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Digimon Survive is a hotly awaited game that took four years from the initial announcement to launch, and has proved to be a compelling, satisfying experience for so many Digimon fans. It's been likened to Devil Survivor thanks to its blend of narrative presentation and SRPG gameplay.

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There are, however, a few things you should know before diving into this game. It's quite an involved experience and you'll want to know exactly what you're getting into and what you can expect.

It Is A Visual Novel

Digimon Survive Haru Dialogue

Something that a few people might miss, or be slightly peeved by, is the fact that Digimon Survive is primarily a visual novel. Yes, the combat is turn-based strategy on an isometric field, but the vast majority of the story is told through the classic visual novel style - dialogue, speech boxes, and 2D action.

This is something that led to the game being review bombed upon launch, so make sure you know what you're getting into - it's a very long game with lots of reading.

There Are Multiple Routes

Digimon Survive Minoru Choice

As with many visual novels, your choices will affect how the story progresses. Every now and then, you'll be presented with various choices. These may either lead to affinity boosts with other characters, or they may increase one of three Karma meters - Moral, Wrathful, and Harmony.

These Karma meters are responsible for many mechanics in the game, from what your Agumon partner evolves into to giving you more choices to deal with problems and obstacles in the story. These will dictate the routes you get and, therefore, the endings.

When presented with three options, this is usually the point at which you'll increase one of your Karma scores by one. Luckily, there is a very easy way to know which choice will increase which Karma score:

- The left option will always increase your Moral score.

- The top option will always increase your Wrathful score.

- The right option will always increase your Harmony score.

For more information about the routes available to you, click the spoilered expandable section below.

What Carries Over In New Game Plus

Digimon Survive Gomamon Fight

After you complete the game and obtain one of the routes' endings, you're given a chance to replay the game - some things will carry over, and some things will not.

Carries Over:

  • Your digimon and their levels. This includes your partner digimon.
  • Your partner digimons' unlocked evolutions. Try to unlock new evolutions on your next playthroughs, especially for Agumon, as he has so many of them.
  • Your items and library completion.

Does Not Carry Over:

  • Your Karma scores.
  • Your affinity levels with characters.

How To Skip Text

Digimon Survive Agumon dialogue

The game's default setting is to let you skip over dialogue that you've already read once. This can be toggled for your first playthrough, of course, but it's better to keep it off, so you don't miss any important details.

If all you care about is getting to the next story beats and indulging in all the combat you can, you can turn the feature on at your leisure and zip through the text quickly.

How To Change Difficulty

Digimon Survive Numemon

On the other hand, you might have bought this game for the story exclusively. It may be your first SRPG, or you might simply not enjoy the combat the game offers. Luckily for you, there's a way to make the game easier.

You can lower (or raise) the game's difficulty at the start of any battle. Once you've selected the digimon you're going to field for the battle at hand, you'll be presented with the Win and Loss conditions. Here, you can hit a button noted in the lower-right corner of the screen to alter the difficulty there and then. Use this to speed through battles if all you care about is the narrative.

How To Fix Freezes On The Steam Edition

Digimon Survive Fangmon Cutscene

The Steam edition of Digimon Survive has an odd issue for some players that causes the game to freeze whenever a cutscene ends - whether or not it ends naturally or you attempt to skip it. Naturally, this is very frustrating. Luckily, there's an easy fix - it will require two external downloads, however.

  1. First, you'll need to download BepInEx. The link to this file is here. Download the latest release for the machine you're playing on.
  2. Unzip the file you just downloaded into the game's folder. To find the folder, right-click on Digimon Survive in the Steam interface, navigate to Manage, and click Browse Local Files.
  3. You should have a BepInEx folder inside your game's root. Open it, and then create a new folder inside this one. Call this folder 'plugins'.
  4. Now, download the Video Cutscene Fix mod for Digimon Survive from this link.
  5. Unzip the file you just downloaded into the new plugins folder.

This should fix the freeze. If it does not, you may have different issues, such as an outdated driver.

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