After my last review on a very Digimon inspired game, I found myself wanting some actual Digimon too. So I went back to a game I've played a few times, and thought I'd talk about it a bit. Cyber Sleuth is not the first Digimon Story game, but it's the first one to carry the proper label in North America, with the first two being localized as Digimon World DS and Digimon World Dawn and Dusk instead of being listed with the Digimon Story label.
In this case, I played the Complete Edition on PC, which includes both Cyber Sleuth itself, and the midquel Hacker's Memory, which is set in the same universe, but has a different protagonist leading a different story taking place at the same time. Due to this, I'll likely talk a bit about both. That being said, let's get into the game itself!
Setting
Cyber Sleuth has a setting that's split between a real world and cyberspace. The real world portions are set in a version of modern day Tokyo, primarily centered on Nakano Broadway but with a lot of other familiar locales like Shinjuku and Akibahara as well.
Meanwhile, the cyberspace portions of the game are set in EDEN, a next-generation Web service where, rather than viewing and engaging with the information and other users through a screen, people enter the space mentally and are present as a digital avatar of themselves.
Story
I won't delve too much into what the story entails so anyone interested can experience them on their own, but I'll give a quick overview. Within EDEN are numerous hackers who use programs known as Digimon to bend the rules of the system. No one knows who first created Digimon, or who created the Digimon Capture Program that hackers use to command them, but their use has become ubiquitious nonetheless. Cyber Sleuth stars a student who gains possession of the Digimon Capture Program and after experiencing a seemingly impossible situation, ends up working as a detective's assistant, pursuing various mysteries both about what happened to them and about Digimon themselves alongside their own team of the creatures. Hacker's Memory stars a fledgling hacker whose EDEN account was stolen, and who has joined a hacker team himself with the hope of tracking down the person who stole his account.
I personally think the stories of both games are fantastic, but there are definitely some issues I have with them, the biggest of which will also come up with gameplay. Both games often require you to stop and do side quests before you can continue the main story. Sometimes these side quests end up relevant, and sometimes they're fairly random detours. While I enjoy them for the most part, I do think they end up derailing the story and hurting the pacing at times. This problem isn't quite as pronounced in Hacker's Memory as it is in Cyber Sleuth, but is still present. I think the overall story and characters are more enjoyable in Cyber Sleuth, but that Hacker's Memory has better pacing.
Sound and Visuals
The game has a fantastic score, sharing the same lead composer as the Danganronpa series, though I'll acknowledge that it doesn't have a lot of different tracks, so some of them can feel a bit repetitive at times. In terms of visuals, I am a fan of the character and world design, but the actual technical aspects of the graphics are lacking. This is mostly the result of the fact that the game is a port of a Vita title, and aside from other platforms running at a higher resolution, and the PC version having anti-aliasing, the graphics are the same as those on the Vita. They're not anything I'd say is bad, but you can definitely tell they were never intended to be displayed on a larger screen.
Gameplay
Now for the most important part of any game, is it fun to play? Cyber Sleuth is a turn based monster collecting RPG. Every time you encounter a particular Digimon, you scan it a little, and after you've scanned it enough you can add it to your team in the DigiLab. Digimon can level, learn skills to use in battle, and upon meeting certain requirements they can Digivolve. Each Digimon takes up a certain amount of memory, limiting the amount you can have. As you progress, you'll gain items to increase your party memory, allowing you to have more and stronger Digimon. Every time a Digimon Digivolves or De-Digivolves, its maximum level increases, so you may need to do this multiple times to achieve certain Digivolutions. The game has over 300 Digimon in the Complete Edition and I found it to be great fun to Digivolve and De-Digivolve my team over and over again to see what kinds of options I had and just how powerful I could raise them to be.
Progression through the game itself primarily has you moving through the story and battling with your Digimon. Frequently throughout both games you'll have side quests available, in Cyber Sleuth as cases at the detective agency, and in Hacker's Memory as jobs done for your hacking team. I'm a bit torn on these side quests. I enjoy the majority of them and think they're pretty great to go through, but most chapters require you to do certain ones before you can progress. Some of the required ones are relevant to the main story and feel like part of it, but some feel like unnecessary detours, and I find that this hurts the pacing of the game and derails things a bit. I still think it's an overall fun experience, but this is important to keep in mind.
Overall
All in all I think Cyber Sleuth and Hacker's Memory are fantastic games. I'd argue that as far as Digimon video games go, they're the absolute best we've got thus far (though I guess we'll have to see if Time Stranger takes its throne!) It's one of my favorite games of all time. The playthrough I did before writing this was my 8th one, and it likely won't be my last. There are some issues with story pacing as a result of it making you stop to do side quests, but that's nothing new, as previous games in the Digimon Story issue did the same. It improves upon previous entries in significant ways, having a much more engaging story and being significantly less of a grind. It shows its limitations a bit, the result of being a decade old handheld title, but I don't think that hurts the overall experience much. I'd absolutely suggest anyone who likes Digimon pick this up, and even say that it could be worth a play for someone who just likes monster collectors and JRPGs in general.
VERDICT: Strongly Recommended
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