Games: Digimon Survive

Digimon Survive is a visual novel / tactical RPG that follows a typical Digimon storyline: a bunch of ordinary kids get swept into another world which is populated by strange creatures: Digimon (although in this game, they are referred to as Kemonogami, or beast gods). Each child gets a Digimon companion to fight with them, and they have to figure out why they are there and how to get home.

The game leans more toward the visual novel side – there is a lot of reading and clicking. I found the game enjoyable enough to keep me playing until the end of the game, which is the most important thing. But I thought the story was inflated. What I mean is that about 5 hours’ worth of actual story was drawn out over about 15 hours. For instance, there’d be segments of story (like where protagonist Takuma is exploring the area near the school and then enters the other world), which in an anime might have taken 5-10 minutes, but in the game lasted over an hour of real time.

There are lots of opportunities to have conversations with other characters and build your friendship (affinity) with them. The characters are reasonably likeable, but for the most part, have only one or two main personality traits and topics of conversation. For example, nearly every time you talk to Aoi, she talks about how she feels helpless and afraid, and you have to encourage her. Or if you talk to Kaito, he’ll go into his overprotective-big-brother mode and have an argument with his sister. Although all the characters make a few improvements as the story continues, there are too many near-identical conversations going on way too late in the story, making the conversations feel unrewarding and the character arcs limited.

The trouble is that these repetitive character moments take time – you often have to go to different locations on the map to initiate each unrewarding conversation; finally, you’ve used up all your ‘free’ turns, 20 minutes of real time have passed and you got no meaningful story out of it.

I also didn’t feel the story really ‘developed’ or had many twists and turns. There are a couple of surprising reveals, but mostly it’s just ‘survive each battle until you can eventually go back home’. The title of the game, Digimon Survive, is quite apt. Surviving is really the main focus of most of the game.

Gameplay: Tactical RPG elements

This was my first time playing a tactical RPG. I’m used to turn-based RPGs, but here, mobility is also a factor; where you choose to move your units (Digimon) and whether they are within range of which other allies/enemies, is also important. I gather that Digimon Survive is a pretty basic example of this genre, but for me as a newbie, it was a good level of difficulty and easy to make sense of.

The battling did get a bit old by the end, especially after numerous battles against the same type of enemy, and especially as I wasn’t able to evolve my characters (see below). You have limited options in terms of moves you can use and how you can customise your characters. The main thing I didn’t enjoy was trying to move my characters over long distances. You’d spend three or four rounds where you’d do nothing but try to get your characters physically closer to the enemy. And then you’d FINALLY strike a blow – and it would miss! Meaning you’d have to wait for, like, 10 characters to take their turns before you could use that character to try to hit your opponent a second time.

Later in the game, when I had a bit more choice in terms of which characters I deployed, mobility was my number one priority. I don’t care if a Digimon has great attacks if I’m going to spend the entire battle struggling to even get it in range of an enemy.

Gameplay: Affinity

When you speak to other characters in this game, you can build affinity with them by saying things they like. Your affinity affects battle, with high-affinity friends offering better support.

Whether you can get strong monsters or not is nearly wholly dependent on how much you raise your Affinity with other characters, but you don’t learn that until it’s too late. You can’t just play as you want to, but really have to make every conversation count (unless you don’t care if your final team is weak and disappointing). I didn’t really like that aspect of this game.

In my first three or four chapters, whenever I talked to characters, I wouldn’t always hit on the right conversational choice that would raise Affinity, but that was okay, because after all, you want to just have fun and choose the options you like, right? But once I realised that Affinity was affecting which of my friends’ Digimon were evolving, I started saving before every conversation option with every player. I also talked to the same characters over and over again. So for most of the game, I was optimising my Affinity choices. However, because I hadn’t optimised every encounter with the characters right from the beginning of the game, I ended up not having sufficient Affinity with even one friend to get their Digimon to Mega level.

I didn’t find this out until more than 20 hours of gameplay later, which was frustrating. You have the same Digimon partners in action for so long, you really look forward to when they can evolve and do something new. Late-game, Ultimate-level Digimon are just fodder, to be killed in one or two hits. I felt like it was fine to link gameplay elements to Affinity, but then don’t make the required Affinity so high unless you want people to save before every dialogue choice!

I believe the game is designed to really be played twice – after beating the game once, in a new game+, you can increase affinity more easily, and so you’re likely to get Mega Digimon on your second playthrough. But the game itself doesn’t really lend itself to a second playthrough, given that most of the game is spent clicking through a pre-set story. Of course, some story elements can and do change on a second playthrough, but it would still feel very repetitive to play a second time.

Gameplay: Karma

The dialogue options you choose can have one other effect: changing your ‘karma’. Certain decisions will net you points for ‘Moral’, ‘Harmony’ or ‘Wrathful’. In a very broad sense, you might say actions that are more direct and assertive could be ‘Wrathful’, those that are heroic and concerned about others, are ‘Moral’, and those that are more cautious and about not making waves, ‘Harmonious’. But there are plenty of exceptions to this.

This really only has two effects on gameplay:

1. At certain points in the story, your dominant karma category will affect the evolution of your partner Digimon. E.g. higher ‘Harmony’ points will give you a ‘Data’ type Digimon.

2. In chapter 8, the game will present you with pathways – you can take a Moral route, a Wrathful route, or a Harmony route, for the rest of the game. However, if you haven’t invested enough in a particular category of karma, you may not be given the option to play that route.

That said, if you haven’t Googled it, you will have no clue what will happen if you choose any one route over another, so you might just as well pick them at random anyway.

(Based on my experience, if you get to the decision point with balanced karma points (e.g. equal in multiple categories), the game just picks two choices for you. I did not get offered a ‘Harmony’ option, though my Harmony points were equal to my Moral points.)

Comments on the story (some spoilers ahead)

If I compare this game with some of the early Digimon anime, as well as other Switch games like Cyber Sleuth and Hacker’s Memory, this game has a darker tone to it. A lot of the focus is on how scared and uncertain the main characters are, and how they are just trying to survive one battle after another. There are actual character deaths and the overall tone is of a group of kids who are not having a great time.

When I played, I chose the ‘Moral’ option because I’d heard that was the ‘best’ and most satisfying ending. Having now read about the other two pathways, I agree it’s the best in terms of feeling like the ‘correct’ ending, the one you’re supposed to get. In this ending, you set your focus on saving Miyuki and defeating the Master, your principal opponent. Meanwhile, you minimise losses and end on an optimistic note. In this pathway, none of your teammates go crazy or die; instead, old friends are reunited, and you generally succeed in everything you attempt.

The main problem was that as a story, it felt like a very obvious straight line. Basically, you re-enter the ‘digital world’, fight lots of enemies, and eventually defeat the main antagonist. Nothing unexpected happens. They tried to have some reveals – around Gabumon and Renamon and their roles – but neither were really bombshells. If I read up on what happens in the Harmonious or Wrathful endings, they both seem to take less conventional turns, and the team suffer more along the way. I’m not sure I’d like those endings better, but they might be more interesting.

I was amused by the end of the final battle. There was a scene where every human, and every Digimon, lined up and made dramatic, ‘We’re going to win!’ type stands. Yet at that point in the battle, all of my friends’ Digimon had died (because I couldn’t evolve them to Megas). So… great stand, guys. Make your little dramatic speeches, and then go back into battle mode, where all of you disappear because you are already dead!! Luckily, Omegamon and Cherubimon (my one Free Mega) pulled off the final victory between them.

Final thoughts

I’ve probably sounded a bit negative in this review, but as I mentioned, though, the game did keep my interest enough to play until the very end. I enjoyed the gameplay and battles for the most part, and I was interested to see how the story would play out. In fact, this game has had largely positive reviews, and a lot of people I’ve heard from online have really enjoyed it and have played it through multiple times to see the different endings. Many of those who enjoy it cite the story as the main reason; they really connected to the story and characters. So if you enjoy stories set in the world of Digimon, and are happy to have a game that mostly just involves clicking through dialogue, this game is worth giving a try.