I've been with the Digimon franchise for almost my entire life. I know that's sacrilegious for a lot of people since I'm such a huge Pokemon fan and it seems like I don't need one when I have the other, but I've been with the Digimon franchise for just as long as I've been with Pokemon, if not longer. I didn't have any of the original virtual pets, mind you, but the Digimon anime has been something I've rewatched numerous times throughout my life. It, perhaps more than anything, is fully representative of my childhood. So you may think that, with this information, I may not be fully impartial to the game(well, technically games, but I promise for the sake of length I'll try to only briefly touch on Cyber Sleuth) we're discussing today. And, honestly, you're probably right. Even still, I urge you to hear me out on this one, as we take a look at Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Hacker's Memory.
Before we begin, I feel it's important to touch on Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth, as while Hacker's Memory does a good job of standing on it's own as a companion piece to it's predecessor, it is just that, a companion piece. Cyber Sleuth puts you in the shoes of Aiba, a young man or woman(depending on what gender you choose at the beginning of the game, of course) who answers a request from two of his/her online friends to help them investigate a mysterious ghost sighting somewhere on a fictionalized version of the web named EDEN, a service that allows the user to upload their conciousness to the web and experience their experience physically. Aiba quickly gains the ability to use their own Digimon, and after encountering a mysterious tentacled creature, logs out of EDEN only to discover his/her body now exists in a half digital state. After meeting up with the eccentric Kyoko Kuremi, a detective who specializes in digital affairs, Aiba decides to become her assistant and goes on an adventure full of conspiracy, intrigue, heart and, most importantly, Digimon. To say anything more would be spoiling it and I highly recommend you play it for yourself. It's a great game.
Cyber Sleuth was a game I technically cleared this year but I didn't count it for the 52 because, really, all I had left was the final boss. And I'll admit, I procrastinated a lot on it. Not because I didn't like the game, far from it. I feel Cyber Sleuth, as much as it doesn't seem like it at first glance, captures everything I love about the Digimon franchise. It knows when to be serious without losing the inherent silliness present in the collectible creature genre. It has some off jokes and some bad dubbing, but it just serves to make it more charming. Characters frequently disappear for long periods of time or just leave the game altogether, but the game keeps focus enough that you'll only notice they're gone when you ask yourself 'huh, I wonder what happened to them'. It's a big, beautiful mess, but that's just Digimon and that's why we love it.
I was, instead, procrastinating on Cyber Sleuth as I had made the foolish mistake of deciding to 100% Cyber Sleuth, a goal that I have long since given up on as, you know, I have too many other games to do. If I have one complaint about Cyber Sleuth and, for that matter, a lot of Digimon games in general, it's the grind. You have to grind a lot in Cyber Sleuth if you're not going for 100%, as natural level ups will rarely get you to the point you need to be the later you get in the game. The game expects you to grind so much that there are Digimon and items that only exist to expedite the grinding process. And all this necessary grinding got to me. After a while I started to get burnt out on a process that was only half helping me beat the game and was half just me desiring, possibly in vain, to 100% the game. But, as the release of Hacker's Memory was fast approaching, I prioritized beating the original Cyber Sleuth rather than wasting my time on the grind. And as soon as I got back into the game proper, my love for it was reignited.
It may not seem like it since I just got done ranting about how horrible grinding was in the original Cyber Sleuth, but it was overall one of the best experiences I've had with an RPG this decade. In fact, if you would've asked me how I felt after finishing it, I would've said that, aside from the Xenoblade Chronicles games, Cyber Sleuth was the best RPG to come out in the 2010s period. It reminds me a lot of the original series of Digimon, Digimon Adventure, mostly in tone but also some plot points present in the game which, you know, makes sense. Cyber Sleuth was an anniversary game, you see, celebrating the 15th anniversary of Digimon video games. And I personally believe it does the entire series justice and I seriously recommend you all play it. I mention all of this, because I want to establish something. Hacker's Memory, the companion piece of Cyber Sleuth designed to be released on the franchise's 20th anniversary(the whole franchise this time, not just the games), had a lot to live up to.
When Hacker's Memory was first announced, I was really skeptical of it. It was during the period I was feeling burnt out on Cyber Sleuth and I was very cautious about letting myself get excited knowing the problems with that game. As well, I was cynical about it being a separate story in the Cyber Sleuth universe that still featured a lot of the characters and apparently the scenarios from Cyber Sleuth. I was worried that rather than giving us a story to stand on its own merits, Hacker's Memory would just be Cyber Sleuth 1 1/2. A batch of lazy retcons to insert the new characters into scenarios they didn't initially belong without them actually interfering with the original game's plot at all. But in the end I decided to pick it up as, even though I had my problems with Cyber Sleuth, it was still a fun game and overall I had a good time. And since most of Hacker's Memory was gameplay-wise identical to Cyber Sleuth, if the story didn't grab me, at least I would still have fun aside from that.
Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Hacker's Memory puts you in the shoes of a character that, for the sake of continuity, we'll call Amasawa. Before we learn anything about Amasawa's past, we're thrown right into the action. Amasawa is the new recruit of the hacker team Hudie, a group of hackers specializing in helping to bring order to EDEN. They're the kind of hackers that, in real life, companies would hire to hack their sites and bring them reports of all the security loopholes. They're hunting after a hacker who was involved in a secret hacking ring with the sole purpose of stealing the accounts of EDEN users and selling them for profit. We then learn, in a flashback, that Amasawa was one of the victims of this ring, and he became a hacker with the purpose of hunting down and reclaiming his account. He has also been receiving messages from a mysterious masked informant going by 'K', who is feeding him the names of the hackers in the ring constantly telling him not to trust anyone aside from 'K'. Can Amasawa reclaim his account with the help of his new friends and his Digimon partners? The answer may actually surprise you.
Hacker's Memory does a great job of instantly establishing that this is going to be a more personal venture than the previous game. Not too long after the intro you will be revisiting a lot of familiar locations and meeting a lot of familiar characters, but right off the bat the game let's you know that this story is going to be smaller and more personal and that's totally to its advantage. I compared Cyber Sleuth to the original Digimon series, Adventure, and while I love Adventure to death, it very quickly becomes too big for its own good. Seven kids lost in a bizarre world full of weird monsters and having to learn to survive until they can get home quickly goes full on fate of the world. Hacker's Memory, on the other hand, reminds me more of Digimon Tamers, the third series of Digimon. The story starts out simple, yes, but Tamers wasted no time establishing that this going to be darker and more personal than the previous Digimon series, and is often lauded as the best of the Digimon franchise as a result. And boy, 'dark' is a great word to describe Hacker's Memory.
Hacker's Memory, for the most part, plays like Cyber Sleuth does. There are minor gameplay adjustments that usually are for the better, but the core of it is Cyber Sleuth through and through. You engage in Digimon battles with up to three of your Digimon being on the field at once, solve a variety of cases that let you learn more about the world and its inhabitants, beat a variety of bosses that have ridiculously skewed stats and absorb crazy amounts of damage and, of course, grind. The game does have a lot of minor changes and improvements that aren't necessary but help a lot. In the first game, your case board, entrance to EDEN and entrance to the DigiLab, an area where you take care of, Digivolve and store your Digimon, required a lot of tedious back and forth between rooms in the hub of that game. In this game, they are all more or less accessible from the same menu, making it more convenient. As well, Amasawa gets the ability to double his running speed, which makes dungeon crawling way more convenient, as well as the ability to warp back to a dungeon entrance without the need for an item. Like I said, not necessary additions, but good quality of life improvements just as well.
Hacker's Memory's character work is impressive. They not only have a fantastic batch of new characters that all get their own development and arcs throughout the course of the game, but we get to learn a lot about characters, both major and minor, from the original game that weren't given proper time in the light because the story ran out of use for them. A couple characters that were even super minor in Cyber Sleuth are some of the most important characters in Hacker's Memory. This expansion upon the world more than makes it a worthy companion piece to it's predecessor, helped more by some genuinely great world building that, at times, can seem a little clunky and like it's going in the lazy retcon direction but overall serves to create a world that feels very alive. I was more into the world of Cyber Sleuth in this entry than I was in the original, and that's saying a lot considering I already felt Cyber Sleuth was great.
Hacker's Memory doesn't pull any punches with its story and themes. Throughout the game, you'll be faced with themes like loss, identity, betrayal, depression and disease. The name Hacker's Memory morphs itself into so many different contexts throughout that you'll be stilling finding meanings for it after your journey is over. I will warn you of this though, Hacker's Memory will destroy you. At pretty much every point in the game, something truly sad is happening. I was fighting back tears throughout basically the entire latter half of Hacker's Memory because just sad thing after sad thing was happening with only the slightest bits of levity separating them. Some people may find this manipulative, but I feel like it's a testament to how well written the game is. I could definitely see the constant sadness getting to people though so if you're not great with those kinds of things, I'd recommend not playing it straight through without any breaks. It's a little overwhelming.
I haven't exactly talked a ton about the soundtracks of my previous entries into the 52, but I feel like it's notable in this game. For the most part, the music in Cyber Sleuth is just awesome. The soundtrack is a nice blend of ambient music tracks, j-pop style character themes and epic boss themes. I highly recommend checking it out. Some of my personal favorites are the main theme, which is a cool remix of the original Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth theme, the Under Kowloon theme, the Arcadiamon boss theme, the final boss theme(which unironically uses O Fortuna and I love it because it's just super cheesy) and the ending theme. However, the soundtrack does list some spoilers for later areas in the game so, if you have any interest in playing this completely spoiler free, I'd wait until after you play the game to indulge your need for the soundtrack.
Visually, this game is, for the most part, not exactly anything to write home about. Don't get me wrong, the game looks good. The characters are all super anime looking and the game is really bright and really colorful and really atmospheric at times. It does what it needs to do, looks good doing it, but doesn't strive too much for excellence. That is, except for the pre-rendered cutscenes. This game has a few pre-rendered cutscenes spread throughout and they are gorgeous. At first, you'd think that they were hand drawn with how beautiful they are. There's another area in the game later on that is, by far, the most beautiful area in the entirety of the game, but for the sake of spoilers I'll be keeping that one for myself. Maybe give you incentive to play the game.
I don't think I've ever been more happy to be wrong about anything that I was to be wrong about Hacker's Memory. It's not just worthy of being the sister to Cyber Sleuth, it surpasses Cyber Sleuth in every way. The characters are likable and relatable, the story is complex and emotional, the gameplay is quick and intuitive, the visuals range from good to some of the best you'll see in any video game, it's just wonderful. It's an early contender for both my favorite game of the 52 and my GOTY 2018. I got the feeling, while playing it, that you get the first time you play one of your favorite games of all time. It's just superb. It's without a doubt the best gaming experience I've had since I first got Xenoblade Chronicles in 2011 and I will undoubtedly be playing it again in the near future.
And that's basically all I can say without spoiling the game in detail. I urge you to play it. It's just so good. I said a ton about it and still feel like I barely scratched the surface of why I love this game. It's hard to articulate it. I want to go back in time just to experience it for the first time all over again. I almost feel like I could end the 52 right now and not miss anything. But, I still have more games to get to and, honestly, it's not like the world stops just because I played a fantastic game. So, join me next time, when we'll be swapping from Digimon to Pokemon, for Pokemon Sun. See you guys then.
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