Digimon has always set the bar very high for its games. I’ve played quite a few of them and they have all ranged from good to amazing. Digimon Data Squad was an all star title for the PS2. I actually only gave it a score of 7 back in the day, but now (With the power of nostalgia goggles I suppose) it’s easily a 9. Looking back at it, that was really the first big Digimon RPG that I played. Digimon World DS followed suit and that one was a lot of fun thanks to the fast paced turn based style. That one’s easily at least an 8. Digimon Racing was more on the mediocre side, but we had Digimon Rumble Arena 2 and World 4 to compensate. (I’ve still got to go back to World 4 at some point) I wasn’t a huge fan of Digimon Dawn back in the day and ended up selling it because I didn’t like the concept of having to devolve my Digimon before Digivolving them. I still don’t like that mechanic, but I’m mostly over it since I do enjoy grinding up the levels nowadays. Cyber Sleuth is another excellent installment in the franchise and you can make a solid case for it possibly being the best Digimon game.

Part of what helps Cyber Sleuth really rise up the video game charts is how long it is. The story mode took me around 48 hours to complete although I did spend a good amount of time leveling up and finding new Digimon evolution routes. Through the course of that time, it’s easy to get used to all of the characters and become more invested in the plot. It’s an advantage over shorter games like Knack. I’d like a sequel to this game although the next Digimon title seems like it’ll be a stand alone story once again. I’ m sure that I’ll grow to like the new characters by the time I beat that game, but I will miss these guys for a while. I still don’t have the Platinum trophy yet, but I’ve got my sights on it and I’m definitely getting closer. The toughest one is definitely going to be the 30 online wins trophy since I don’t have PS+. I’ll have to wait for the next free weekend, but that should happen soon.

Cyber Sleuth fully embraces the futuristic sci-fi feel that comes with the concept of Digital Monsters and it greatly enhances the overall experience. The soundtrack is easily the best one that I’ve seen in Digimon and ranks as one of the best video game soundtracks ever. Prelude to a Bloody Battle, Royal Knights theme, and Eater theme are three in particular that I recommend looking up. They really steal the show. There are also several themes that play during the mystery moments to help build up the hype. As I’ve always mentioned in the past, a good soundtrack can always help a game make it to the next level of quality.

Meanwhile, the graphics are solid. I wouldn’t say that they are amazing of groundbreaking this time, but everything looks fairly sharp. There is a noticeable lack of animated cutscenes though and I would have liked to have seen more. We never really got to see a fight in the middle of a cutscene and that would have certainly been a blast. Ah well, I suppose that’s something that can be improved in the next game that’s coming up.

As for replay value, there is certainly a lot of it. Not to mention that the game also has a lot of initial value considering how long the main campaign is. Once you finish that, you can work on grabbing all medals and trophies for the PSN. There are also many bonus missions that you can grab from your Digimon or a few more side missions where you help people out. There’s also the 8 part DLC mission pack where you help a girl save the world from the 7 Deadly Sin Digimon and also find out a twist about your computer correspondent. There’s even a Colosseum cup challenge where you can fight many characters that you’ve met through the game in very challenging matches. Yes, a lack of value is something that you’ll never hear regarding Cyber Sleuth. It’s a game that will last you quite a while.

As you’d expect, the gameplay is your traditional turn based title. You get to have 3 Digimon on the field at once, but you can command up to 11 in your party. When 3 die, you throw in three more, but you can also substitute mat any time. You’ll want to have some fast Digimon on your side since having extra turns is crucial to winning. You can have the strongest Digimon in the world, but it won’t mean a thing if you can’t get a single turn. Towards the end, the computer may have 7 turns before you get one and that can get very dangerous. I had to completely re tool my team. One trick that you’ll want to be familiar with is the Tactician USB with Gold PlatinumNumemon. You can get hundreds of level ups in minutes with that strategy which greatly reduces the amount of time that you’ll need to spend leveling up. It’s a must.

I’ll basically skip Terry in the characters section since he doesn’t have much of a personality. To clarify, he doesn’t talk much, but you can tell that he is a hero. He tries to save the villains while risking his life and always comes across as a team player. He can act a little oddly at times like pointing out that someone was drooling over a good food item, but otherwise he is solid. Kyoko is Terry’s boss and she is the one who gets him into the detective gig. She has a lot of connections and likes to throw out some real world knowledge in the game. She’s a charismatic character and her coffee gimmick works well. An important thing is that she can also fight when necessary.

Arata is Terry’s friend and he is very similar to Sasuke. He starts off as the tough and aloof rival who has a tragic past. He helps out the team quite a lot and really want to get to the bottom of the mystery involving the Eaters. He wants to save his friends, but slowly he realizes that more power is necessary. He is being left in the dust of Terry and Nokia so he sets off and slowly starts to be corrupted. He goes as far as to eat one of Terry’s Digimon friends and it’s hard to see how he’ll go back to the side of good. Terry gives him some hero speeches and everything, but it is hard to forget what he did to the Digimon. Arata’s a solid character, but he really didn’t get a whole lot of responsibility for his actions. He got off a little too easy.

Nokia is another one of Terry’s close friends and she wants to be friends with as many Digimon as possible. When she finds out about the Digi Eaters and the Digi World going into ruins, she decides to amass an army to protect them. She gets a very large role in the plot as a result and even gets a Mega level Digimon before Terry and Arata. She becomes the heavy hitter for a while and that was unexpected. She’s actually a better character than Terry and Arata by the end. Her plan’s a good one even if it is a little naive since you certainly can’t trust everyone. Her one downside is that she can be way too overconfident about how attractive she believes herself to be and constantly rubs it in when talking to her two friends. Aside from that, she’s always eager to fight (When she has the upper hand) and sticks up for Digimon through to the very end.

Yuuko is another one of Terry’s friends although she joins in a little later. She starts off as a mysterious figure with another tragic past, but gradually she becomes one of the main characters. She is rich and has connections to the shady organization which helps the group out quite a lot. She’s more reserved than the others (Even Arata) so it takes her a while to get used to how everyone acts. By the end she starts to embrace her emotions a lot more, which makes things a little tricky for Terry at times since she threatens him quite a bit. Her character arc is a good one even if she sometimes has to slow her pace down to let the main characters keep up.

Matayoshi and Date are a Detective and Cop who help out from time to time. They can both be quite annoying though and usually their appearances are the signal for filler to come so you just want them to go away. They do nothing, but slow down the plot. Another problem is that they both have to obey orders so they put Arata in a bad spot and really set him up to turn into a villain. None of them have any Digimon either so they end up just being liabilities in the long run.

Kishibe is one of the main villains and she certainly gets a huge role. Whenever someone has a huge role, they typically get a big plot twist. Nokia, Arata, Terry, Kyoko, Kishibe, and Yuuko all have very big plot twists by the end. The twist certainly helped me take Kishibe a lot more seriously than I had. Post twist, Kishibe is a cool villain. Before that I couldn’t take her very seriously, but her plans certainly were well thought out. Suedouis the other big antagonist. He wants to remake the world so that there is no sadness, but to do that he has to erase free will and force humanity to evolve. He’s certainly a villain even if his motives aren’t the usual “Destroy the world.” goals. He’s an annoying villain since he is extremely weak, but the heroes never try to stop him and just tolerate his existence the whole time. He does help them unravel some mysteries after all, but it would have been nice to have seen the heroes try to arrest him or something. He gives out a lot of meta speeches by the end and explains the Digi Eaters origin. See, they are multi dimensional beings who have limitless power and even Digimon can’t stop them. It’s all decently interesting, but in the end it’s not as if it matters all that much aside from wiki purposes.

Zaxon is one of the big hacker groups who stand in the way of the heroes at times. Their leader, Yugo is reasonable, but most of the Zaxon members are corrupt anyway. Zaxon tries to stop the main villains on their own though, which makes for a very epic level since you had several groups fighting at once. Kishibe’s group, Zaxon, Terry, Arata’s group, and Nokia’s posse. It was certainly one of the best parts of the game and I always like to see multiple groups duking it out at once. It adds in an extra dynamic since it’s not just a classic 1 vs 1.

Jimmy Ken is an annoying villain. He speaks with a lot of slang which must come across very oddly in the original Japanese version. His theme is catchy, but he’s mostly just a thorn in the hero’s side. He never actually contributes to the plot either so you can think of him as a pre arc boss. The game is so long that it can afford to have a bit of a long pre arc while the plot slowly starts developing in the background. Even so, I was glad when he completely disappeared as the plot really started going.

We can’t forget about the Royal Knights either. Seeing as how the humans sent the Eaters into the Digital World where they started eating all of the inhabitants, it makes sense that the Digimon King would send out a counter attack. The Royal Knights mission is simple, they must destroy the Human World to stop the source of the Eaters. Let’s face it, the human world isn’t ready to repel this invasion so it is up to the main characters now. Once this plot started, the game had reached its Apex of hype. We got a lot of really cool themes and also some epic cutscenes. Naturally, I had already enjoyed the game quite a bit before they showed up as this was at around Chapter 11 I believe, but the game’s second half really took off. The Royal Knights are great characters and even if they always end up being on the antagonist side, they are quite the epic group. If they ever attacked as one, they would be nearly unstoppable. Plus, it’s hard to blame them being so upset with the humans after so many Digimon were massacred by the Eaters. The humans are always causing trouble on other planets.

Finally, we have the Eaters. They eat data so they are very dangerous for Digimon to battle. One hit can be fatal and their sheer numbers are impressive as well. The big Eater Queen is even more deadly than the rest and made for an epic final boss. I remember the boss being super easy though thanks to the super grinding and some of the earlier bosses had been trickier. Ignoring that though, it was a climactic way to end it all. The humans will be glad to have the Eater threat gone as well. A big of a running gag is that humans kept on dying throughout the game. Terry was always to slow to save anyone so the body count by the end is incredibly high. It was actually pretty funny at certain points, but the humans should have really ran a little more. The Eaters are incredibly slow after all.

Then we’ve also got the crossover characters. Mirei is actually a main supporting character as she gives out quests from time to time and is in charge of the Digi area where you can train your Digimon. She even gets some character development in the final DLC quest as she lets the power get to her head and temporarily turns evil. The power was simply too much for her. She doesn’t have much of a personality though so you may not have much of an opinion on her by the end. Sayo joins the cast thanks to the DLC missions as well. She’s the main rival in the Digimon Dusk/Dawn game (I still need to go back and complete that one!) and she gets a lot of hype as being very powerful. Her Dianamon did beat all of the Legendary Sin Digimon on her own after all. The fact that she wasn’t supposed to defeat those Digimon is still pretty baffling and I don’t buy it. Sayo seems like a good character even if she may be overconfident, after all..that’s a good quality to have.

Rina is the final big crossover character and she’s from one of the big Digimon titles that never made it to the U.S. She’s definitely very scatterbrained and overly cheerful, but that doesn’t mean that she can’t fight. Rina can hold her own against any of the big fighters in Cyber Sleuth and she is the only reason that the heroes were able to take down the fastest member of the Royal Knights. Her Ultra VForcemon (Close enough) proved to be the strongest Digimon of them all. Her world doesn’t look as interesting as Cyber Sleuth’s though, but it was cool to have her as part of the cast. The game went all out with the crossover effect.

Overall, Digimon Cyber Sleuth is a great way to spend 50 hours. The plot is very engaging and the game feels like a lot of effort was put into it. (Unlike Star Fox Zero) If you want even more of a challenge then you can always try out Hard Mode. I’m not sure that I would recommend it unless you have a lot of time to burn though. The game gets significantly harder and the opponent’s health bars go up as well. Boss fights can take around an hour and if you don’t have the best possible team with you, it could be game over. I’ve heard quite a few stories about how insane hard mode is, but you would definitely have some serious bragging rights if you can pull it off. I now await the next Digimon game and in the meantime, maybe I’ll finally get around to getting Digimon Championship!

Overall 9/10