Video Game / Digimon Survive

Digimon Survive is a Digimon Strategy RPG Visual Novel game for all eighth-generation platforms, developed by the companies Witchcraft and Hyde, with music composed by Tomoki Miyoshi of I am Setsuna fame, and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. Like Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, the game caters to older fans with a darker tone rather than leaving them a hopeful Periphery Demographic. And by "darker", do not be fooled that it's going to hold any punches — Anyone Can Die, anyone can go insane before they die, and there's nothing you can do about it.

In a similar vein to Digimon Adventure, and to a lesser extent Digimon World, the game revolves around a group of Ordinary High School Students (or rather, mostly middle school students, in this case), who after an incident during a school camping trip, find themselves Trapped in Another World filled with strange monsters. The protagonist Takuma Momozuka, alongside his friends and classmates Minoru Hinata, Aoi Shibuya, Saki Kimishima, Ryo Tominaga, Shuuji Kayama, as well as two locals Kaito Shinonome and Miu Shinonome, quickly find monster partners amongst the foes and together, they have to work to help survive the hostile wilderness surrounding them. In the process, they also must figure out what got them there, and if they can ever find their way home. Unfortunately, their trek in the other world is not fun and adventures but a danger-filled ordeal, and some of them might not come out to the other side and tell the tale.

The first teaser trailer can be seen here, and the English gameplay trailer here. The game was globally released on July 29, 2022.

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Tropes for this game:

A - F

• 100% Completion: Achievements-wise, the game is considered complete ("Survival Master") by basically completing all routes, as every Arc Villain defeated counts toward an achievement and some monsters are unlockable in certain routes. This is in addition to smaller favors like finding 100 items and evolving a Free monster.
• Ability Depletion Penalty: Partner Kemonogami spend SP both to evolve and stay evolved, with a certain amount of it being drained at the end of every turn. If a partner has less SP than the amount needed to stay evolved, they'll revert to their base form at the end of the turn.
• Always Murder: A very downplayed example. In an incredibly unusual approach for Digimon standards, the only atrocities the antagonists ever commit is murder and attempted murder, left and right. It tells when even Piedmon goes straight into killing people instead of turning them into keychains and torturing them for fun. The Arc Villain of the start of Chapter 5 is an unrelated Gazimon stealing the human children's properties, though.
• And I Must Scream: The fate of those sacrificed to The Master, as noted by Plutomon and Boltboutamon when they have control of him. Everyone captured by the Kenzoku is aware of their absorption into The Master, kept in constant agony in the midst of The Master's unending rage.
• And the Adventure Continues:
  • The ending of the Harmonious route have the surviving characters embark on a new adventure of sorts to try and teach the world about Kemonogami as well as deal with the rise of discrimination against those with fated partners.
  • The Wrathful ending has the protagonists set off to be La Résistance in the dystopian, post-apocalyptic end result of the merger of the worlds created.
• Antepiece: The game starts in the human world, and while it has tutorial prompts, the player is encouraged to interact with everything, which is not only limited to people but also background objects. A few Karma questions are provided here to let the player get used to Takuma's Karma Meter. One Affinity question can result in either Aoi's or Minoru's Affinity increased, or even neither, teaching the player that one question may have a different outcome instead of the simple "Affinity raised or not raised."
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • Whenever there's a dialogue choice that will influence the Karma Meter, hovering over an option before selecting it will make it flash a corresponding color (red for Moral, green for Harmony, yellow for Wrathful), so the player does not have to choose blindly. Additionally, when it comes to endings, both your highest and second-highest Karma Meter values have their respective routes unlocked at the branching point, rather than having to devote to one ideology throughout the game, as well as the game warning you when you reach the branching point and giving you the option to save your game.
  • In battle, the player is allowed to retry from the start at any time, making it easier to fight bosses and recruit randomly-encountered monsters.
  • All units that have participated in a battle gain an equal amount of experience, even if they're knocked out at the end of it. This is a godsend to Glass Cannon and Fragile Speedster units, especially since there's no way to revive a fallen unit in battle (either via skills or items).
  • If you want to reach the Truthful Route, you'll have to make sure Ryo's affinity points exceed everyone else's by Chapter 3 on a New Game Plus. Each conversation with Ryo gives at most 7 to 8 points provided you make the correct choices, so if you answer them all correctly, he will have a total of 58 affinity points and you can feel free to talk to the rest of the children provided you talk to him every time he shows up. (This can turn against you if you're trying to explore other routes, though.)
  • In Part 5, there's a series of encounters where you have to tell the real Kemonogami partners apart from the illusory ones. Usually, this is done by having Takuma advise one of his friends on a way to get the fakes to reveal themselves. However, depending on which dialogue options you pick, the difference between their responses might not be enough to tell them apart. If this happens, one of them will suddenly have additional dialogue that makes it really obvious they're the fake. For example, if you advise Miu that the real Syakomon wouldn't doubt her love, the real and fake answers aren't enough to tell the Syakomons apart. But then one of the Syakomon will have additional dialogue blabbing about being yelled at by Arukenimon if they don't sacrifice a human child, making it really obvious they're the fake.
  • The start of Part 6 and Part 11 in all routes have free battles that commonly contain monsters that will always drop an Enlightenment Slab of their level upon a successful negotiation (Monzaemon and Zudomon in Part 6, WarGreymon, MarineAngemon and GranKuwagamon in Part 11), allowing you to evolve your Free Monsters as soon as when the game expects you to deal with stronger enemies on a more common basis. In a similar vein, monsters that drop Perfect and Ultimate Evolution slabs show up almost everywhere in some form or way, allowing the player to beef up their party even if they have no viable Free Monsters.
  • The boss encounter in the Truthful Route's Part 11 will prevent the player from using any Partner Monsters bar a Gabumon that's (very likely) going to be below half his level. To compensate, easier to recruit monsters such as Fangmon, Numemon and Ikakkumon are available in Free or Shadow Battles in the Waterway, and the Free Battles have Zudomon and MarineAngemon (which can be negotiated for items to evolve other monsters). This allows even players who don't have sufficiently powerful Free Monsters prior to instantly cob up powerhouses such as Plutomon and Piedmon and throw them on the upcoming boss encounter.
  • For anyone wondering how you might be able to get the Golden Ending, the game will straight up tell you after clearing it the first time that you can unlock the Truthful route by raising your Affinity level with Ryo.
  • The Brutal Bonus Level, once available in a New Game Plus, can be accessed at any time, even if the School Area is not accessible normally for story reasons. Its progress is also not reset upon game clear, allowing the player to clear it within multiple NG+ loops.
  • Similar to the above, the Deep Woods location required to unlock other partners' evolutions has no expiration date and can appear at any area, even as the player is going to engage the Final Boss, as long as the player does not play out the scene leading to said confrontation.
  • At one point in Part 7, you'll be forced to fight Arukenimon while escorting Renamon. If she gets knocked out, the game is over. Renamon is incredibly weak to Dark, Arukenimon's attacks are all Dark attacks and she's a Rookie Data-type while Arukenimon is an Ultimate Virus-type, meaning that Arukenimon would otherwise murder her in a single hit and net you an instant game over. Aside that Renamon is equipped with a fine Anti-Dark crystal that gives her a whopping 150 Dark resistance and an Achromatic Crystal to cancel out the Virus advantage Arukenimon has, giving her a total of 180 Dark Resistance thus making sure Arukenimon can't just wipe her out in a single hit.
  • There are certain events in certain Free Actions that allow the player to recruit a Gomamon, Palmon, or Tentomon (normally only recruitable via late game shadow battles) with no strings attached as long as they know what they are doing, lessening the hassle of completing the Monster Library. Should the player miss all opportunity by then, Part 10 has an additional Free Action event where all three appear, provided the player has enough action points.
  • Dialogue that the player has seen will be skipped over quickly if they use the Skip function, allowing quick catch-up to unseen parts in a repeat run (or just to speed towards a particular scene). New Game Plus also prompts the player to either skip tutorials or not.
  • In Camera mode, if there is a distortion present, the auto-explore button prompts in the UI will light up, saving the player time searching. This is also important for searching Perceived Memories, which can be detected via Camera but undetected in non-Camera auto-explore.
  • Part 5 has Takuma's friends lose their personal items, which turn out to be stolen by a Gazimon. However, which items can be recovered depend on which friend(s) the player has spoken to twice (except Shuuji, who requires only once), and this is a Free Action segment, meaning not everyone can be talked to due to the limited number of actions. However, once the player gets to an Exploration segment in the Waterway, interacting with Agumon in certain areas will allow the player to get those items... except for Kaito and Shuuji, in which case their items are no longer obtainable unless the player keeps the former scenario in mind next run.
• Anyone Can Die: Surviving in the Kemonogami world is a genuine concern in this game. Aside from the Golden Ending, there is no route in which everyone survives, something that was extensively advertised in pre-release material. Throughout the story, only Takuma and Minoru are guaranteed to survive, regardless of route. Everybody else dies in at least one route of the story: Aoi and Saki in Wrathful; Kaito, Miu, and the Professor in Harmony; Miyuki in both Wrathful and Harmony; and Ryo and Shuuji in every route except Truthful.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Usually up to six monsters can be manually deployed, but story battles may reduce it or rarely not allow additional allies at all. Certain battles may have a large number of partners already pre-deployed but the game still allows recruited monsters, making the battle party appear to have more than six.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: In Chapter 12 of the Truthful route, Ryo freaks out after seeing a ghost. Takuma and Minoru don't believe that he actually saw one despite the fact that they had personally just witnessed three in a row which were the partners of the Four Sovereign Monsters, and the knowledge that the fourth is somewhere in the area of the schoolhouse where they are staying.
• Artificial Stupidity: The AI is rather clueless with buff skill usage, which is exploitable when the enemy falls victim to it, and really frustrating when it's your units doing it on auto-battle. They will always use them even if the current situation does not call for it. Bosses (most obvious with Monzaemon in Chapter 4) will also spend a turn recasting buffs after the previous one had expired, and sometimes they'll waste their turn buffing a nearby enemy unit.
• Bittersweet Ending: With the exception of the Truthful route, some characters have to die no matter what route, and the outcome of the route has consequences for Takuma, his friends and sometimes the general public. The only common good thing amongst those routes is the children will put an end to the 60+ year cycle of sacrifices and they will be the last on the list, though it can degenerate into worse problems.
  • Downplayed for the Moral route ending. The children and the Minase siblings return to their own world, with Akiharu helping his sister Miyuki adjust to life in the 21st century. Despite being more optimistic than the other two, it still comes with the price of two dead, the mystery behind the Master is unsolved and it's implied that he might return to wreck havoc another day.
  • The Harmonious ending plays this straight. The survivors help humans to coexist with Kemonogami and opened a facility to help children accept their monster partners just like what Aoi envisioned, but they still have to combat discrimination between people with a Kemonogami partner and those without on a sizable scope, and they paid the price of over half of the main cast dead because of Piedmon-Boltboutamon.
  • The Wrathful ending is more on the bitter end. After putting an end to an insane Aoi-Plutomon, the sudden emergence of monsters in the human world resulted in partners who abuse them or use them for misdeeds, throwing society into chaos a year later, with anyone having a monster partner suffering from persecution and facing the risk of being put in isolation camps. The survivors form a team to fight back against oppressive governments to pursue human and monster coexistence, giving a glimmer of Hope Spot for the future.
• Black Blood: Character deaths often result in blood splatters, but all the blood in the game is black.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: The English localization is pretty solid, but a few isolated incidents with glaringly obvious issues pop up sporadically. Those are less translation errors and more editing errors, such as missing words in sentences, or an NPC being called by the wrong name for a few lines.
  • The most famous of these issues, however, is the bit during Part 5 where for some scenes the partner Kemonogami have inconsistent pronouns.
    Takuma: (What describes the real Labramon?) "He loves Aoi to bits."
    Takuma: "The real Labramon just adores you, Aoi. She would hate to lose you, wouldn't she?"
  • Again on Part 5, one specific line uses "Digivolve" instead of "evolve" despite how well the localization stays consistent with the terms used In-Universe.
  • The European Spanish translation makes the bizarre mistake in describing a set of portraits in the Music Room, which include the likes of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven, as portraits of Japanese people. In contrast, the Neutral Spanish translation, much like the English one, merely describes the portraits as musty and faded.
  • For some bizarre reason, the French localization has Kunemon's lines eventually devolve into anything but "kew" and basically Toilet Humor.
• Book Ends: A subtle one. The first monster (and partner) you obtain in a playthrough is Agumon. In the Moral and Truthful routes, the final partner is the professor's Gabumon. MetalGarurumon is also the last Free monster introduced and is available only in the first part of Part 13 of the Truthful Route, before the party leaves the abandoned school for the shrine.
• Boss-Altering Consequence:
  • When players are exploring the old school building after Aoi goes missing, they can find a spirit lamp by finding vinegar to weaken the webs covering the desk it's in. Managing to collect it causes Takuma to toss it at the large Dokugumon before the actual battle begins and deplete a decent amount of its HP.
  • During the MegaSeadramon encounter in Part 5, if the player saved Ryo in Part 3, the fight will not end after 2 turns. Instead, Ryo will show up to calm Shuuji down, causing the encounter to continue as usual with Lopmon joining the fight as Turuiemon.
• Branch-and-Bottleneck Plot Structure: Sometimes the player's choices during a chapter will affect minor things on that specific chapter, but ultimately has no consequence to the overarching plot.
  • In Chapter 1, Aoi is kidnapped by Dokugumon as part of the story. During the investigation, it's possible for Minoru and/or Ryo to be kidnapped as well, either by not interacting with them during that time or making the wrong choices when doing so. Having them get kidnapped will make Falcomon and/or Kunemon unavailable for the remainder of the chapter.
  • In Chapter 3, the player has the choice between siding with Kaito or the mysterious woman. Either way most of the partners will be unavailable at the start of the next boss battle, leaving you with only Dracmon and your recruited monsters, but if you sided with Kaito you'll also have access to Agumon.
  • Used succintly to evoke Controlled Helplessness if you're talking to someone who is about to go insane and die. You have dialogue options that comfort Ryo or Shuuji or tell them to come back to their senses even in the Parts where they are going to die and they'll seemingly agree with you, but it does nothing and you usually can't do anything to reverse the situation.
• Breaking Old Trends: Survive is the first Digimon game for consoles since All-Star Rumble to not feature any appearances from Mirei Mikagura, Rina Shinomiya, or their respective partners. Justified, since these characters would look extremely out of place in the game's Japanese folklore setting and simply won't fit at all.
• Breather Episode:
  • Part 4 can be considered one as it's sandwiched in between the rather eventful Parts 3 and 5. The chapter completely focuses on locating Miu, which takes the party to an abandoned, yet colorful, amusement park. Hijinks begin to ensue with fan favorites Patamon, Palmon, and Biyomon - they're all young servants of the amusement park's "queen" who comically try to halt the party's progress several times over. While the chapter does end with a notable battle, the end result is a happy Kaito finally being reunited with his sister (who is revealed to be safe and alive), no one dying at any point during the excursion, and the children being provided with a glimmer of hope regarding a possibility of returning to their world safely.
  • The individual chapters usually gives the reader some leeway for rest between tense sections where something horrible would happen. The first half of Chapter 5 is a rather light-hearted arc about catching a Gazimon who stole the parties' private belongings, and the first half of Part 10 in the Moral and Wrathful routes is Aoi or Jijimon taking care of the survivors of the Master's attack against the playground before Renamon makes her move as a last-ditch attempt to take human sacrifices for the Master.
  • Part 12 of the Truthful Route consists of a break in the Abandoned School and away from the seemingly-constant danger the survivors face, followed by an investigation on the Suzaku Boy and Zhuqiaomon. It's the only section of the game where none of the Master's Kenzoku or hostile monsters (bar Zhuqiaomon, but even then he can be reasoned with) are out for blood and is a well-needed break right before the final, climatic battle against the Master.
• Brutal Bonus Level: The Mugen Recollection battles, exclusive to New Game Plus. The player can battle rounds of preset enemies in increasing difficulty, which culminates in the 30th battle which is against the Four Sovereigns plus Fanglongmon before it loops back to Battle 1.
• But Thou Must!: Most responses will just result in the same outcome. The Wrathful and Harmonious answers tend to go against most characters' thoughts in a given situation, especially the former answer, which often has Takuma apologizing for supposedly not thinking it through.
• Can't Live Without You: If a human dies, their Kemonogami partner vanishes with them.
• Cap: A battle stat is capped at 9999.
• Central Theme: The importance of communication and understanding, both with your heart and with others.
• Character Name Limits: For whatever reason, the English version abbreviates certain terms under the assumption of this despite there being free space available (like Free Bat. for Free Battle).
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: A strange variation on the trope. Just as a human's thoughts and emotions can have positive or negative effects on their partner monster, the thoughts and emotions of humanity as a whole have an effect on the world of the Kemonogami. The "clap your hands" part of the trope comes in the form of shrine rituals and sacrifices that the humans used to perform, and part of the reason the Kemonogami world is such a mess is because humans are no longer performing the rituals. In many ways, it is similar to Gods Need Prayer Badly, except that the Kemonogami aren't actually gods (though the Sovereign Beasts come close). Near the end of the story, when a video of Agumon fighting Piedmon goes viral, it has a positive effect on the other world.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • The three Karma types are colored red (Moral), yellow (Wrathful), and green (Harmony).
  • Each evolution level has its own color. Yellow for Rookie and Champion, blue for Ultimate, and red for Mega and Super Ultimate.
  • An enemy has a red strip on its HP/SP bar, while the player's side as well as Escort Mission or Protection Mission characters have blue.
• Colorful Theme Naming: The Dub Name Change made the Kenzoku's skill names this (except for the Light and Dark ones which use non-color but still themed terms), in contrast to the Japanese version being straight to the point using its respective element. For example, Fire's Swoon became Crimson Swoon in the English localization.
• Competitive Balance: A monster can be categorized as one of the following classes, which are reflected on their battle stats.
  • All-Rounder is the Jack of All Stats, having, well, all-around stats, commonly with a 3-tile movement.
  • Attack is the Glass Cannon, favoring offensive stats.
  • Defense is the Stone Wall, favoring defensive stats.
  • Mobility is the Fragile Speedster, having high Move Amount to cover long distances but usually with paper-thin defenses.
  • Special is the Long-Range Fighter, having a ranged basic attack and favoring special stats over physical.
  • The All-Powerful disregards all the above and is just downright Master of All. Only either incarnation of The Master (including his true form, Fanglongmon Ruin Mode), Fanglongmon himself, and Omegamon belong to this category.
• Controllable Helplessness: The game sometimes provides you with dialogue options to comfort party members who had already gone insane. Since the in-game deaths are route-dependent (and thus pre-determined if you get locked in a route), you can't save them from their spiral at all.
• Crapsack World: The Kemonogami World is quiet possibly the most hostile incarnation of the Digital World in the entire history of the franchise, even making the one in Digimon Tamers look like a picnic in comparison. The monsters in the other world are deadly, hostile beasts who will often attack on sight, there's a deadly fog sprawling around that vanishes children and monsters alike and kills them, and there's a horrible group of Serial Killers lying around waiting to kidnap children. Though it's somewhat migitated by the fog and the child abductions being done by an insane and grief-ridden man.
• Critical Hit: As per typical RPG, but a Critical Hit rate can be higher by placing the attacking unit on a higher elevation, provided its attack covers the range. Ryo's Talk command can also temporarily raise the Critical Hit rate of a partner monster.
• Cumbersome Claws: Agumon wants to look at Takuma's smartphone, which Takuma refuses because he's afraid Agumon's large claws will wreck the device.
• Darker and Edgier: Easily the darkest member of the Digimon franchise as of date, making Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth or even Digimon Tamers look adorable. Not only is being trapped in another world played a lot more seriously, but your choices in the game can have disastrous consequences that lead to characters going insane and dying, sometimes on-screen and rather gruesomely. Just ask Ryo who went Laughing Mad from simply being trapped in the other world then torn apart by a vortex of arms, or Shuuji who undergone a breakdown arguing with Kaito and the rest of the team, and abusing Lopmon before he's eaten alive by his partner.
• Dark World: The appearance of the Kemonogami World largely mirrors the location where Takuma's school trip was in, but with torn-down and abandoned buildings and its geography is noted to be wholly distinct. Some places like the Amusement Park didn't even exist ago until very recently. The ghosts of the Sovereign Children mention that the parallel world used to look even more chaotic because Japan was at war during the Kamakura Shogunate era where they were born at.
• A Death in the Limelight: Ryo and Shuuji get a lot of backstory on their issues that led to them being the way they are during the chapters they're guaranteed to die in during a standard playthrough. Further still, details on the backstories of Kaito, Miu, Saki and Aoi are hinted at throughout the game, but only receive full elaboration and flashbacks to the events on routes where that character is going to die. Takuma also receives his own flashback scene at the start of Part 8, and this can be played straight with an even worse implication for the entire world if the player chooses not to go back to the Kemonogami world.
• Decon-Recon Switch: While the game does delve into some rather dark subject matter in the main routes, The Truthful Route and to a lesser extent the Moral route are actually fairly straightforward examples of a typical Digimon series, and the Truthful route could even be seen as one big love letter to Digimon Adventure. While the game is not shy about showing the darker implications of the Digimon franchise, at the end of the day The Power of Friendship is the strongest force of all and Adventure is treated with a lot of reverence. Regardless of route, their partners are also as loyal and genuinely benevolent as most entries (including Token Evil Teammate Renamon) and Dark Evolution is explicitly the fault of the child's emotions corrupting their partner, not the other way around. You just really have to work hard to get things to go as well as they do in your typical Digimon series.
• Deconstruction:
  • This game ultimately serves as one big Deconstructor Fleet to Digimon Adventure 's various tropes, going perhaps as far as Digimon Adventure tri. did in deconstructing it. From the characters effectively being a Corrupted Character Copy of a character from Adventure that deconstructs aspects of their role in the group by applying these roles to ordinary children who just happened to fall victim to an ongoing abduction incident and twists them in cynical ways, to their adventure being filled with more realistic scenarios, Survive is effectively a more realistic, darker take on Adventure.
  • The ending to the Wrathful Route can be seen as one to the epilogue of Digimon Adventure 02 where everyone on Earth gets a Digimon partner. Here, the monsters in the human world end up causing chaos, some people use their partners to commit crimes, and those with partners face severe discrimination and are systematically discriminated by the world's governments. That said, the main characters are working to try to fix this and make the world better for both humans and monsters. The Harmonious ending similarly establishes that the integration of Kemonogami into the human world is far from easy, as humans with partners still face discrimination, but on a much less dystopian level compared to Wrathful.
  • In general, the game seems to heavily deconstruct the idea of letting grief or perceived mistreatment consume a person and preventing them from ever moving on. No matter how much you felt wronged or betrayed by someone close to you, or one of your loved ones perish in a life-or-death scenario because of your failures, you learn to pursue the truth of your mishap, accept the losses and move on rather than just making assumptions and half-truths to rationalize becoming an insane, twisted mockery of yourself. Most of the mishaps in this game happen because people or monsters refuse to realize their loved ones who supposedly rejected them meant no harm, that they refuse to cope with the death of their loved ones in a constructive way and/or they were simply too insane to be in any position to make decisions, potentially leading to apocalyptic scenarios had the consequences of their actions left unchecked. The worst of these cases is surprisingly The Master, who is revealed to have been killed numerous children for centuries over a grudge that sums up as a simple misunderstanding rather than the deliberate abandonment he assumed.
• Defend Command: Picking "End Turn" without attacking/using items will have a unit assume a defensive stance, making it take half damage. This does not apply if it is hit from the side or back, however. Some passive skills have a chance for the user to defend even after attack/item usage.
• Degraded Boss: The player will eventually encounter species based on bosses in Free or shadow battles as they progress through the game.
• Developer's Foresight: If using the Talk command to encourage others or their partners, the character's dialogue changes depending on Takuma's Karma and when in the game you're in. This even extends to any alternate evolutions the partner Kemonogami unlock by completing a route.^{For example...}If you Mega Evolve Labramon and Dracmon into Plutomon and Boltboutamon respectively before Part 6, Aoi and Kaito warily ask if they can trust their partners in their state, compared to the more positive reinforcement they give them after Part 6.
• Disc-One Nuke: The Part 2 Fangmon exploit. As part of the story, Fangmon will stalk the party after the initial encounter and ambush them if the player visits locations that do not advance the plot during Exploration. Beating him has a chance of getting a Mature Enlightenment Slab^note Item used to evolve a Rookie monster into a Champion form. At that point in the game, the player can only get one from checking the Inner Shrine the first time and certain boss battles, and their selection of recruited monsters is mostly Rookies. By farming these slabs early on, the player can have a full team of Champion-level monsters that can last the player for about half the game.
• Ditching the Dub Names: Since the "Digimon" aren't really digital lifeforms but really Kemonogami, the English localization forgoes the use of "Digivolution" and uses "evolution" like it's always been the case in the Japanese script. A few other things also managed to avoid their usual Dub Name Change:
  • Omegamon keeps his original name, instead of being renamed Omnimon.
  • Some skills use their original Japanese names: Patamon's Air Shot (instead of Boom Bubble), Guilmon's Fireball (instead of Pyro Sphere), Garurumon's Foxfire (instead of Howling Blaster), Greymon's Mega Flame (instead of Nova Blast), and Angemon's Heaven's Knuckle (instead of Hand of Fate).
• Disguised Horror Story: It's billed as a Survival Horror game in a ostensibly kid-friendly mons series, but if you ignore the rather grim tutorial, the game does start with a rather relaxing school camping trip. Aside that whatever comes next is neither a leisure school camping trip nor a standard Digimon adventure story, but a horrific scenario where random children face the danger of getting killed by "monsters" and go insane. And once they go insane, they suffer from a less-than-pleasant death. The game also turns into a supernatural horror story later on, involving century-long grudges of ancients who desire to destroy the world.
• Driving Question: Late into the game, the Professor comes across a mural in the third level of the inner shrine which depicts four powerful-looking Kemonogami casting others into some sort of prison. The contents of the mural isn't so much what confuses the Professor as much as the composition, as he notes heaven is usually on top and hell at the bottom. The Professor realizes the bizarre composition in the Truthful route with Shuuji's help after realizing the four Kemonogami in the mural are the Four Sovereign Beasts keeping the Master trapped within the Kemonogami World.
• Do Not Spoil This Ending: One day before Digimon Survive released, a tweet from the development team requested that players spoiler-tag any content from Chapter 5 onwards for at least the next two months, claiming it's so they can preserve the story's twists and turns.
• Downer Ending:
  • The Perceived Memories. Given how they detail the accounts of people who wound up in the Kemonogami world, their fates are a Foregone Conclusion.
  • Takuma is given an option to go back home rather than back to the other world at the end of Part 8 where you would pick the endgame route. If he chooses to do so, it will trigger a horrible bad ending where Takuma insists to ditch Agumon and Miyuki to go back home, with Agumon saying tearful goodbyes with his human partner. After returning back home, Takuma becomes shunned as a pariah for his fight against Piedmon, and the human world is hit by a series of disasters that were heavily implied to be caused by the Master's Roaring Rampage of Revenge against humanity, and at one point, it forces Takuma and his mother to reolcate from their home. It's also implied that all of his friends in the other world are stranded and murdered there.
• Dual Boss: The fight against Garurumon and Monzaemon in Part 4.
• Dump Stat: The physical stats are very underutilized in this game. Most of the time, the physical attacks are close-range regular attacks and there are only a handful of monsters with unique physical attacks (of which only two are Mega). As for the physical defense stat, good luck meeting an opponent that throws regular attacks against your monsters.
• Early Game Hell: Early game units have very low movement, vertical movement, and not-so-great range on their attacks. This, combined with how big most maps are, makes battles early on take forever. Kemonogami of higher evolutionary levels for the most part have better movement and/or range on their skills, meaning that at the start of the game it may take multiple turns for the units of both sides to get in range of each other, but as time goes on this issue fixes itself.
• Elemental Powers: All attacks belong to one of six elements, with a small minority being Non-Elemental. Due to the reduced number of elements, a few of them encompass more than one type of attack.
  • Fire: Playing with Fire.
  • Water: Making a Splash and An Ice Person.
  • Wind: Blow You Away and Shock and Awe.
  • Earth: Dishing Out Dirt and Green Thumb.
  • Light: Light 'em Up.
  • Dark: Casting a Shadow.
• Escort Mission: One battle early in Part 2 has the player keep the Professor safe from enemies as he makes his way to the other side of the arena. Defeating all the enemies first nets a win early, though.
• Everybody Lives: In the Truthful route, all of the protagonists survive— even Ryo and Shuuji, who are guaranteed to die in every other route.
• Evolving Title Screen: The title screen of the game will change as the story progresses, with characters showing up as they join the party... Or no longer being there if they die in the story.
• Experience Booster: A Learning Crystal increases EXP earned by the holder by about 30%. A monster may equip two for a stacking effect.
• Experience Meter: Present as a C-shaped meter on the Monster menu and the traditional bar on the battle results screen.
• Extra Turn: Some monsters have an ability that either makes it perform the same attack twice or move twice (at the expense of the Attack command if the second movement is made) in a single turn. The Dual Strikes Crystal allows the holder to perform the same attack twice (does not stack if two of these crystals are equipped on the same holder).
• Famous Ancestor: In Chapter 8, an old woman Takuma can talk to refers to Miyuki as a daughter of the famous Minase family who was lost 50 years ago (although she doesn't seem to be convinced that the girl next to Takuma is Miyuki). It's for a reason; Miyuki (and the professor) were descendants of a priestess responsible for supervising rituals where children are sacrificed to the Kemonogami World to conjure them. Unfortunately, this becomes Deconstructed when the Master possesses Miyuki to wreck havoc and we find out he is actually the hate-filled brother of her late ancestor.
• Fantastic Fruits and Vegetables: The stat-increasing items, which according to their descriptions are inedible to humans. Mushrooms and acorns partially made out of rocks that increase HP and defense, carrots with buff arms that increase attack, bananas with legs that increase speed...
• Fight Woosh: The game has a blurring effect that is only used if the player agrees to fight a shadow battle. There is none otherwise, just instantly cut into a Loading Screen with in-game tips.
• Final Boss, New Dimension: The Master's World area where you fight the final boss is an odd subspace containing the Final Boss encounter.
• Fisher King: The Kemonogami World is shaped after human thoughts and mirrors the local surroundings, and the waning belief of the spirits is the reason why all the buildings there resemble abandoned modern-day buildings. According to the Sovereign children, it used to not even resemble what it looks like in the present day, and the Kemonogami World took the form of a war-torn wasteland back then.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing:
  • Haru will always follow Kaito in part 3 even if Takuma chose to follow the Mysterious Woman into the cable car. Shortly after, said woman reveals herself to be Arukenimon, who is out to take Human Sacrifices. Haru is also revealed to be a Kemonogami like those of the Kemonogami world's modern-day victims later on.
  • While in the amusement park, Minoru suggests the group not stay together for too long, because every time they do a group of weak Kemonogami show up to annoy them. Right in the middle of explaining this to Lopmon, Palmon shows up and Saki even calls it instant foreshadowing.
• Flying Seafood Special: Some aquatic monsters have the "Fly" movement type, but not all of them.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The Wrathful route's Perceived Memory story is about the artist who made the murals in the shrine. In the first chapter, the artist consults the head priestess, where he learns that one of the five sacrifices used to obtain the power of the god beasts from long ago was actually the brother of the priestess who oversaw the ceremony and he wonders how both siblings felt about the whole situation. This is one of the clearest hints of the Master's true identity and motive outside the Truthful route.
  • During the Spot the Impostor segment of Part 5, Minoru is one of the only humans who doesn't get a scene of correctly identifying their partner...because he just guesses and got lucky, even willingly admitting that the fake was more convincing, which upsets Falcomon, more so if Ryo survived and can easily discern his real partner from the fakes despite the short period of mending their partnership. This helps set up their partnership issues in Part 6.
  • There are some hints that the Haru seen alongside Miyuki is not the same Haru shown in the prologue.
    • When Minoru spots the boy at the abandoned school in chapter 1, his first response is to freak the player out with a Nightmare Face Jump Scare. It's not just a visual effect for the player either, Minoru and Takuma can visibly notice it. It's implied Renamon modified the Haru illusion to make it more terrifying just to deter intruders.
    • Haru seemingly knows a tad too much about the other world's denizens just like a Kemonogami partner would. When Takuma asks Haru and Miyuki about Aoi's kidnapper in Part 1, Haru quickly deducts the monster as a Dokugumon, despite Takuma's assumption that they were just Tagalong Kids. During Part 3 where the party meets Kaito and the Mysterious Woman, Haru and Miyuki will also follow Kaito no matter what, even before we're supposed to know that the Mysterious Woman is actually Arukenimon.
    • In Part 3, Ryo falls down the bridge and Haru jumps down with him to save him from getting killed from the fall. Haru notably doesn't look injured at all by said fall. This is a hint this Haru isn't actually a human.
    • Haru doesn't have any stats shown in his in-game profile menu despite having a partner in the prologue. Meanwhile, Miyuki does have stats in her profile menu, as does the Professor. That's because "Haru" is actually Renamon and the real Haru is the professor.
    • If you pay very close attention, the professor has similar black eyes as the boy in the prologue, it's just hardly recognizable because of the former's age. This isn't a coincidence.
    • During Part 4, when everyone is planning to search for Miu at the amusement park, Minoru says that all kids love amusement parks and asks Haru and Miyuki if they agree. They both say they don't know, and Takuma wonders if neither of them have been to one before. In a later scene, Jijimon also states that the park was built "decades ago" (using Kemonogami World time), implying the real-world park was built recently and likely way after Miyuki vanished. This is also one of your first hints that the Kemonogami World's geography is dynamic and affected by people's state of mind and actively mirrors the surrounding environment of the real world.
  • In Part 6 and 7, it's clear that Garurumon has a bias against the professor, an old man, implying a connection. He does not have this reaction against Haru, who's supposedly the boy in the flashbacks of the Prologue and Part 6 and his human partner. Turns out the professor was that boy and Garurumon's human partner, and the events in the flashbacks occurred 50 years ago.
  • One of the Professor's theories in the prologue is that tales of the Kenomogami are nothing but superstition or a collective mental block designed to protect people of the past from something they'd rather not remember. The reason for the Professor's mental fogginess throughout the game is because he himself sealed away his bad memories of the other world and losing his sister there.
  • In a chat with Haru and Miyuki in the free action phase of Part 5, Haru tells Takuma that they're used to life in the alternate world when he asks them how they're doing, then claims that nothing can faze them when they are together. He also assures he will handle things together with Miyuki all on their own and admits he has no problems living with the girls. The two were actually in there for at least 50 real-time years worth thousands of years in the alternate world, meaning that they have tons of experience dealing with Kemonogami incidents out there.
  • When Takuma and Agumon first meet Renamon in Part 5, Agumon comments that she gives a vibe similar to Garurumon, who has been nothing but bad news the last time the party meets him. In chapter 10, she makes a deal with the Master to gain sacrifices in place of him returning Miyuki back, and she shows herself to be a way more cunning and terrible foe than Garurumon, especially in the routes where major characters die and go insane. She also does have a history of working with Garurumon, who is actually the same Gabumon in the tutorial.
    • Right after Takuma and Agumon's first encounter with Renamon in chapter 5, they meet Haru and Miyuki on the next room, the former telling them that she protected them but he doesn't know her. It's contradictory because Haru, or rather the Haru we see was the same monster Takuma ran into in the room prior.
  • Right before fighting Piedmon, you'll run into a mid-boss encounter with Garurumon. Not only Garurumon is unwilling to kill the professor despite insisting his hatred against him, in the actual boss fight with Piedmon, if you hurt Piedmon enough, Garurumon evolves into WereGarurumon and joins the fight to protect the professor. No other human we know has a bond with Gabumon or any of his evolutions other than the boy in the prologue, which means that's actually the professor as a child, and the kid Takuma met is an impersonator.
  • In both Aoi and Kaito's Ultimate Evolution stories for Cerberusmon and Myotismon respectively, their partner warns them about keeping their hearts true so that the power they earn will not let them go astray. And indeed, in the Harmonious Route Kaito makes a deal with Piedmon so he and Myotismon would fuse into Boltboutamon for more power to destroy the Master only for Piedmon to take over the fusion and kill Kaito, the Minases and their monsters, and in the Wrathful Route Aoi snaps and goes off the deep end, and accidentally fuses with Labramon to create Plutomon and eventually attempt to merge with everything in both worlds. In both cases, they go beyond salvation in search of or due to receiving more power.
  • One of your first clues about the Sovereign beasts in the Truthful Route is when you talk to Ryo and Kunemon before you fight Piedmon, the former mentions Kunemon having "one hell of a reaction" below the Amusement Park. That's where your first Sovereign Beast, Baihumon is residing at.
• The Four Gods: As in other Digimon media, the legendary Sovereign Beasts are based on them and use their Chinese names. As usual, each is also associated with one of the four main elements. Their human partners, now ghosts, are named after the Four Gods' Japanese names.
• Friendly Fireproof: An ally may occupy a tile within an attack's Area of Effect, but they are counted out from being legitimate targets.

G - Z

• Game-Breaking Bug:
  • Until it was patched on August 8, the Steam version would not go past the animated cutscene in the beginning for some players because of conflicts with certain video codecs.
  • The game also used to have a random chance of softlocking after a battle victory, requiring a restart.
  • Part 10 of the Golden Ending path can possibly render the game Unwinnable. If the player ends the free action phase at the start of the chapter by fighting the Palmon, Gomamon or Tentomon encounter, instead of throwing the player onto the exploration phase in the Second Island, they will left with nothing but Free Battles on the map, leaving no way to advance the story. Hope the affected player keeps multiple saves from before this bug happening.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • The Talk command other human-partnered Kemonogami have in battle, which gives them a pep talk-fueled powerup for a few turns, isn't available for Kunemon or Lopmon, reflecting Ryo's refusal to engage with his partner and Shuuji's distrust of his own, respectively. It's not a coincidence that these pairs won't survive your first playthrough no matter what choices you make. They only gain their own Talk commands in a Truthful Route after they survive the events that would otherwise kill them off. In the Harmonious and Wrathful routes respectively, Kaito and Aoi also lose their talk commands when they are begin to suffer from some Sanity Slippage from having people they loved and cared died, showing that they are so consumed in grief that they no longer treat their Kemonogami partners as buddies but mere annoyances. Their monsters will eventually be taken out from the party entirely.
    • After Shuuji's death and everyone fears their partners will end up like Wendigomon, Dracmon and Falcomon lose access to the Talk command because of their human partner's fallout and paranoia, and their ultimate awakenings cannot be unlocked there even if the 30 affinity threshold is reached. Dracmon's talk command is restored and his ultimate awakening can be done after talking to Kaito in the exploration phase, but Falcomon is unavailable for that section because his fallout with Minoru almost teeters into borderline hostility until Garurumon attacks.
    • The same applies if a human character goes missing for other reasons but the partner remains available (like Aoi getting kidnapped during the first visit of the abandoned school).
  • Some of the monster negotiation responses make more sense if you know how they act especially referencing things like Digimon Adventure. For example, a Leomon will prefer just or selfless responses and an Etemon will prefer flattery.
  • Lore-wise, Omegamon is a fusion dance between WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon. This is one of the few games where you need to have both Agumon and Gabumon deployed at the same time to even use it. You can't even fuse it with their free monster counterparts, either — the fusion is looking specifically for their partner versions.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Wild Numemon found in free battles cannot talk, only communicate non-verbally; however, a Numemon NPC in the Harmony route can talk just fine. A similar thing occurs with MarineAngemon; the one that evolves from Syakomon cannot talk, but the wild ones in free battles can (when you negotiate with them).
  • Many, but not all, battles have at least one treasure chest you can break open to find items inside. However, when the characters find decorative treasure chests inside the amusement park castle, they are baffled at the very existence of real-life treasure chests, even though many mandatory story battles have had them up until this point.
  • At one point in the early game, the characters discuss ways to better defend themselves against the antagonistic monsters who wish to offer them as sacrifices and Takuma has the option to suggest recruting more Kemonogami to their cause. This idea is promptly shut down, as the group needs to ration their food supply to make sure it lasts as long as possible and they can't afford to increase the number of mouths to feed. While the player can recruit wild Kemonogami in Free Battles just fine, as far as the story is concerned the only monsters with the group are their own partners.
• Geo Effects: In general, attacking from a higher elevation, provided the target is still within the attack's vertical range, has a higher chance of Critical Hit.
• Golden Ending: The "Truthful" route, only accessible once the player has reached one of the default three endings, leads to the only possible conclusion where the entire main cast survives.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: The English translation seems to limit the use of strong expletives by character. Kaito seems to be the most often to swear, meanwhile there is the "does the bear poop in the woods" line by Saki in a flashback.
• Gotta Catch 'Em All:
  • The "Master Researcher" achievement requires owning all 113 (not counting DLC) monsters at least once.
  • To a lesser extent, items are catalogued in the Library as well. Same for Perceived Memories. Thankfully they are not tied to any achievement, but completing all Perceived Memories will reward the player with unique, powerful Skill Equipment.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Certain story battles will have at least one additional, AI-controlled party member that is just as open to enemy attacks as the player's monsters. If they are defeated, the battle is lost.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • The game does not explicitly make clear how each character aside from Takuma himself can unlock their partner's evolution. Specifically, Takuma needs to raise each character's Affinity to at least 30 to unlock the scene for each partner's Ultimate/Perfect, and 70 or above for Mega/Ultimate.
  • The Perceived Memories can only be found in Camera mode. Auto-exploring outside said mode will not snap into their position unlike regular hidden items/shadows (which would make a clear indication that Takuma should use the Camera to interact with them). Unless the player uses a guide or uses the Camera in every location in every chapter, it is likely the player would not encounter at least one until it is too late.
  • Speaking of the above, the shadow battles. The other Camera-only mechanic, it allows the player to fight monsters if they chose to do so. It is also the only way to encounter certain monsters and get certain guaranteed items from chests. Which chapter can a particular monster spawn? And in which location? Who knows, unless the player has noted them down in a guide.
  • Certain rare Skill-Equipment are obtainable by speaking to a partner monster during the Free Action Phase of Part 7 (knowing which ones require a guide or knowledge from other players). The catch is that there are plenty of them, and the player can only get one in a given Free Action because it depends on the friend with the highest Affinity at the time.
  • Though the game gave the hint, the exact requirements for saving Ryo in NG+ are lost to players until the game was datamined, which is not helped by how easy it is and how it can screw up players that would like to explore other non-Truthful routes first because even in low values he can still be spared. As it turns out, Ryo needs to be the friend with the highest Affinity prior to the end of Part 3.
  • Looking for specific items guaranteed to be given from Talking the Monster to Death? Hope the player has a guide handy, especially for enlightment slabs. The conversation mechanic itself is one too, and invokes a Trial-and-Error Gameplay with the Retry button or Save Scumming.
  • Of course, the usual Relationship Values problem of picking the correct answers and optimizing the available actions to do so. For the former, some answers are obvious, but some require understanding the character of the friend spoken to. Nothing stops Save Scumming, though. For the latter, Free Actions may push the player into raising Affinity, but there may be some extra interactions that may lead to a Karma choice, item, or a special event. With a restricted action limit, depending on how the player spends the action points, they may not be able to explore the non-Affinity interactions in the current run.
  • Concerning evolution levels, the game tells nothing about if your monsters attack something that is at least one level higher than themselves, there's a significantly higher chance for the attack to outright miss and stacks with the speed stat. This is important because the player might encounter bosses early on before they even have monsters able of actually fighting on par with them without a concrete strategy, the worst cases being Arukenimon in Chapter 3 and Piedmon in Chapter 7, which happen far before the player even has monsters matching their level. The latter also buffs his own speed to make things harder.
• Healing Potion: The bandages are the HP recovery items. There are also the Salve Pack and the All-Purpose Ointment which heal all allies within range.
• Hero Must Survive: Generally not the case but, in certain battles (usually the ones where Agumon or Gabumon gains a new evolution), letting certain units get knocked out will cause instant defeat for the player.
• Hope Spot:
  • The game loves to throw moments that heighten your hopes up that someone who has gone insane can be consoled and go back to normal before they go too far off, and/or you can save someone who's about to die. Usually, they are too late to be saved.
  • In Chapter 7, Renamon saves Miyuki from Arukenimon by cooperating with the party to defeat her. As if everyone thinks Miyuki is safe...Piedmon, the man himself shows up, kills Arukenimon and abducts Miyuki personally.
• Horrible Camping Trip: There's no camping trip more horrible than one where attendees end up Trapped in Another World and chased by vicious monsters looking for a Human Sacrifice, going insane over the truth and letting themsleves die (or over grief and twisting themselves into insane monstrosities), and find out they are actually caught in the crossfire of a century-old grudge that could end the world. In some endings, the camping trip can even end up with society itself irreversibly changing for the worst.
• Iconic Attribute Adoption Moment: Throughout the game, the Digimon are referred to as Kemonogami until the Moral ending, where the Professor dubs them Digimon while hypothesizing that they will become digital beings as a result of the ending's events. They're also dubbed Digimon in the Truthful route, but by the public at large rather than the Professor specifically.
• Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Some story battles and shadow battles have chests out in the open. A chest has its own HP value, so the only way to claim the item inside is to deplete it completely.
• Infinite Supplies: Although the cast in-universe have to struggle to find food and water, Ryo realizes early on that their phone batteries aren't draining in the Kemonogami world, which makes it so use of the phone cameras never becomes an issue.
• In Spite of a Nail: Despite Shuuji never forcing Lopmon to undergo a Dark Evolution in the Truthful route thanks to Ryo giving him a good thwack and lambasting him for his poor treatment of Lopmon, the events of Part 6 still causes everyone's bond with their partners to be shaken and Minoru and Falcomon still have a falling out. It's implied that the other children are still reeling from the callous illusions Arukenimon put them through regarding their partners, though Minoru and Falcomon's Break-Up/Make-Up Scenario has a slight tweak in that Falcomon is pissed that Minoru thought the fake Falcomon was more genuine than the original, not helped by Ryo being able to instantly figure out the real Kunemon.
• Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: There are around two or three instances in the game where the heroes are kept from progressing by a simple (not monster-created) locked gate, even though at all times they have a giant firebreathing dinosaur with them.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • There's an in-game compendium of all 113 Kemonogami^note raised to 117 if you download Guilmon in the game's first month or buy the Month 1 DLC. Although the icons are blacked out until the respective creature is properly encountered, fans of the series might identify a few silhouettes.
  • The description of Boltboutamon in the Field Guide can cause some worries about accidental spoilers. While you can easily get one from the Gazimon evolution line its description says it's "born of Myotismon's forceful absorption into Piedmon", as this was how it was created in its original debut. Those unaware of the Digimon's history may suspect it's referring to Kaito's Myotismon and the Master's Piedmon specifically, which wouldn't bode well for his or Miu's safety, and end up being Right for the Wrong Reasons on the Harmonious route.
  • The in-profile menus include stats for each human and Kemonogami pair. Haru notably doesn't have any stats listed in his profile while Miyuki, whose partner, a Renamon, was seemingly no longer seen after the tutorial, does. Additionaly, Miyuki has a surname (Miyuki Minase) while brother Haru is just "Haru." Furthermore, If you talk to Haru in a Free Action or exploration segment at the first half of the game, he'll usually give you an item and/or his responses increase Karma like when you talk to Agumon or Falcomon rather than increasing affinity when you talk to the humans (although Miyuki and the professor also don't have affinity values when talked to). This is not a coincidence; Miyuki's partner is the Renamon in the prologue and it's literally right there impersonating her brother. In a similar vein, the professor has stats listed on the profile despite seemingly having nothing to do with the boy in the prologue and not even having a Kemonogami partner, while the boy has a Gabumon. Turns out he is the boy in the prologue aged up to the point that he's almost unrecognizable, and the Garurumon fought in Part 4 was his Gabumon.
  • Blood type information about the characters in the profiles provide an early hint that Haru and the Professor are supposed to be the same person as they're both type AB.
  • The Steam version of the game averts this for the most part; the majority of the game's Achievements are hidden, so the player won't be spoiled about bosses or potential endings. However, this version also gives Trading Cards that can be traded in Steam's marketplace and redeemed for wallpapers and emotes, and not only do the cards include pictures of Renamon and Piedmon, but the wallpaper featuring Ryo, Shuuji, Kunemon, and Lopmon has the rather foreboding name "Bitter Ending in the Parallel World…?"
  • Once you reach Part 7, the battle against Piedmon is hyped up as the final battle before the survivors return to the real world. However, if you look at the evolution screens of your partner or free monsters, you'll notice that not only there are four evolution stages per monster as opposed to three, you literally cannot obtain Megas during that stage of the game if this is your first run. It's far from being over yet.
  • While Agumon has additional evolutions rather than one set path, several characters also have multiple, giving away them having more important roles in other routes such as Aoi and Labramon's Dark Biomerge into Plutomon and Dracmon becoming Boltboutamon, as well as who becomes a Sovereign. Likewise, Kunemon and Lopmon have full lines, despite them and their partners dying before even reaching Champion.
• Karma Meter: The game's karma system is split into three categories corresponding to the Digimon Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors system: Harmony, Moral, and Wrathful. Moral focuses on justice, is denoted by red, and allows access to the righteous Vaccine-type Digimon. Harmony focuses on cooperation, is denoted by a green color, and shares compatibility with the more neutral Data-type Digimon. Wrathful focuses on achieving the objective no matter what, is denoted by yellow, and attracts the wicked Virus-type Digimon. Whenever Takuma makes a decision that affects his own karma, a meter on his status screen will update; in addition to more points of an aspect making it easier to befriend the connected type of Kemonogami, the type of evolution that his partner Agumon unlocks in the course of the story will match whichever value is highest at that time. This, however, only applies to the Truthful route. Whichever karma branch the player picks at the end of non-Truthful Part 8 will decide Agumon's Mega regardless of Takuma's highest karma at the time.
• Killed Off for Real:
  • Unlike in other Digimon entries like the anime or video games, it's never stated or implied that Kemonogami are reincarnated in egg form after their death, meaning as far as Survive is concerned, All Deaths Are Final. The sole exception is Renamon in the Moral Route, who does reincarnate as an egg shortly after her death, though it's implied she was only able to do so because of Miyuki.
  • There is no way to revive fallen units in combat — if any monster falls in a battle, it's gone for good for the rest of that battle.
• Last Episode, New Character: The priestess shown in the mural at the start of the game is a real character — you just don't see her until Part 13 of the Truthful Route. In a similar vein, DemiVeemon shows up at the ending of the same route, but you can neither obtain it nor its evolutions in the game.
• Last Lousy Point:
  • The achievement for getting every Kemonogami in the game. While evolving a monster counts toward the achievement, finding specific recruitable monsters involves a fair amount of praying to the RNG gods, especially since some can only be encountered in Shadow Battles. The most egregious examples are the recruitable versions of your main party Kemonogami, especially Renamon who can only be found in a Shadow Battle towards the final moments of the game and is the only type of battle where she can be recruited.
  • Items as well. The Library keeps track of items the player has obtained at least once. At least with consumables, the player can just scan the environment or obtain them in battles. Equips, however, have some of them locked into Affinity-exclusive events, major battles, or story events, thus some are Permanently Missable Content for the current run, necessitating a repeat run if the player wants a complete Library.
• Lighter and Softer:
  • Played with. While the Moral route is no less dark and tense as the other routes, there are no further casualties or deaths among the human children. Jijimon and Renamon aren't as fortunate, though the former's death doesn't cause anyone else to go off the deep end and the latter quickly reincarnates.
  • The Truthful route can be considered one to the other routes available in a first playthrough, as on top of everyone surviving the chapters generally end on more positive, uplifting notes. In addition, at the end of each chapter of that route the player will get a bonus scene starring the character whose affinity increased the most during the chapter which depict much more comedic, lighthearted moments than usual for the game such as Falcomon becoming jealous and possessive over the status of 'Minoru's Best Friend'◊.
  • Part 12 of the Truthful Route consists of a small break in the abandoned school, followed by an investigation on the Suzaku Boy and his partner Zhuqiaomon, heavily contrasting other chapters where something horrible or tense will happen sooner or later. The party of survivors doesn't face any actually dangerous situations, the only scripted battle is the boss battle against Zhuqiaomon, and none of the Master's minions, Kenzoku or otherwise, show up.
• Luck-Based Mission:
  • If you're trying to negotiate with a Plesiomon or Anubismon, there's a chance where it can fail because they asked a question with no correct answer. ^note Specifically, this happens when they ask "How do clouds in the sky look to you?" Their other questions also only yield one bar if you answer them correctly, so if that pops up in the second or third, the negotiation will always fail.
  • If you're trying to recruit a free monster, there's a chance where it can fail and you have to restart the encounter. If you do not have enough Karma for a certain Ultimate, the recruitment rate can be as low as 13%, and Free Megas can only have a recruitment rate of 5 to 8% with a maximum of 16% with majority Karma. Good luck trying to recruit anything at the second half of the Truthful Route's Part 12 to the start of its Part 13.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: In the Truthful route, it's revealed that the once-human behind The Master is an ancestor of Haru and Miyuki. In the ending, he reunites with his own sister's spirit.
• Mana Potion: Assorted pieces of meat (collectively called "ribs" by the localization even if it's inaccurate) are items used to recover SP.
• Mascot Mook: All evolutionary lines of the main partner Digimon from Digimon Adventure are available here, though Salamon is not included (Gatomon instead evolves from Patamon). The Rookies (bar Agumon and Gabumon) particularly serve as NPCs the main cast can encounter and interact with outside battles.
• Multiple Endings: Your Karma Meter choices will, in addition to determining Agumon's evolutions throughout the narrative, determine which of the game's endings will be accessible; the routes for these endings will also determine what the other partner Kemonogami will evolve into. Excluding the Non-Standard Game Over, there are four routes: three reliant on Ryo dying and your decision in Part 8, and one only accessible by saving Ryo in a New Game Plus.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The very idea behind this game is one. The original concept for Digimon in the Adventure series — as revealed via supplementary material that has never been localized — is that Digimon have always existed alongside humans, and in the past they were called yokai, spirits, devils, etc. They merely received the name "Digital Monsters" after being acknowledged and observed by humans via modern digital devices. Habu "Habumon" Kazumasa, producer of both Cyber Sleuth and Survive, is a big fan of this interpretation and has talked about it in interviews, mentioning it as an inspiration for this game.
  • At the start of the game, the entire cast is whisked into the other world when they are taking refuge from a sudden snowstorm in a shrine during a summer camp. This mirrors the original Adventure where the Digidestined run into the exact same thing and ended up in the Digital World.
  • The choice for the eight partner Kemonogami in this game also mirrors the eight partner Digimon from the original Digimon Adventure series (with the exception of Agumon, who fills the same role as the Agumon from the aforementioned anime) in terms of different evolution lines. Their evolution's free counterparts also evolve from their respective Adventure counterparts (such as Biyomon evolving into Diatrymon, Crowmon and Vaodurumon).
    • Labramon is reminiscent of Gabumon/Garurumon in terms of the canine-themed line.
    • Falcomon is this to the avian line of Biyomon.
    • Kunemon is this to the insect line of Tentomon.
    • Floramon is this to the plant line of Palmon.
    • Syakomon is this to the aquatic line of Gomamon.
    • Lopmon is this to the Tailmon/Gatomon line, both of which can evolve into Holy-type Digimon.
    • Dracmon is an interesting one. It's actually similar to Patamon in one physical aspect (both having bat wings in their designs), but Patamon's usual evolution line involves members of the Angemon family, who are of course Holy-type Digimon, while Dracmon is known to be a Dark-type Digimon.
  • The choice of Red, Green, and Yellow colors for the Karma Meter harkens back to the Digital Monsters Card Game/Hyper Colosseum (better known as the card game featured in Digimon Tamers), in which Red is for Vaccine-type Digimon, Green for Data-type ones, and Yellow for Virus-type ones.
  • In the Harmonious route, Aoi talks to one of the children in the research lab and says she is one of the "Chosen Children." This won't make sense for those who grew up with the English dub of Digimon Adventure and the group are still Unchosen Ones, but the name Chosen Children is the Japanese version of the name "Digidestined."
  • The Moral Ending has Omegamon formed when all seems hopeless and during the final battle, mass amounts of people reacting on social media to something Digimon related both powers the heroes up and weakens the Big Bad, not unlike Digimon Adventure Movie: Our War Game!.
  • In the Truthful Ending, a spirited boy and his group of friends go to the shrine and are greeted by, Chibimon/DemiVeemon, the same partner that belonged to Daisuke/Davis, the protagonist of Digimon Adventure 02. This symbolizes how they're the next generation of children to gain partners.
  • Just like in Digimon Adventure tri., in Part 6 a mass distrust between the monsters and their partners occur, and the one that sticks around in their rebellious phase for the most time is the bird partner.
  • Plutomon and the Master are sapient dark evolutions who carry out destruction willingly, a far cry from mindless beasts like SkullGreymon or Wendigomon, just like GulusGammamon from Digimon Ghost Game, but with literal Physical Gods instead of a stronger-than-average monster.
• Narnia Time: Takuma returns to the human world for a few hours in Part 8, arriving mere hours after the group originally vanished to the Kemonogami world. When he gets back to the others, ten entire days have passed in the other world. This also means that the fifty years Haru/the professor experienced translates to hundreds of years for his sister, if not longer.
• New Game Plus: After completing the game once on any given route, you can start a new cycle with every monster you've recruited and any items you had when you completed the game. Agumon will also still be able to evolve into any forms you unlocked, negating the need for you to keep careful track of your Karma if you're aiming to unlock certain evolutions. If you've completed the game on the Harmonious and/or Wrathful routes, Dracmon and Labramon can evolve into Boltboutamon and Plutomon respectively. You also gain access to the Mugen Recollection Free Battles, essentially a Brutal Bonus Level that pits you against high-level Kemonogami while offering valuable rewards. Your Karma and Affinity points are reset to zero, however. From your second playthrough and onwards, you can potentially save Ryo (and subsequently Shuuji) and unlock the Truthful Route by raising the former's Affinity Level. Completing the Truthful Route also allows Agumon to evolve into Fanglongmon on future playthroughs.
• New Weapon Target Range: Unlocking a friend's Ultimate or Mega partner in the Deep Woods will almost always set up the fight against the enemy monster that threatened him/her in a line of sight with just enough range to reach and then hit by the newly-evolved's Special Attack. The enemy will also almost always be the one with the attribute weak against the evolved partner to remind the player of the partner's potential attribute change from evolution.
• Non-Indicative Name: The "Month 1 Bonus Pack" DLC was released half a year after the game rather than in the first month, but allows players to obtain Guilmon and an accessory that were formerly only available to people that did buy the game within its first month of release.
• Non-Standard Game Over: Part 8 has Takuma temporarily return to the human world and learn that he and Agumon need to Save Both Worlds. You can refuse to go back, earning a Downer Ending in which Agumon tearfully says goodbye, none of their friends are ever seen again, Takuma becomes a pariah after pictures of him fighting with Agumon begin circulating on social media, and the planet slowly becomes uninhabitable for reasons implied to be the Master successfully exacting revenge against his sister through wiping out humanity with deadly natural disasters, with Takuma and his mother becoming refugees before the Game Over screen appears.
• Not Using the "Z" Word: In an unusual twist for the series, the Digimon are never actually called Digimon. They're called "Kemonogami" (Beast Gods) or just "monsters" in the user interface, and the world they inhabit is never given a proper name. This has caused the localization to forgo the use of "Digivolution" and just use the regular "evolution" instead. In the Moral route, after the Kemonogami faith has now become an urban legend spread across the internet and the other world affected by the emotions of the people reacting to said urban legend, the Professor believes they'll come to be called Digimon by the public, and the Kemonogami world the Digital World. This also happens in the Truthful route, though it's the public who names Agumon and the others Digimon rather than the Professor.
• Ominous Save Prompt: A prompt warning the player of diverging story paths is displayed right before the final Karma options in Part 8. Outside the Truthful route, this is not just one that gives a Karma point, but also decides how the story will go from then on (plus a game over option).
• One Stat to Rule Them All: Speed. Not only does it affect turn order, but also evasion. The thing is, if your speed is sufficiently higher than the enemy's, they will miss so often that your Defense and HP don't really matter. A single unit whose Speed has been bloated via stat-enhancing items can theoretically solo the hardest levels of the Brutal Bonus Level... if one ignores how long the battles would take, that is.
• Permanently Missable Content:
  • A few monsters are only available on Shadow Battles at specific portions of certain chapters. If you do not recruit them then, better remember that location for your next playthrough.
  • The route-exclusive Perceived Memories, as they're only available in a very short time frame.
  • Certain Equipment are locked to story battle chests and character interactions. Ones tied to Affinity especially so, since it depends on which friend has the highest value (and abusing a certain Affinity exploit too much can leave the player stuck with the same character for these interactions for the whole run) when the interaction calls for it, and the player can also miss the interaction by advancing the story without knowing this can happen.
  • Certain Key Items are not required to advance the story and thus missable. Few are path-exclusive too.
• Poor Communication Kills: Deconstructed throughout the game: the party's refusal talk to Ryo or Shuuji and attempt to give them space, as well as their refusal to open up about their problems, is directly responsible for their deaths. The characters afterwards realize this to their horror. Haru's Gabumon and the Master are even worse examples, since poor communication from Haru and Yukiha respectively caused the former to become a villain and the latter to become an insane apocalyptic abomination.
• Practical Taunt: The Vexing Crystal equipments forces an enemy unit in attacking range to attack the monster that equipped it. With the correct setup, you can trivialize most fights by forcing enemy units into fruitlessly hampering a Stone Wall or a Lightning Bruiser as your own attacker units pick them off one-by-one without taking any damage.
• Present Day: The game's events take place in the year 2020, when it was originally meant to be released.
• Production Throwback: There's a sizable amount of gameplay elements that were imported from Cyber Sleuth to this game. Generic attacks such as Meteor Fall and Guard Charge+ return as equippable items and training items take the form of fruits but renamed (such as the Boost Banana becoming the Earnest Banana). Returning elements might also be rebranded to fit into the game's unique setting, such as status barriers being renamed as crystals and the "Dotted" condition being rebranded as "Sealed".
• Protection Mission: Part 13 of the Truthful route has a battle where the Master-controlled Miyuki just stands on one spot at the other end of the arena, and is considered an ally unit. Though placed far enough from the Kenzoku's default starting positions, after a few turns, two more Kenzoku will spawn, one on each side directly next to her. If you don't have good healing skills and movement range buffs, you are going to have a terrible time.
• Purposely Overpowered:
  • All Skill-Equipment obtainable from completing the Perceived Memories are damaging, high chance of Status Infliction Attacks skills with a large Area of Effect, 666 power, (and one of them is a Non-Elemental, which disregards elemental resistances). Unlike other Skill-Equipment, these can not even be re-claimed to get additional copies in New Game Plus. By the time the player manages to unlock one of them, the game is pretty much close to over, but sees some use in the path to the Golden Ending and the Brutal Bonus Level.
  • The three special Enhancement-Equipment obtainable from the Brutal Bonus Level are also powerful, but unlike the above, they are farmable. Considering the challenge's nature, there is not much else left that can challenge the player if they can farm them, although lowering the difficulty to Very Easy or Easy helps a lot.
• Recurring Riff: The opening theme, "Kizuna" is sampled throughout multiple OST throughout the game, most prominent in the boss battle themes. It also has a significant role in the game's lore; that's actually a song passed from the Minase clan capable of opening gates to the Kemonogami World and even weaken the Master.
• Random Drops: Enemies have two item drop mechanics: random drops and successful Talk attempts. The former usually has two possible items for each monster, and most of the time one of the two will be the same as the item obtained from Talk attempts, but some items can only be obtained by using Talk.
• Rare Candy: The training items in the form of food items for stats (like Odd Mushrooms for HP) and precious stones for Experience Points.
• Relationship Values: The Affinity system. All Takuma's friends sans the Professor, Haru, and Miyuki have a meter which is increased depending on certain answers (or sometimes actions) taken. It starts at 0 and maxes out at 100. As it is filled, their battle backup abilities increase and this is crucial for unlocking their partners' more powerful forms. Certain scenes and events are also unlocked based on the friend with the highest Affinity at that point, with higher priority given to the friend higher up on the friends list if tied (for example, if everyone has equal Affinity points, then priority is given to Kaito, who is listed right after Takuma).
• Required Party Member: Most story battles have at least one party member pre-deployed and cannot be removed due to plot reasons.
• Reverse Cerebus Syndrome: Usually, the end of Part 3 marks a major Cerebus Syndrome moment for the game as Ryo dies in that chapter. However, in the Truthful Route, the game progressively becomes Lighter and Softer past there instead, with a more optimistic undertone and ominous and/or foreboding BGM being played less compared to the other routes, especially during cutscenes. To a lesser extent, this occurs in the Moral Route, where the group is consistently in high spirits after Jijimon's death.
• Revisiting the Roots: Aside from the more obvious part that the game as a whole is an alternative take on the events of Digimon Adventure, the game also features certain evolution methods that only appeared in one series such as Digimon fusing with another to become stronger, or even with their human partners.
• Route Boss: Every route ends with its own Final Boss. Some bosses are also route-exclusive.
  • The Master is technically fought in all routes, but Wrathful begins immediately with Plutomon fused into him before she is fought by herself in the true final battle while Harmonious' true final battle has Boltboutamon fused into him instead.
  • Moral has encounters with Puppetmon and a boss fight against Kenzoku-fused Miyuki.
  • Wrathful has Plutomon.
  • Harmonious has Boltboutamon.
  • The Golden Ending treats an optional battle against the Goldfish Poop Gang as a mandatory boss fight to introduce Kunemon's Champion form, allows a proper battle against MegaSeadramon, and features the four Sovereign Beasts, fought one at a time. It also has Super Ultimate level Kenzoku encounters and Fanglongmon Ruin mode as its true final boss.
• Rewatch Bonus:
  • The professor, despite being pushed off a dam early on, just vanishes for a long while, but everyone assumes he's dead. In the next Part when Ryo actually dies, black blood comes out. The professor is not quite done yet.
  • You'll notice some characters will begin to crack ever so slightly even way before their worst aspects come to a head and they die. For example, you can see Shuuji being dismissive to Lopmon as early as Part 4 before it degenerates into outright abuse, and Ryo can be seen freaking out as soon as Chapter 1. Same goes for route-specific casualities like Saki in the Wrathful Route, who's been feeling uneasy even before her death in the amusement park later.
  • Garurumon, unlike other members of Piedmon's group, specifically targets other partner monsters and is reluctant to hand in the human sacrifices, usually requiring assistance from others like Monzaemon or Arukenimon. It's actually from a misguided belief that Haru aka the professor betrayed him while it's actually Miyuki telling him to escape into the blue portal back into his world.
  • In Part 5 after Takuma gets Agumon and Labramon back in the waterway, he hears the sound of some battling before an unknown monster resembling a yellow anthromorphic fox (actually a Renamon) appears in front of him briefly then quickly runs, followed by Haru and Miyuki showing up on the next room. It's implied that Renamon was fighting some monsters who disguised as her before taking her Haru guise and going back to Miyuki.
  • Haru sometimes assures other characters that he and Miyuki could survive on their own without him worrying. It makes a lot more sense when we find out "Haru" is not only Miyuki's Renamon disguised as her brother, but effectively has thousands of years of combat experience and has her own Mega form on default.
  • When Renamon tries to stop a Miyuki who was possessed by the Master in Chapter 9, she creates lightning bolts from her hand to knock her down. It foreshadows the Master's true identity as Fanglongmon, a monster capable of controlling light and thunder.
  • At the start of the game, you're prompted to investigate a mural depicting a priestess, with the silhouette of a massive dragon monster on the left and several people bowing down to it on the right. It's revealed in the Truthful Route the priestess is actually the sister of Haruchika, the boy who would later go to become the consciousness of the Master, and the monster is actually Fanglongmon, who was corrupted by Haruchika's hatred and became the Master's body.
• Sanity Slippage: Several characters undergo this throughout the story, usually as a culmination of their worst aspects going unchecked. Usually, there's no way to pull a character away from this and they'll just lead themselves to their deaths. Ryo and Shuuji are the first to break down during the first few chapters. Later, after the story branching, the Wrath route has Aoi break down, and the Harmony route has Kaito suffer as well.
• Save-Game Limits: The game provides 50 manual save slots. 51 in total if counting Autosave.
• Save Scumming: The Visual Novel format and the game's own 50 save slots allow the player to make quick, manual saves during any line of (non-battle) dialogue and reload them in case they made a mistake. Especially for Affinities.
• Scissors Cuts Rock: Each unit has a set of elemental affinities of varying levels, meaning you can have one that barely resists fire while barely being weak to water, and another that might as well be immune to fire but explodes if you so much as use a squirt gun against them. If those resistances are high or low enough, the Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors of Moral/Harmony/Wrathful becomes irrelevant.
• Scripted Event: Certain story battles will have cutscenes played out in the battle environment with the Super-Deformed character sprites after a certain point in the battle has been reached. If this depends on the boss' HP, then the boss cannot be taken out in a single hit if the player overpowers it until all the scripted events have been fully played out.
• Secret A.I. Moves: The Plutomon and Boltboutamon you fight towards the end of the Wrathful and Harmonious routes (respectively) have their skills modified. Plutomon's Hell's Gate has an extra effect where it does bonus damage against your Wrathful monsters (so it can actually hurt your Agumon-as-Machinedramon, as it would otherwise resist its dark attacks), and Boltboutamon's Pernicious Waltz can now hit your monsters as if it were a backwards flank just like Piedmon's Trump Sword. The same attacks from your Plutomon and Boltboutamon do not have these properties.
• Sequencing Deception: The prologue initially appears to have occurred shortly before the main story begins, as Miyuki and Haru continue to be important characters and don't appear to have aged. In truth, the Prologue happened five decades^*at least in the human world; the time difference between the two worlds means that it was probably centuries in the other world before the main story.
• Sorry I'm Late: There are scenarios where Takuma can end up in a story battle without the others present, but they will eventually catch up to him mid-battle. This depends on the actions he took prior to said battle, otherwise this trope is averted.
  • In Part 7, whether Takuma's friends (and how many) will join him in the fight against Garurumon at the apartments area or not depends on if he has spoken to them (and triggered their respective event battles right after) during an Exploration segment preceding it. Any friend that Takuma has spoken to will show up one by one every turn, with Minoru (the only one without this pre-requisite) being the last due to plot reasons. This battle prohibits deploying recruited monsters (thus Takuma starts off alone), seemingly to invoke this trope if the conditions were met.
  • In Part 10, a similar scenario involves Takuma having to find the others after getting caught by Renamon's illusion at the library. In this case, Takuma just needs to talk to them (there are no scripted battles this time). However, doing this averts this trope as all partners of the characters he has talked to will join him in this chapter's major battle from the beginning, otherwise this is played straight.
• Sound-Coded for Your Convenience: Aside from the small blue/red strip on the HP/SP bars as visual indicators, the game differenciates ally and enemy monsters by their voices. Non-partner allies will have proper speech much like in Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, while enemies sound more animalistic (for example, small birds like Biyomon will chirp) or, if sounding human, have simpler Voice Grunting (like the Angemon line). Only partner monsters and most bosses have unique voicelines, including Calling Your Attacks.
• Spell My Name With An S:
  • The kanji for Minoru's surname can be read as either Hinata or Hyuga, with the former being the correct one. However, the first pieces of promotional material (both in Japanese and English) used the latter.
  • Due to flawed localization, one line has Shuuji call Lopmon "Lopman."
• Spot the Imposter: In Part 5, there's a series of encounters where you have to tell the real Kemonogami apart from illusory ones, with Takuma advising his friends on how to test them and get the fakes to reveal themselves. Some dialogue options will work as they will result in completely different answers, while other dialogue options will result in vague answers that don't make it clear which is which. To make it easier for the player, if the latter happens, there will be additional dialogue making it really obvious who's the fake, like the fake Syakomon suddenly blabbing that Arukenimon will yell at them if they don't sacrifice a human child.
• Sprite/Polygon Mix: 3D backgrounds are mixed up with hand-drawn 2D character sprites, both during the visual novel and battle segments.
• Stationary Boss: The Master and Fanglongmon Ruin Mode are massive, so they have no movement range on their own, but make up for it by having hard-hitting attacks that cover most of the arena.
• Status Effects: As per usual with an RPG:
  • Forced Sleep: Unable to act or move, but can be cured by taking damage.
  • Harmless Freezing: Exactly the same as the above.
  • The Paralyzer: Similar to the above, but can't be cured by being hit.
  • Universal Poison: Your run-of-the-mill Damage Over Time condition. The damage is taken at the start of an unit's turn rather than at the end.
  • Power Nullifier: Prevents the use of skills.
  • Confusion: Makes an unit attack its allies or itself.
• Story Branching: The game has 12 chapters, called "Parts", and remains mostly the same up until the end of Part 9, which is when the routes diverge. There are actually four routes, three dependent on your Karma Meter values and the fourth only being accessible by saving Ryo. Additionally, the fourth route is only possible during a New Game Plus playthrough, you are locked out of the other three routes if Ryo is saved, and it has 13 Parts instead of the usual 12.
• Survival Horror: There's a reason why this game is called Digimon Survive and not Digimon Story — not only a bunch of kids get Trapped in Another World and must find ways to go back to their own, nearly every monster encountered is around for the kill, including Rookie-level monsters like Gotsumon and sometimes even grieving, insane teammates. The individual routes can also become dead-enders for certain party members, with cruel usage of Multiple Endings and Branch-and-Bottleneck Plot Structure used to create Hope Spots even as they are fixed to die in certain routes.
• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: The usual Vaccine/Data/Virus triangle returns, with Vaccine (Moral) beating Virus (Wrath) beating Data (Harmony) beating Vaccine as usual. However, unlike most games in the series to use the triangle, it is of far less importance here. Elemental resistances are much more important, especially in the late game where most mobs are Free-type Kenzoku.
• Talking the Monster to Death: Similar to the Shin Megami Tensei series, the game has a mechanic where the player can negotiate with and potentially recruit hostile Digimon.
• Taking a Third Option: In New Game Plus, if you save Ryo at the end of Part 3 by getting more Affinity with him than you do with other characters, you start a fourth route (Truthful) where Shuuji and Ryo are still alive and well, and nobody else dies later on, either. The story doesn't seriously diverge until Part 9, though; even Part 6 plays out the same, despite originally revolving around the ramifications of Lopmon going berserk and killing his own partner.
• Tier System: There are five levels for monsters; Rookie, Champion, Ultimate, Mega and Super Ultimate. If you attack a monster at least one rank higher than yours, there's a chance the attack will outright miss, with the odds being higher for Ultimates and Megas and crapshooting if the attacker is at least two levels lower.
• Trapped in Another World: In contrast to other entries in the franchise, survival in the Kemonogami world, aside from evading hostile monsters, becomes a genuine concern and the party has to forage for supplies. It's not even an isolated incident; it's apparently going for at least five decades (a bit more than that if the Moral Route perceived story were to be believed), where children go too near to the local shrine or enter the nearby tunnel, vanish and get chased/killed off by dangerous monsters, with the lucky few who escaped being those who ran into partner monsters and went back home successfully. Even worse, the Wrathful and Harmonious perceived memory stories state that centuries ago children are routinely thrown into the Kemonogami World in hard times to conjure the Kemonogami into the real world to solve their problems.
• True Final Boss: In the Truthful route, appropriately enough, the final boss is the fifth Sovereign Beast, Fanglongmon Ruin Mode.
• Truer to the Text: Usually, Digimon here are as strong as they are suggested lore-wise. For example, MetalSeadramon, who is boasted as nigh invulnerable in Digimon Adventure is a defense type who takes quartered damage from attacks (making it incredibly tough to take down), and the Sovereings all have incredibly potent attacks that kill whatever they don't cripple and can't be debuffed or hit with status conditions, fitting to their status as Physical Gods.
• Turn-Based Strategy: The game has you controlling your monsters on a grid in combat reminiscent of the Utawarerumono series.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: Each route has its own exclusive items, of which many would be useful in various encounters (for example, you can't obtain Restore in the Moral Route but you can in the Wrathful and Harmonious Routes), Agumon evolutions and sometimes evolutions of other partner monsters, making it worthy to go through multiple routes even if it means leading certain characters to their deaths.
• Vocal Dissonance:
  • Though all monsters have a "wild" voice when encountered as enemies, there is a strange decision for the Syakomon or Ceresmon Medium that are only encountered in the Brutal Bonus Level. For whatever reason, their voices is a deep one reserved for large species like Ikkakumon.
  • When Aoi dark biomerges with Labramon into Plutomon, her voice is decidedly Aoi's voice with an extra filter, despite the Digimon's masculine appearance. Your Plutomon on the other hand, has the much, more fitting masculine voice reserved for "heroic" monsters like WarGreymon or Dinorexmon.
  • Despite being a feminine-looking Monster and evolving from Free Renamon, Free Anubismon uses the same masculine voice clips as Free Machinedramon.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Every route has an epilogue showing what becomes of the surviving human characters after they return to the human world:
  • The Moral route epilogue centers mostly on the Professor and Miyuki a year after the events of the game, as Miyuki adjusts to the future while Takuma and the rest visit them.
  • The Harmony route epilogue shows Takuma and the others working in a facility that provides support to people who find Kemonogami partners so they can live in peace.
  • The Wrathful route epilogue features Takuma and friends fighting to protect humans who have formed peaceful partnerships with Kemonogami from those who wish them harm.
  • The Truthful route mostly averts this, focusing instead on a trio of kids visiting the shrine a year after the events of the game, and encounter a Chibimon/DemiVeemon.
• Where It All Began:
  • The Inner Shrine is one of the early locations visited by the students upon stumbling into the other world, and seems to be a recurring location for the In-Universe lore. Come the endgame, and it is revealed that the main antagonist resides deep in the innermost part of the shrine.
  • The School Area in the other world acts as the new base camp for the lost students. In the Truthful path, the fourth Sovereign Monster is located underneath the school building.

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