Digimon World Next Order returns to its roots. The game focuses on taking care of, raising, feeding and evolving your digimon.
The game’s story focuses on your character (who you can name) who is a High School student. You get transported to the digital world where you are immediately introduced to your Digimon partners. You then set on a journey where you would eventually meet other classmates that help you along the way.
While raising your Digimon is very much the main focus of the game, building and collecting also plays a major part. You recruit different Digimon by doing different tasks for them. These tasks range from finding someone/something, collecting something, or bringing something back to them. The Digimon that you recruit also give you different benefits and awards. Some of them can build things for yo, some of them will give you different items everyday, and some of them can help you evolve your Digimon and make them stronger. The benefits are good enough that you actually feel rewarded for going out and recruiting these different Digimon.
So what about actually raising your Digimon? Since you spend the majority of the game doing this it needs to be fun or at least interesting. Well I can tell you that Digimon World Next Order does a good job at making the task of raising your Digimon fun. It’s very interesting to raise different types of Digimon, and the game actually gives you two different Digimon from the beginning.
Every Digimon also has its own personality type. Some of the actually prefers it when you yell and are tough on them while some don’t. Some Digimon are more happy and sensitive. So the variation of different personalities are there.
Another interesting aspect of the game is exploring the world. Its more open then other Digimon titles and it can actually be fun at times to just run around and explore some of the many different areas in the game.
How about the actual battle system? Well this is where the game begins to feel dull at times. I didn’t enjoy the battle system as much as the rest of the game. It’s not bad but just rather dull at times. You and your Digimon are basically placed inside of this circled border and your Digimon fight the other Digimon. The animations don’t give you the satisfaction that you would believe. Some of the attacks that you pull off don’t look or feel like they actually connected or did any damage. This for me ruined the immersion that I had with my Digimon the game’s world. Don’t get me wrong you can have a decent time with the battle system I just wished that it could have been reworked a little to add some fun and excitement to the actual battles.
The game can also make you feel alone and lost at times. There isn’t any guides to help you find the Digimon that you want to raise. To get certain Digimon you need a specific number of stats but there is absolutely no way to know what stats you should focus on so that you can raise the Digimon that you want.
Digimon World Next Order does consist of a lot of backtracking throughout the story. Initially I did not mind since I did find exploring the world to be interesting and fun at times however you end up backtracking so much that it did end up bothering me and ruining the amount of fun that I was having in the game. For some people this won’t be an issue for them but if you like me then the amount of backtracking can become bothersome.
Although there are some drawbacks to the game Digimon World Next Order is actually an engaging and fun game. If your a fan of the Digimon series and enjoy raising and evolving your Digimon then this game will be perfect for you. The idea of allowing the player two different Digimon at the same time was a good decision. The building and collecting is also very fun in this game. It’s worth a look if your a RPG fan.
