The market for monster-taming video games is huge, so much so that you can find just about anything from your average retro-fitted monster-taming RPGs to the more modern open-world games each with its own twist. DokeV is one such game that has yet to release but from what I’ve seen, mixes up the way you’re supposed to tame and battle with creatures. Just recently, even Pokémon, a game that I never thought would come out of its shell to change its formula, literally did just that. At some point we’ll even get a monster-taming game that also doubles up as Stardew Valley… but Digimon World: Next Order is not like any of those games.
Because what Digimon World: Next Order is, tends to be more complicated than that. So let me explain. Next Order is an old title… and that’s pretty much it. Well jokes aside, it’s a game that came out on a now-overlooked device from Sony called the Playstation Vita yet never reached the West in its intended device back in 2016. A year later though, it came out to the PlayStation 4 so hurray?! And in 2023, we’re finally getting it again but now for the PC and the Nintendo Switch.
A story that becomes forgettable after the Nth Generation
Next Order’s campaign is a bit of a slow burn. You start off much like Pokémon, choosing between a male or female character but unlike said game, Digimon short for Digital Monsters is digital and as such, its story transports you to a Digital World through a mysterious digivice. Once there, you meet two Digimon, WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon before eventually fighting a rampaging Machinedramon. After coming out victorious though, you end up meeting Jijimon who acts as the caretaker for Floatia, a small settlement that acts as your hub and base area that eventually grows larger as you progress. There, you get to learn a few things about the Digi World and the sudden rampages of Machinedramons so you offered to help in exchange for finding a way to go back to your own world.
And since we’re getting a seven-year-old title, I can’t really expect anything to blow my mind here. However, if you’re itching for that Digimon World experience back on the first Playstation, then this will scratch that just fine. Taking inspiration from Digimon World, Next Order brings you the entire package of what it has and does. The main story isn’t anything to write home about though considering how slow pace it can get from time to time while its gameplay loop bombs it even further. Because, unlike other monster-taming games, a Digimon only has a slightly longer lifespan than a butterfly, which is to say, not a lot. Similarly, Next Order also revolves around rebuilding Floatia and gathering friendly Digimon to populate it. While some Digimon only requires you to talk to them like Patamon on the town’s outskirts, others would ask for certain things like items or specific Digimon to be recruited first. This is one of the core elements of Next Order and its one that makes it a bit more challenging to handle as it requires you to find and recruit Digimon for your town before certain main story sequences start happening while you’re also trying to maximize your time before your Digimon reverts back to an egg.
In a way, you’re playing a life-sim game with your pets where you have to tend to their needs like food and hygiene while trying to get them stronger each generation through battles and training in the hopes of getting some sort of progress with your town’s upgrades and recruitment. Which isn’t exactly a terrible loop all things considered, albeit slow and repetitive. In fact, where Digimon shines as a game is its multi-threaded digivolution system. Unlike say, Pokémon where a Bulbasaur is already guaranteed to be an Ivysaur after a certain level has been reached, Digimon in Next Order digivolves into a few distinct paths depending on how you raise them thanks to each digivolution’s key requirements in stats or by using certain items to digivolve them that way. This makes the early progression and the process of going through them slightly more exciting as you can never really tell what they can grow into.
Battles and difficulty scaling is all over the place
The battle however is easily one of the less interesting bits of the gameplay. Digimon battles start off once you get in contact with hostile Digimon and unlike the turn-based battles or action-based ones that are more common to the genre, Next Order lets your Digimon run free in a circular map even without your input. They’ll close the gap when they’re going for an attack while also backing away every once in a while. You can however press a button to cheer for your Digimon which increases their order power while also allowing you to issue commands at the cost of said gauge. That in itself is fine however where it burns the bridge between fine and awful is its lack of merits to doing so. If you’re fighting a Digimon that’s the same level as Rookie to Rookie, stat gains are bearable. Fighting a higher level, however, gains better stats at the cost of being harder to beat and would often require you to spam HP and MP disks which don’t really look good in any way. A lower-level one, however, nets you negligible stats that I might as well spend my day in a training area. Outside of training Digimon though, your character also gains experience as a tamer and allows you to gain certain perks in most fields. Gaining an increase in stats as you digivolve a Digimon or increasing the inheritance level of stats per generation are probably two of the best ones to have to make sure your Digimon can tackle harder battles as you go further without having them at the very last legs of their lifespan.
It’s a game that was built for a much older device and it shows just that. Despite having some decent and fairly detailed-looking character models, its world and environment paints a very different picture altogether. It’s by no means awful but it does come out short with just interconnected areas of varying sizes where some areas are literally just a straight line to the next area while others are quite larger and offers more structure and purpose. And while it does have some day and night cycles, they come at you in an instant without having any major indicators in between each one. Once a certain time has been reached in your in-game clock it just magically turns the day into the sunset until it gets dark signalling its nighttime. However, what really bugs me here is that it doesn’t exactly give you the option to go back to the title screen or load a game without having to close the application first which is something that should at least be considered if you’re allowing up to three save files. And for a game that is often tied with a difficulty scaling that’s all over the place, you can hardly know if you’re able to beat certain optional content and encounters so a save and a quick reload could’ve saved a lot more time.
Conclusion
Digimon World: Next Order is honestly something that could’ve been better. Its story is slow and cumbersome to follow due to the constant need to get out of your way to spend time recruiting and upgrading your town often times I feel lost and would rather spend a day or two training my partners. Its combat doesn’t feel all that rewarding either and feels jankier than it is fun. Its only redeeming quality is the fact that you get to train monsters that has multiple possibilities on what they could become but even then, you could get almost that same enjoyment from its other main titles like the more recent Digimon Survive or even Digimon Story that has way better stories in comparison.
Grab your copy here https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-games/Digimon-World-Next-Order-2310671.html
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Microsoft Windows
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