darker retelling of the first season of digimon and does a good job at that. It would just work better not as a game.
@BananaMetallurgica nah, it's basically a darker version of the first season but completely unrelated to anything else in the franchise. They don't even use the word digimon in the game once. In fact, the Digi part of the franchise is excised entirely. They get rid of the technology aspect of everything. Which isn't a bad or good thing but you'll never have to read the word digidestined. It's generally more themed to people who've watched the first season as kids and nothing else.
Even then If you've seen the first couple seasons of the show twenty years ago you'll notice some parallels, but other than that there's no relation except that there are the same monsters
@Xansies I'd rather be kicked in my genitals than participate in a vn experience - so I'm no expert. But dont all VNs have light gameplay elements?
@Sonos No. Some like fata Morgana are just books with music and backgrounds. That one is a hard sell for most people.
Then you have dangan ronpa and ace attorney which really involved sequence once per chapter. These are gameplay heavy
Steins gate style route based games that have choices and routes from when these all used to be hentai games
And then you have this which is about a 60/40 split. I wouldn't call it light. You have to engage in the battle system and it's not bad, its just not challenging and there's no point to there being more than 8 mons. It's about as much gameplay, technically, as triangle story or fire emblem.
no mention of how long your reading to you actually do something to next page ive heard a few hours
@somnambulance
Lol, yup I started Xenoblade on my Wii and I’ve still not finished it.
Was skip for me. XB3 is here and I want another Digimon Story game instead of this. If I do get it later down the line it would be when I have don’t anything else to play and a deep discount happens.
@Xansies From what I seen from the game the VN ratio isn’t the same as FE 3H or TS. Also saying 60% VN/40% combat gameplay seems inaccurate from footage other people played for the game playthoughs.
Impressions seem to agree it’s more 80%/20% split [closer to 13 sentinels aka heavy story game with occasional combat tacked on] which definitely isn’t the ratio for 3H or even TS. Let’s be real this is for VN fans not strategy game fans.
@FatWormBlowsASparky Not surprised by that. Lol. The game is long, addictive, and actually feels endless as well, for as much of a classic as it is. I’m preferring the third entry to the first about 6 hours in… but that could be because I’m largely avoiding side quests.
I have no idea why people are complaining or even mentioning ‘I don’t like visual novels’. The game was advertised as such. It’s always been known it’s a hefty split on the side of VN. People who don’t like Zelda don’t complain and say ‘I thought there’d be AK47s’. Can’t wait to play!
Really wish I could enjoy Digimon-branded games, since there are several that seem excellent.
@Arawn93 agree
@somnambulance
I’m terrible at finishing games, even the ones I love playing the most. I’d start Xenoblade 1, again on Switch if it ever goes on sale. Glad to hear the third one is great too!
@Arawn93 I've literally beat the game. Maybe it's closer to 30% but there is a sort of mandatory option to engage in battles for exp and other mons that can't be gotten any other way. there are also choices to be made throughout the game that do influence who makes it, but it's mass effect filling a bar style instead of something intuitive to the player. And honestly, I googled it, one is less deadly by far than the others (the one I did). It's honestly disappointing that it's clear which one of three choices won't get people killed and thats that.
It's actually really close to triangle story gameplay to story, which is to say it is very story heavy. I would say there's more gameplay in survive than ts since there is more than one battle a chapter, but the battles do take less time and the system is much, much less deep. Maybe its not comparable to fire emblem, but three houses I spent a lot of time at the school so it felt like I was doing that more than the battles.
@Xansies i've never watch an episode
@BananaMetallurgica like I said, it really doesn't matter. It's not set in the usual setting and they literally don't say the word digimon once. There's just a lot of similarities between the characters and they digimon partner. Basically it goes, what if we take this character, make him 10 times worse and then mess him up real bad. If you don't have that point of reference you still get to see a scared kid inevitably die by digimon (I mean, kids die no matter what, but I think there's one route where they just drop)
@Xansies ok. Thank you
Definitely a discount sale game.
If the game had English Voice Acting, I would be more inclined - I love listening to English dub of visual novels, but I just can't in Japanese. But glad to hear it is good!
@WallyWest Bummer to hear you're gonna write off a series you claim to love just because its VN. Sounds like a good opportunity to expand the horizons
Pros: It released
Cons: It released
This reads like the game is something I'd enjoy; I've recently learned I do like VNs and do like my strategy games. However, this unfortunately released way too close to XC3, so that takes priority for now.
Thank goodness it’s reviewed good, it would suck that after all that wait, it just turns out it was a sucky game,
@WallyWest You try 13 Sentinels? I'm not a big fan of VN games but it's got some other aspects mixed in. Loved it.
Its AMAZING!
X3 is taking most of my time rn but I've been playing this in bits on my lunch break.
@ItsATM I don't like VN games i find them really boring. I don't fault those that love them though and i'm glad this game exists for those people, more DM games released the better its just the type of game this is doesn't appeal to me. I'm happy sticking with the Cyber Sleuth games if i ever want a gaming DM fix.
@ArchRex It's a visual novel. It runs just fine.
An amazing Digimon story. I honestly enjoy it in a lot of ways more than Cyber Sleuth. People complain about Survive being a VN but at the very least, if you know that going in, then it's fine and one of the strongest digimon-related stories I've ever enjoyed.
Cyber Sleuth is supposed to be a turn-based RPG but has hours of and hours of unskippable, unspeedable text. There's even side quests where it's just running back-and-forth with no battles and just talking to NPCs about, "What's the sound of this thing in that wall?!" Because of that, I love the battles and collecting in Cyber Sleuth, but I could never play it again. I can at least see myself replaying Survive for different evolutions and story routes.
@batmabel I heard there were issues in the battles though.
That's good enough for me. I think me and my youngest will enjoy this. Shame about the negatives but there is more than enough tyere in the review content. Will download off the wishlis ASAP
@Sonos Some visual novels are over 300 hours, the very first video games were text adventures so they shouldn't be seperated
I hope the game does well, but once I found out it was a visual novel I decided to wait until it's $20 to get it. I still have two Utawarerumono games and AI: The Somnium Files to get around to at some point. I have to be in a pretty specific mood to want to sit and read a VN for hours.
Does have a long intro before you get into the game. So that something to be forewarned about. Otherwise the look and gameplay is very good.
It's a shame that the world still hasn't gained an appreciation for visual novels yet and most are dismissing this game merely because it is one. Lots of great stories and many of your favorite anime came from visual novels, including Steins;Gate, The School of Grisaia, and let's not forget, Fate/Stay Night. But oh well, just because you have to read, I guess.
I mean, I used to dismiss visual novels too because of all the texts I had to read, I get it, but I gave it a try to see what the fuss is about and discovered so many great stories with the awesome combination of visual sprites and soundtracks that improved the reading experience few audiobooks could replicate. It's just a shame many people gave them a look and just thought "Nah. Not worth my time."
I just hope that this underappreciated game/genre wouldn't discourage Bandai from making more Digimon visual novels in the future as that would be a shame. I think that the game made great use of the medium and made the story a lot more emotionally engaging and gripping with its multiple-route plot structure that visual novels often possess.
Anyway, Survive has proven to be not only a decent visual novel, but also a great love letter to fans of the first anime season, Digimon Adventure. I think it's a great deconstruction and a great companion piece/spiritual remake of the anime for the older audience who grew up with the anime, especially with how it makes you feel like you're in a real Digimon adventure where your choices matter in a life and death situation. Definitely worth a try if you're a big Digimon anime fan.
People dismissing this game because it's a Visual Novel is not surprising but it's disappointing all the same. Give Visual Novels a go, folks, you might be surprised by how engaging they can be.
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