no spoilers~ & this is just for the first game, cyber sleuth

i had so much fun with this game that I immediately launched into playing Hacker's Memory after 98 hrs of cyber sleuth~ it's not perfect by any means, with sum very uneven difficulty & invisible encounters for example, but the design is pretty solid, so that even grinding is fun (& u will have to grind a lil, even on normal). the story was fun & along with the character development it took sum unexpected & subtle turns that kept me engaged. as someone who was all about Pokemon growing up, this was super refreshing; actual characters, actual plot, darker & more mature themes, more challenging gameplay, & way more queer representation (the game is especially queer if u play as the girl)~ just a real one-up on the tired pokemon games (though I rly enjoyed Arceus, finally some innovation), aside from of course the classic digimon hit-or-miss quality in the monster design & naming department. I like how challenging it is to achieve some of the digivoloutions, & hard difficulty was actually hard for boss battles, which gave the game a lot more strategy elements. u cant just go in with no items & spam high-damage moves like u can in pokemon. I just wish they had spread the difficulty between easy, normal & hard instead of just normal & hard, because sumtimes hard was a lil frustrating & normal is way too easy, would've been nice to have sumthing in the middle as I found myself swapping between them (which I'm rly grateful you can do at any point!). the music is rly fun, I adored how cheesy it is from the beginning & then grew to love it~ I also thought the Japanese voice acting was good.

this collection is often on sale for really cheap, I highly recommend u pick it up if u like digimon, JRPGs, the monster-catching genre or are just in need of sumthing more fun & refreshing than main-line pokemon

oh, also, it is rly obvious the localization team had to translate the digiline texts out of context, which makes for some absolutely hilarious & often unintelligible conversations! i absolutely loved it hehe (& don't worry, the digiline texts are simply flavour & the rest of the game is translated well! tho sumtimes the cheese factor is veryy high or overly expository in the English translation)

As a Digimon fan, this is so much fun! It's really not a perfect game, and if I weren't a fan of the franchise already, I'd just think it's a good game, but being able to sorta raise my own digimon and play around with the evo tree rly tickled my fancy. The story is typical digimon fare, which means I loved it. It had a couple innovations, like the digital world, the digital area and the hacker stuff. The music is pretty cool but nothing to write home about. Idk what else to say other than I'm having fun trying to get all the digimon

After finishing Hackers Memory, I can say it. I don't know why people are so hot on this game. The only thing it has going for it is the digimon, which rock and are beautifully designed and animated. But the story is just empty mush, the world is static and dead and there's nothing to do in it besides go directly to quest markers, and the dungeons are completely devoid of personality. Hackers Memory has the bigger problem of being a bunch of shit happening off to the side of the actual story of the first game - it tries to get around this problem by focusing on characters, but ultimately the game doesn't take itself seriously enough to get the payoff it wants - it's constantly toeing right up to the line of actually saying something, or having a REAL emotional moment, and then backing off and making a joke - I know persona has jokes too and undercuts its own seriousness sometimes, but it isn't afraid to get really emotional and honest, and this game is TERRIFIED of that. The times you visit Erika's memory server are easily the high points of Hackers Memory - the art direction in those levels feels like something from a game that is 10 times better than the one I spent a million hours playing.

I have not played Hacker's Memory, therefore I am only reviewing the main story of Cyber Sleuth. Great entry in the Digimon series. The mechanics are good, game is fun and the Digimon evolution lines are interesting and are very adaptable. Easy to pick up if you have never played Digimon before. Battle system is a good, classic turn-based system which is clear at providing information as to what Digimon will attack next. Unfortunately, it did become very repetitive at times, and some of the soundtrack lacked variety. Storyline was good, but the pacing was inconsistent, with some chapters feeling very slow while others were much faster. Being a Cyber Sleuth that can travel through networks was a great combination and felt creative.

oh boy i have a lot to say about this game... i might end up sounding like an entitled gamer who sucks lol

pros:
- two conceptually interesting stories that explore cyberspace in their own ways
- the digimon models are rendered wonderfully
- battle system is has slightly more nuance than its often compared to rival, pokemon
- both stories kept me intrigued the whole way
- funny localization moments (like bffr you've never heard someone say "oh snap! yo dawg let's bounce!")
- didn't experience any bugs as far as i noticed

cons (because i am a salty gamer):
- lack of essential quality of life things i've taken for granted in other jrpgs (skip cutscenes, skip text, battle fast forward, story recap)
- CHAPTER 16 HACKER'S MEMORY TERRITORY CAPTURE LEGEND ANGELS (they heal every other turn omfg)
- not really the most memorable ost, immersive for sure but not many bangers :(
- SILENT PROTAGONISTS (personally feel like this trope needs to die out)
- hacker's memory protag has a voice for like the very beginning and the very end, feels bad for the seiyuu tbh
- if you want decent digimon, you're kinda forced into grinding which is pretty sucky if you're just casually playing (constatnt digivolving and de-digivolving for ABI to go up by a mere 5)
- the voice acting is inconsistent. like you'd go from a voiced scene with the main cast to no voice right after. i get it but i personally thought the main cast should have had all their lines voiced
- random encounters felt a little dated tbh but i've just been spoiled by a lot of games today that have phased out the concept of random encounters
- dungeon design was lacking but it's nothing major to be upset at
- kinda surprised there was only two difficulties. normal and hard

i prefer cyber sleuth over hacker's memory in terms of story. given that cyber sleuth is kinda sorta the "main" story anyways, there's a noticable difference in regards to the writing quality between the two. hacker's memory kinda follows one driving plot point for most of it, resolves it SUPER quickly, and then moves onto another plot that's been building up in the background slowly.

i do like the mechanics in hacker's memory though. domination battles were neat (but ffs why can i not decide WHERE my characters start?)

so uhh long story short: neat stories locked behind some tedious gameplay if you're willing to endure it. i would say that cyber sleuth is the only one worth your time tbh

My first true experience with Digimon. Once again started as me watching my friend play through some of the early game before really wanting to try it (mainly seeing as the combat relatively resembled Pokemon, so I figured I wouldn't have issues figuring it out). Bought it on a whim, wanting to try something new, and I was not disappointed in the slightest.

I won't lie, both stories start a little slow, only really picking up a faster pace by the halfway point of each story, but despite that, it's a very fun and interesting game, and as a whole it's managed to get me to start being more interested in Digimon!

After many-many months of grinding (though the game is not as grindy as I made it to be) I beat the first game. Gameplay and leveling system it's pretty neat, the best in the franchise (though I have not played Survive yet).

The things that sadly keep this game from being fully awesome are the uninteresting dungeons and crappy story.
The extra content on the original Cyber Sleuth also has a truly insane difficulty (might be a bit easier on normal, I played on hard). The last few optional bosses became so infuriatingly cheap that I just dropped everything and went straight to the ending.

EDIT: Not that a lot of people (let alone more than 0) read my reviews but I just learned that Digimon Story is a "sub-series" not attached to the Digimon World sub-series which I didn't knew run parallel to it and also focuses more on the breeding/raising part of the digimons rather than battles and strategy.
I also don't know if Survive is part of a sub-series or a thing of it's own so...whatever.