Digimon Survive Beginner’s Guide – Karma, Battle, Digivolve & More

Our Digimon Survive Beginner's Guide will ease you into the game's first few hours and beyond

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Wondering how to get started in Digimon Survive? Behold our Digimon Survive beginner’s guide.

We’ll give you some tips on karma, battle, how to digivolve, and more to make the most of the game’s first few hours in our Digimon Survive beginner’s guide.

Digimon Survive is a Digimon game unlike any other.

The hybrid of visual novel and tactical RPG styles is a unique experience but also leads to a lot of overlapping systems and moving parts.

From dialogue choices and Karma, through to time management and battle, there’s a lot to get to grips with in Digimon Survive.

We’ll give you the rundown on the most important things to know early on, and you’ll be sailing through the story in no time.

READ MORE: Digimon Survive – How to Get Greymon

Digimon Survive Beginner’s Guide – Consider your Karma

Karma is one of the most important new features in Digimon Survive.

Karma is granted when you make dialogue choices. Picking from one of three possible options grants either Moral, Harmony, or Wrathful Karma.

Moral is received when selecting brave, just choices, Wrathful relies on being direct and forceful, and Harmony comes from prioritizing peaceful actions. The Karma that you accrue most often affects the direction the story takes later on.

Karma affects not only how the story progresses in Digimon Survive, but potential digivolution paths for your Digimon too.

Agumon is your main partner Digimon, and he gains the ability to digivolve into different forms in Digimon Survive depending on your primary Karma score.

Don’t just assume that you’ll get a Greymon in Digimon Survive unless you’ve been gunning for Moral Karma early in the story.

Use the Free Cursor to Gain Information on Foes

Digimon Survive’s grid-based battles are packed with tactical choices to make and ways to gain the upper hand against enemy Digimon. One of the best ways to do so is to use the free cursor as much as possible.

Moving the free cursor over to enemies not only allows you to see the enemy’s health total and keep track of how close they are to defeat but also gives you info on their elemental affinities, weaknesses, and skills.

If you know an enemy Digimon is going to apply status effects, you’ll be better prepared with positioning, and know to be ready with a healing item. If you are forearmed with their elemental weaknesses, you’ll know which members of your team to use to exploit them.

Digimon Survive Beginner’s Guide – Remember your Passive Skills

Your partners in Digimon Survive have a number of ways to deal damage and defeat their foes. From basic attacks to damaging skills like Agumon’s Pepper Breath and healing options such as Labramon’s Cure Liquor, these skills are a crucial part of your toolkit in battle.

But aside from these options, each Digimon also has a passive skill. These passive skills vary greatly between Digimon, giving each a particular niche in combat. Some passive skills boost certain stats, others augment elemental damage or your chances of applying status effects.

A Digimon’s passive skill gives you a good idea of the role it is best at fulfilling in combat, allowing you to quickly get to grips with your team’s strengths and weaknesses.

Hear Everyone Out

Often in Digimon Survive, you have the option to explore areas and converse with your allies. When in these group conversation areas, choose characters or places marked with a red exclamation point last, as they will advance the story.

Digimon Survive is packed full of character dialogue and scene-setting, and if you really want to soak in the game’s atmosphere, take every chance to chat and explore.

As Survive is primarily a visual novel, it may be a more long-winded experience than Digimon fans are used to. If you aren’t looking to get bogged down in too much text, feel free to only choose red options in these scenes, as they offer the fastest route through the story.

Use Free Battles to Recruit and Level Up

Often in Digimon Survive, you’ll have the option to engage in free battles. Your first free battle becomes available partway through chapter 1, and from then on they are available almost any time you can access the map.

Free battles are often less challenging than story battles, allowing you to square off against a number of enemy Digimon. As free battles grant experience for defeating your foes, you can use them as often as you like to grind experience and ensure your team is as powerful as you want.

Additionally, you can talk and recruit Digimon that you fight in free battles. Rather than being locked to a handful of options, free battles allow you to frequently pad out your roster with powerful new teammates. Use them to your advantage and you’ll soon have a team that can deal with anything that comes their way.

Digimon Survive Beginner’s Guide – Use Free Time Wisely

From chapter 2 onward, Digimon Survive gives you opportunities to spend time with your companions and boost their affinity levels. High affinity levels affect certain story developments and improve your teamwork in battle, activating bonuses and team attacks more often.

There is a catch though, every time you interact with one of your companions in free time, a timer ticks down by one. Once the timer hits 0, Free Time is over and the story progresses. It won’t always be possible to interact with every character, so once you know how much time you have, be sure to split it amongst the characters you most want to talk to.

However, while you’re likely to have favorite characters very early on in Digimon Survive, it’s wise not to invest all of your time in just one or two characters. Boosting affinity with several party members allows your group to be more effective in battle.

Digimon Survive Beginner’s Guide – Make the Most of Digivolving

While RPG players can be infamous for refusing to use resources and hoarding them for later, there is no need to do so with Digivolution. Digivolving is a key aspect of battle in Digimon Survive and should be used frequently once unlocked.

While keeping your Digimon in champion form and beyond can quickly drain their SP, you can also quickly gain an edge on your foes, and even quickly overpower them in free battles.

If your entire team stays in Rookie form in every battle, you’ll quickly find the odds stacked against you. Conserve SP in difficult fights and Digivolve at the right moment, and the battle will soon go your way.

Don’t Expect to Digivolve Every Digimon You Recruit

You’ll gain the ability to digivolve recruited Digimon towards the end of chapter 2. Unlike partners who revert to their Rookie form after combat, recruited Digimon stay in their digivolved form permanently. This means that you’ll always have a powerful ally on your side.

Recruited Digimon have no partners to spur them on to Digivolve however, and must be made to do so using Digivolution items. There are a limited number of these digivolution items, so be sure to only use them on your favorites.

Whenever possible try to avoid overlap with other Digimon in your party. For example, both Falcomon and Biyomon can become Diatrymon, so it’s best to only take one of these feathered friends into battle with you.

Digimon Survive Beginner’s Guide – Be Flexible with Battle Difficulty

Digimon Survive is accommodating to a wide variety of play styles. If you’re just here for the battles, a skip option lets you speed through dialogue. If you care more about the story than scrapping, set the difficulty to easy and steamroll through your foes.

There’s no reason to always keep the difficulty set to the same level in Digimon Survive. Difficulty can be changed before every battle, allowing you to tailor your preferred experience.

If you are finding Digimon Survive too easy, crank the difficulty up. If you are stuck in a certain battle and getting frustrated, lower it back down. This level of control means that Digimon Survive’s battles should always be the perfect level of challenge for your preferred experience.