Summary of the Review:
Pros:
-Good voice acting
-Decent animation quality throughout, despite being nothing spectacular
-The characters are expressive
-Good horror-adjacent visuals. In fact, it's the only aspect of the show that improved over time
-Decently-written character dynamics between the 6 leads
-Slightly (that's the key word here) more good episodes than ones that are bad or just OK/mediocre
-The Digimon partners and human leads have distinguishable enough personalities & aren't carbon copies of each other
-Jellymon, Kiyoshiro, and Gammamon get some character development compared to the other 3 lead MCs
-Less lead protagonist bias than worse Digimon series such as Frontier, Adventure tri., the Adventure reboot, and Young Hunters
-The first half (episodes 1-33) was good
Cons:
-The show declined into mediocrity in its second half (ep. 34-67)
-Hiro is such a blank slate of a main protagonist; tl;dr main protagonist syndrome
-The characters are very reactive and have little agency in most episodes
-The lead MCs are largely stagnant even with the little character development 3 out of 6 of them got
-The character dynamics get more stale over time because of the mostly static MCs
-The MOTW formula becomes more tedious over time, especially in the second half
-The horror is almost universally body horror, with ~85% of the episodes featuring MOTWs with "body horror but in different flavors" powers; tl;dr creative sterility
-Rushed and often unsatisfying endings for episodes: "misunderstanding my b," "I'll get you next time, Gadget (but not really)," and "deus ex machina"
-All of the supporting characters and new MOTWs are severely underdeveloped and underutilized
-The show didn't know how to incorporate long-term plot threads into an episodic structure, resulting in a bigger "plot" that's formulaic beyond belief and many of the plot threads getting rushed conclusions and/or getting hastily dropped
In-Depth Review:
I wanted to like Digimon Ghost Game more, but it declined into mediocrity during its second half. Ghost Game's a show that's...frustrating, to say the least. It's an episodic show that has overarching plot lines in it just like any given DCAU cartoon or other mystery-themed episodic shows like Gravity Falls (not anime, but I'm making a point here), but unlike those shows, it doesn't do a good job integrating them into the episodic structure. I'd say ~55-60% of the standalone episodes are good stories, but the bigger "plot" introduced is formulaic beyond belief and threadbare because it's given little room to breathe, with follow-ups on the overarching mysteries happening every 15-20 episodes (sometimes it's up to 40+ episodes later). Furthermore, the tediously formulaic nature of the series results in the stakes being severely undercut because the status quo is reset back to normal in almost every episode, with very few episodes changing the status quo. Lastly, The quality of the standalone stories start to deteriorate as well due to the show meandering without any real hook, resulting in a series that wants to be episodic while also having a plot, but never particularly excelling at either barring some noteworthy episodes.
The show is littered with issues, but the most prominent one is its inability to integrate continuous plot threads into an episodic structure, which actively harmed the writing of the standalone episodes and the overarching plot. The main characters were mostly static, all of the supporting characters and new MOTWs were robbed of any chance to be more than like one or two characteristics, episodes bled together as the show progressed because the MOTW formula got tedious, the series would either abruptly drop or rush interesting plot threads, and the climax of the series has barely any build-up and is hurriedly resolved in the final 3 episodes. To elaborate, its own episodes just bleed together because almost all of them are "MOTW with body horror powers but in different flavors," supporting characters are treated like shit (e.g. Kotaro's one characteristic is being a pervert, Ruli's two friends having no personality whatsoever) the main characters are stuck in arrested development and their relationships remain stagnant (e.g. Hiro and Gammamon's relationship barely changes from episode 1), the show rushes its own plot threads (e.g. the letter in ep. 31, Dracmon unceremoniously dying, Espimon's subplot, Hokuto being barely relevant) and climax. Speaking of formulaic, episodes often have sudden and unsatisfying endings: with the most common one being "this is a misunderstanding," and then followed by "I'll be back (but not really)" and "deus ex machina." The episodes bleeding together due to how formulaic the series is becomes a more noticeable problem in the show's second half, where just about every episode has body horror in it despite the show being oversaturated with that cliché even in the first half. Lastly, the main characters in this show are very reactive and have little agency, which becomes a problem since it leaves less room for characterization and they rarely actively investigate anything in either the standalone stories or in regards to the bigger, overarching mysteries.
Now, onto the positives. The animation, while nothing spectacular and quite generic-looking, does look fairly decent for a good chunk of its run. That helped with the show's horror-themed visuals, which is one of the few elements of Ghost Game that kept gradually improving over time. Plus, the character dynamics of this show are decently written, even though the character dynamics are held back by largely stagnant main characters. That said, three of the six main characters—Kiyoshiro, Jellymon, and Gammamon—actually do get some character development, even though they're still mostly static characters because the show often forgets about their development outside of their focus episodes. The character dynamics are handled well, but it becomes stale to watch the same character dynamics when none of the characters change (or minimally change in the case of the aforementioned three characters), especially in the show's second half. That said, the Digimon partners do feel unique and have their own personalities, and the same applies to the human MCs. Moreover, there are slightly more good episodes than bad ones and mediocre ones. There's also less lead MC bias in this show compared to other Digimon shows because while Hiro and Gammamon are still favored, the other four main characters do get their own individual episodes and still play a part in most of Hiro's focus episodes. I also feel like the voice acting was consistently good, which helped the characters feel more expressive when it was necessary. However, the voice acting is held back by these characters being too static to make the episodic adventures fun during the show's second half and even the first half to an extent. Putting it simply, no amount of good voice acting and effort into making these characters charming was enough to stop them from becoming more stagnant over time, particularly in regards to Hiro.
A retroactive problem with Ghost Game is that its final 3 episodes actively harm the series' already self-sabotaging writing. The final episode is just...awful, so to speak. It's not only really rushed, but it resorts to some of the laziest storytelling devices to resolve the overarching plot lines it did set up. In the second half of the episode, there's an infodump scene that lasts for several minutes that explains away the show's more important plot threads— the Black Digimon, why Digimon ended up on Earth, GulusGammamon's origins, and why the Digivices had limiters—but it leaves many more questions unanswered as well as raising more questions than answers. Before that, there's also the contentious twist of "we could go to the Digital World anytime teehee" in the third-to-last episode, and the penultimate episode reduces GulusGammamon to a one-note villain and barely fleshing out his motives aside from "I'm evil and the weak will perish [insert evil laughter here]" when he originally had some nuance to him (he did care about Hiro to an extent and was mellowing out). The final 3 episodes retroactively hurt the series because knowing that the plot lines set up as far back as the beginning episodes ultimately get lackluster and poorly-written resolutions takes away the enjoyment in the journey. Simply put, rewatching old Ghost Game episodes becomes an exercise in frustration because viewers now know that the build-up the writers went towards simply has little payoff. DGG's final 3 episodes are nowhere near as bullshit as Adventure tri.'s second half (movies 4-6), or all of Young Hunters (which has the worst final episode in Digimon history), but those are low bars to clear because it's slightly worse than even Adventure 02's contentious final episode.
The funny thing is that as a Transformers fan, Ghost Game depressingly reminds me of Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015), Transformers: Prime's episodic sequel series. That incredibly average show shares the exact same core problems as DGG: and inability to integrate continuous plot lines into an episodic structure, stagnant main characters, all of the supporting characters and new villains—except for Steeljaw, one of the main villains—being robbed of any chance to be more than their starting set of characteristics (most don't even get more than one characteristic), episodes started to bleed together as the series progressed due to how formulaic the show was, interesting plot lines are either quickly resolved or just unceremoniously dropped, and the climax of the series—the series-wide plot involving Cybertron's evil High Council and taking them down—kicks in with minimal build-up and is hastily resolved in RID's final 2 episodes. Furthermore, even their episode counts are similar, so RID (2015) is a great show to compare Ghost Game to since RID had 71 episodes while Ghost Game clocked in at 67. Hell, Ghost Game even hastily resolves its plot in 3 episodes after barely building it up similarly to RID resolving the stuff with the evil High Council in its last two! The only problem that RID has that Ghost Game lacks is that returning characters from Transformers: Prime were watered-down (except for Starscream and Soundwave). On the other hand, Ghost Game has one problem that RID lacks: knowing how to set up characters and items (read: Chekhov's guns) that become important as the series progresses. That being said, I'd actually watch RID over DGG since its writing isn't as repetitive, the pacing is leagues above DGG's, the animation and voice acting is better, and the character dynamics of the Bee Team feel more authentic because unlike Hiro and co., they actually feel like friends. However, that's not saying much because they're both aggressively average shows, so this is really just me picking the weaker poison. I'll give Ghost Game this, it made me appreciate Transformers: Prime's lackluster sequel more, so good job.
Overall, Digimon Ghost Game is a mixed bag with slightly more good episodes than bad ones, but it's still a show held back by messy writing and a MOTW formula that becomes more tedious as the series progresses. I do think that DGG is a series that will age poorly with future viewers not only because its biggest problems are more apparent while being binged, but also because it's an aggressively mediocre episodic kids' show in a sea of other better ones that treat their viewers with more respect. If Ghost Game wanted to have it both ways, it should've done what other mystery-themed and horror-themed shows did where most of the episodes are standalone episodes, sprinkled by two-parters (or three-parters) or special episodes that make significant advancements. It can be done and has been done before, Ghost Game just didn't do it right.
