Has the Digimon Survive karma system got your morality tied in knots? While we’ve long become used to making choices in videogames, Digimon Survive’s karma system is the backbone of the entire digital world. From digivolution to recruitment, the influence of your Digimon Survive karma alignment casts a wide net – it’s even the deciding factor for the ending in this turn-based strategy game.
The Digimon Survive karma system is split into three alignments: Moral, Wrathful, and Harmony. Not every decision will affect your Digimon Survive karma, but each significant choice you make will affect your alignment. Moral choices are closely aligned to the principles of sacrifice and justice, whereas Wrathful choices neglect your companions in favour of working towards the goal at hand. Conversely, Harmony choices prioritise companions and facilitate cooperation over conflict. Read on to find out how each Digimon Survive karma alignment affects your playthrough.
Digimon Survive karma dialogue choices and colours
Thankfully, unlike many other visual novels, Digimon Survive indicates the outcome of every choice you make by the colour that each dialogue option faintly glows when you hover over them: red for Moral, yellow for Wrathful, and green for Harmony. You can use these colours as an indicator of how your karma is influenced during moment-to-moment gameplay.
If this hint isn’t enough, we’ll let you in on a little secret: the dialogue choices in Digimon Survive are fixed. No matter the situation, the left dialogue option is always Moral, the top one is always Wrathful, and the right one is always Harmony. Easy, right?
That said, if you’re not sure how your karma is faring, you can always check your karma rating by accessing Takuma’s profile on the phone. The numeric values of each type of karma you’ve accrued are displayed at the bottom right of the screen, alongside a graph indicating your dominant Digimon Survive karma.
Recruiting Digimon using Digimon Survive karma
Your Digimon Survive karma also affects how easy it is to recruit certain Digimon to your party. Each Digimon Survive karma alignment corresponds to the three main Digimon attributes (Vaccine, Virus, and Data) in a fairly logical fashion:
- Moral – Vaccine
- Wrathful – Virus
- Harmony – Data
Consequently, if there are any Digimon you’re struggling to recruit, you may find adjusting your karma to align more closely with their corresponding attribute will do the trick. If you’re still unsure which of the 117 Digimon you’re yet to encounter in the digital world, take a look at our Digimon Survive list of all recruitable Digimon.
How Digimon Survive karma affects evolution
The Digimon Survive karma system holds sway over many aspects of Bandai Namco’s RPG game, and Agumon’s evolution path is no exception. At pivotal moments in the story, Agumon will be forced to digivolve, and your dominant karma will determine the digivolution’s outcome. Moral karma will ensure Agumon digivolves into Greymon (Vaccine), whereas Wrathful and Harmony will result in Tuskmon (Virus) and Tyrannomon (Data), respectively.
Your dominant karma will likely change over the course of the game, and Agumon’s evolution path will change to reflect it at his Ultimate and Mega stages, too. For a full overview of every partner Digimon’s evolution path, including Agumon, check out our Digimon Survive evolution guide.
How Digimon Survive karma affects the ending
There are four main endings in Digimon Survive, three of which are entirely dependent upon your Digimon Survive karma. In order to access them all, you must accrue a numeric value higher than 25 for each Digimon Survive karma alignment. Anything less than this, and the ending tied to the relevant karma will be inaccessible to you for that particular playthrough. Here are the details on which ending you want to pick and when, in order to access each ending. Of course, there are spoilers below, so proceed at your own risk.
At the conclusion of Part 8, you will be presented with up to four dialogue choices that each result in a different ending. The outcome of each ending is closely tied to the inherent nature of each Digimon Survive karma alignment.
- Moral: ‘Be true to my friends.’
- Wrathful: ‘Stay with Agumon.’
- Harmony: ‘Save the world.’
- Bad: ‘Never go back.’
Thankfully, the same trick for regular dialogue choices applies here as well: choose the left option for the Moral ending, the top one for the Wrathful ending, or the right one for the Harmony ending. As you might expect, the Bad ending is the de facto worst possible outcome for you and your companions. Choose it at your peril.
That’s everything we’ve got for the Digimon Survive karma system. This latest venture into the digital world is a clear love letter to the franchise, featuring plenty of new faces and old favourites. If your party is missing a special someone, check out our guide on how to get Guilmon in Digimon Survive, and try not to think about how long it’s been since Digimon Tamers first aired.