Recent reviews by Flopmon

This game, while it has many flaws, is still a great little spinoff and an interesting take on Digimon. It feels a lot like an interactive homage to the older anime seasons, such as Adventure and Tamers, so if you enjoyed those, I highly recommend giving it a try.

Since it's primarily a visual novel, the focus is on the story and characters while the gameplay takes a backseat for the most part. The SRPG combat is pretty barebones and not very challenging aside from a few specific fights, but it's decently polished and not overly clunky or frustrating.

For me, the biggest upside of Survive, and the main reason for my positive review, is the fact that it treats the partner Digimon as actual characters, which is something that always felt like an afterthought in previous games. There is still some room for improvement in that regard, but it does a good enough job of making the titular creatures feel like companions who would be fun to hang out with, as opposed to generic interchangeable JRPG monsters. It is a welcome change that I hope will be utilized more in future games.
The voice acting is another highlight – if you’re an anime enthusiast or play many Japanese games, you will most likely encounter some familiar voices.
The story has some interesting elements, with a fairly dark tone involving some scenarios that haven’t really been explored much in the series before.
The VN segments are nicely presented, with high-quality artwork, while the combat segments (as well as certain cutscenes) use a more stylized approach. The combat sprites of the Digimon, while simplified and more „chibi”-looking, still have some nice little details, such as Wargreymon taking off his shield from his back or Lopmon hiding behind his ears while defending.
The soundtrack is… alright, but nothing special. I didn’t find it particularly memorable, aside from the main theme, which has a rather nice vocal version as well.
I personally haven’t encountered any technical issues such as bugs or crashes during any of my playthroughs, and as far as I know, the few problems that were present at launch have since been patched.

As for the downsides – I think most people can agree that the pacing is all over the place, with plenty of redundant and repetitive dialogue that causes some scenes to drag out far longer than they should. I’m inclined to agree that the story would’ve felt a lot more solid without the unnecessary padding.
The English translation/localization is nowhere near perfect, which is unfortunately a common problem with Digimon games and media, but I still found it much more serviceable than Cyber Sleuth’s localization.
Another common complaint is about the lack of variation between the different routes, and that many of your choices don’t have enough of an impact on the direction of the story. This is partially due to the way the branching paths are implemented in Survive, and I can’t disagree that it could have been done a lot better. As it stands, doing more than one playthrough (which is required for the true ending) is only really recommended if you absolutely loved the game, and going for 100% completion will feel like a slog even then.

Overall, Digimon Survive is kind of a mixed bag, which clearly had plenty of love put into it, but the budget constraints and the signs of its troubled development are noticeable in many places. Whether you’ll like it or not greatly depends on what you want from a Digimon game, and what you like about the franchise as a whole. If you’re a diehard fan of the World-type games, or just want a regular JRPG like Cyber Sleuth, it may not be for you. If you have a soft spot for the anime and want a more narrative and character-driven experience, you are more likely to have a good time with it.

Simon and his Simon lived alone in a small Simon on a Simon. Simon kept to himself, drawing Simons and playing with his Simons while his Simon watched Simon Simons on the Simon. Simon was Simon, and they were both Simon.