Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth

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Human characters clockwise from top left: Nokia, Yuuko, Arata, female version of the main character, male version of the main character.

Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth is what happens when one takes Digimon and its "digital world" to its natural Cyberpunk conclusion.

In a world where Kamishiro Enterprise's virtual reality social network "EDEN" connects everything, an Ordinary High School Student is lurking in a private chatroom when a hacker impersonating Kamishiro's mascot Mr. Navit breaks in. He threatens to hack anyone who does not go to Kowloon, the deprecated past incarnation of EDEN, at the time he requests. Most of the chatters blow off the threat as a joke but three users decide to go through with it: Nokia, a very girly teenager, Arata, Nokia's friend who unknown to her has experience as a hacker, and the main character (default name: Takumi or Ami Aiba).

When the trio meet in Kowloon, a Digimon program installs itself to their rigs and they are trapped inside. Nokia and Arata manage to escape but at the last second the protagonist is devoured by the tentacle beast (later called an "Eater") chasing them. Instead of dying, he/she awakens in the real world as an untextured digital construct. With the help of Private Detective Kyoko Kuremi the newly disembodied hero fixes their texturing problem, though discovers the main character's real body is in a coma. Using his/her new ability to travel through computers the main character, with the help of his/her new friends, delves into the seedy underbelly of Kamishiro.

The JRPG, the fifth installment in the Digimon Story series, was released in the US on February 2, 2016 for the PlayStation 4 and the Play Station Vita, the first one released on a home console. A sequel Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker’s Memory was announced in March 2017 and released on December 14 of the same year for both Vita and PS4. An English release was announced for early 2018 the day after the Japanese announcement and came out on January 19, 2018.

A Compilation Rerelease, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth Complete Edition, containing both this game and Hacker's Memory, was released for the Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam on October 18, 2019.

Tropes used in Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth include:

• Adult Fear: For Yukino, the player character's mother. Her child is physically in coma, while their digitized consciousness is slowly deteriorating. The only reason she is not aware of the truth is because a cyber crimes detective managed to hide it from her for now.
• All There in the Script: Detective Matayoshi's first name, Goro, is not mentioned in this game except during the credits roll.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • The player can simply talk to Mirei or Kyoko if they do not know or have forgotten what to do next.
  • If the player has taken a case, the Player menu shows said case's progress and hint on what to do next in order to complete it.
  • Access Points (used to access the DigiLab) are often placed generously in dungeons to ease party management, healing, and item restock.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: The player's party can contain as many Digimon as will fit in your Memory, which upgrades pretty frequently, but the active party can only have three Digimon.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Mandatory on the later parts of Hard mode due to vastly amped up defense. They kill the high defense, low HP Eaters pretty quickly too.
• Assimilation Plot: Suedou's goal. According to him, to remove all sadness, humanity has to "evolve", done by merging the physical world and the digital world.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Examon is massive compared to the rest of the Royal Knights, to the point that the human characters are roughly the size of his eye. It appears far smaller in the player's party, though.
• Bittersweet Ending: In the end, Aiba and his/her friends successfully rescued Yuugo, allowing him to return to his body after eight years of suffering from EDEN Syndrome. The lost Digimon can finally cross back to their home world. The Cosmic Retcon restores Yuuko's family and removes all traces of Tokyo's digification. However, Aiba ends up dispersing into data right in front of his/her friends during their way back to the physical world and all Digimon's memories are reverted to the way they were eight years ago, meaning they have forgotten their relationship with humans, even friendly ones. Thankfully, Aiba manages to be restored thanks to The Power of Friendship.
• Cyberpunk
• Cyberspace
• Depraved Bisexual: Kishibe is pretty openly lewd regardless of target and pretty evil.
• Disappeared Dad: While the main character's parents are said to be out of the country on work, only the main character's mom bothers keeping in touch by e-mail.
• Gameplay Automation: The Auto mode during battles allows the player's Digimon to automatically pick their own battle actions. The player can still stop the mode to intervene, like to use items.
• Goggles Do Something Unusual: True to Digimon tradition, both main characters wear goggles. According to one of the first NPCs met, the main character's goggles are actually a computing device. The female main character uses hers to tie her hair up.
• Gratuitous English: Jimiken introduces himself with "Yes! I! Am! Jimiken!". In the Japanese release, the character's name is written with KEN in Latin characters while Jimi/Jimmy is written in kana.
• Guest Star Party Member: Allies with their own Digimon will occasionally join the player's party and are thankfully immortal and immune to status problems. They are pretty weak despite the immortality and their biggest effect is a 1 in 4 chance (or better) of single target attacks missing the player's Digimon because of said immortality.
• Guide Dang It: (De)Evolution paths are largely unpredictable (and only that much if the player is familiar with the franchise) while learn lists are entirely so.
• Heroic Mime: The main character never says anything but punctuation to anyone during conversation (which leads to several ellipsis duels with less talkative characters), yet has plenty of lines in battle, over e-mail, and occasionally has fairly complex thoughts to themselves or the camera.
• Inconsistent Dub: The English script is clearly rushed and full of these, among several text errors. Kyoko's pet nickname of "Kyo-chan" is left untranslated several times, but once is translated as "Kyo-kyo" before reverting to "Kyo-chan" the very next line.
• It's a Small Net After All: Nokia has a mutual friend with the main character and seems to have gone to the same school despite them not knowing each other before meeting online. Could possibly be justified by them meeting in a private chat room which could have had its visitors be given its details in real life. Not so justified is a random comic forum turning out to be one Arata is a prominent member of and the victims of the case that led to it being his friends.
• Kleptomaniac Hero, Found Underwear: Happens as a mandatory part of an investigation.
• Leet Lingo: Jimiken and a few one line NPC hackers include "www" in their speech (though skipped in voiced dialog). The English version translates this into many different forms of "LOL" (Lulz, ROFL, etc.).
• Lethal Chef: Kyoko cannot make coffee without putting random ingredients in every brew. This habit becomes Something Only They Would Say when she shows up as Alphamon later.
• Mage in Manhattan: Digital Shift dungeons where an Eater causes the digital world to merge with part of the "real" world.
• Mega Corp: Kamishiro, which is big enough to manipulate the government among other things.
• Mood Whiplash: Comedic quests often turn incredibly dark.
• Mon
• New Game+: A new addition to the western releases and added to the original release via free DLC.
• Peninsula of Power Leveling: Digital Space 5 has very powerful opponents for its place in the game (accessible as soon as Chapter 4 is cleared), easily allowing the player's party to reach massive levels. This is also a good source of money that can be used to fund development of an item that doubles EXP gains. It becomes inaccessible for half the game if the player actually cleared the quest associated with it though.
• Pop Quiz: The player can randomly get one from their Digimon in the DigiFarm and can get a minor boost to CAM if they are correct. Several of these dealt with Japanese geography and history and the English version replaced them with different, easier, Japanese geography/history questions for obvious reasons.
• Rebellious Princess/Evil Chancellor: Yuuko Kamishiro and Rie Kishibe have a corporate variant of this relation. The orphan of the owner too young to manage the company that actively but covertly sabotages the evil schemes she is powerless to stop and the manager clearly scheming to keep control for herself.
• Recurring Boss: Jimiken. Consistently one of the harder fights despite his comedic nature.
• Refugee From TV Land: The player character is actually data that has managed to get into the real world. The digital world also starts encroaching on the real world much more overtly.
• Regional Bonus: The western release added a PS4 release (along with cross-save), as well as a badly needed Hard mode (the original version was extremely easy) and New Game+. Hard mode and New Game+ were added to the Japanese release as free DLC, and the PS4 version was released in Japan as a bonus with the sequel. Unfortunately, the translation itself is pretty rushed.
• Shouldn't We Be in School Right Now?: Averted. The DigiLine conversations mention the main character has explicitly dropped out of high school to work as a cyber sleuth. Dropping out of high school to work as a paid apprentice is perfectly legal in Japan, and the whole officially being in a coma while lacking a physical body would probably cause issues with school records anyways.
• Shout-Out: One dialog option during a quest involving a stalker is ""Stalker," directed by Tarkovsky". This is a faithful translation of "ストーカー、　たるこふすきー!" and not a creation of the translators.
• Swiss Cheese Security: EDEN's security is extremely easy to break.
• A Taste of Power: The end of Chapter 10 has the player control Nokia's Omnimon, a level 50 Royal Knight that is more powerful than anything the player had at that point.
• Trapped in Another World: During the tutorial events in Kowloon the main trio can not log out and it was suggested to be what has actually happened to EDEN Syndrome victims. The Digimon are originally from their own Digital World and trapped in man-made cyberspace.
• Useless Useful Spell: Played straight. Averted in Hard mode due to enemies taking and dealing more damage, yet having no increase in resistances, making disabling them a very attractive option.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Kamishiro is thought merely to be an industry leader. Most of the world does not know the musician and recent obsession of teenage girls Jimiken is also a hacker and shitposter extraordinaire.