I grew up a fan of the original Digimon Adventure, really liking the first two series Digimon produced. I was a bit hesitant going into this reboot as a result of that. We aren't looking at something like Hellsing or Fruits Basket that started as a Manga that the anime failed to reproduce a full version of for one reason or another, it was its own fully completed entity, so a Reboot makes sense here.
That said, I enjoyed the new Digimon. It starts with two of our heroes being sucked into The Network, a place that exists between the Digital World and the Human World, Tai and Yamato (Matt if you remember him from the original English Dub). Koshiro (Izzy from the original dub), is still in the human world but can use his PC to relay information to Tai and Yamato to help them prevent these strange Digimon from causing a nuke to go off on Japan.
As odd as it is that the show starts with the threat of nuclear detonation, it does a great job at establishing the main difference between the original and this show. The original show operated largely on an episodic monster of the day style of the show. Each show featured a new enemy Digimon that was usually defeated by one of the Digi-Destined managing to evolve their own Digimon. Here you will see single fights and arcs play out over multiple episodes, and after the full team is introduced you will often have multiple things going on at once at different locations that all interact in some way. This is when the show is at its best because it does a great job at keeping the tension high throughout as well as a good job at tying them all together.
Where the show is at its worst is when it drops back into the episodic format of the original. You get so used to these grand multi-episode conflicts that are constantly ramping up the tension, and then you get a long series of short one-offs that are quickly resolved and forgotten about. This goes on for a lot of episodes after the initial conflict against Devimon comes to an end. So many of them just feel so disconnected from anything going on in the main plot it just feels like filler, even when some of these episodes are where certain characters Digimon achieve their ultimate form. Don't get me wrong, some of them are simply glorious like this episode where Joe wields Zudocorns giant hammer like he's Thor, but there isn't enough of that to make up for it all.
The show also does fantastic at foreshadowing without spoiling anything. It's clear that after that first arc finishes that something is going on between Angemon and Devimon that wasn't explained after the initial arc on the Cloud Continent is finished, for example. It does this largely in the way the two talk to each other, something as simple ad Devimon referring to Angemon as an old friend. Sure enough, it comes back later, and it's fantastic. Like the original, the arcs all build to a single climax, but I think it does a better job of building up and leading to the next threat that is coming after. It doesn't just feel like they are pulling a new villain out of the aether, so much is going on and it's all easy to follow without it having to be spoon-fed to you, so it feels like a very natural progression from one major villain to the next.
At the end of the day, what made the original Digimon series work was simple characters, really cool monster designs, great fights, and that commitment to the cheesy idea that that the power of friendship prevails. This reboot doesn't shy away from that, despite being a lot darker than the original in many respects (Dark for a kids anime mind you). But despite the survival of the fittest environment the Digital World can devolve into or the incarnations of negative emotions ravaging the land and attempting to bring despair, it's the bonds, friendship, and most of all hope that pull them through. I don't care that it's cheesy, I'm not too cool for Journey I'm not too cool for this.
In the end, it's not that deep of an anime, and it doesn't have to be. It's Digimon, digital monsters, and Digimon are the champions. In this show, you get what you came for, a reboot that understood what made the original good while having a unique spin that made the rebooting of the franchise worthwhile. For all the changes to the formatting of most episodes and the intensity going on in the story and environment, it still feels like Digimon. Not perfect, but worth the watch.