izigame.me

This game is... I really don't know whether it's good or bad. Steam's rating doesn't help at all, so I can't give it an accurate assesment of what it feels like. I'll stick with not recommended simply because, to me, somebody who knows DW1 and Re:Digitize/Decode like the back of his hand, the bad stuff severely outweights the good stuff. However, this game can be enjoyable, especially if you don't care about achievements, but I would wait for a sale if you're thinking to get it.
This review is going to be VERY extensive, but I'll be as FAIR as possible, so bear with me for a minute. Also, for reference, if I mention "the other DW games", I mean DW1 and Re:Digitize/Decode especifically.

So, what does this game do right?

The concept of having two digimon partners allows for some interesting gameplay. The ExE digievolution midbattle was a pretty nice addition, as well as combining your digimons' finishers to make a somewhat stronger version. It also helps having more variety when it comes to raising your digimon as you raise 2 at a time.
The reveal of digivolution requirements is a big help for people who don't want to take a guess on what to train their digimon on. And if you prefer to keep the mystery, just don't check the empty slots in the "History" menu.
There's a lot of useful facilities that you unlock via recruiting digimon and/or by upgrading them.
Your partners can now learn any techs regardless of being able to use them or not. This is fantastic. No more worries about needing to plan ahead now.
Battling is now the main source of stats, so it's much better to go fight some digimon instead of being tucked in the gym for hours like in the previous games.
A lot of references to DW1, and, to some extent, Re: Digitize. It's a sequel, after all.
There are Tamer skills now. This is by far what I was most pleasantly surprised about. For example, you could improve your chances to learn techs, get more money/drops/stats from battles, expand item capacity, etc.
This game has a post game. Although, I haven't tried it yet.
There are ways to manipulate your digimon lifespan later on.
Digimon now have inner skills that they can use in battle. They are mostly in the vein of "boost x stat", and some are clearly better than others, but it's pretty neat.
There's an ample item selection, many of which are returning items from the older titles.
The models look amazing, and the animations are pretty smooth.
There's different difficulties in this version of the game, so you can choose whichever suits you the most. But... more on that later.
I feel like there's a bit more, but that sums it up pretty well.

Now, the unfortunate bad stuff.

Oh, goodness... Where do I begin?
The camera. The camera is ATROCIOUS. It doesn't help that this is a port (of a port?), but they could have tweaked the camera to let us see what's happening when big digimon are on screen. It's not always bad. Most of the time is... decent. But it will get on your nerves.
The difficulty settings. Just Why? You may have heard from other people, but the difficulties in this game are just... a mess. I'm willing to bet that even on "Beginner", this game can be challenging as the difficulty is all over the place. Even with 20k HP/MP and 2-3k for the rest, the late mid-game areas felt really unbalanced. Easy is the same as normal, but you get more money/stats from training and battles respectively.
This game is grindy. G.R.I.N.D.Y. Absurd levels of grindy. To the point that you spend 60% of the time (and I think I'm being generous) grinding stats, materials or money. So don't play on normal. But even then, know that the amount of grindiness is going to outweight the rest. Be ready if you want all achievements. You'll be here for a while.
The story is so short and lackluster, that it may as well not be there at all. As much as I like that this is some sort of sequel to DW1, they should've focused in you exploring, just like in that game. For a couple of intersting characters we get, ( Mameo, who is the protag of DW1, and Mirei who first appeared in Re:Digitize ), we barely get any backstory, or none at all.
Voice acting is... not good. I'll just say one thing: MACHINEDRAMON.
The tediousness of picking stuff up. It's so slow. You need to stand on top of the item/material, wait until a box pops up, then it takes a second to process your input, then you pick up the item, and then press "ok" one more time because it's displaying what you picked up. And for most materials spots you need to do it multiple times. Seriously?
Running is so slow. You spend more time in some areas going from point A to B, than actually doing anything. And the clock is ticking.
Hallway/connected cube rooms designs are awful and boring. They adopted this from Re: Digitize and that's probably what I enjoyed the least in that game.
Quite a few techs are just a reskin/ variants of same attack from other trees. I.E: the breath attacks, the falling rock/projectile attacks, THE EXACT SAME TWO SPINNING HAND-TO-HAND ATTACKS...
And special moves are all the "same". They're just a flashy screen followed by a reduction in hp to one enemy. In DW1, they had unique in-engine animations, not all of them were just direct damage and some could hit multiple enemies if close enough.
The way commands are issued interrupts the flow of combat. Changing targets does nothing at all sometimes, or they switch back in a second. And you have to unlock tech slots and the defend command.
Some skill effects are outright negligible. "Healthy" , "Ascertainment", the digivolution stat boosting skills, or even the ones that give more stat boosts from battle (+6 more!? WOW).
This game lacks the charm and personality that the other two had. If you have the opportunity to play DW1, go check the environments, the way some digimon are recruited, the way you could interact with some parts of the world...
Same goes for Re:Digitize. Especially Decoded. Just go check how alive File City is, instead of this stock bland Flotia we got here. And the colosseum was a million times better designed, not just a room with some tables and chairs.
But the biggest offender is, without a doubt, the digimon rooster. It's criminal levels of bad. DW1 and Re:Digitized had a decent rooster. Not only that, Decoded, added a frigging PLETHORA of digimon to Re: Digitized. You can't begin to imagine. Recolors kept to a minimum, too.
Here? If you find three variants of the same digimon around the map, better believe you can also digivolve into these yourself! Regular Gabumon is not enough? Have 2 more variants! Did you like Meramon digivolving into Death Meramon in Decoded? Sorry! We just kept the recolor instead! Oh? Did you like Impmon, Lalamon, Dorumon, Betamon, etc? Nah, you surely prefer 3 different versions of Goblimon! Or for Kyubimon/Wargrowlmon/Ogremon, etc.

Conclusion

I needed to give this game an exhaustive analysis and keep its predecessors in mind, simply because they were also develop by Bandai. Digimon World: Next Order has some glaring issues, and it is borderline lazy. And it's sad, because digimon needs some more presence outside of Japan.
All in all, I don't think it's a bad game per se, but as I said in the beginning, if you're planning to get this, do wait for a sale. To me. this game is 6/10.
Update:
Postgame was somewhat okay, I guess. Also, once you fully upgrade the gym, and have Seraphimon in the restaurant, training there while eating salad, and fruit basket is faster than battling. But it's costly.