First officially announced back in May, Digimon: New Century is a mobile RPG developed by Bandai Namco Shanghai and publisher by Tencent Games for the massive China market. Based on the popular Digimon IP, the story of the game takes place 20 years after a team of brave Digimon consisting of Imperialdramon (Dragon Mode), Metal Garurumon, Holy Angemon, Beelzemon, and Sakuyamon defeated the powerful Apokarimon (Creepy Mode).
Here are some of the features which I really liked about Digimon: New Century:
• Digivolve system: Other than permanent digivolve, Digimons can also digivolve in the middle of battle temporarily until the end of battle with enough points (gained through combat during the same battle). Even if the Digimon is already in the max Ultimate form, they can still “digivolve”, gaining a blue electric aura with improved stats. Pretty awesome.
• Wide variety of Digimons, including various versions of similar ones. The whole gang from the original Digimon Adventure anime series is back!
Here are some of the features which I did not liked so much about Digimon: New Century:
• Digimon strength: As players get deeper into the game, more powerful Digimons show up. That is fine until Rookie Digimons start 1-2 hit your ultimate form Digimons. I wished that the developer team minimize this kind of encounter as it does not reflect well on the players and also the official lore of the Digimon IP, where it is almost impossible for a Rookie to defeat an Ultimate.
• Lack of variety of Digimons (I know this contradicts the comment above). Most glaring will be the all-time favorite, Omegamon, and the crazy X-Antibody and etc versions.
• Lack of fancy digivolutions such as fusions, jogress, etc. Ok maybe they are saving all these for future updates, but it would be cool to see at least one at launch.
Other details about Digimon: New Century:
• There are several human partners in the game which provides bonus stats, for example some boost damage of Fire element Digimons. Only 1 can be active each time.
• It is important to take note of the digivolution tree. For example, a Vaccine Digimon might evolve into a Data Digimon. If you are building a full Vaccine team, this might disrupt the full passive bonus.
• Since I have already come to terms with gacha games, Digmon: New Century is indeed very gacha-heavy. If you can see from my gacha video, it is really tough to get Perfect form Digimons. And Ultimate ones do not drop from gacha, only their digivolution cores.
All in all, Digimon: New Century is a really straightforward gacha mobile game with the Digimon IP, which is great for players who are looking for something familiar yet not too complicated. This will definitely work well in the Chinese market. Given how the game is developed with China-first in mind, and the in-game background filled with Chinese references, I highly doubt we will see Digimon: New Century being launched outside of Asia. Stay tuned for updates!
