There are few things quite as satisfying as a good monster-catching video game where you grow your team from small, adorable creatures into fearsome gods that can take down anything. And while Pokémon tends to get all the attention, another monster series has lurked in the background for decades.
Digimon has long played second fiddle to Nintendo’s monster-catcher, but it’s put out some genuinely fantastic games. One of the very best, the lengthily-named Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker’s Memory, has just made its way onto PlayStation Plus, where you can play it for free.
What’s fascinating about the Cyber Sleuth games is how they meld the monster-catcher with the classic JRPG. Hacker’s Memory is a plot-heavy experience full of twists and turns, but the story is fused with a party-based combat system where your members are made up of hundreds of different Digimon you can capture and train. The fusion of story and monster catching is a bizarre concoction, but it works surprisingly well.
Hacker’s Memory is actually the second Cyber Sleuth game, but it’s fine to play first, as it’s not technically a sequel. Instead, the events of Hacker’s Memory play out alongside the original game, as a kind of alternate story, but with a lot of quality of life improvements thrown in.
Taking place in a near-future version of Shibuya, Japan, Hacker’s Memory deals with a highly advanced form of the internet called Cyberspace EDEN. This new cyber realm inadvertently led to the creation of dangerous beings called Eaters, which are forged from negative human emotions, and now threaten both the digital and real world. You play as a hacker named Keisuke, who joins a hacking group called “Hudie” after his EDEN account is stolen. His goal is the find the culprit, but he uncovers a much greater threat from the Eaters along the way.
The story of Hacker’s Memory can feel a bit slow and plodding at times, but some genuinely interesting characters keep it engaging. The game also gets surprisingly dark, especially in some of the side quests: one revolves around people expiring because someone traps them in the VR world, then harvests their organs. It’s not something you’d see in a Pokémon game.
While the story goes to some interesting places, what really keeps you invested in Hacker’s Memory is its monster-catching loop. The game uses a typical turn-based combat system, but has over 330 different creatures to capture, train, and evolve.
You can have three Digimon active in battle, which lends it more of a party-based feel than the single combat of Pokémon games, but the real complexity comes in its Digivolution system and the various facilities that go along with it. The Digi-Lab lets you store and enhance your Digimon, and any Digimon not in your party can be sent to the Digi-Farms, where they can be fed various foods to enhance their stats. Digimon can also train independently to raise their level while you do other things.
That’s handy because you’ll need to meet certain requirements to Digivolve your monsters, which can include being a certain level or having certain stats. This means you’ll have to put work into the Digimon you want to evolve by using them in your party and taking advantage of the Digi-Farms. It gives you a greater sense of attachment to your creatures, like they’re actual companions you’re putting work into.
The systems of Hacker’s Memory are incredibly complex, making them hard to boil down into a few sentences. But the further you get into the game, the more options you’ll have at your fingertips, and that sense of building your team and seeing your Digimon grow is compelling. The game does have its problems, especially when its slow story keeps forcing you to backtrack, but the more you put into the game, the more you’ll get out of it. Between the surprisingly dark plot and robust monster-catching systems, it’s a meaty RPG that rewards your patience handsomely.
