Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth

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.
Blind Idiot Translation: While some parts of the localization are decent, pretty good even, the same cannot be said for the other parts.
- The DigiLine chats are prone to wrong context translations and typos (though even some of the main story dialogue also suffer from this). Notably, one DigiFarm Pop Quiz results in a wrong answer if the player picked the supposedly correct one due the translation switching them around.
- As mentioned in Inconsistent Dub below, the translation cannot decide whether to stay with the Japanese terms/names or the English ones, even in the same instance. One example has a reference to "Boom Bubble" in Patamon's Field Guide info, but its signature skill's name keeps its Japanese name ("Air Shot"). Then there are the Digimon names themselves, which already suffered from this a lot during the franchise's run, but notable example in this game goes to Goblimon/Goburimon, the former being what the translation went with, while the latter is kept for its Digimon Medal name.
- The Japanese script avoids any gendered pronoun dropping when referring to the player character. The English script, however, uses the male pronouns most of the time even if the player character is female. Despite this, "they" is also used in most other lines.
- One aspect often brought up by detractors concerning the English script is mistaking the Japanese term for "monster" (referring to the Eaters) as "Bakemon" (a Bedsheet Ghost-like Digimon that has nothing to do with events of the story). While a few lines got it correct, the wrong lines pop up so often that it became a Memetic Mutation in the fandom.
Bonus Boss:
- One endgame case has the player face Rina and her Veevee (UlforceVeedramon). Defeating them will unlock UlforceVeedramon for Digivolution and the "Great Challenge" cases that allow the player to face copies of the rest of the Royal Knights to unlock them too.
- From the DLC side, there are the Seven Deadly Digimon cases. Clearing them will unlock one Post-Final Boss against Mirei's Monzaemon.
Book Ends: In the beginning of the game, the player ends up recruited by Kyoko as her assistant detective due to their unique abilities. The Stinger shows that the real Kyoko also happens to be looking for a new assistant. Hearing this, the player character smiles and accepts the offer.
Bowdlerise: Despite being a T-rated game, the "Seven Great Demon Lords" are referred to as the "Seven Deadly Digimon", even though earlier games featuring them do not have this problem and having lower age rating. Considering this game's translation quality, whether this is intentional or not remains questionable.
Brain Uploading: EDEN works by uploading the users' mental data into its system. This has nasty implications whenever the Eaters are involved and in one case a man is unable to log out after agreeing to live in what is essentially a Lotus Eater Machine because he has no body to go back to...
Brick Joke: At the beginning of the game, Kyoko assures the half-cyber Aiba that if something goes wrong, she will try to gather as much of their data as possible to fix them. Come the ending, and Alphamon does as promised (with the help of their Digimon partners) after finding out about their collapse.
Broken Pedestal: Nokia is a fan of Jimiken until she finds out that he is a malicious hacker in Kowloon.
But Thou Must!: The player is given several dialogue options during the story but none of them affect the story's outcome.
Cerebus Retcon: A Running Gag concerning Aiba starting from midway through the game is their tendency to space out during dialogue. As revealed by Pete and Kyoko, this is a sign of Aiba's body glitching out as it deteriorates further.
Child Prodigy: The kid who made the Baku Reborn service is also the one who runs it.
Cloudcuckoolander:
- Kyoko has a habit of going into tangents only slightly related to the matter at hand, although one was a cover so she could write a message on a client's DigiLine to threaten a hacker.
- Even the player character has shades of this when it comes to dialogue choices.
Collection Sidequest: The Digimon Medals. These exceed the total number of playable Digimon, with some coming as Randomly Drops from battles, a few are obtainable on the field, and most others are gachapon-exclusive. Selling them to the Medal Man not only nets the player some money but also adds them to the viewable collection. He even rewards the player items upon reaching a certain milestone or completing a specific set.
Color-Coded Elements:
- Neutral: Gray.
- Fire: Red.
- Water: Blue.
- Plant: Green.
- Electric: Yellow.
- Earth: Brown.
- Wind: Sky blue.
- Light: White.
- Dark: Purple.
Cordon Bleugh Chef: Kyoko has a habit of putting ingredients not meant to go to coffee... which is nearly every known ingredient. Matayoshi already warned the player of this, but Aiba tries it anyway, knocking them out. Even other characters note how revolting her blends are. See Lethal Chef below.
Cosmic Retcon: Due to the Digital World's reformatting, the physical world also got altered as a reality where Digimon never appeared in the real world and EDEN never existed (as revealed in the sequel). All Digimon's memories were also reverted to the state of eight years ago, before their encounter with humans, practically making them forget their relationship as much as the humans do to them. In addition, due to these circumstances, Yuuko's father is never murdered, Rie and Kyoko remain normal humans, and Suedou, who disappeared with the Eaters, is never born. Only the five kids from the incident (Aiba, Nokia, Arata, Yuuko, and Yuugo) retain their memories of the old reality.
Cyberpunk
Cyberspace
Damn You, Muscle Memory!: At one point, Aiba goes missing, resulting in the player temporarily controlling Nokia and the player is tasked to head to EDEN to investigate. The first instinct is to head for Kyoko's television, only to be reminded that Nokia cannot Connect Jump, not that she tries anyway.
Date My Avatar: One case deals with a shut-in named Nyota who appears to be chatting with a girl online, unaware that said girl is a Minervamon in disguise. And it was not a date. He was frustrated with his life and talked to her for comfort and advice.
Demonic Possession: Nishino, responsible for the Serial Disappearances in Akihabara, is apparently possessed by a huge Wisemon, only to reveal that she is actually controlling it, having drawn it to her before doing so.
Depraved Bisexual: Kishibe is pretty openly lewd regardless of target and pretty evil.
Difficult but Awesome: Taking the time to fulfill the harder Digivolution requirements to obtain the Demon Lords, the Royal Knights, or simply Ultra-level Digimon can yield a powerful ally for the player.
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.
Disguised in Drag: One mission has the protagonist and Arata disguise themselves in a private event. The protagonist is disguised as a businessman even if the player character is female.
Dream Spying: In Chapter 13, the next plot device is triggered by the player napping on the couch at the Agency, involving this. Pete guesses that either they were connecting to a network while asleep or it was caused by their body glitching out from being affected by the Digi Lines. Unfortunately, it turns out that it was the latter in this case.
Duality Motif: Mastemon, a Digimon created for this game, is a DNA Digivolution of Angewomon and LadyDevimon. Her appearance is a black-and white female Digimon in a power suit with the differences split down the middle, even having angel wings on the white half and devil wings on the black half.
Dueling Hackers: The hacker wars in EDEN. Involves Digimon battles, of course.
Elemental Powers: There are nine of them: Neutral, Fire, Water, Plant, Electric, Earth, Wind, Light, and Dark.
Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Aside from the Digimon staple of Data -> Vaccine -> Virus triangle, there are other sets concerning the elemental types. Unlike the attributes, hitting with the opposite element does not reduce damage inflicted.
- The Fire -> Plant -> Water triangle.
- The Electric -> Wind -> Earth triangle.
- Meanwhile, the Light and Dark elements form a Mutual Disadvantage against each other.
Everyone Has Standards:
- Yuugo, the leader of Zaxon, basically welcomes anyone to his team as long as they show pride in being a hacker. Despite this, he still kicks Jimiken out for his blatant criminal activities. (More accurately, he shows enough scorn to get Jimiken to decide he is sick of it and bail out.)
- Several hackers found in Kowloon are ex-Zaxon members who are sick of the team having too many criminal hackers joining.
Face of a Thug: One case deals with Monster Clown Piedmon. He wants to be more like humans by asking the player to help him get a job, but he is too scary to perform for kids and adults do not take him seriously. He is actually a nice fellow, albeit nervous, but thankfully he soon works up the nerve to go to the interview for a circus job.
Failed a Spot Check: The clients of "lost item" cases are prone to this, especially in non-dungeon areas which are small enough that the lost property should not be too far away from them. Or heck, the property might be blatantly close to them, even on line of sight, and they still consider it lost.
Faux Affably Evil: Rie Kishibe.
Food Porn: Two cases deal with the player character and his/her friends touring around the local restaurants. Every eating scene is accompanied by the protagonist's description of the food he/she ordered in mouth-watering detail.
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.
Level-Up Fill-Up: Every level up replenishes the Digimon's HP and SP fully.
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.