With all the recent Digimon content we’ve been getting the past few years, both PC and Switch have seen a bit of a vacant lot when it came to the digital monsters. Thankfully, with Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Complete Edition we are now getting 2 of the recent “story” games onto both said consoles with some slight additions, DLCs as well as getting 2 games for only £35. Releasing almost 4 years after the initial release, the Complete Edition seeks to bring in more of a fan base with both Steam and Nintendo.
The complete edition features both Digmon Story: Cyber Sleuth (CS) and Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth – Hacker’s Memory (HM). These 2 titles run alongside one another, one being on the side of a detective sleuth and the other as a hacker. With Cyber Sleuth you have to sort the mystery of your character’s digital body whereas with Hacker’s Memory you must find the ones who hacked your account. Both stories are similar in the fact you go through the digital world mainly to solve both mysteries, with a moderate amount of traversal done in the real world.
Due to coming out later, HM is the more polished version of the 2, with more emphasis on cutscenes and a larger roster of Digimon. Though only the 1st game allows you to pick a gender, which may put some off though there isn’t much in the way of importance on the character’s gender so it’s more for imprinting your own personality onto the character. This was probably done due to the higher focus on cutscenes including the main character in the 2nd game.
Combining both games will net you around 70-80 hours of gameplay, with plenty more being spent in getting all the Digimon, medals and side missions on offer, though some repeating missions can clog up that time with needless padding. There isn’t too much point in several runs of the story unless you want to do some challenge runs of the game or attempting harder difficulties.
Selecting a “story” may seem weird to most, as the older game is on the right, though that is possibly a design choice as you normally read right to left with Manga. Each game has its own 3 save slots, allowing concurrent play, with data transferral between the 2 for collectables still possible. As the games are set alongside one another the gameplay is almost identical, making it an easy change from one to the other.
CM and HS play very similarly to previous Digimon Story games, with a turn-based combat system where 3 Digimon fight 3 or fewer opponents. Battles are random as you run around the digital world, with victory giving your Digimon experience, increasing their levels and stats. Once you reach a high enough level, alongside other requirements like stats, you can digivolve into a wide range of new Digimon. With other 300 Digimon to choose from a lot of your time will be spent experimenting and aiming for your favourites, mine being Beelzemon Blast Mode.
As you fight, you will scan enemy Digimon, to convert into your own back at your digilab, after which you can place them into the digifarm for training similar to the Day Care Center in Pokémon. After enough time passes they will level up for you to digivolve just as if you were using them in combat, allowing for countless Digimon in your farm or bank to swap into your roster for type advantages in battle.
The soundtrack in both games is very fitting to a digital world, with plenty of electronic, synthesised and upbeat tunes. Throwing in some trumpets and saxophones here or there add into the fun atmosphere of Digimon, portraying it as an enjoyable affair that doesn’t take itself too seriously all the time, combined with the comedic situations it also throws you into. Some tracks can get repetitive, especially when they reset between battles in the daily grind, but that just comes with the territory of a JRPG.
Sadly, both entries still lack dual audio or even an English dub, forcing you to listen to the original Japanese voices and read the subtitles. This isn’t too bad if you’re used to watching subbed anime, but can get annoying when in battle quotes are subtitled, as well as background noise being incoherent to non-Japanese speakers. With the port to PC however, there could be a possibility for mods down the line to add this in.
With the slight improvements, increased roster, ease of access between both games and low price, the complete edition is a great purchase for Digimon fans or fans of turn-based JRPGs. If you already own both games, you may not want to pick this up as it doesn’t add a whole lot at all, though if you’re missing one of them it could be a valid purchase if you don’t care too much about porting over your medal collection. There is some talk about FPS or quality drops in the Switch version, though I found no such thing in the Steam release.
Overall, Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Complete Edition gets a 9/10, it delivers almost exactly what people want from a Digimon Story game at a cheap price. I found no bugs at all, with relative ease learning the systems at hand. Some missions can get boring at times, with grinding being a bit drawn out later down the line but with the digifarm you have so many backups. If you only own 1 of these games or none at all I highly recommend this.
- Publisher: BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment
- Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Microsoft Windows
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