Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth Review

We haven’t seen a Digimon RPG release on console in a number of years, going all the way back to Digimon World Data Squad on the PlayStation 2, which has made the anticipation for this release even greater for fans! With 240 Digimon present and a battle system similar to that of Persona, could Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth be the game that we've been waiting for?

Cyber Sleuth sees the player take control of an amateur hacker (either a male or female avatar), who begins working as a cyber detective after an encounter while in EDEN (the game’s version of the Digital World) leaves the player with a half-digitized body. From there, the player undertakes cases whilst trying to find out what happened to their physical body.

Going digital

The plot is silly for the most part, but not in a bad way. The player might not necessarily be drawn in, but they will have a chuckle at the oddball cases that they find themselves in. However a notable problem with the plot is the order of the main cases, which are rather inconsistent throughout. For instance, after doing a main case that’s a major part of the story, it’s followed up with a joke case where you have to find the perfect present for a friend. This would be fine if the case was optional, yet it’s a main case that you have to complete, which significantly hurts the flow of the plot.

One rather disappointing aspect of the game that has to be brought up is the player’s avatar. For a game based around using an avatar and entering a digital world, there really needed to be some sort of customisation option, which Cyber Sleuth has none of. This is made even worse by just how embarrassing your avatar looks during conversations with other characters. Your avatar won’t speak, but will open their mouth and move their body as if they are. It just looks ridiculous opposite the other characters (most of who do speak). It’s as if the developers weren’t sure whether or not to have the avatar speak and as a result, the avatar looks like they are doing a terrible mime impression.

Cyber Sleuth's colourful cast of characters

Cyber Sleuth is most definitely at its best when it comes to the gameplay. The manner in which you explore dungeons will immediately look familiar to those that have played a Persona game. The developers clearly wanted to create a similar vibe to that of the Shin Megami Tensei series, which they managed to do. Unfortunately exploring the digital world environments leaves a lot to be desired, as the similar looking areas will become repetitive for the player. An odd decision that may put off some players right from the get go is not being able to rotate the camera. It’s rather peculiar as the first thing you will do when you enter your first dungeon is try to turn the camera to check the environment out.

Even though the turn based battle system doesn’t offer anything new, it does do its job perfectly fine and is incredibly solid overall. The auto battle option available lets your Digimon fight for themselves, which while a nice option to have; may work almost too well. No matter the difficulty of the case I undertook, auto battle managed to get me through every single battle (with items being the only thing I needed to do manually).

Whenever you encounter a Digimon in battle, they’re automatically scanned by the player. Once you’ve hit 100% of a scan, you’re entitled to convert that Digimon into your own. As a result, you’ll find yourself with plenty of Digimon available to use. This leads me onto the stand out (and most addictive) part of Cyber Sleuth…digivolving your Digimon. Digivolving is handled terrifically, with everything a Digimon fan could hope for being present including multiple digivolve choices, different conditions for digivolving and the oh-so-awesome DNA digivolve. You’ll find yourself constantly rushing back to the DigiLab (where digivolving takes place), so that you can see which Digimon are ready to take it to the next level.

What Digimon fan wouldn't want to have these two by their side?

Speaking of the DigiLab, not only do you visit the area to digivolve your Digimon, but you also use it to raise Digimon (via the DigiFarm) and have network battles. Network battles work smoothly for the most part, however matchmaking could be improved upon, as it did take a while for me to be matched up with a player on my level.

Lastly, the vibrant cel shaded art style looks pretty great when it comes to the main characters, each looking like they were plucked right out of the anime; however objects can sometimes look out of place due to the flatness of the textures. As for the music, it goes relatively well alongside the game’s cyber theme however it gets repetitive very, very quickly. You’ll find yourself getting absolutely sick of hearing the same themes after a couple hours.

Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth may not bring anything new to the table, but it does provide players with a moderately entertaining cyber adventure. Digimon fans will surely appreciate the game big time, as it allows you to enjoy the type of experience you’ve wanted from a Digimon game ever since the first Digimon World.

What did you think of Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth? Agree with the article? Let us know in the comments or hit me up on twitter - @KingKicks

Find us on the social networks:
http://www.facebook.com/weknowgamers
http://www.twitter.com/weknow_gamers