Digimon has had a history of somehow not turning out very good games. But every so often you get a really good game, and that's what we got with Digimon Survive. This game is a strategy RPG with visual novel elements too it. The idea is some kids get sucked into a strange world and find creatures that turn out to be their partners, and the bonds between them strengthen these creatures. The goal is to survive and not become a sacrifice to the mysterious Master. I will say the game does have a total of five endings, one of which is a true ending you can reach on a second play-through. I've already done a post about my thoughts on True Endings, so I'll leave that here if you are interested.
One thing I want to say is it feels like this is a group of 15-16-year-olds, even though they are only actually 12-13. Once I realized their actual ages it was a bit annoying, but it's not something you notice on the actual play-through. Overall the entire cast of characters is pretty well written. You get a lot of fun interactions between them, some fun points of levity, and a lot of really serious themes. Something you should know is this can get a lot darker than many of the other Digimon properties. Some of the characters here can die, and at times it's gruesome and violent.
I will say I am bothered by the lack of consistency in regard to who lives and dies. By that I mean there are different sets of standards. Some are based on your Affinity with them, something you can build based on choices, while others are based on which ending route you end up taking. Not something I think is a big hit against the game, but that kind of covers all of my issues with the game. None of the game's problems are big, but there are a handful like this that do feel as if they are adding up. Another of which is some obvious localization errors where a couple of characters keep having their gender changed, or this bit of hilarity.
There is a fair bit of customization in your party setup as well, though it is frustrating when the game is vastly inconsistent on the party size during battle. Sometimes you get only three open slots for party members, sometimes six. I won't go into the main differences between Free Digimon you can recruit and your Partner Digimon, but regardless you can equip two items to each one. Some items grant buffs or resistances, and others can give your Digimon additional skills to use in addition to the ones they get normally. Beyond that, it's not the most expansive system. All the effects are the kind of things you expect from the genre, so you aren't going to be blown away by some unique aspect. Of course, you don't need to do anything new and exciting so long as you do it well, and Digimon Survive accomplishes that. With the main characters each getting gone 'Talk' action to boost any partner Digimon in some way does a lot to help give the game its own identity as well.
It's a lot less grindy than other Digimon games as well. Since DNA digivovling isn't a thing, you upgrade free Digimon with Tablets you find, and Partner Digimon evolves based on Affinity, or in the case of the lead character your Karma path and story. Once you realize any Karma path question places the paths for Wrathfulness, Moral, and Harmony in the same spots each time, you can pretty much dictate the path of your main character's Digimon without issue. Just note that each ending is also tied to a Karma path.
Where the game sells me on the first play-through was how violent it could get. It is a game about trying to survive a messed-up situation and seeing how gruesome the deaths can get, or at times how sudden and out of nowhere they can feel, really does wonders for the atmosphere of the game. It helps the game does a good job at getting you to care about most characters pretty quickly, the two that always die on the first play-through being an exception (They are a lot better on the second run though). It makes the deaths hit that much harder since it's not just people you barely know or care about.
There are some other issues with the game, like the fairly frequent frame rate slowdowns on the more crowded maps. As well as some odd perspective issues that can make it hard to judge where exactly enemies are on the map, though taking a moment and rotating the camera around can fix that fairly quickly. As mentioned before, none of them are big enough on their own to detract, but there are enough little things that do drag the experience down a bit overall.
Regardless, this is one of the funner games I've played this year. I've always thought the premise of Digimon could make for a variety of great games, something the IP hasn't been the best at delivering on. It has a lot of small things dragging it down, but with some overall solid gameplay and a great atmosphere, the positives more than outweigh them. It's worth it for fans of SRPGs and anyone interested at all in Digimon.
