The recent release of Digimon Story: Time Stranger to Switch 2 had me on a bit of a nostalgia high. And, on the search for a bit of a paracosm paradise, I decided to check the app store to see whether it has a Digimon game.

And, to my surprise, it had one which released just days ago!

When you imagine a Digimon app, what would come to mind? Don’t be afraid to give the obvious answer, because we’re likely thinking the same thing, which naturally suggests itself when thinking about Digimon.

Did you maybe think of a simulator of the classic keychain from 1997? Or of the Digivice featured on the first season of the show? Or of the D3 Digivice?

I couldn’t blame you for thinking that, because that would be a proper use of the license. But sadly, what I found instead was Digimon Up.

All that you need to know about Digimon Up is that it’s yet another insipid autoplayer mobile game. What makes this one different is that it uses Digimon assets.

While that in itself is a disappointment, what gets even worse is that you need to have the game open in order to progress through the stages.

Even though Digimon Up is just days old, it already has many game systems, which all serve the same purpose: to bring damage output up so that more stages are cleared as your phone is sitting there with the screen on.

Obtain clothing customization items? They somehow bring your Digimon’s stats up, though they don’t wear them. Farming? Just a level of complexity to the Eat mechanic, which randomly determines which stats come up. Exploring a digital world? The point is to collect tickets to spend on a skill tree, which also ups stat points. Camp? It’s for attaining a currency that can be spent on digivices that also ups stats. Customizing those also increases stats.

And on, and on, and on.

While most RPGs have different stats to the end of encouraging different playstyles with your characters, in Digimon Up, there is only one playstyle: bring your stats as high as possible so that your Digimon can whallop anything that dares to confront it even harder.

All those different game systems that accomplish the same thing collectively create the illusion of complexity. Unless your wrangler is reading this to you, you’ll figure out what’s going on.

Also, don’t wrack your brain over which starter Digimon to pick, because statistically speaking, they are all exactly the same. There are no type categories, the differences are purely superficial. There will be a point where you can choose more to raise, but the stats will carry over, regardless of digivolution stage, so it would only be a cosmetic choice.

By now, you’re probably excited to learn how this game makes money. If you farm your social media clout from posting about gachas in mobile games, Digimon Up makes it too easy for you. A limited banner does allow for a limited amount of pulls per day using a free currency that can be earned in-game, but you’d have to pull every day to increase your likelihood of pulling what’s featured before the banner ends. There is a guarantee of pulling the featured item on the 200th attempt.

But that’s as nice as the banners get. There’s no carryover of pity to a different banner, so when the banner expires, the pity is gone. What’s worse, different banners have different durations, and if a banner runs for only a few days, you won’t be able to reach max pity from just free pulls, meaning a completely FtP player might be entirely at the mercy of the draw when it comes to pulling an item. While other games have similar gacha systems, Digimon Up is notable for how merciless it is. And it doesn’t look like it’s worth paying real money, considering how little you’d be getting in return.

Worse yet, the game is broken. Not in the “a certain character is favored in a heavily lopsided manner” sort of way. Again, all partner Digimon are pretty much the same. It’s broken in the sense that certain things, such as initiating certain battles, or pulling for crests, might not work.

Which is shameful. After all, the exact same style of game has been done on mobile many times. When other developers have already done the legwork of making a game system, why would things go wrong when the assets are flipped for Digimon?

You know what? Let’s do what Digimon Up stumbled on, and put the license to work: The game makes me want to become the Digimon Emperor so that I can prevent it from digivolving past its rookie stage.

If you don’t get what that means, then the takeaway is this: just because a game is free doesn’t mean it’s worth playing. And if service for Digimon Up ended, Digimon fans would welcome the news.