Save the digital world again in Digimon World: Next Order (PS4 Review)

Strap on your Digivices and pick your favorite digital monsters in Digimon World: Next Order since it’s up to you to save the digital world again. You will have to raise, train, feed, and care for your Digimon partners if you hope to stand a chance. Through countless battles across the many biomes of the world, you will meet with many other Digimon both friendly and not so friendly. Your fate is tied to the destiny of the Digital world so it’s either save it or perish with it.

Gameplay/Story

It all starts out with the main character being sucked into the digital realm to meet his/her partners. The reunion is soon interrupted by a Machinedramon. After the altercation you and your partners are transported into the digital world, only they have regressed back into Digieggs. From here you can choose which eggs to hatch from for your partners to determine their starting point.

After a short introduction from a wise Digimon Jijimon, you learn that cataclysmic events have started to rampage the world and caused many of its inhabitants to scatter to far off areas. Convincing them to rejoin the village is key and will increase your chances by supporting you with materials, items, and other bonuses.

Throughout your travels, various Digimon will help you out willingly while others will require some convincing either by bringing them items, testing your strength, or fulfilling some other type of request. Combat is a major portion of the game as to be expected. Your Digimon partners will perform autonomously in combat based on their battle style. Your options in battle will be limited early on to basic ability skills. These can be expanded by leveling up your battle skill tree on your actual character. You can also command your partners using order points to issue specific attack commands to your partners including their special attacks such as Wargreymons Terra Force or MagnaAngemons Heavens gate.

Saving the digital world will be harder than it sounds and not because of plot twists and other reasons that usually come from the later portions of games. Digimon constantly hits the players with some steep difficulty curves that are higher than the player would normally expect. For example throughout chapter one you are required to fight multiple Machinedramon and each time you do they seem to get exponentially stronger even with a few of the fights being only 5-10 minutes apart. This also brings up my biggest issue within Digimon and that gauging your opponents strengths is not intuitive at all. Monsters on the map will have a level next to their head but nothing will tell you what that means when compared to your Digimon since they don’t have levels. Sometimes the levels can even be misleading depending on the stage of Digivolution. I was easily able to take out certain Digimon at level 26 in one zone, but another zone with level 14 Digimon wiped my party in just 3 or 4 hits.

Highlights

Fans of the first Digimon PlayStation games will be familiar with the format for raising Digimon in Next Order. Instead of gaining EXP from battles to level up, they will instead gain bonuses to their parameters such as HP, MP, STR, WIS, SPD, and STA. These gains are pretty minimal but can add up after enough battles and can be further increased by leveling up a particular skill tree on your character. The most efficient way to increase their parameters is by training in the gym. Each training session lasts one hour (in-game) and increases fatigue which can also be recovered by resting for an hour. Time is a very important since Digimon have limited lifespans before they must be reborn as a Digi-egg. They do pass on certain stats based on their previous forms parameters. Lifespans can be increased by taking care of your Digimon properly such as preventing sickness, bonding with them, feeding them rare foods, and learning certain skills. There are plenty of Digimon to train and it’s fun to try out new forms which are based on which stats you have raised on each partner. Many of these forms will be unavailable until you have gone through multiple reincarnations and acquired certain upgrades, but once you have access to more options, it’s fun to swap which Digimon your raising.

There is also a lot of sidequests that will pop up as you progress, many of which will enhance your village. The village is also a big portion of the game. As the prosperity rating rises more resources become available such as a hospital, better gyms, fast travel, storage for excess items, and even a colosseum. These all require specific Digimon to be found and can be further enhanced by gathering materials while outside the village which refresh daily. Digimon also has a lot of freedom for exploration and never really holds your hand, which is a big plus for those who like to explore. Certain zones can be reached earlier than you should where you can gather higher quality items and materials. Greater rewards come with greater risks, but partners falling in battle can lead to illness or injuries which can shorten your Digimon’s lifespans.

Final Reaction

Overall Digimon World: Next Order is a good RPG that harkens back to the days of the original Digimon World in terms of difficulty, depth, and variety. They have fixed a lot of things from the original games and graphically it’s the best it’s ever been, but it still has a few more Digivolutions to go before it reaches its top form. Casual fans may be turned off by the difficulty curves and lack of hand-holding, but the truly devoted and hardcore Digimon fanbase will have plenty of content to sink their teeth into.

Rating: 3.5/5 Atoms