Remember Digimon Dawn/Dusk? I played and finished it over 12~13 years ago with my totally legit and real DS and man, even with super fast-forward, I distinctively remember how SLOW everything moved-- I'm not talking about the battles, I'm talking about progress. I don't know who decided that Digimon games needed to be so different than Pokémon because... yeah, I felt the same sluggish progress here in Next Order.

Here's the thing, the game is a love letter to Digimon World 1, a game I tried to play multiple times as a child but I couldn't figure out what to do due to not speaking English, but now as an adult I see how great that game really is with its concept being such a breath of fresh air in terms of 'monster collecting', especially at the time with the Digimon asking for food, needing to use the bathroom and training specific attributes in order to evolve them into something that isn't a Numemon or a Sukamon. Now the issue with Next Order is that it tries to emulate how DW1 felt but... it doesn't do a very good job.


The game starts already giving a preview of the battle system, where you can order your guys around and have a little bit of authority over the battle with it, but the main problem is how every move has a super slow wind-up motion that is grating after a hundred battles or so. Oh the game also teaches you about ExE, a cross evolution with your two partners into a bigger and better Digimon that... well, you'll only use it again waaaaaaay later in the game. I almost forgot this existed until I saw the ExE letters flashing when my Digis reached Mega 10 hours or so into the game. Yeah, the tutorial is all over the place.

Eventually you end up in Floatia with Jijimon again being the 'guide' to how the city system works! It's a real cool concept that felt a bit undercooked with some of its very important upgrades being especially super late in the story, but I digress. The point here is that you need to recruit other Digimons to help enhance and improve the city, so we can save the Digital world! Okey-dokey, that seems simple enough, right? Yeah... about that-- in theory it is but the GRINDING the game wants you to do is a product of its time. A 2016 original release game for the PS freaking VITA and then PS4 a year later with its semi-open world and MMORPG design... including its terrible fetch quest and slow walking speed through the very well crafted maps; the maps are gorgeous! I love how beautiful everything is, and the music is very good too, even if it's a tad repetitive after a while grinding on the same map. Just beware of your Tamer yelling during battles and turn the volume down.

Again, I don't know who decided it was a good idea to hinder the player so much. You can extract materials from the ground! Cool, you have to wait for your character to stop and pick it up EVERY TIME. These materials only come in handy 2~3h into the game once you find Veemon and manage to recruit him, because Digimons will only have a quest for you once you've checked some marks so their questline can be accessed. It is a drag, it truly is-- the difficulty is ridiculous and I recommend playing it on the easiest one just so you can progress faster, the only thing it changes is how tanky and powerful the enemies are as far as I know so don't ego it, trust me, it's not worth it.


Well my friends, the only reason this is a positive review is because there are MODS for this game! YES! MODS!

Thankfully some beautiful creatures made mods that hugely improve the grinding and quality of life of Next Order. I used:

• Fast Pickup (so you don't stop and bend down to pick up items-- helping your tamer not damage their lumbar!)
  
• One Hit Resources (pick everything up without having to click on the same place several times)
  
• Battle Stats Multipliers (speed up the grind)
  
• Show Hidden Parameters
  
• Inventory Expander (cap it at 9999, don't go to 20000 like I did because every time you use the tent, your game will crash)
  
• Field Camera Config Exposer
  
• CriBindDir (extra mod tool for some stuff to work)
  
• Material World (so you don't need to grind materials for HOURS)
  
• Always Running (it makes the fetch quests more bearable plus you can run from hostile mons much easier)
  
• Descriptive Resources
  
• Faster Tamer Skill Gain (max your digi life expectancy first if you don't want them to die so early)
  
• Instant Care Menu (prob my favourite just for how fast it really is)
  
• Uncapped Stats (it trivializes the end-game)
  
• See All Items
  
• Life Manager (BETA)

Their descriptions are on their mod page on Nexus and it's really easy to install everything, and I only recommend this slog of a game so it doesn't waste your time too much because guess what? Your time will be wasted regardless, that's how Next Order is, it tries to be a nuisance with a lot of walking around and overcomplicates the simple stuff a ton.

The pacing of the game is terrible. The first chapter is by far the longest one with you figuring out a lot as you go. Just explore, that's it. Recruit everyone you can find, read what they have to say in the city so you get to know the how-tos of the system.
My suggestion is to not low-ball the Tentomon selling stuff, just buy his shid so he can move into the city; make sure to help Wormmon for the fishing rod! Try your hand at fishing until you get a Digicarp, it'll make things easier when you find a very famous yellow bipedal fox and oh, Greymon lends you a tent once you help him too-- it'll make it better to not having to auto-pilot back to Floatia every time. Also, Birdramon is a must so get her on board, then Biyomon and every time you use Birdramon to fast travel 5 times, talk to Biyomon so she gifts you 5 auto-pilots; those bits are precious early game and them auto-pilots are EXPENSIVE.

My biggest issue is the builder... man, you can ONLY BUILD ONE GOSHDARN PLACE AT ONCE! It doesn't matter if you upgrade the builder itself, it'll always be ONLY ONE and that makes progressing the city upgrades so much slower! It's genuinely my biggest gripe with this game above everything else.

Ah, your Digimons have needs here too, mainly eating and shidding. If you battle too much they will become fatigued, which then you can help by giving them watery meals ONLY WHEN THEY'RE HUNGRY, otherwise tent up or go back to the Training Dojo and let em rest with Gigimon (and later on Angemon).
When the Digis reach Mega they simply get constipated-- they don't shid anymore, but still get as many Portable Toilets because you will need it when they die. Yeah, they will die and be reborn into Digieggs... it's a whole mood, not the best kind either, it just sucks because if they die when you're in the middle of a story quest, like it happened to me, I had to stop everything I was doing to boost my guys up again to at least CHAMPION to face the boss. Yeah, I don't feel bad for using Battle Stats Multiplier anymore.


Digimon World Next Order helped scratch that Digimon itch I was having but I have to admit I forced myself to continue playing and only 100% it with mods, also because there's an end-game quest with Emperor/KaiserGreymon and MagnaGarurumon where MagnaGaruru asks you to have space left in your inventory so you can deliver shid to KaiserGrey but EVEN IF YOU HAVE THE AMOUNT HE ASKS TO, HE MIGHT NOT GIVE YOU EVERY SINGLE ITEM AND THE QUEST WILL BE BUGGED. YES, THAT SUCKS-- SAVE YOUR GAME IN DIFFERENT SLOTS AND OFTEN, VERY OFTEN.

Mods saved my playthrough and if you plan on giving this game a try definitely look into them... otherwise, I highly suggest trying Cyber Sleuth, Survive or the older ones. Digimon World DS is actually very fun and doesn't drag as Dusk/Dawn!