Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth (PS4) Review

As mentioned early in the year, I was really looking forward to playing Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth.  I've been a fan of Digimon for many years, spanning back to when I saw the first season of the show.  I've watched several seasons and enjoyed several of the Digimon World games.  I even own a toy Digivice (or two) and have several of the transforming toys.  Besides providing more proof that I'm a nerd, I wanted to let you know where I'm coming from for this review.

I'm really liking Cyber Sleuth.  I have a lot more fun making and digivolving my collection, but the story is pretty good too.  It's not that typical a Digimon story, as your main character jumps between the online world and real world to solve crimes while trying to figure out how to get back into your real body.  After playing for a bit, I think the target demographic is people who watched Digimon when it was first on TV.  It looks fine enough on the surface, but there are a few questionable elements, such as language, that skew this title away from children.  It's kind of a shame, because my son is really enjoying the game, and I think other kids would too.  Note the game is rated T.

Battles are up to 3 on 3 turn-based fights.  The turn order is dictated by a Digimon's speed.  On your turn you can attack, use a skill or item, defend, or swap some of your party.  Skills can either be physical or magical based, and take MP to use.  When you swap your Digimon, it's nice that you can replace up to all three with one turn.  Overall, the battles are pretty standard, but I find them fun.  They aren't overly hard, either, save a few of the boss fights.

Your party can have a maximum of 11 Digimon, which is really high.  However, you are also limited by your party memory.  Each Digimon has a certain memory cost, and higher ranks (ultimate, mega, etc.) have higher costs.  There are several items that will increase this limit, so it is somewhat balanced in keeping you from filling your whole party with ultimates and running roughshod over the enemies.  Plus, for most of the game your party will have mixes of the different ranks, so it isn't a huge problem.

An early on boss battle where you have a Mega-sized guest.

From the Digi-Lab, it is nice enough to show you the requirements for each Digivolution.  However, you likely won't be about to change into all of the forms right off the bat.  Each Digimon has an ability stat (abbreviated ABI) that helps determine their max level and max amount of bonus stats.  To increase this, you will have to Digivolve and De-Digivolve a few times while making your way to the Mega rank or even to the final form you want for a Digimon.

Once you learn the system, it works pretty well.  Just be aware that you will be moving backwards and forwards through each Digivolution line in your quest to get mega rank Digimon.  Unlike the Digimon World games, each Digimon's stats are set based on what Digimon it is.  For example, all level 10 Greymon will have the same base stats.  Higher ABI stats will give a higher max level, which might help you get a stat high enough to make it one of the more powerful Digimon.  So each route is much more open than in previous games, but it can be more work to get a Digimon through its "true" path.

There's also a farm that can be used to level up your spare Digimon.  You will also get notices when one or more reaches maximum level so you don't have to keep track of everyone.  Plus, when on the farm you can have them develop items, find more side investigations for you or train their bonus stats.  These are all really important for late game leveling, but the whole system isn't very obvious.  However, given how the stats work, it's actually pretty easy to swap around your party, and actually useful to do so, so you can give bonus stats to the Digimon you use when you leave them on the farms.  You can also store a fair amount of them in the bank, which I use frequently.  I can't resist tying to have each one at least once!

There are 20 chapters in the game, and it can take several hours to finish one.  The chapters have some self contained elements, but also further the overarching narrative.  It really depends on how many side investigations you do.  Since I'm a crazy completionist, I spent way too much time doing them while going through the main game.  Besides side investigations that appear throughout the game, there are ones that can be gained from Digimon on the farms.  While you could go through the game in around 35 hours or so, completionists like myself will take much longer.  It would be nice if the game was better about telling/reminding you what is the next step of the investigation, just in case you take some time off and come back to the game later.

I was looking forward to playing Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, since it has been too long since the US last had a Digimon RPG.  The wait was worth it, since I really like the game.  It is a lot of fun to get them all, but some of the systems in the game aren't really clear.  Battles are fairly standard for the genre, but everything works well.  I would easily recommend the game to any Digimon fans, or people looking for a fun monster-collecting turn-based RPG game.

Year End Wrap-Up, part 4

The Future
While the first two parts looked at the past, the fourth will look to the future.  There's a few things, mostly gaming related, that are on my radar for next year.

From Bamco (Bandai Namco), I really want to play Project X Zone 2 and Digimon: Cyber Sleuth.  I loved the first PXZ and I'm confidant I'll like the sequel as long as the combat hasn't been ruined.  Sure, they have shuffled some teams around, for better or worse, but I like a lot of the character choices.  It's still a game that I'm likely to sink hours into.

I've liked the Digimon franchise since I watched the first season, and I've actually enjoyed a lot of the video games.  It's been years since we had a Digimon RPG, as the last one were the Dusk and Dawn versions of Digimon World on the DS.  While initially I wanted the Vita version of Cyber Sleuth, I might go with the PS4 version.  Even the pre-order DLC looks awesome.  Agumon dressed as Tai is cool, and you get Beelzemon Bluster Mode!  I already know my favorite Diaboromon is in the game, so that's two slots on my team that are already taken.

Bandai Namco also announced late in 2015 that they are bringing over God Eater Resurrection and God Eater 2 Rage Burst.  I enjoyed what I played of Gods Eater Burst on the PSP a year or so ago, and would love to play these on a more current system.  Hopefully the release of these is spread a bit through the year, rather than have two different God Eater games for two different systems (PS4 and Vita) release simultaneously.  It would be a bit confusing.  Given their track record, I might not get review copies for any of these four titles, but I will definitely check them out down the road.

A few more games I'm looking forward to that may or may not end up being released in 2016.  No Man's Sky, which I am really hoping to review, still looks like a lot of fun to just go exploring the universe.  I'd also like to see more of two hopefuls, Horizon: Zero Dawn and Re:Core.  We have seen very little about these, and if they aren't releasing in 2016, I'd like to see a good chunk of gameplay to see if they look good or just mediocre.  Who knows, we may even see Mighty No.9 release as well!

In non-gaming areas, I'm also psyched to see some cool looking Transformers toys coming out next year with Titan Wars.  While not as cool as this year's Combiner Wars, there are some good toys shown that I'm going to try and get.  He'll be expensive, but the Fort Maximus looks cool and I'm hoping for a recolor/remold of the leader class Blaster as my favored Soundwave.  While the games I know I can either get a review copy of or wait for a great price, that doesn't usually work with the TF toys.  I'll have to figure out some way to get the money for them, but I'll likely have to continue to be choosy about which ones I pick up, and hope that the Hasbro Toy shop has them in stock when they have the % off coupon codes.

There were a lot of fun games I played in 2015, and 2016 should have its fair share as well.  Happy new year readers!