Digimon World: Next Order

Digimon World: Next Order is a life-simulation RPG that puts you in charge of two Digimon partners at once, raising them from baby-stage creatures through a brutal cycle of training, care, evolution, and eventual death and reincarnation. The game sits in a lineage that traces back to the original Digimon World on PlayStation, and it wears that heritage openly. If you bounced off the randomness and demanding care schedules of that era, be warned: that DNA is fully intact here. If you loved it, you are going to feel very at home. The core loop is genuinely distinctive. Your Digimon have stat bars for hunger, discipline, and fatigue that tick down in real time. You feed them, train them in mini-game gyms, sleep alongside them, and watch their evolution paths branch depending on how well you managed their stats. Getting a Metalgarurumon versus getting something significantly less impressive is a direct result of your daily discipline, not a random loot drop. That cause-and-effect structure gives the progression real weight. Build variety is meaningful across the Digimon roster, because different evolution lines have different stat thresholds, and planning a Digimon toward a specific Ultimate or Mega form requires actual forethought. It rewards players who treat the system as a puzzle rather than a checklist. The story is set in a decaying Digital World where towns are collapsing and Digimon are being absorbed by a hostile force. It is not the most sophisticated narrative you will find in the RPG genre, but it has a sincerity that earns some genuine emotional moments, particularly around the death and rebirth cycle of your partners. Watching a Digimon you have raised for hours revert to a Digi-Egg and start over carries a weight that the writers understand and lean into. The main cast of human characters is functional rather than memorable, but the world-rebuilding mechanic, where you recruit Digimon back to a central town, gives the worldbuilding a satisfying sense of scale that unfolds steadily over the campaign. Where the game stumbles is in its pacing. The mid-game stretches into repetitive territory: the same training routines, the same map traversal, the same conversations with NPCs waiting on specific story flags. There is a filler quality to certain chunks that will test your patience around the 20-25 hour mark. Combat is also largely automated, with your Digimon fighting on their own while you issue broad commands. Players wanting a deeply tactical battle system will find this shallow. The real game is in the raising and preparation, not the fights themselves. For the right player, specifically someone who grew up with Digimon, who tolerates pet-sim mechanics, and who finds satisfaction in long-term character investment, Next Order holds up well past the midpoint slump. The PC port runs cleanly and includes content from previous console versions. It is not trying to be a grand epic CRPG, and grading it against one would miss the point. It is a focused, emotionally earnest Digimon simulator with enough system depth to reward patience. Monika, Scout Team