Digimon World: Next Order Review

Digimon World: Next Order is a Digimon role-playing video game published by Bandai Namco Entertainment for the PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4.

The story is about a kid getting sucked into the Digiworld due to a virus attack. As the kid is cornered by a “Virus” (Dark Metal Greymon), two big Digimons (“War Greymon” and “Metal Garurumon”) showed up to help. Knowing that they are no match for the virus, they agreed to combine to a bigger Digimon known to as “Omegamon.” After the battle, all three Digimons died and was reborn to a Fresh Digimon, and now the grinding begins.

This game mainly focuses on training, managing, evolving and combining your 2 Digimons. That’s right! If taking care of 1 Digimon isn’t hard enough, as the chosen hero of the game you are rewarded with 2 Digimons to manage, for free of charge.

But wait there’s more. Training your pet Digimon is a pre-requisite for evolution, and training in this game needs a certain type of skill; something that most people don’t have, and that is…. TIMING! That’s right, timing. They have skipped the training montages and turned it into a mini game of roulette. After choosing on what stats you want to train for your partners, the shuffling begins. ALWAYS REMEMBER TO CHOOSE THE ICONS ON THE ROULETTE (new icons will be added as a bonus depending on their mood, diet and situational events)

When you feel confident about your partner’s strength, it’s time to test it out on the field. Battling in this game is… “It’s something.” It doesn’t feel like any regular turnbased RPG. It’s just like watching a cock fight, while cheering on the side and healing your Digimon’s HP when it drops.

Earning Order Points from all that cheering allows you to spend for trained attacks, but always make sure that your partners are in range.

Defending, on the other hand, is a skill that can be learned by the tamer, not the Digimon.

At the end of the day, your partners will get tired, sleepy, sickly and hungry from training, fighting and living. But not to worry, in this game Bandai always reminds us the meaning of life… which is death (God bless them). Yes, your Digimon dies in this game, not from battle, but from aging (Apparently even digital monsters have a certain lifespan.)

In conclusion, Digimon World: Next Order is a game made for the Digi-fans who dreamt on taking care their own Digimon and raising them to become the very best, and for people who like mind-numbing grinding, training for hours and reaching the point of death(just like one of the essence of bushido).

It really bothers me that the developers made this game with conditions such as pooping, eating and dying, while forgetting one thing: that they are DIGITAL. It’s even in their name. Yes, programs can be damaged and deleted, but not die from old age. I love Digimon as much as the next guy, but dying takes away the enjoyment of bonding and progressing with your Digimon, making the game just a big teeter-totter of grinding, choosing priorities over training, fighting, pooping, finding food and story progression. Even after getting good strong partners, knowing that they have a short lifespan makes it a shallow satisfaction.

Here’s an idea, instead of dying why not make the Digimon upgradable when they reached a certain level of strength, just like an upgrade?