My short bullet point analysis:

• GAMEPLAY.

The intro is not the best - the game has you walk on a straight line for half a dozen screens, then fight a bunch of low level Digimon which get one-shotted by your starter. Not very fun.

When things ramp up, it becomes more enjoyable: the scan-hatch-synthetize gameplay loop is exhilarating, the battle animations are gorgeous to look at, and the final boss was difficult but manageable (I was playing on Hard).

I also found it super awesome that my party of lovely critters followed me around during exploration, and helped me explore by removing obstacles along the road. Sometimes, the monsters showed a prompt to talk with them, and my answer altered their mood, which in turn allowed them to gain a different skill. It allowed me to have interactions with my critters outside of battle, which goes a long way to develop the bond between me and my monsters. I hope there will be even more contextual interactions in the main game.

• LEVEL DESIGN.

The dungeon layout was extremely simplistic and had limited exploration: there was a very clear path forward and few dead ends here and there that housed a bunch of items. There were also a lot of map transitions, which were understandable in the Vita ports, but that I found unusual as the game is targeting modern hardware that should be able to handle bigger maps.

The locales were for the most part boring, uninspired corridors, but the cutscene at the end of the demo showed a bunch of cool places in the Digiworld, so I hope that it’ll get better as the game progresses?

• GRAPHICS.

As mentioned before, graphics and animations are gorgeous in battle, but on the cheap side during exploration. For example, the standard walking animation feels and looks float-y. I also found it unusual that my character had a different walking animation for descending stairs, but not for ascending them.

The cutscenes tried their best to have dynamic camera angles, but the characters talking were stiff, and the difference in quality between main characters models and generic NPCs ones was sharp and noticeable.

While human NPCs are bland and boring, the Digimon were a lot more detailed and great too look at. The difference between walking around in the human city at the beginning of the demo, and exploring the Digimon City in the second demo was night and day: I think it’s clear that the devs prioritized one over the other.

• OVERALL.

I know I sounded negative in the above write-up, but that’s not indicative of my enjoyment with the demo. A lot of negatives are things that most Digimon fans have grown to accept in most titles of the franchise (although it’s certainly surprising that the devs did not make an attempt to improve them in a fully-fledged title running on modern hardware).

The combat system showed traces of greatness, and I’m hopeful it’ll get better as the game progresses and more Digimon and strategies become available. Level design was bland in the playable intro, but the cutscene at the end and the Digimon city demo gave me hope that it’ll get better later on. NPCs looked uninspired, but the monsters were great, their animations were very well done, and it didn’t take me long to grow fond of my team of lovely critters.

Overall, I’m hopeful. with such a short way to the release of the full game, I doubt that my gripes with the title will be solved, but I’m positive that what the team has already crafted will be fun to play.

The €70 full-price looks a bit steep to me - the game has too many elements reminiscent of the low-budget handheld roots of its predecessors, which the more polished battle animations are not able to cover-up. I fail to justify the AAA price-tag for a game that looks and feels like a glorified Vita remaster. I think a €50 price tag would’ve been more appropriate, especially as players have grown accustomed, as of late, to far more polished AA and semi-indie AAA experiences selling at a lower price.

That being said, I think that hardcore fans of the franchise will have a lot to chew on. As for the others, I suggest giving it a try when it goes on sale later on - but don’t wait too much!

I liked the demo, but i’m rather a fan of linear gameplay than open one. If you doesn’t like such gameplay and dungeon design it’s probably not the right game for you. But i expect some kind of place for grinding or leveling in the final game. The demo has only showed us the beginning of the game, the digimon city and another very short and linear dungeon. The Graphic is good enough for me, it’s rather a AA Graphic, but don’t care, i even liked the digimon city.

The game has voice acting, but the mc is a quit protagonist. That quite typical for games and i’m fine with that. But i don’t like seeking a person speak while not hearing something. But both characters have a voice actor, they should have voice at least some parts of the mc you are playing.

The biggest flaw for me and the loading time of the battles that annoyed me. I have to wait a few second till i’m able to move. I hope they patch that in the final product. The game has shortcuts to reach menus faster, but closing those doesn’t get you out of all menus but get you into the previous menu, that’s a stupid design decition. Other than that the game runs fine enough, in my case on a PS5.

That Digimon system is interresting and maybe a bit to complicated for some people. Digimon are able to envolve into other Digimon if they match certain stats. Reaching those is in most cases quite easy, you just need a few level. But i found some Digimon it was quite hard to reach certain stats for a specific evolution. The personality system helps to reach some stats. So some digimon reach certain digivolutions easier than others, but with changing the personality they have a better posibility. You change the Personality with conversation with the digimon. This conversation/changing personality system seems to me quite complicating and you doesn’t have a good overview over that system. You need to remember the stat that get boostes by a personlaity while you get ask inside the conversation menu system if you want a certain other personaltiy. So do i have to remember that. I would be better to have an overiew over those in the game.

And it’s again possible to boost stats with digivolution and de-digivolution. As far as i understood it, there is a chance, combine with the bond stat, to keep level-up stats with each evolution. You get Bond % with fighting, defeating digimon etc. So while you level you Box of up to 999 Digimon with every battle, the 6 member in your group get a big advantage over time and maybe reach certain digivolution a lot easier. If i understand it correctly, i don’t like the luck in the boost of your stats, so was more clear in Cybersleuth how to boost your stats. And because of that i think the group of only 6 Digimon is a bit small.

So my Group has 6 Digimon, so i would asume i could choose 2 Data Type, 2 Virus Type and 2 Serum Type or something else inbetween to have a balance Team, maybe with a lot different elements. But building a good team seems to be a lot more complicated. Cybersleuth had a group of 11 Digimon, you were able to change always a Digimon that is effective into the fight and have even open sloths for training or support Digimon. Second, the Personality boost stat way to much. An Augmon with booted Atk has more than double the Atk of an Agumon without boosted Atk. So the Personality with very important for high level gameplay. Attacker get a Atk booting Personality, Healer maybe SPI etc. So if you use a Agumon without booted Atk you maybe think it’s kind of weak compared to another Digimon wit booted Atk, but in reality that’s not true. The Personality is way to booted in my opinion. I don’t think that’s a good casual mechanic. To some degree i like it because i plan to beat it in the hard mode possible and do we know already if this game has online play, could be interresting to optimize your team for that.

Yes i wrote a bit about gameplay systems and mechanics, but that’s important for me. I like a fun gameplay and a interesting story, because i’m sure the graphic and dungeon design is at least good enough for me. Oh and give me more place that feal that lively as this city.