Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth review – A Standout Title in a Hit-or-Miss Franchise

Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth is a surprisingly enjoyable addition to a franchise steeped in mediocrity.

Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth is one of the best Digimon games in more than a decade.

Like many of you, Digimon was a big part of our childhoods. Between the action-packed digital adventures of the animated series and the almost shockingly good monster training gameplay of the original Digimon World, there was so much Digimon-related media for us to get our hands on, and we ate them up. Sadly, at some point the Bandai’s focus and interested shifted away from the video games, and we’ve been hit with mediocre titles, one after the other, with surprising consistency for the better part of two decades.

Digimon’s status as a Bandai cash cow doesn’t necessary mean it’s a series that has shied away from experimentation. The first game was a spectacular introduction to this digital world that recreated the experience of the original pocket games with beautifully rendered 3D graphics. Despite being a hit, Bandai saw fit to re-imagine the series as a turn-based JRPG with its second title, the aptly named Digimon World 2. It was a strange switch-up that was still quite successful, though it alienated fans of the original. Then they released Digimon World 3, also a JRPG, though it also included a compelling card mechanic that changed the core mechanics significantly.

Subsequent installments in the franchise have mostly stuck to the JRPG style (except for Digimon World 4, which we don’t talk about). It was around the GBA era that Bandai found a formula that worked for them and they’ve rarely strayed from it. The series’ success has apparently encouraged them to play safe, only experimenting with new genres years after other games have established a generic formula for them to emulate. It’s a saddening turnaround that has seen the franchise lose its inventiveness, opting instead to play follow the leader.

Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth is yet another turn-based RPG, but a quick glance at trailers and in-game screenshots shows there’s an amount of effort we haven’t seen from the series in more than a decade.

At the beginning of the game we will be able to choose between 2 different characters namely, Takumi Aiba for the character (male) or Aiba Ami for the female character (female), Aiba is a hacker from Japan.

The story begins when Aiba receives a message from someone who says that he got a gift and has to log in to a reality game called Eden, even though suspicious Aiba with his Nokia friends Shiramine and Arata Shanada try to find out and they are given “Digimon Capture “by an enigmatic figure clouded in mystery.

The classic turn-based JRPG gameplay is a throwback to Digimon World 2 back in the PS1 days.

Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth gameplay is quite interesting, like other JRPG games we will be adventuring in the digital world uncovering mysteries while raising the level of our digimon. We can carry 3 Digimon at a time. The battle system used in the Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth game is similar to the Persona game, where each enemy has a certain element. Digimon selection as well as attacks and elements that have will be very influential later when fighting.

There is also a Digivolve system like in other Digimon games, we can change our Digimon to another Digimon. When we use this Digivolve feature our Digimon will return to level 1, but that Digimon will have a better status. There are a lot of Digimon in this game of Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth, even arguably all Digimon of the previous anime and games of the series are on this game.

We can change the digimon more than 1x or return the digimon to the original digimon when we don’t like the results of the evolution of the Digimon. Each change requires a certain status before we can change it, of course this will make the game more interesting and longer because the level and status needed to evolve into a certain digimon is different.

This is the best the series has ever looked.

The graphics in the Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth game are pretty good, the PC series also supports 4k resolution. The typical Japanese anime design is also very pronounced in this game, where the sound of every Japanese character which certainly adds to the impression of its anime

The Verdict

Fans thirsting for another Digimon game like the greats of the Playstation era will be rightly sated by this offering. Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth is more action than sleuth, but it's an enjoyable installment in the franchise's mostly mediocre lineup of mainline games. Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth is one of the best games in the series and the most fun we've had in a Digimon game in decades.

Editor's Rating:
3.3