Was Digimon World Next Order Worth It?

Your digi-destiny starts today! Go save the digital world (again)! Was Digimon World Next Order Worth It?

Background

The eternal second fiddle to Pokemon has always leaned into the monster-raising genre. Both series have their layers of complexity: for Pokemon, it’s mechanics like breeding, Effort Values, and Individual Values. However, while Pokemon assumes that your critter will still be alive at the end of the day, Digimon is not so generous. Despite the fact that critters in both series can be transmuted into data, it’s not unusual for Digimon to simply die.

What does Digimon World Next Order do well?

Going into this game does capture the feeling of being a Digimon tamer. The Digimon do their own thing in battle for the most part, but you can give specific commands, so it feels more like you’re directing a pair of living creatures. It’s a departure from some of the more common monster raising battle systems, but it works well.

What could Digimon World Next Order do better?

The general gameplay loop is camping out at one of the grinding spots (or gym), doing encounters to crank up your stats. You’ll then rush through some story content before your mon’s lifespan runs out, and then it’s right back at it. If you didn’t grind efficiently enough to avoid getting stat checked by the next story beat, then you get to do it again.

When it comes to training, don’t think that you can just button mash your way through the gym sessions. If you do, inevitably your Digimon will simply shit itself in the gym because you didn’t see the potty popup in between the button prompts. Enough of those accidents and your mon will evolve into Sukamon, the sentient fecal mon.

Imagine going on a road trip with a small child who needs to go to the bathroom constantly. This is the Digimon World Next Order experience. There are also some occasional bugs and framerate drops.

The worst part is that some of the mechanics like the bathroom breaks and the lifespan are simply an early game tax. Later on, there are ways to mitigate both of these issues, but until you reach Mega level, you’re going to need to carry some porta-potties.

Was Digimon World Next Order fun?

Seeing your Digimon evolve is exciting the first few times, and there can be a sense of accomplishment in finally getting that maxed-out uber mon. There’s some randomness to the evolutions, but you can block off parts of the evolution tree to direct your mon to a desired result. However, the overall upkeep involved is a pain in the ass, and this game can be best characterized as frustrating.

It’s especially odd to see that they included a new difficulty option for the Switch port, but no real quality of life features to make the gameplay more tolerable. Why isn’t there an option to turn off the potty breaks or aging?

Is Digimon World Next Order good value?

In this game’s case, a lot of your playtime is going to be spent reliving the growth cycle over and over. There are over 200 Digimon, and you can only carry two at a time, so prepare to go through the raising cycle a lot in order to fill out the field guide. You can certainly get your money’s worth if you enjoy the grind, but I wouldn’t wish it upon you.

Who is this game for?

This game is for people who don’t have pets or children and wonder “am I the parenting type? Do I have it in me to take care of another living creature?” If you have to ask yourself that, I suggest getting a plant over this game.

Was Digimon World Next Order worth it?

Next Order had a lot of potential, but poor, outdated design choices kept it from digivolving to its true form. There are good Digimon games out there, such as Cyber Sleuth and Hacker’s Memory, but this title is tedious and I wouldn’t recommend it to even the most digi-diehards. Arguably if you just want the raising experience, you can pick up one of the virtual pets instead.

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