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Digimon Survive is a strategy RPG presented as a visual novel, set in the eponymous world of digital monsters, anachronisms, and adventure. As you progress through the story, you'll follow a group of teenagers as they discover more about this dangerous, exciting world and face off against dangerous opponents and villains.
Being a strategy RPG and a visual novel in tandem, there may be many mechanics that are totally new to players, especially for those who bought the game for the Digimon hype. Don't worry, though, we've compiled some handy tips and pointers to make your experience go a bit smoother.
Karma Scores
Digimon Survive has a Karma system that you'll be taught about very early on. To put it simply, the choices you make at various points in the story will grant you points in one of three different types of 'Karma' - either Moral Karma, Wrathful Karma, or Harmony Karma. These are not comparable to other games' Karma systems that weigh up good versus evil, but are their own distinct mechanic.
Whenever you are presented with exactly three choices, one to the left, one to the right, and one in the middle above the others, you can be fairly sure that this is one of the choices that will affect your Karma scores. Luckily, if you're aiming for a certain Karma, the position of these choices is consistent - the left choice will increase your Moral Karma, the top one your Wrathful Karma, and the right one your Harmony Karma.
Karma is important for a few reasons:
- It will influence which route and thus which ending of the game you achieve.
- It will influence the evolutions that your partner digimon, Agumon, receives at certain points in the story.
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It will influence your success rate when trying to convince digimon to join you after conversing with them in battle.
- Moral Karma is associated with Vaccine-type digimon.
- Wrathful Karma is associated with Virus-type digimon.
- Harmony Karma is associated with Data-type digimon.
- The higher the Karma, the higher your success rate when trying to recruit.
Digimon Types And Affinities
As hinted at above, each digimon in the game is one of three types: Vaccine, Virus, or Data. These three types make up a rock-paper-scissors triangle of effectiveness, with certain digimon being better equipped to take on certain types:
- Vaccine-type digimon will deal more damage to Virus-type digimon and take less damage in return.
- Virus-type digimon will deal more damage to Data-type digimon and take less damage in return.
- Data-type digimon will deal more damage to Vaccine-type digimon and take less damage in return.
Vaccine-type digimon are indicated by a teardrop-shaped icon. Virus-type digimon are indicated by a spiky ball icon. Data-type digimon are indicated by a cube icon.
Also important are elemental attacks. Each digimon has a set of elemental affinities, with each being either a positive or negative number.
- A positive number indicates that the digimon takes less damage from attacks of that element, with higher numbers meaning less damage.
- A negative number indicates that the digimon takes more damage from attacks of that element.
Be Wary Of Time Consumption
At certain points in the game, you'll be given a limited amount of Time Units with which to spend your time. This is a means of limiting what you do during those periods - there will usually be more things for you to do than time units allotted to you.
During these sections, spend your time wisely. Consider the following:
- Spend time points talking to characters you want to get closer to and learn more about. Avoid talking to characters you don't care about.
- Spend time points talking to Agumon in certain areas only to get some consumable items.
- In some sections, you can pursue side objectives that may reward you with special items or let you recruit special digimon. These objectives may require that you spend multiple time points pursuing them, so try to be thorough when checking out your options.
Note that not every conversation that you can have will consume a time unit. Only characters and interaction locations that have an hourglass symbol next to them (as displayed in the image above) will consume time.
Once you've used up all your time points, you'll move on to the next part of the story.
Use Equipment Wisely
Even the pieces of equipment you gather at the beginning of the game can be incredibly useful - their descriptions will say that they raise a stat by one stage, but that can be very substantial. Of note are items like Stamina Crystals and Skill Crystals that raise your HP and SP, respectively. The former can be put to great use improving the survivability of a fragile digimon, and the latter is fantastic for later-stage digimon with very tough moves but not that much SP.
Some pieces of equipment will let you use extra skills, usually with specific elements attached. They may not be very powerful skills, but having more than one element available can be key to winning a battle against a foe with high elemental resistances.
Shuffle your equipment around regularly, paying special attention to your most used digimon and those who are likely to become mandatory in the next few storyline battles.
Think Carefully About Your Digivolution Slabs
Enlightenment Slabs are required for digivolving your free digimon - that is, the digimon you recruit through conversations. The problem is that until you unlock reliable ways to farm them from Free Battles, they are few and far between.
To that end, it's important that you save your Enlightenment Slabs for the digimon that really need them and prioritize particularly powerful evolutions. This is most important for Mature Enlightenment Slabs, which don't become reliably farmed until Part 9, which is many, many hours into the game.
Here are some powerful early-game Champions to consider using your Mature Enlightenment Slabs on:
- Gomamon 🡆 Seadramon
- Betamon 🡆 Seadramon
- Patamon 🡆 Angemon
- Gazimon 🡆 Fangmon
- Gazimon 🡆 Sangloupmon
Never Forget To Use The Camera
When given the chance to explore, you'll want to make sure you exhaust every possible area for digital distortions. You find these using your camera, scanning each area for the visual indicators that something is amiss.
In sections where you have limited time, using the camera to find these distortions doesn't consume any time.
With the camera out, you can use the same hotkeys that you can use in normal scenes to cycle through every character and point of interest that you can interact with. If the camera flips to a distortion, you're gold. If the camera doesn't move at all when hitting those buttons, there is nothing to find.
These distortions are very useful - they invariably lead to one of a few outcomes:
- A hidden item, usually something rare like an Enlightenment Slab or a stat booster.
- An encounter with some shadows that leads to a fight.
- Perceived Memories, which are added to your Library and will reward you when you collect them all.
Always make an effort to fight any groups of shadows you come across. These battles take place on unique battlefields that feature boxes and treasure chests, which may be broken to acquire new items. In addition, these fights are usually worth quite a lot of experience and make for more interesting encounters than the Free Battles that are always available to you.