So I should probably preface this review by saying that most of my exposure to Digimon is through osmosis and I was attracted to these games because I heard about how good they are from my friends. And they were right. These games are incredible whether you are or aren’t familiar with Digimon. I’ve heard there are a bunch of nostalgia bombs for fans of the series, but whether you’re a long time fan or totally new to the series, this collection has two fantastic RPGs that are absolutely worth checking out.
Around the release of Pokemon Sword and Shield, I saw a lot of people suggesting this game as an alternative, but I’m not entirely sure that’s fair to either game. There’s definitely the frankly quite addictive gameplay element of messing around with evolving and devolving your Digimon to get different critters, which I actually made me kind of happy I wasn’t familiar with the series because it was exciting and fun to see what Digimon I would get.
In terms of the stories’ themes, though, I would say that it felt a lot more like the modern Persona games (yeah, yeah, I know, but bear with me here) or maybe even The World Ends With You, what with its use of actual locations in Tokyo as its map and the exploration of the social issues resulting from the internet and social media through a science fantasy cyberpunk lens. They don’t quite have the stylish polish of the Persona series and very rarely get even close to being as dark, but I feel like people let down by the the occasional tone-deafness and treatment of LGBTQ+ characters in more recent Personas will find these games to be pretty refreshing.
Despite the fact that I gave it a perfect rating, I do think there are a few flaws to the games. The dungeon design in Cyber Sleuth is pretty repetitive, and while Hacker’s Memory has some more variety in terms of more dungeons, Territory Capture missions, and the TRPG-esque Domination Battles where you can do very light social links with both human and Digimon characters, I found myself wishing for a little more polish. Hacker’s Memory improves over Cyber Sleuth’s gameplay in most ways, but I did kind of find myself wishing for level scaling options that would give me better EXP. It takes a heck of a lot of messing around to get to a point where you can evolve your Digimon to Mega, after all, and while there’s a fair amount of passive EXP gain via the farms I wanted more of a challenge in missions where I’d have to go to the lower levels of Kowloon.
I feel like the pacing of the story is a case where your mileage might vary. I kind of loved the more episodic bits where you’d just solve cases for random weirdos, both human and Digimon, as they were generally fun little vignettes and they helped flesh out the characters and world. I can imagine some people wishing the game would just get to the good stuff, though.
Personally, I thought the aimlessness felt a little worse in Cyber Sleuth due to its plot hinging a little more on the fate of society and the world, while Hacker’s Memory was more of a focused story about individual characters and their various problems. They’re both great, though, and I don’t think Hacker’s Memory would’ve been quite as fun if I hadn’t played Cyber Sleuth first.
Anyway,if you’re on a budget and you need a game that isn’t super expensive, will last you a long time, and would be genuinely worth $60 anyway, you’ve gotta go for this. You get two fantastic games that are excellent stories and are super fun to play! I think all of the collection’s strengths more than make up for its flaws. The music is also extremely good too, so there’s that.
Around the release of Pokemon Sword and Shield, I saw a lot of people suggesting this game as an alternative, but I’m not entirely sure that’s fair to either game. There’s definitely the frankly quite addictive gameplay element of messing around with evolving and devolving your Digimon to get different critters, which I actually made me kind of happy I wasn’t familiar with the series because it was exciting and fun to see what Digimon I would get.
In terms of the stories’ themes, though, I would say that it felt a lot more like the modern Persona games (yeah, yeah, I know, but bear with me here) or maybe even The World Ends With You, what with its use of actual locations in Tokyo as its map and the exploration of the social issues resulting from the internet and social media through a science fantasy cyberpunk lens. They don’t quite have the stylish polish of the Persona series and very rarely get even close to being as dark, but I feel like people let down by the the occasional tone-deafness and treatment of LGBTQ+ characters in more recent Personas will find these games to be pretty refreshing.
Despite the fact that I gave it a perfect rating, I do think there are a few flaws to the games. The dungeon design in Cyber Sleuth is pretty repetitive, and while Hacker’s Memory has some more variety in terms of more dungeons, Territory Capture missions, and the TRPG-esque Domination Battles where you can do very light social links with both human and Digimon characters, I found myself wishing for a little more polish. Hacker’s Memory improves over Cyber Sleuth’s gameplay in most ways, but I did kind of find myself wishing for level scaling options that would give me better EXP. It takes a heck of a lot of messing around to get to a point where you can evolve your Digimon to Mega, after all, and while there’s a fair amount of passive EXP gain via the farms I wanted more of a challenge in missions where I’d have to go to the lower levels of Kowloon.
I feel like the pacing of the story is a case where your mileage might vary. I kind of loved the more episodic bits where you’d just solve cases for random weirdos, both human and Digimon, as they were generally fun little vignettes and they helped flesh out the characters and world. I can imagine some people wishing the game would just get to the good stuff, though.
Personally, I thought the aimlessness felt a little worse in Cyber Sleuth due to its plot hinging a little more on the fate of society and the world, while Hacker’s Memory was more of a focused story about individual characters and their various problems. They’re both great, though, and I don’t think Hacker’s Memory would’ve been quite as fun if I hadn’t played Cyber Sleuth first.
Anyway,if you’re on a budget and you need a game that isn’t super expensive, will last you a long time, and would be genuinely worth $60 anyway, you’ve gotta go for this. You get two fantastic games that are excellent stories and are super fun to play! I think all of the collection’s strengths more than make up for its flaws. The music is also extremely good too, so there’s that.