Digimon Up - Mostly For Digimon Fans, But Doesn't Give Fans What They Really Want - iPhone Friday

For this week's iPhone Friday i tried Digimon Up, from Bandai Namco, on my iPhone 14 Pro. 

I'm a fan of Digimon so i was interested in giving this new game a go. the App store page for Digimon Up wasn't too clear as to what this game would actually be. In the end, it turns out this is a very similar game to FAIRY TAIL Wizard Chronicle, https://youtu.be/vp2RVOPPaMU, which i checked out last year.

This Digimon game lets you choose your partner Digimon, you can train them, watch them level up, and when the time is right you can Digivolve them. there are cards, there are other Digimon who can support you, and crests too. But most of that is hands off for us as this is more of an idle game where we do more behind the scenes management work than anything really hands on. the #App Store calls this an #RPG but it feels more like a management sim than that.

The game that it is, is well made. there was a point earlier in the video where i was beginning to feel the grind and perhaps the need to put it down so it can play idly in the background. But because it's a new game, there are a lot of bonuses being given out to players and this meant i was able to continue playing and trying out new things as they unlocked. It's hard to know how long these gifts will last for so players starting the game in 6 months might have a very different experience with the start of Digimon Up.

Before i got those gifts, the game was progressing nicely. i felt that at the start the Tutorial was doing a good job of not only explaining how things worked but also saying we should return to things to get more and level up. i really appreciated the game offering tips on how to make progress when we first stopped beating the boss. But with a tutorial as good as this, it's always noticeable when it fails. in Digimon Up the tutorial does a poor job of dealing the home screen U.I. It's also tied into the game's quest system and uses that to measure progress. so when i was making more progress than the quest system, i was unlocking features like Dungeons and there was no tutorial.

As an RPG, Digimon Up doesn't offer us much control. as a Digimon game, it has the music and the looks, there are familiar Digimon and an encyclopedia explaining them. but the interactions with them are basic and few and far between. as one of these Idle RPG's, it's fine. i don't think, at least at this point in to the game, that the Digimon factor adds much to the experience. it's possible that we'll be able digivolve and undigivolve, but i don't think the game's hinted at that. So it's entirely possible that Bandai Namco take this engine and style of game and just reskin it and release a new game, much like how East Side Games released Star Trek: Lower Decks, POWER RANGERS: MIGHTY FORCE, and Doctor Who: Lost In Time which were all reskined variations of each other.

Version 1.0.3 Played