Brief Summary
The video is a retrospective review of Digimon Survive, released a year prior. The author expresses their deep appreciation for the game, calling it their favorite Digimon video game and a standout story within the franchise. They discuss the game's unique blend of visual novel and tactical RPG elements, its dark and compelling narrative, and its fresh take on Digimon lore, viewing Digimon as modern Yokai sustained by human belief.
- Digimon Survive is the author's favorite Digimon game due to its story and gameplay.
- The game blends visual novel and tactical RPG elements.
- The narrative is dark, with character deaths impacting the player's choices.
- Digimon are portrayed as modern Yokai, sustained by human belief and digital interaction.
The author explains why they didn't immediately post a review after playing Digimon Survive, stating that they wanted to keep the experience personal. They reveal that Digimon Survive is their favorite Digimon video game and possibly their third or fourth favorite Digimon story overall, a significant statement considering the franchise's extensive history across various media. This preference is subjective, acknowledging that fans of monster-raising or JRPG gameplay may favor other Digimon titles like the World or Cyber Sleuth series.
The game's narrative is a nod to Digimon Adventure, featuring a group of kids lost on a summer trip and transported to a mysterious world. The characters mirror archetypes from the original Adventure series but are slightly older, allowing for a darker storyline where characters can die based on player choices. This creates a sense of weight and urgency in finding a way home. The New Game Plus mode provides additional context, world-building, and the ability to save characters who died in the first playthrough, enhancing the overall experience.
Digimon Survive handles evolution uniquely, making each transformation a significant event tied to the human character's growth and resolve. Unlike other games where evolution is a simple menu selection, Survive connects it to emotional beats and character development. The game cleverly kept the evolution paths of most Digimon secret before launch, creating a sense of wonder and excitement reminiscent of watching the original anime.
The tactical gameplay, while enjoyable, shows its limitations over time, particularly in the second playthrough. The author wishes for more thoughtful scenario design in the battles. However, the primary focus and strength of the game lie in its story.
The author praises Habu and team's interpretation of Digimon lore, which presents Digimon as modern versions of Japanese Yokai, beings beyond human understanding that have occasionally crossed over into the human world. This contrasts with other interpretations where Digimon are created by humans. Survive explores themes of modernity versus tradition, with the world of the "kogami" (Digimon) sustained by human belief and reverence. The decline of traditional worship at a shrine leads to the kogami world falling apart.
The game introduces a new way to sustain the kogami world through the internet, where rumors, imagination, and belief spread rapidly. A pivotal moment involves a blurry photo of a Digimon battle going viral, sparking curiosity and speculation about the kogami. This leads to a transformation of the kogami into digital beings, or Digimon, sustained by digital data and belief in the internet age. The term "Digimon" is only used in the final moments of the game, emphasizing this evolution.
The author expresses disappointment that Digimon Survive never received quality-of-life updates or expansions, noting issues with menu navigation and the absence of a promised PVP multiplayer mode. Despite a quiet launch and lack of pre-release reviews, the game exceeded expectations and became a favorite. The author hopes for a sequel that improves upon the original's UI and tactical battles while maintaining the high-quality storytelling. Even without a sequel, they are satisfied with Digimon Survive, considering it the best Digimon anime season they've had the pleasure of playing.
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Transcript
Full transcript of “An Honest Review Of Digimon Survive: One Year Later”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 it's been a year since Digimon survive released after a long quiet development and pre-release cycle the last time I really talked about this game on this channel was my first impressions after I played the first 10 hours where I said it was exceeding my expectations but after that I went dark and never published a follow-up video after beating survive now that we've hit the one year anniversary Mark I'd say it's about time I lay it all out give my honest review and Reflections on Digimon survive so off the bat why did I not post a follow-up video on Digimon survive after beating it last summer did I secretly hate it and fear backlash from survive fans did I quit halfway it's none of those things I did beat Digimon survive twice over and the truth is I enjoyed Digimon survive so much that after years of sharing my opinions on Digimon Adventure 2020 and ghost game publicly I kind of like the idea of having one modern Digimon project that was just for me something I didn't need to turn into content and talk about I haven't played every Digimon game ever
0:46 released but personally Digimon survive is my favorite Digimon video game and quite possibly my third or fourth favorite Digimon story across anime games the movies that's kind of a big statement obviously and it's incredibly subjective survive was overwhelmingly a visual novel with some Tac gameplay segments if you're a big fan of the monster raising games then of course your favorite Digimon game is probably one of the world titles and if you're a big jrpg fan one of the Cyber slth is probably your favorite fortunately for me I enjoy visual novels tactics games and I highly Value Story in the games I play so what survive ended up being was perfect for me survive story was very much a nod to Digimon Adventure with a band of kids becoming lost on a summer trip and Spirited Away to an unknown World they can't understand most of the kids fit the character archetypes of the 1999 Adventure cast except they were bumped up in age a few years years this seems to have given the storywriter some
1:31 slack to get real dark with this game having it so that most of the cast members could be killed off depending on your choices you felt the weight and the necessity of finding a way back home because day after day you are potentially losing friends in really dark and graphic Death Scenes some of these character deaths were forced on you for your first playthrough of the game and this could lead to some confusion over what you did wrong Googling whether character X could be saved but upon completing your first run through of the story New Game Plus opens up which in addition to giving a ton more context and World building in the third Act to the story it also gave you the ability to save characters who died in your first playthrough I found my second playthrough to be incredibly rewarding when I was able to save characters who had their stories cut short now getting to see them grow work through their issues become the best version of themselves which in turn let their Digimon Partners evolve into new forms that weren't accessible on the
2:17 first playthrough speaking of Evolutions I was so thrilled with the way that survive handled this making each monster evolution feel like an event the Digimon anime has always used dig Evolution as a metaphor or visualization of the human character's growth they accept something about themselves devote themselves to a cause determine who they want to be Etc and then their tiny monster friends grow into something much more powerful and inspiring past games be they Digimon games or even the mainline Pokemon RPGs don't give you those emotional beats in evolution you hit a certain level in Digimon cyber SLU then you bring your monster to the digil lab go through a menu and click the big button that says you've qualified for digivolution in survive on the other hand it would be the end of a long day of adventuring the Sun is setting the entire team is down and out facing off against a huge enemy but the human character has discovered a reason to live often through the help of
3:02 their Digimon partner who doubles as a guardian angel then through their combined dedication to a cause and to each other they achieved something great in the form of dig Evolution also like the old anime from our childhoods you never knew what monster form was coming next with Evolution survive was pretty smart and protective in their marketing so that prior to the game's launch we had no clue what the other kids Digimon would evolve into besides takuma's auman even watching ghost game last year and having access to the internet I knew what Evolutions were coming months before they premiered in the anime here though when minoru's Falon or saki's floramon was going to evolve I would basically jump out of my seat and watch in awe as the evolution sequence played out sometimes I was amazed sometimes I laughed out loud at the choices but I always felt a sense of wonder that I don't remember feeling since watching Digimon anime on Saturday mornings in the early 2000s the tactics gameplay admittedly began to show its cracks the
3:48 longer it went on especially in my second playthrough I wish there was more thoughtful scenario design for the various tactics battles but it seems to me that where most of the attention and passion went was into the story easily my favorite thing about survive for a franchise that over 20 years old it's important that Digimon changed things up now and then different writers and creative directors bring different ideas and interpretations of the source material for every project and I like that but in particular I've really adored Habu and team's take on Digimon and kimon ogami ever since I first heard his position generally Digimon writers seem to take one of two routes either humans created Digimon to some extent during the Advent of the digital era or Digimon and their parallel world the digital world have existed for much longer and humans only recently discovered them Habu prefers the the latter Digimon origin story and sees Digimon as modern versions of Japanese
4:33 Yokai mythical creatures beyond our understanding that humans have occasionally made contact with and crossed over with in ways that can't be explained we didn't create Digimon but in recent times through advancements in technology we accidentally stumbled into the means to see and interact with them survival is a story about modernity and tradition what we lose when we abandon tradition for 99% of the game nobody calls auman and the other is Digimon because they don't have that name yet survive is essentially a digimon origin story in its own universe where the incredibly small amount of people who have witnessed Digimon refer to them as kogami Beast gods in English the world of the kogami is sustained empowered through humans belief and reverence in it the Shrine in the woods where the kids get lost at the start of the game used to be a popular place of worship and this kept the kogami world thriving but because humans no longer visit the
5:18 shrine the world that taka and his friends get Spirited Away to is falling apart we can't go back in time and pretend all of the scientific advancements of the last several centuries never happened but in the game a new way to power and suain the world of the kogami is discovered through the internet through rumors imagination and belief being spread farther than ever courtesy of us all being online there's a chapter in the game where taka and agaman are sent back to the human world not unlike that part of the story with Tai going home in adventure 1999 they make the choice that they have to go back to save their friends in the Kon ogami world and make things right but during this chapter takuma and auman face off against aidon who followed them into the human world some random kids witnessed this and importantly take a blurry photo of the battle and upload it to social media media this has a Snowball Effect rumors and speculations spread about what this picture means and
6:04 it begins a new age of curiosity where for the first time in decades young people are thinking about the shrine the Konami the way it all came together in the end I was thrilled quote stories of that world and the Monsters who Liv there have caught on as urban legend it kind of feels like the start of a new Faith nowadays people's beliefs come in the form of digital information on the internet Digital Data will be the new form of belief that sustains the Konami world people may even begin to refer to it as the digital world as as I see it the beings of that world once regarded as local gods or kemon Noami will be transformed into digital beings in the internet age you could call them Digital Monsters or Digimon for short only in the final few minutes of Digimon survive you hear the word Digimon spoken by a character I thought it was such a fascinating message for the end of the game this balance of tradition and modernity with curiosity and belief
6:51 keeping Digimon and their world alive I could go on and on about survive but I don't want to spoil every beat in case you watch this video without playing or finishing it not to mention the story re ations that come from your additional playthroughs are really interesting but I don't want to talk about that even still a year later it's a shame the game never had any major quality of life updates or expansion there were issues I constantly faced with the menu navigation pressing the wrong buttons and getting annoyed and it's too bad that the PVP multiplayer component that was hinted at much earlier in the development never came to be there was all this weirdness when the game launched last year where media Outlets did not get review copies before launch often a sign that the publisher isn't confident in their game and doesn't want negative reviews out early because it may kill day one sales momentum when survive had no reviews the night before I was pretty confident the game was going to stink based on how quiet the launch was but to my surprise survive
7:37 was one of my favorite gaming moments last year and is now my favorite Digimon game of all time they actually opened themselves up for a possible sequel in one of the multiple endings and I would love to see this team get a second chance at this survive format with improved UI more variety and thoughtfulness in the tactics battles and the same great quality storytelling but even if we never get another survive Style game I'm very happy with what we did get Digimon survive is the best Digimon anime season I've ever had the pleasure of playing through let me know what you thought about the game by leaving a comment below subscribe if you haven't already and we may be able to get to 50K subscribers by the end of 2023 thanks for watching have a great week
