Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth Hackers Memory Review Ign

'Digimon, digital monsters, Digimon are the champions!'

A little over twenty years ago now, Digimon would hit the scene in the class of a spinoff serial of Tamagotchi toys. Following their popularity would come an animated serial, the combined success of which sent these digital monsters to new found heights. Heights that would include a film, with teenagers trying to foreclose Japan from getting nuked again, and a plethora of video games. As great equally the show was, it brutal out of favor for me as I got older, and the Tamagotchi stuff never captured my interest to brainstorm with.

The video games on the other manus, always kept me coming back. Whether it was the classic PlayStation Digimon World games that had you lot raising and growing your Digimon. Or the contempo turn-based RPG action of Digimon Story: Cybersleuth, taking the series in a new, and somewhat more mature, direction with its storytelling, very much reminding me of the Persona series. Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth Hacker'south Memory continues this trend, introducing new gameplay mechanics, over 90 new Digimon, and the ability to transfer over your salvage file from the original Cyber Sleuth (including all your Digimon info, hours played, and evolution trees from that save file).

Hacker's Memory will come off feeling similar a case of deja-vu for many that played the original game, only, it's a example of deja-vu I absolutely welcome.

Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth Hacker'southward Retention (PS4 [reviewed], PS Vita)
Developer: Media Vision
Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment
Released: January 19, 2018
MSRP: $59.99

Hacker's Memory puts you in the shoes of a character with a name of your choosing — or if you lot're boring like me — the starting time default name that popped up (Keisuke Amazawa). The story of Hacker'southward Retention is a spin-off from the offset game, every chapter title is labeled as such, for case: "Just another side story." Set in a nigh-future Japan, during the events of the original game, much of the story revolving around the digital realm known as EDEN; a virtual cyberspace that allows users from around the globe to experience the web in an nearly concrete form.

In this globe, URL domains are now locations that people tin can visit within EDEN, and then for example: The Destructoid website would probably only be a penthouse with cock-themed wallpaper, with the articles on cocks themselves, in really tiny font, and the theme music would just exist the Canadian national anthem. Truly, a terrifying identify that no hacker would want to visit — let alone Digimon.

The overall plot of this game details some of the backside-the-scenes aspects from the original. So, if you're completely new to the series, it'south recommended y'all play the original Cyber Sleuth first, as some of the plot beats throughout this game are very context-heavy. The story begins with a elementary plenty premise of identity theft as Keisuke'due south EDEN account is stolen in a phishing attack from a hacker.

This is a bit of an issue, as the real world laws in this game dictate that EDEN avatars have to await like your real-world self. Afterwards, Keisuke's defendant of beingness a hacker for having a temporary EDEN account, and decides to prepare out to discover the hacker responsible…by becoming a hacker himself! Side by side thing you know, y'all're picking between 3 starting Digimon (which hackers use as tools), joining a group of hackers known equally "Hudie" and solving cyber-offense cases in the hopes of eventually tracking down the person responsible for stealing Keisuke'south account.

The story overall took its sweet time earlier it genuinely caught my involvement, every bit many of the new characters kickoff off fairly dry, with plenty of tropes and archetypes I've already seen before. But, they did eventually abound on me, with enough of humorous dialogue, light-hearted moments, and character history to uncover. The game also features returning characters from the first game, as much of this game showcases plot points from the original (at present from a different perspective). But, those returning characters also have plenty of original moments exclusive to Hacker's Memory that are easily some of the highlights of the game.

Hacker'due south Memory also does an excellent job in one case over again of fleshing out this globe, from the digital world of EDEN and the various Kowloon dungeons, to the many real world locations such as Akihabara, Ikebukuro, and Shibuya. They aren't graphically impressive past any means, considering both this and the original game were designed with the PlayStation Vita in listen. Only, despite this, I still had a great fourth dimension running around these environments and exploring them, with the but hindrance being that the fixed photographic camera can become pretty cluttered when you lot have iii massive Digimon following you effectually.

Every bit neat as these locations are though, if you've played the previous game, you lot've seen most of it already. A big chunk of the avails (such as locations and NPCs) in this game are identical to the previous game. So, if you're like me and already clocked in over a hundred hours into the commencement game, Hacker'south Memory is going to feel extremely samey. It is understandable though, considering the premise of the game being a "side story".

The existent meat and potatoes of these games are the Digimon themselves and the excellent turn-based RPG mechanics involved when using them. For those unaware; Digimon are broken up into four major blazon categories: Data, Virus, Vaccine, and Free types. Data beats Vaccine, Vaccine beats Virus, Virus beats Data, and Free types have no weakness or effectiveness. Each Digimon also have an attribute: fire, air current, h2o, nighttime, calorie-free, and and so fourth — all adding to the depth of the various types.

The battles themselves are what you'd expect now from the genre, with a battle timeline on the correct side of the screen, a guard option, a basic attack choice, and skill commands for various moves your team can perform. Upwards to three Digimon can be used in battle and winning battles earns you experience points. Leveling up allows yous to and so somewhen digivolve your squad, which is where honestly the all-time part of this game comes in; raising your Digimon.

I started off with a simple Betamon but, midway through the game I had achieved one of the many mega digivolutions known as Slayerdramon; one of the most metal looking things I've seen. Still, if y'all know how to play the meta-game of raising your Digimon properly… You lot can get further across that! By the tail end of the game I took that extra stride and achieved a whole new digivolution in the form of Examon (which looks like something off of a metal anthology cover and it's awesome).

Raising your Digimon properly and effectively will involve, admittedly, a hell of a lot of grinding, de-digivolving your Digimon to boost their ABI (and so you can then increase their stats). This involves utilizing the farm systems correctly, and coming together various requirements for specific stats to get the best possible digivolutions from your 'mons by the end of the game (which you'll definitely want for post-game content or if y'all plan on playing competitively in multiplayer). As daunting as it all sounds, edifice that perfect team was honestly the near enjoyable aspect of the game for me.

Y'all'll be doing most of your contesting in various dungeons you'll find in the cyberspace of EDEN, nearly of which you'll notice by accepting cases for your hacker squad. Cases are essentially the quests of this game and are broken into 3 categories: Important, Normal, and DigiFarm. The "Important" cases progress the master story of the game, "Normal" cases act every bit side quests, and the "DigiFarm" cases simply human activity as additional fetch or boxing-related quests yous can farm repeatedly.

Hacker's Memory too introduces some brand new battle modes known as "Domination" and "Territory Capture." In Domination battles, you lot work as a squad with two other characters, against an AI controlled team on a giant board. The objective to attain a certain amount of points, before the other team. The lath itself is scattered with diverse places that earn yous points, if you move to a spot with an enemy team member already on it, you'll and so engage in a Digimon battle, whoever wins the battle, captures or defends the spot. As for Territory Captures, they're fairly unproblematic, you'll spawn in a dungeon where you'll have to capture 5 unlike territories guarded by other Digimon tamers, each time you capture a territory, it weakens the dungeon boss y'all'll have to face in order to win.

For the about role, both of these new modes are far as well uncomplicated and get mundane way as well speedily as yous'll constantly be doing them if you're farming for side quests in the DigiFarm. Somewhen I only ended upward ignoring them altogether, aside for the story-related ones. As for the multiplayer side of things, online battles are broken up into three categories: Ranking Battle, Event Boxing, and Custom Battle.

Ranking battles are your typical ranked way of lucifer earning you points that go towards your overall continuing on the leader board. Event battles are unique sets of rules that change every week, ranging from requiring specific types of Digimon, to having a specific amounts of memory. Competing in them can besides earn yous special prizes, such as cosmetic outfits for your Digimon. Lastly, custom battles (which are pretty self explanatory), allow yous to setup diverse rules and settings, or to create a individual room to boxing with your friends.

As for the soundtrack side of things, much of the OST carries over from the previous game and it's still fantastically upbeat, very much drawing comparisons to the Persona series. Some of the new tracks are pretty solid as well. There is, again, no English dub for the game, simply everything is obviously subtitled.

After clocking in over 200 hours across both games, on the aforementioned save file, I tin safely say the Cyber Sleuth games are easily some of the best Digimon games in the franchise. Despite some modest issues, a fair bit of grinding, and while notwithstanding nowhere near the production values or quality of the Persona series — Hacker'due south Memory is another solid turn-based RPG and a damn adept Digimon game that you shouldn't miss if y'all played the original.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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Source: https://www.destructoid.com/reviews/review-digimon-story-cyber-sleuth-hackers-memory/

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