Digimon Survive

Has a digimon fan, I loved this game. Has a visual novel fan, I did not. Has a tactical rpg fan, I also did not.

This game story is a digimon story, and I find that I don't have to say much more. It is emotional, beautiful and sometimes dark story. All characters have flaws and they grow with their partners and friends. All of them feel real, but the villains can be a bit goofy at times.
Very reminiscent of the first digimon adventure but bit more darker.

Now about the VN part. Since it is one I wanted to get all the endings. You have 4 ( 5 - bad ending ) endings -- Moral, Wrathfull, Harmony and Truthful. Good visual novel's have some type of chapter selection or a tree selection, so you don't have to replay what you already did to explore different outcomes. This games does not. So maybe save optimisation? No. Wheres why; Outside NG+, you can't get Truthful. And your choices in the game make no diference, other than agumon evolutions, UNTIL chapter 8. All choices will make a karma stat ( Moral, Wrathfulness, Harmony ) grow. On chapter 8, will get 3 choices. One is the bad ending and the other 2 are related to first and second higher stats. This will set the ending you get and also Agumon's mega evolution.
You can do some save optimisation if you just keep your karma stats fairly equal and save at the start of act 8. Then just increase 2 of the stats on that act by choosing the respective options, then go back to the save and get the other one. But this worsens the experience because you can't be picking the answer you want, so the immersion will be broken.
So, if you do your karma choices normally and if you save before chapter 8 big choice ( the game will warn you ) you'll be able to get 2 endings. If you want the other missing ending, you'll have to replay the game by doing 8 chapters of the same stuff, and go through all the battles and all. You have a skip function but still, is literally time wasted. Also 2 of the endings are also pretty similar; ending in the same notes -- just some stuff happens differently to different characters.
All these endings have also equal plot points, so the experience is not that different.
For the truthful ending, you'll have to do again a new playthrough but on NG+. After you finish the game the first time on one off the other 3 routes, you'll get an hint on what to do.
I feel this ending should be available at the start.

So basically, most choices don't matter, they are all mapped ( left = Moral, Up = Wrathfulness, right = Harmony ) and is extremely tedious to replay the game since nothing changes until 2/3 of the game.
Truthful ending is decent, and actually diverges a lot from the others post part 8. But until part 8 is basically the same story until that point, just some extra dialog options.

The Tactical rpg is underdeveloped and stale. You get 2 moves for all digimons and if you want more moves you can use held items but it is not worth because it is very easy and you have other type of held items that are stronger. You have a type trio ( Data > Vaccine > Virus > Data ) standard to most digimon games + elemental advantages that can be mostly ignored even in the toughest difficulty. The game will shower you with stat boost items ( = vitamins from pokemon games ) and your digimon will get way stronger than the enemy.

If you like digimon, the story is sure a love letter, and I do recommend this game.
If you want to play a VN or a TRPG, I'd say skip this one

On more miscellaneous stuff:
- The opening scene is gorgeous and stets the mood perfectly
- The Voice Acting is ridiculously good.
- The game's text has a few typos and errors.
- The game art style is very very charming.
- Characters have an OK amount of facial and body movements to express emotion ( not that matters much because the VA is, again, extremely good )
- The game OST is good but sadly a bit forgettable, aside some tracks. Kizuna and boss themes are the high points. Also the track that plays on sadder moments is very impactful.

To summarise, this is an amazing digimon story but the VN and TRPG elements are not the best.

Lets start by addressing the elephant in the room: this game is *not* a RPG. Is a full on visual novel with tactic rpg elements that help avoid stagnation between hours and hours of watching anime cutscenes. However, if you are willing to accept that, you are probably about to experience the best adaptation to videogames of the feeling that Digimon Adventure gave you as a kid.

The whole story of the game follows the same pacing, twist and turns and themes that made Digimon Adventure so great. The characters also have similar or directly the same conflicts that the kids in the TV show had, and, of course, the Digimon partners personalities complement them. However, the tone of this story is a much darker one than the 1998 anime, where the kids problems being solved by just "the power of friendship". Here the inner conflicts of the children can lead to very dark places to the point of making me ask "Am I playing a Digimon game?"

In fact, the feeling that this game gave me is a lot more in line with games from the franchise Shin Megami Tensei, in particular, SMT 3 - Nocturne and the Persona games. This game features a well written story and characters that will present different moral choices to the main character and will be the job of the player to decide what follow. As the game progresses the player will be able to interact with said characters and grow the relationship with them, making them perform better in battle or even allowing their Digimon partner to evolve. Sounds familiar right?

The decisions you take into the game will not only shape the ending you get from the 3 avaliable ones (actually, there are 4, but we will get to that later), but also determine what evolution line you will get for your Digimon partner. That choices also lead to different final evolutions for the other kids digimons, evoking the feeling that the digimons are creatures that resonate with their tamer heart instead of a "level 45 Charizard".

However, contrary to Shin Megami Tensei games where the combat can be a funny and even core part of the experience, in this game the combat felt underdeveloped. The battle system is a Tactic RPG one with a lot of simplifications that robs the genre from all its complexity. Your units in this battle system are the digimons, that usually would be the partners from the kids, but you can use any monster you recruited. In order to recruit them, you have to go to free battle mode and recruit them by answering a few questions and giving the "correct" answer.

The best thing about the battles is that they feel the best adaptation from the battles of the Anime show until now. Unlike previous games like the Cyber Sleuth games, here the Partner Digimons will have to evolve during battles and will spend SP to keep their evolved state. And not only that, as the cast has a pre defined set of Digimons they will unlock evolutions in the middle of the battle leading to moments where you expect "Brave Heart" to start playing in any moment. This narrative-focused battles however led to a disconect between the game and the story when using any of the recruited Digimons in battles (I mean, it is not funny starting a battle with all partner digimons in rookie stage and seeing Gallantmon just haning arround them).

If I had to say anything negative about this game is the way to unlock the 4th ending. In your first run you will have 3 endings depending of the moral choices you take along the game (and some unfortunate events will happen inevitably during the story), but, when you finish the game, the game prompts you telling that there is a new ending and a way to avoid those unfortunate events. I can forgive that for a 5-15 hours game where I can play it again in a few days, but for a 40 hours game is a bad design choice, and one that hurts the love letter to Digimon fans that this game is.

To summarize, if you are looking for any Digimon story that makes you feel again like those times as a kid watching adventure, but with a more darker tone: this is your game. If you want to play a "monster collection" game or anything with a fleshed out combat, play Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth or any of the Digimon RPGs. For me? I will probably play again this game in a few weeks and try to get the True Ending, as it really feels like a gift for all of us who loved watching Digimon on TV as kids.