Digimon Survive is a new entry alongside the Digimon Story and Digimon World subfranchise that features a unique blend of game mechanics. Unlike Digimon World's unique Tamagotchi-like gameplay or the more linear JRPG style of the Digimon Story series, Digimon Survive will have its own battle system, as well as a unique way of progressing story. It mixes old-school Tactical RPG mechanics in its battle system, similar to the Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics series, alongside a visual novel aspect for story progression. The game also features branching story choices that will dictate certain Digimon's Digivolution paths as well as whether certain characters 'survive' throughout the story or not.

Digimon Survive will exclusively use 2D images for its characters and Digimon, unlike the Digimon World and Digimon Story series which feature a robust roster of beautifully rendered 3D models. This isn't to say that the 2D artwork of Digimon Survive won't measure up to the franchise standard but, in fact, quite the opposite. From what was shown so far, the visuals in battle capture the likeness of the Digimon beautifully well, and the artwork/animations used for the visual novel aspect are of very high quality and ambiance.

Despite the jump from larger 3D files to smaller 2D files, the roster of available Digimon in Digimon Survive is comparatively quite small at around 100 confirmed by the developer. The smaller roster and the overall gameplay package for Digimon Survive are surely unique, though in any other franchise it probably wouldn't work.

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Digimon Survive's Unique Presentation

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In Digimon Survive, players will be met with different gameplay elements at various points throughout the game. The game presents the player with a number of different options such as Drama Parts, Search Action, Free Action, and Free Battle. Drama Parts will be how the player proceeds with the story as the game will go through a visual novel style to progress. In other Digimon games such as the narrative-heavy Digimon Story series, they progress through 3D rendered cutscenes much like many RPGs of this era. The decision to go with a visual novel style, alongside beautifully rendered animated images, makes Digimon Survive feel more like an immersive anime in that regard. Fans might be taken aback by this, but may quickly find that it works well as a large portion of Digimon fans were fans of the anime first.

Progressing through the Drama Parts aspect of gameplay, players will eventually be presented with Search Action and Free Action. Search Action will find the player looking for a way to survive in some form of crisis. This could be where players have to make a branching choice that influences the Digivolution of their Digimon or the fate of other characters such as a Leomon's survival.

Unlike the popular and long-lasting Digimon World games where a player's perished partner can be reborn in its infancy stage, it seems choices that affect the survival outcome of the cast of characters will be permanent in Digimon Survive. This would come from the narrative aspect of the game as it seems battles won't take this harsh of an approach, even if similar tactical battle games such as Fire Emblem have a permanent character death system in place.

The Free Action option will see the player's ensemble disperse to different areas on the map, allowing the player to move to whomever they wish and have conversations with them in a limited fashion. This will open up new insight on any character such as the problems they may be facing, further deepening their relationships. It would be interesting if players had the option to worsen their relationships with their friends with branching dialogue options, opening up possibly more dark outcomes as Digimon Survive is supposedly darker than others in the franchise, though it is still too early to say. Free Action also allows the player to enter Free Battle areas on the map, which will let players train their Digimon and gather items outside of the main story.

The option to pick an area on the map to do battle certainly appeals to a more casual gaming audience, as many narrative-driven RPG games require more action-oriented input from the player. This approach of sitting back and letting the game progress as the player sees fit is certainly new for the Digimon franchise and could be a breath of fresh air with the other two games of the franchise still continuing to put out titles. It could be the closest fans will have to experience the Digimon anime up close and personal.

Digimon Survive is currently in development for PC, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One.

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