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Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth is a surprisingly enjoyable game. And It’s been a long time since I’ve played a Digimon game, but after booting it up on my PlayStation 4. I clocked over 20 hours of Digivolving, battling and solving cyber-crimes. I’ve even started re-watching the classic series which not only made me feel several years younger, but it also made me appreciate how great Digimon was and still is to this very day.

And I´ll have you know that It’s been so long since I have seen or thought about Digimon. However, after about an hour of playing “Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth” everything came flooding back to me. With that said, let´s get on to the actual review of the game shall we? As I was saying. Cyber Sleuth´s story kicks-off in a Chat room where you’re invited by an anonymous avatar to come to a meet up for an amazing surprise. You agree along with two other characters (Nokia and Arata who are your friends, and help you throughout the story). Shortly after that, things take a turn for the worse when you’re attacked by an unknown Digimon. Your consciousness is separated from your body, and you become digital data (that enables you to travel in both the real and digital world at will). And you’re soon recruited by Kyoko and become a Cyber Sleuth.me a Cyber Sleuth.

Agumon is a personal Digimon favorite of mine.

With your new profound profession, you take on various cases that range from helping someone whose site has been invaded by Digimon who loves boxing, to uncovering a mystery behind a ghost of a girl killed in a car collision. However, your main priority is trying to find out how to return to your normal self along with many others, who are left in comas from unknown attacks. Of course, there are some interesting villains who stand in your way. And it’s not just Digimon´s that you need to worry about. As there is a whole cast of villains who will try to spoil your road to victory, villains such as certain hacker factions. Nevertheless, the most memorable villain in DSCS is with no doubt the insane rock star Jimmy Ken.

As for the gameplay aspects of the game. Cyber Sleuth takes its quests and elements from RPG’s of old, with its random encounters and turn-based battles. And the game itself is pretty simple. In fact, for some people DSCS may be a “little” too easy. So it’s most definitely worth cranking up the difficulty to hard if you want encounters to be challenging. Otherwise, you’ll simply steam roll over enemies in the first several hours. After selecting your starting Digimon it doesn’t take long until you have various monsters in your arsenal. You can have up to three in battle and a couple in reserve, just in case things go sour.

You can then of course level them up and Digivolve into a more powerful form unlocking brand-new abilities, It´s also worth mentioning that you can De-Digivolve into a previous form if needed. Other than that. You have full access to a Digi-farm where you can train, develop or have your Digimon find new cases for you to solve. You can also swap out newly recruited Digimon to give them a rest or bring them into battle with you.

AKA Team Awesome.

The game is complete with 242 Digimon´s in total, and they all have their own unique medals to collect (all of which can be sold to a collector). The Digimon themselves has never looked better; each character looks great and well detailed. And each Digimon has their own distinct abilities, and they can learn more abilities as they level up. It doesn’t take long to get from rookie to ultimate either, but the journey to Mega can be a grind. However, once you unlock WarGraymon or MetalGarurumon it feels brilliant!

Sound and visuals are at a good standard. Areas in the real world are well detailed and interesting to explore. Colors are vibrant, and the Digimon´s looks brilliant. In fact, it’s the best they’ve looked in a video game. The alternating areas you visit can range from pretty to bland, on PlayStation 4 textures and overall visuals are better than its Vita counterpart but not by a landslide. It’s not ugly, but some areas do seem a bit on the small side in terms of getting from A to B. The soundtrack is okay, but some tracks do get quite repetitive after a while.

This cute little Digimon won´t stay cute for much longer.

The game is voiced in Japanese with English subs and there is no English dub, which does equate to a lot of reading during cut scenes. This is where one of my major gripes comes in. There are a lot of conversations between characters. While much of the dialogue and sub stories can be interesting, it tends to become boring after a while. So it´s no wonder that I found myself skipping through lines of dialogue, just so that I could get back to levelling up and battling other Digimon.

And the bottom line is this. “Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth” is an entertaining game. And fans of the series should absolutely love what’s on offer, and there’s plenty for newcomers to enjoy too. Levelling up and Digivolving is incredibly addictive. Thanks to the variety of cases and the story itself, DSCS will take you into double figures of hours played. It is a slight shame, there is no English dub and some may be put off the lengthy lines of text to read through during conversations. You can also play on the go on Playsyation Vita complete with cross saves so you can carry on where you left off. I feel it’s pretty safe to say this is without a doubt the best Digimon game so far.

Pros:
+ Great variety of Digimon
+ Enjoyable story
+ Cross saves for Vita

Cons:
– Small Areas
– Repetitive music
– A lot of reading

Gameplay: 4/5
Graphics: 4/5
Sound/music: 3/5
Controls: 5/5
Replay value: 5/5 (New Game plus)

tgg grade 4 out of 5

Verdict: 4/5
In short, “Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth” is Digitastic. And fans of the series will feel right at home with this game. As it´s addictive, fun and simple. So yes, Cyber Sleuth is certainly a game to own on PS4 or PS Vita!

Title: Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth
Developer: Namco Bandai
Format: PS4 and PlayStation Vita
Genre: RPG
Resolution: 1080p
Release date: 2016-02-05
Difficulty: Very Easy, recommend playing on Hard.
Spent time: 20+ hours
Average grade internationally: 74.33% Gamerankings.com
PEGI age rating: 12
Price: £45