Digimon Survive Review: A Story Anime Fans Should Approach With Caution
The Digimon franchise has come a long way over its two-decades-plus run so far, and there have been a number of major anime, movie, and video game releases in that time. Digimon Survive is the latest entry in this long-running franchise, but it feels incredibly different from any of the games that have come before. While the games have played around with either role-playing, monster training, or even arena fighting types of gameplay, this newest take on the franchise opts for a visual novel experience with a few bursts of tactical RPG battles. It's an experiment in pretty much every facet.
Looking back on the titles released over the years, it always feels like something was lacking from any particular game. It could have a fun battle system like seen in Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, but the story elements might be lacking. It might be the other way around instead with a fun concept at the heart of things like the classic Digimon World games, but a grind everywhere else. Unfortunately, that long-running pattern holds up here. Digimon Survive has a compelling story, but it has hiccups in terms of how that story is told. When it comes to marrying it all into a full experience, Digimon Survive is ultimately held back by its most attractive component.
If you have never had any experience with visual novel titles in the past, then Digimon Survive is certainly a good place to start. It's very active in its presentation, so while players are reading through multiple conversations between characters for long stretches of time, there's at least a compelling delivery in how it's all presented. Character profiles are given a bouncy type of look, and it may not be a lot but there is some animation to be had in the conversations. It helps when you're spending a lot of time looking at the same character art, and adds a layer of energy needed when you're several hours in.
Experiencing the storytelling is broken up into a few different types of modes. There are periods when you are directed to certain characters to move the story along, and there are free exploration periods where you get a set number of potential chances for conversation. These are important to the story as these are the best chances to build affinity with certain characters and get a high enough number, and their respective Digimon Partners then get the ability to evolve into the higher Champion and Ultimate stages. These conversations also feed into your own story path, too.
There are multiple ways the story can play out, and depending on your choices (which are broken into Moral, Wrathfulness, or Harmony paths) your central partner, Agumon, can evolve into different branching forms. The story also leads into notably different kinds of endings. The only trouble when selecting dialogue choices, however, is that once you figure out which path you want to chase, the choices can become inconsequential, as you only need to keep picking a certain path regardless of how it relates to each character.
Making matters even more confounding is the issue of choosing a particular dialogue option where your character will say something completely different than the choice would imply. For example, there's a section of the story where each of the children argue about food supply, and choosing one option sounded like you agreed with the plan only for Takuma, the player character, to complete disregard it and go with something else. It's not a common occurrence, but it's something that snowballs over the course of the experience.
Scattered throughout the visual novel stretches of the game are short bursts of tactical RPG battles. Digimon teams are set on a grid and move to try and land a well positioned attack. Hitting from the side or back deals more damage, but unfortunately, that's the limit of the strategy involved. Most battles are just trying to continue landing these attacks until the opponent is defeated. There are opportunities to engage in Free Battles which are the best way to quickly level up your Digimon and recruit new Digimon to your team. It's here where the cute Digimon art stands out, but that's the extent of the kinds of effects seen in the battles. Spark effects and attacks can look fairly similar depending on the type, but you can speed through battles by holding the X button.
Recruiting Digimon sounds like a fun tactic too, but that's only when it works in your favor. Much like what's seen in franchises like Shin Megami Tensei, recruiting Digimon to your team involves answering their prompts with specific answers to build an affinity. You only get a small percentage of a chance to recruit them (which lessens the higher level the Digimon is), and only one chance at that before the Digimon leaves the battle. That means you can play several Free Battles before even getting the chance to recruit a Digimon you're looking forward. Moving forward in the story also means you're locked away from certain Digimon too, so be sure to recruit what you want before moving on.
But as mentioned before, these battles are really only the spice to the rest of the experience. The main draw is the story told in the visual novel, and it's the most compelling story the series has had in a while. Reminiscent of the original anime series, Takuma and a cast of other young teens are pulled into a mysterious new world during their Summer Camp trip. And like many of the most well-beloved entries in the series, Digimon Survive is a much darker affair. There are consequences for certain choices, darker potential evolutions, and greater stakes for each of the characters overall.
The major drawback, however, is once again all of the smaller hiccups that snowball by the end of the experience. Multiple endings means many choices to explore, and while that's a fun idea in theory, that also means working through the longer and more drawn out chapters multiple times too. There are some chapters in the story that feel stretched out (such as the food debate expanding to a debate over whether the food they find will last long enough), and while it gets super fun towards the end, it takes a while to get to that point.
Digimon Survive really just gets in its own way. Fans of the anime will find it familiar, but will be able to appreciate what the extra layer of violence adds to it. Getting through it is the tougher ask. Dialogue options leading you away from where you want to go (and potentially disconnecting you to the characters), key battles being few and far in between, and asking you to jump back in multiple times despite all of that seems like rubbing salt in the wound for those who already had notable issues. It's a story fans will want to check out, but maybe not as many times as Digimon Survive wants.
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Digimon Survive is now available on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Nintendo Switch platforms. A review copy of the game was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review, and was reviewed on PlayStation 5.