Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Complete Edition

Digimon good

I started playing 'Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth' after trying the demo of 'Digimon Story: Time Stranger'. After nearly 200 hours, I completed both 'Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth' and 'Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth – Hacker's Memory'. In my opinion both are games with interesting storylines that occasionally intersect, as well as a memorable cast of characters. Of course, the biggest highlights are the more than 300 Digimon (pure nostalgia for longtime fans). There is a bug in Chapter 4 of 'Cyber Sleuth' that causes constant crashes. Fortunately, there is a fix: disable “Threaded Optimization” in the Nvidia Control Panel. 'Cyber Sleuth' is a typical JRPG and very grindy but in a different way than 'Pokémon'. In 'Pokémon' only the Pokémon that fight in battles get XP, and if multiple Pokémon fight, the XP is shared between them. In 'Cyber Sleuth' every Digimon in your active team receives the full amount of XP, making leveling significantly faster. The more grindy aspect is Digivolution. Unlike 'Pokémon', where evolution usually only depends on reaching a certain level, Digimon evolution also depends on stats and personality types. A Digimon’s personality affects attributes such as HP, SP, Attack, Defense, Intelligence, and Speed, and certain Digimon require specific stat thresholds before they can evolve. The most annoying mechanics are CAM (Camaraderie) and ABI (Ability). CAM can mainly be increased through battles or expensive items, while ABI is mostly raised through Digivolving and De-Digivolving, or by using even more expensive items. There are methods to speed up the Digivolution process, but it still becomes quite grindy over time. Wild Digimon encounters work similarly to older Pokémon games: Digimon are invisible on the map, and encounters happen randomly. 'Digimon Story: Time Stranger' improves this system significantly by using visible overworld encounters similar to 'Pokémon Legends: Arceus'. In 'Cyber Sleuth' you always have to visit the DigiLab to edit your party or Digivolve your Digimon. In 'Time Stranger' these actions can be performed almost anywhere which much more convenient. All in all I can still recommend 'Cyber Sleuth' because I enjoyed the gameplay, the stories, and the characters – and because it’s Digimon. I’m definitely looking forward to playing the full version of 'Digimon Story: Time Stranger'.