Over the years, Bandai has been creating toys and accessories for their popular Digital Monsters — also known as Digimon — franchise with their Virtual Pet Devices and other similar products.
In July 2021, Bandai released the Vital Bracelet where people can not only play with their virtual pets, but also foster a healthy lifestyle with it. On 26 November 2022, Bandai released the upgraded version which is the Vital Bracelet BE with many quality of life improvements.
The Vital Bracelet BE is the latest edition of the fitness toy watch where players are able to raise and play with their Digimons. The Vital Bracelet BE is a culmination of the various Vital Bracelet versions that have been released before this. It also comes with a “dim card” that houses the Digimon that you will be using with the Vital Bracelet.
Previous versions are only able to interact within their own ecosystem however the BE version is able to interact with them albeit with less functionality. Players are able to bring their Digimons from previous editions into the BE version but they are unable to gain stats unlike the newer versions.
Players are able to do exercises such as punches, squats, crunches and dashes to increase not only the player’s own physical abilities, but also to increase their Digimon stats within the device. Digimon that are selected as the primary Digimon on the device will receive status increases when the players do these exercises. The statuses which are affected are HP, AP, BP and PP and each corresponds to a specific exercise. These stats also help determine the Digimon’s next evolution.
When the original Vital Bracelet released in mid 2021, the device had certain flaws and issues that a lot of people encountered. The new Vital Bracelet BE edition fixed many of these issues and added new features that were not available during the initial release.
The biggest change is that it is finally water resistant. There were a ton of complaints where the device was unable to detect the person’s heartbeat as their skin was sweaty or the USB connector would get faulty because of the water that’s left on the device. This major upgrade came at a good time while the hype for Vital Bracelet is still present.
The other major update that the device received is the Adventure mode which is a single player game mode. Players will be able to play this game mode and earn special rewards including Adventure-exclusive Digimon when completing it. This new game mode was not available in the initial release, and now players are able to play this mode to not only earn rewards but also have a PVE experience with their current Digimon.
The main feature of the Vital Bracelet BE is battling with other players’ Digimon. Players are able to battle with other players Digimon locally when connecting with another Vital Bracelet. The outcome of the battle is based on the Digimon stats by how far they have raised and trained them.
Players can also rise to the next level and battle other players through the Vital Bracelet Arena app which you can download through the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. Here players are able to transfer their Digimon from the Vital Bracelet to the app via NFC. The app has many features such as a storage system, item inventory, reading the Codex, setting up formations and also the battle system.
Players are able to battle with other players either through random battles or by creating a room ID and inviting other players to join their room. The battles through the Vital Bracelet Arena app are not automated and are based on turn orders. Players are able to choose to attack or do a special attack during their attacking turn, while they are able to defend during their defending turn.
There is also a QTE sequence during each turn when choosing to attack or defend. The more combos you get, the higher the additional attack you gain for the Digimon to do its attack. This additional QTE sequence will give some edge to players who are quick witted and stats are not the whole deciding factor.
With that in mind, Vital Bracelet BE is not only limited to just Digimon alone but also there are other anime franchises available within the Vital Bracelet ecosystem. Demon Slayer, My Hero Academia, and Tokyo Revengers are the currently available anime franchises available to play with the Vital Bracelet BE, while Jujutsu Kaisen and Tosochu: The Great Mission anime will be available at a later date.
Any dim cards you purchase from these anime franchises can work on any Vital Bracelet BE version. They are unable to work on the previous versions of the Vital Bracelet because of the incompatibility with the devices.
All the anime franchises have almost the same similarities with their Digimon counterparts, but the biggest difference is that there is no digievolution required from these anime franchises. For example: Deku from My Hero Academia is always be Deku version and will not be able to evolve. Each character will be their own selves apart from whichever special version a character will appear in.
The Vital Bracelet BE is a great device to have if you are a veteran or first timer in the scene. The amount of playability you get depends on how you do the exercises as it is an important trait to increase your Digimon stats. The stronger they are, the more Digimon battles you are able to win.
For more information about Vital Bracelet BE, check out KC Distribution Sdn Bhd and Digimon Digivice & Tamagotchi Malaysia on Facebook.
