Digimon, as a series, can be best described as always being in the shadow of Pokemon but never being forgotten by the hardcore fans. Many would be surprised to learn that the series has many different projects coming out soon. These projects include a movie to wrap up the original story of Digimon Adventure, a re-release of the 2015 Digimon Cyber Sleuth on PC, and a whole new survival role-playing game called Digimon Survive. There’s a good chance you may not even know that Digimon has created quite a few successful mobile RPGs, such as Digimon Links. Now, Bandai-Namco has released a new game worldwide called Digimon ReArise.
Return to the digital world and fight new monsters
Image from Touch Arcade
Digimon ReArise is a mobile RPG that takes place in an alternate universe, where Digimon are able to enter the real world via your phone to fight new monsters called Spirals. The gameplay involves picking a team of five Digimon to fight through waves of enemies. The player can choose skills for the Digimon or can let the game play itself. Personally, I found it much quicker and easier to select skills yourself. The player can line up three skills in a row, while the autoplay can only play one at a time. The gameplay can become repetitive, especially if you start grinding for certain materials. Most of the variety to be found is in picking different Digimon for your team, but even then the game can hold your hand and make you a team of your strongest Digimon if you want it to.
The game has multiple different modes to challenge, such as Story, Clash Battle, and Vortexes, among other things. Story mode is self-explanatory; you play as an unnamed tamer with a partner Digimon named Herissmon. Along the way, you make new friends and fight stronger enemies. As far as I’ve gotten—about five acts—the story pretty much only exists to push more battles on you. This is often one of the worst parts about mobile games in general; sometimes the story takes a back seat just to have you play through the game as quickly as possible so you’ll pay for more energy.
New game modes with a disappointing twist
Image from Gamepress.gg
Clash battles serve as the primary way of getting materials to Digivolve your Digimon into stronger monsters. It works like a raid battle; there’s one very strong enemy with a lot of health that you need in order to work a group to take down. Clash Battles are probably the best and worst feature of the game. On the good side of things, the fights are usually fast, and just participating in one gets you materials. On the other hand, nearly every crash I’ve encountered since release can be tied to a Clash Battle.
I don’t have much to say about the Vortexes, since they’re mainly used to gather other materials in the game. This includes materials such as equipment to level up Digimon, food to take care of them, and Bits, which act as a currency for upgrades. The problem I have with Vortexes is that they will only have certain fights unlocked at set times. Which could mean that the materials you need unlock at 2 o’clock in the morning lock back up in three hours. You can unlock keys, which will give you access to these fights for a period of time, but the problem still exists.
An odd thing I want to point out is the addition of something called “Digiwalk,” which works as a pedometer, measuring your steps and giving you gifts. It feels really, really dated, like an app you would have gotten in 2015. Don’t get me wrong, the pixel sprites of your partner Digimon are adorable, and the widget add-on that shows them on your phone screen is also super nice. But since we live in a world with Pokemon Go, this addition doesn’t feel as fun as it should be. You can’t interact with your partner, nor does it really do much. Honestly, the most fun to be had with this addition is the fact that I know there’s multiple people on this campus playing the game.
Gotta Gacha
Image from Segment Next
There’s been a very big elephant in the room that I’ve been sidestepping this entire article, but I feel I need to say it. Yes, this is a Gacha game. For anyone who doesn’t know what a Gacha game is, it’s a game in which to gain more characters, you must use an in-game currency, which can be either earned or purchased. Even then, you’re never guaranteed the character you want, and more than likely you’ll get duplicates of characters that you don’t want. There’s no other way of getting Digimon, aside from hatching random Digimon from Digieggs you can find. Let me just say, Digimon ReArise has one of the most—well, let’s call it interesting—summoning systems I’ve seen.
They are currently running something called a “Step-Up Summon.” You have to pay a certain amount of the in-game currency, Digirubies, to unlock a certain number of summons. For example, 100 Digirubies equate to five summons, then 150 for eight summons, etc. This means that, overall, if you want to do the maximum summon of 10 for 200 Digirubies, you first have to pay 370 Digirubies before you can even attempt that. One dollar equals around six Digirubies, so to get 370 Digirubies you would have to pay around 61 dollars, not counting any deals for the Digirubies or any pre-owned Digirubies. I hope this is just a one-off event, and not foreshadowing something far worse for the game.
Images: Touch Arcade, Segment Next, GamePress.gg
Featured Image: Android Police
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