Digimon Survives in Mysterious Ways

Just as Toei Animation has continued to make Digimon anime, accompanying video game adaptations have been published by Bandai Namco. But instead of simply being the kind of titles fans and the gaming audience expected, good RPGs with a focus on raising and battling digital monsters, they’ve also provided some worthwhile experiments.

For one, there was Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth. It was a title from a team that understood how Digimon fans from the 90s who came of age still cared about the series, and made a game aimed towards them. Cyber Sleuth included characters and stories reminiscent of Atlus’ Shin Megami Tensei and Persona titles, and had Suzuhito Yasuda on board for the character designs, who previously provided artwork for the Devil Survivor series. It did well, which led to the release of Digimon City: Cyber Sleuth Hacker’s Memory, a sort of blend between a sequel and an expansion.

Heck, Toei even got in on this themselves with Digimon Adventure tri, a series of movies which reunited the original cast from the first two Digimon Adventure installments for their teenage adventures. It’s a pity the movies have narrative and pacing issues, but the nostalgia factor has been worthwhile for some watchers.

Now, Bandai Namco is working on another semi-risky gaming experiment through Digimon Survive, which will fuse two genres not commonly associated with the series. In its story, several boys and girls will suddenly be lost in an unfamiliar world, and they’ll have to befriend and fight with the familiar digital monsters until they find a way out. The main character here will be Takuma Momotsuka, a second-year middle school student transported to the mysterious world while at camp. He’ll first team up with Agumon, essentially the Digimon series’ mascot, though will befriend others down the line.

Digimon Survive is risky due to the genres involved, as the game will include elements from point and click adventure games and strategy RPGs. Whenanyone thinks of a potential genre for a new Digimon game on a console, they think it could be an RPG or action game, or a fusion of the two. Even the title could have made anyone think this was some kind of Digimon battling game, or –dare I say — battle royale game, before it was detailed.

In fact, several fans reacted confusingly when they first heard the exploration would have a point and click presentation, and no full 3D exploration. They were hoping it was a mistranslation when early details were provided, but this is indeed the case. It will be different, but it could be a rewarding experience given the solid ideas it has.

In another feature reminiscent of a visual novel, players will have to make choices during dialogue sections at certain points. The decision chosen will determine how certain aspects of the story develop and the Digivolutions, though current details don’t delve into precisely how heavy an effect this will have on progression.

The SRPG element makes this project a risk due to how scarce the genre has become among Japanese developers. There was an era where several of them were being released at a time, but some genres lose popularity eventually, and fate came for SRPGs. They’re still popular among a small audience in western territories, as shown through how recent Disgaea games like Disgaea 5 Complete from Nippon Ichi Software and NIS America have performed better outside Japan.

The battles will involve players moving their Digimon around the field to gain an advantage in attacking other Digimon, to eventually whittle down their numbers and defeat them, similar to other SRPGs. Unlike them, though, performing actions requires expending energy, and using it efficiently could be the key to not getting annihilated depending on the difficulty. The energy system could involve serious strategy, considering Digivolutions will also require its usage.

Digimon Survive is due for a release in Japan sometime next year for PlayStation 4 and Switch. Of course, there’s no confirmation of a western release yet, but there’s a good chance it could make its way outside Japan thanks to the success of the last several Digimon games. There are several Digimon fans from the 90s who found efforts to lure them back through Cyber Sleuth and Adventure tri appealing, so Bandai Namco likely feels there’s a big enough crowd to market this game to, despite this game not being similar to those works.

Meanwhile, Bandai Namco went out of their way to clarify how this isn’t the new Digimon Story title producer Kazumasa Hibu teased in December last year. That game could be a successor to the Cyber Sleuth games, since both installments were successful enough that they likely want to keep that good thing going.