This review contains spoilers
Still working on beating this game, but I have enough to work with to give a fair review. Ultimately it's got some pretty big issues, though I'm still having a great time with it despite the problems.
The Good Stuff:
-The music is amazing and they really nail some of the audio beats with matching the energy of each area and especially the ExE Fusions in battle.
-Collecting residents for the town unlocks a ton of unique and different features - Sometimes new facilities pop up that allow you to interact with the game world in different ways, and also occasionally unlocks key mechanics.
-The NPC Digimon are really entertaining and very endearing. I found that I was more engaged by the sidequests and what the Digimon of this world were up to more so than any of the main characters.
-Move sets become very customizable later on and add variety to the combat.
The Neutral Stuff:
I have mixed feelings about this part, but the game doesn't do a great job at explaining how to use basic functions or what some things mean (for example, what any of the stat icons are. I ended up googling these when it became important for planning Digivolution paths).
On one hand, it feels like they intentionally want you to figure certain things out on your own, like how the first few times you raise your partners, digivolution is largely random and there is no way to specifically target one option if your partner meets the requirements for multiple. After getting access to the Digivolution Dojo, you can block off the paths you don't want.
I do like how this allows the player to get used to Digivolution and how it works without stressing about optimizing a Digivolution path right from the start, and to just enjoy the game until things slowly get more complex. Others might understandably find this frustrating though.
The Bad Stuff (There's a lot):
-The story is... not good. Very boring for the most part, some cool things happen, but this really could have been a lot better. Digimon in general has a TON of lore, lending depth and emotion to the worlds and characters in the series which Next Order just drops the ball on SO hard.
-The life cycle mechanic for your partner Digimon is really unique, but upon death, your progression in the game is effectively paused while you train and re-level your partners. They just aren't strong enough to immediately pick up where you left off at the time of their deaths.
-I also keep running into an issue with getting my partners all the way to mega, and they still aren't powerful enough to beat whichever boss is necessary to move on, meaning I have to let them die again, reincarnate with slightly better stats, and try again.
-There are things you can do to increase the effectiveness of training, but those are locked behind progression in the game or by purchasing better training equipment which is expensive - something that is fueled by another problem where money isn't collected quickly enough to keep up with your expenses, and is hard to accumulate at any point.
-Travel is tedious at all times. The game world thankfully isn't really large enough to get lost at any point. The problem is that most of the time, you're just hoofing it from one side of the map to the other - no quicker by-foot options like rideable mounts or even sprinting, just one running speed and it's SLOW. You do get the option to travel directly from the town to a specific area of your choosing eventually, but it is expensive (again, the money issue) and doesn't save that much time imo, so I just chose to walk most of the time anyways.
-An unfortunately huge part of the more difficult fights and bosses is just repeatedly throwing recovery items at your Digimon while you pray that they keep attacking opponents.
-The battle camera is AWFUL no matter which setting you choose.
-The game is VERY hard, even after switching to Easy mode. Enemy accuracy is definitely lowered on Easy, but it also feels like the difficulty changes how much HP your opponents have and not necessarily how hard they hit you. Easy mode makes a fight actually take a more reasonable amount of time instead of dragging on for minutes longer than each fight really needs to. The balance here definitely feels pretty off.
Conclusion:
I feel like I'm being generous by giving this game 3 full stars, but 2 1/2 feels too low with how much I'm actually loving it even considering the massive list of issues I could probably keep adding to.
Ultimately, I'm having a lot of fun and it feels really good to chill with it for an evening to decompress, so I would recommend giving it a try for those who like monster collecting games or anyone who grew up with Digimon like I did. Just meet the game on it's own terms and don't expect a riveting story.
The Good Stuff:
-The music is amazing and they really nail some of the audio beats with matching the energy of each area and especially the ExE Fusions in battle.
-Collecting residents for the town unlocks a ton of unique and different features - Sometimes new facilities pop up that allow you to interact with the game world in different ways, and also occasionally unlocks key mechanics.
-The NPC Digimon are really entertaining and very endearing. I found that I was more engaged by the sidequests and what the Digimon of this world were up to more so than any of the main characters.
-Move sets become very customizable later on and add variety to the combat.
The Neutral Stuff:
I have mixed feelings about this part, but the game doesn't do a great job at explaining how to use basic functions or what some things mean (for example, what any of the stat icons are. I ended up googling these when it became important for planning Digivolution paths).
On one hand, it feels like they intentionally want you to figure certain things out on your own, like how the first few times you raise your partners, digivolution is largely random and there is no way to specifically target one option if your partner meets the requirements for multiple. After getting access to the Digivolution Dojo, you can block off the paths you don't want.
I do like how this allows the player to get used to Digivolution and how it works without stressing about optimizing a Digivolution path right from the start, and to just enjoy the game until things slowly get more complex. Others might understandably find this frustrating though.
The Bad Stuff (There's a lot):
-The story is... not good. Very boring for the most part, some cool things happen, but this really could have been a lot better. Digimon in general has a TON of lore, lending depth and emotion to the worlds and characters in the series which Next Order just drops the ball on SO hard.
-The life cycle mechanic for your partner Digimon is really unique, but upon death, your progression in the game is effectively paused while you train and re-level your partners. They just aren't strong enough to immediately pick up where you left off at the time of their deaths.
-I also keep running into an issue with getting my partners all the way to mega, and they still aren't powerful enough to beat whichever boss is necessary to move on, meaning I have to let them die again, reincarnate with slightly better stats, and try again.
-There are things you can do to increase the effectiveness of training, but those are locked behind progression in the game or by purchasing better training equipment which is expensive - something that is fueled by another problem where money isn't collected quickly enough to keep up with your expenses, and is hard to accumulate at any point.
-Travel is tedious at all times. The game world thankfully isn't really large enough to get lost at any point. The problem is that most of the time, you're just hoofing it from one side of the map to the other - no quicker by-foot options like rideable mounts or even sprinting, just one running speed and it's SLOW. You do get the option to travel directly from the town to a specific area of your choosing eventually, but it is expensive (again, the money issue) and doesn't save that much time imo, so I just chose to walk most of the time anyways.
-An unfortunately huge part of the more difficult fights and bosses is just repeatedly throwing recovery items at your Digimon while you pray that they keep attacking opponents.
-The battle camera is AWFUL no matter which setting you choose.
-The game is VERY hard, even after switching to Easy mode. Enemy accuracy is definitely lowered on Easy, but it also feels like the difficulty changes how much HP your opponents have and not necessarily how hard they hit you. Easy mode makes a fight actually take a more reasonable amount of time instead of dragging on for minutes longer than each fight really needs to. The balance here definitely feels pretty off.
Conclusion:
I feel like I'm being generous by giving this game 3 full stars, but 2 1/2 feels too low with how much I'm actually loving it even considering the massive list of issues I could probably keep adding to.
Ultimately, I'm having a lot of fun and it feels really good to chill with it for an evening to decompress, so I would recommend giving it a try for those who like monster collecting games or anyone who grew up with Digimon like I did. Just meet the game on it's own terms and don't expect a riveting story.