With the recent release of Digimon Survive, fans hoped this latest entry to the Digimon series would once more bring the franchise back to the gaming scene. But following the mixed reception and review bombing it's received, the series continues to have false starts with games that are just shy of the mark. Despite earlier titles like Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth and its additional Hacker's Memory sparking fresh hope that the series could finally be meeting the standard that Pokemon has been set, it seems that the franchise might never fully get out of the shadow cast by Game Freak's juggernaut series.
But one of Pokemon's latest spin-offs could help pave the way for a possible line of Digimon games that would arguably be better suited to the set-up than its competitor. Pokemon Unite, Pokemon's foray into MOBA games akin to the likes of League of Legends and Dota 2, became highly popular among fans even in spite of criticisms against things like its microtransactions, garnering millions of downloads at the time of writing. But Unite's overall formula could easily be extrapolated for Digimon and take the game style even further, so TiMi Studio Group should consider a Digimon Unite spin-off.
Unite Is Ideal For Digimon
Unite, at its core, is a straightforward game and performs similar to most other MOBA games in which two opposing teams attempt to score points and attack one another. Pokemon Unite provides a new take on this, however, combining its own mechanics such as evolution so that players must accrue experience in order to level up and evolve, providing them with stronger Pokemon to use against their opponents. Since Digimon already shares this quality with Pokemon, the parallel is easy to make with playable Digimon characters digivolving in order to reach more powerful stages, such as Champion or Ultimate.
Moreover, Pokemon Unite's setting has been sufficiently removed from the mainline series, allowing the spin-off to make substantial changes to the Pokemon mechanics and lore. While a setting and "plot" for Pokemon Unite would be purely superficial, the game is set on a distant mythical island of Aeos where these battles take place using Aeos energy, with various currencies like Aeos gems or Aeos tickets. As stated, this isn't something the game relies upon in order for its gameplay to be enjoyed, but Digimon would need far less reconfiguration to fit Unite's model, setting Digimon Unite in the digital world as an example.
Digimon Unite Could Be Better
It isn't just the game's setting that would work more cohesively under the Unite banner, as Pokemon Unite borrows from Digimon in order to explain away the reason why trainers' Pokemon would "devolve" with each new battle. The lore that the Aeos energy would mysteriously reset a Pokemon was introduced to address this and goes against the grain of what Pokemon canon states. Digimon, on the other hand, faces no such challenge, as Digimon will routinely digivolve up and down dependent on battles. Not only would this be more consistent with its own canon, but could even factor into Unite's own mechanics.
Additionally, Digimon wields an extensive array of various digivolutions across many Digimon. Unlike Pokemon, which sees its pocket monsters having 1- to 3-stage evolutionary lines they won't go beyond, Digimon's own monsters digivolve in multiple different ways. For example, while Charmander could only reach Charizard, Agumon has multiple digivolutions, ranging from ShineGreymon, WarGreymon, ZekeGreymon, and more. This could substantially expand upon Unite's mechanics and allow players to specialize across digivolutions or even change up strategy mid-battle with a different digivolution.
Another significant improvement Digimon Unite could also make that Pokemon Unite is currently lacking would be a story mode. While Pokemon Unite follows a basic premise in order to get players into the action as a free-to-play game, a story mode could greatly benefit the Unite series that could first help new players acclimatize to the game's mechanics and controls, allow them to gradually improve, all while delivering an engaging story. Digimon could best deliver a story, as a setting in the digital world is more malleable for potential plots than Pokemon's Aeos island.
At present, TiMi Studio Group has other projects it is working on, including its continued support and expansion of Pokemon Unite with new seasons, playable Pokemon, and more. Another added complication is that Digimon already has a significant number of mobile games already in operation, and Unite would be yet another title to add to this mix, meaning it might not be the standout entry fans could expect. But regardless of this, Digimon Unite could be a serious contender for the Unite model and could finally break Digmon out of Pokemon's shadow.
Digimon Survive is available now for Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4, and Xbox One.