Digimon Madness!

Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth Hacker’s Memory

For the longest time I have been somewhat of a “passing” Digimon fan, I fell in love with the series as a kid when it aired on American tv in 1999. It was hot off the craze of Pokémon taking the world by storm, and became for the time being its only serious competitor. As a kid I was in geeky bliss, learning a bout these new creatures which at the moment were winning me over far more quickly than Pokémon did at the time. The tv show focused on this group of kids who are having a fun relaxing day at summer camp when out of nowhere it begins to snow. Suddenly, what looks to be a meteor shower begins to appear in the sky and small balls of light crash in the snow in front of the children. The children once they pick up said balls of light, are then transported into  what is known as the Digital World, where everything has this sort of island/cyberpunk theme going on. Once there they are greeted by little adorable monsters who say that they have been waiting for the longest time to meet these children, and from then on the adventure begins for The Chosen Kids, or more commonly known as The Digi-Destined. The show would see great success and be renewed for three seasons, even having a film come out around the same time the first Pokémon movie came out. However, after the third season most of the American audience grew apart from the series. It also didn’t help that the series was not given a stable network to be televised and the constant change only hurt it in the long run.

But enough about the tv series, this time around I want to talk about what got me to fall back in love with the series. The video games, see where the Pokemon games have the old tried and true formula of gym battles, lackluster stories, and simply collecting all the creatures, it has to be stated that the formula charming as it is…can be stale after a while. Not enough replay value or endgame content that motivates the player to keep chugging at it once the 25 hour experience of the main game is over. Sure it has its competitive scene, but not every player wants to immerse themselves yet again in raising the perfect Charizard. Admittedly, I am one of those players that sinks endless hours into a Pokémon game despite me bashing it for the a short while. It’s a love hate relationship. The same relationship can be seen with Digimon games, these games range from the original Tamagotchi style handheld games, to puzzle arena fighters, to mobile games to role-playing games. Which brings me to one of the few games that makes me a “born again” Digimon fan, Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth Hacker’s Memory. Developed by Media Vision and published by Bandai Namco was released in Japan in 2017 and in the rest of the world in 2018.

The game follows Keisuke Amasawa, a young man who had his EDEN account hacked and stolen, to better understand the world and its logic EDEN is what happens when all your social media accounts come together in harmony with every other business and company I n the world and build what one would consider a cyberspace where one can freely visit and experience most of the attractions or activities one would normally participate in in the Real World. After some run ins with some nasty hackers, our hero is rescued by the leader of a benevolent and respectable team of hackers called Hudie. The gameplay consists of a mash up rpg(role playing game) turn based battle and level design, Digimon day care simulator and some visual novel elements thrown in. The goal of the game is to go on cases with your group of three Digimon, battling rival teams and uncover the true identity of the person who stole your account information. At first I was a bit taken when first booting up the game on my PS Vita, the cutscenes were a bit annoying to get used to and the DigiFarm mechanic was taxing at first since I was still getting used to the gameplay and the user interface in general.

Betamon

Seadramon

 But then, everything changed the minute I was able to do my very first Digivolution, seeing my first Digimon partner Betamon turn into Seadramon, a giant sea serpent with the ability to shoot frigid ice beams from its mouth…was to put bluntly, very bad ass. Getting to run around the cyber dungeons with my giant serpent felt like how I imagined the kids in the show must have felt when their partners turned into gargantuan beasts. My team and I felt unbeatable for the next couple of missions, we would take down bosses in next to nothing, and then it happened…the dreaded difficulty spike in almost every game that just hits you so hard that it makes you re-think the entire battle plan. This is the type of game that can give  you a rush of adrenaline just thinking and strategizing what best combination of partners to take for the following boss battle. Do you face down a team of rival hackers with heavy hitters who focus on offense? Enchant with a team of status inflicters? Or my personal favorite, go all out with your favorite ones and hope for the best! All in all, this is just a simple review without going too in depth, and I just wanna say that if you have a PS Vita you still love or a PS$ library that needs a little oddball to keep things fresh. Look no further than this little gem of a game, hopefully it will reignite the fan in you for this franchise or makes a you a new one for the first time.

*Note: I do not own any of these images. They are the sole property of their creators and respective companies. All images shown are for entertainment use only.