Digimon Linkz Launches Today, Experiences its First Server Maintenance

Just a few hours after launching, Linkz undergoes its first bit of server maintenance.

March 24th, 2016. Early this morning Bandai Namco Entertainment uploaded a surprise for fans on Google Play and the AppStore, making Digimon Linkz live for the first time. The app is free-to-play with microtransactions, and features a combination of gameplay lifted from Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth and music taken from Digimon World Re:Digitize.

The app is only available in the Japanese app stores. International users can download it by creating a Japanese iTunes account (if on iOS) or by using a Virtual Private Network application like TunnelBear to mask their location (if on Android). Android users will still need to create a Japanese Google Play account to download the game, and clear any cached data from their Play app.

Within ten hours of going live the app experienced its first server maintenance, with tamers around the world reporting on an apology message from the app’s navigator, Kurihara Hina. It appears that the game's servers became overloaded as a result of too many players registering in succession.

Digimon Heroes Adopts New Name Translations, Drops Dub Name Support

January 27th, 2016. This morning the English translation of Digimon Crusader, Digimon Heroes, launched worldwide on both Android and iOS platforms. In a surprise move, the app abandons many of the conventional English names for various Digimon, ditching many older names in favor of direct translations from Japanese. For example, Pegasusmon is now called Pegasmon, Armageddemon is now called Armagemon, and DemiDevimon is now called Picodevimon. Armor Digi-Eggs now go by their original Japanese names, Digimentals.

Although for many years Digimon has had strong advocates of adopting the Asian-English names used by Bandai of Japan in the Digimon Reference Book and merchandise, these names are not exactly the same as those used in Japan. For example, "Picodevimon" is normally parsed as "Pico Devimon." Some anomalies also remain in the translation, with the app using "Digifuse" (a dub name for DigiXros) for what Crusader just called "strengthen."

Players in Digimon Heroes take on the role of a Digimon tamer called to File Island by Angewomon to save it from Armagemon. In-game the player battles by matching cards of different colors, which power up Digimon of the same color.