Digimon Survive Test | GamersGlobal.de

teasers

Attention, Bandai’s latest Digimon game is not a classic role-playing game. Rather, you get a mix of visual novel and round tactics. Does the genre mix hack into the fan heart?

All screenshots and video scenes are from GamersGlobal

At the end of the nineties, the world was still fine for little Dennis. After school, everyone hurried home to share the adventures of Ash, Brock, Misty, Pikachu and all the other protagonists of Pokemon to pursue. There was nothing better to forget the stress from the penne. But in 1999, another series started to come to the fore and launch an all-out attack on my beloved pocket monsters. Of course I was totally against Digimon, I knew exactly which camp I belonged to. At least that’s what I always told myself. Because when I looked again, I realized that the digital monsters were somehow “more mature” and also cooler. They could even speak! I can still play the old theme song to this day live your dream sing along and have warm memories of those afternoons in front of the telly.

But it wasn’t just the TV series that drew me in front of the screen, various video games were also published on the basis of the license. After all, the cow has to be milked as long as it gives milk. First and foremost was my brother and I Digimon World unchallenged at the top on the original Playstation. For hours we explored the Tamagotchi principle and hunted for the best developments.

In the years that followed I started a Digimon game again and again and actually always enjoyed the JRPGs. I was all the more skeptical when I discovered the principle of Digimon Survive had understood. Danganronpa meets FireEmblem, a visual novel featuring turn-based battles. Can that go well? After about twelve hours of gameplay, I’ve read enough text, fought battles, and made enough decisions to adequately answer the question.

Again and again you have to decide how to proceed. However, this does not always affect the course of the story.

The animal gods must be crazy

As is typical of the genre, Digimon Survive attaches great importance to the story. If I had to express in percentage how large the visual novel portion is versus the round battle part, then I would describe the distribution as about 70-30. So you will spend an extremely large amount of time studying text boxes. Because there are many dialogue lines set to music, but the synchro is only available in Japanese. Overall, the developers at Bandai Namco did a very good job translating the German text.

The story itself is about the schoolboy Takuma, who has to go on a road trip with his classmates. Arriving at the old school, the place where they are staying, the group quickly gets bored, of course. So they decide to visit an old shrine where animal gods are said to live – so-called Kenomogami. But already on the way there, the events overturn and the hooligans are drawn into a kind of parallel world, where they also meet the saints. Or as we know them: Digimon.

The story of Digimon Survive leaves me quite ambivalent. On the one hand there are the characters, who are a bit too pale and clichéd for me overall. The cautious girl, the rebellious transferrer, the responsible high schooler. All in all not unsympathetic, but nothing more. However, the background story itself is more exciting and comes up with many mystery elements and surprisingly dark themes. However, it is told much too slowly, the pacing is typical for visual novels, but Bandai Namco overdoes it a bit for my taste with the careful approach. To sort things out for you: Only after more than one and a half hours do you see a Digimon for the first time, apart from the small prologue.

With the mobile phone camera you examine anomalies in the area and uncover them.

Crosshair Exploration

In the visual novel part you are not only busy reading texts. Again and again, the exploration of individual scenes is on the agenda. You use a kind of crosshair to select environmental objects and characters, if they are relevant to the progress of the story, then this will be shown to you very clearly. If the conversations are optional, then they are not completely pointless, because after all you learn more about the supporting characters. That doesn’t hide the fact that the exploration aspect of Digimon Survive is very simple in nature.

In the dialogues you can always make decisions. They don’t necessarily affect the course of the story, but they do change your relationship with the characters. This is reflected in help in the fights. This will give you better buffs and more bonuses. So you should always make sure that you are on good terms with all your companions. Occasionally you are free to do something on your own. Chat with your people, engage in free fights, the choice is yours. You have a game-specified number of actions that you can carry out; when they are used up, the story continues.

Your mobile phone provides a little bit more variety in the exploratory passages. This is as good as unusable due to the trip to the parallel world, but the camera still works. Through the lens, you visit scenes at predetermined points in the story and photograph anomalies. What is actually revealed in the distorted points is only revealed after the snap. This is not very demanding in terms of gameplay, but makes for a nice change.

At the end of each round, you choose the direction your Digimon is facing.

Classic round battles

In the skirmishes, Digimon Survive is based on round tactics titles such as Final Fantasy Tactics or Fire Emblem. You move your little monsters forward over square fields. How far they can progress is determined by their stats, as is turn order. Of course, the attacks also have clearly defined ranges, so planning ahead is a must.

In one turn you can change your position, attack, let your Digimon develop and also talk to opponents or people. The former offers the possibility of drawing them to your side in multiple-choice dialogues, the latter the buffs already mentioned.

If you have exhausted all actions and end the round with a monster, you can still determine the line of sight. This has a tactical value: if an opponent attacks you head-on, the damage is reduced. If you didn’t attack during the turn, you’ll even get a stronger shield.

So positioning is extremely important, also because your monsters help each other, they stand close: either they perform team attacks, encourage each other with buffs or even heal hit points or SP, which are necessary to perform special attacks. Of course, they come with various elements, so that you can paralyze, poison or set fire to your opponent.

Author: Dennis Hilla (GamersGlobal)

Opinion: Dennis Hilla

I can’t stress this enough: don’t expect RPGs if you want to play Digimon Survive! It’s about 70 percent visual novel, and the remaining 30 percent is turn-based combat. If you enjoyed the animes with the little beasts or are simply fans of this kind of storytelling, then you might well be lucky. However, I have to sell a few limitations here as well. And I’ve loved older Digimon games as well as the anime series and have been eagerly following titles like Danganropa. So I know what makes the individual parts.

The biggest issue Digimon Survive has for me is pacing. The story progresses painfully slowly, especially at the beginning, and is partly plagued by redundant dialogues. I don’t have to hear from Aoi, a policeman and my inner voice that we should turn around. Season stretching at its worst.

While the mix of visual novel and turn-based battles is a really good approach for me, it also suffers from the problems of sluggish progression. Because it’s not really motivating to level up my Digimon, equip them with items and research their developments in detail. I just fight too seldom and irregularly for that. No, Digimon Survive is not a hit. But as said before, if you have a soft spot for the monsters or the brand, then the game might be worth a look despite its shortcomings.

Digimon Survive personal computerswitchesXOnePS4