Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker's Memory

Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker's Memory (デジモンストーリー　サイバースルゥース　ハッカーズメモリー) is a role-playing video game developed by Media.Vision and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment released at December 14, 2017 in Japan for the ', Playstation TV Vita and '. . Like its predecessor, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, the localized release does not feature an English dub.

Plot
Accused for a crime he didn't commit, Keisuke Amasawa decided to drop out of high school. Yu Nogi, his only childhood friend, remains the only person believing him. With his Eden account stolen, he attempts to track down the culprit with informations provided by the mysterious hacker K.

Keisuke used a "proxy" account in order to dive unto EDEN and ended up to the Digi-Market without Yu even after promising the latter to go together. The place is literally a hacker's market area for wild Digimons and Hackers stuff, it is also Keisuke's starting point for searching the hacker stealing account. After asking some people, he eventually encountered a certain Digimon Dealer and not seem out of place, he attempted to buy a Digimon with barely carried currency for a, a or a. Despite that he chose one and demanded him to free the other two instead to be erased. The dealer retaliated, called out his Digimons Ogremon and Devimon to attack. However, Ryuji Mishima alongside appeared out of nowhere to help Keisuke. Keisuke's Digimon also ran in to help. A bit of surprised to the Digimon's decision, Ryuji gave the Digimon capture program to Keisuke's Digivice. It allowed Keisuke to capture/tame the Digimon and together with Ryuji, teamed up to force the dealer to release the two Digimon back into the wild. Keisuke also narrated his reason for being there in the first place.

Ryuji saw Keisuke's potential and offered him a job as a member of Hudie, a small hacker group making jobs in the Eden like investigations, etc. His initial goal, albeit Ryuji wanted him to stop chasing the culprit, could also be achieved by teaming up with him. He accepted his offer in the end, making him the last member recruited with Ryuji as the Leader, Chitose Imai the second in command and lastly Erika Mishima, Ryuji's younger sister, the team's best hacker and Manager of Hudie Cafe.

Their group works directly under Yuugo Kamashiro's Zaxon, doing various missions for the group, usually being assigned them by second in command, Fei Wong Tomoe Ignacio. Hudie got involved directly, sometimes helping and unintentionally making things worse for them, with the various missions of Aiba and their friends, Nokia Shiramine, Arata Sanada, Kyoko Kuremi, Yuuko Kamishiro, Makiko Date, Gorou Matayoshi and Mirei Mikagura as well as Aiba's enemies, Jimmy KEN, Akemi Suedou and Rie Kishibe - Keisuke however, is on friendly terms with Jimmy Ken and Suedou and considers them friends. Keisuke also finds himself involved with the Royal Knights and Seven Deadly Demons, though unlike Aiba who becomes acquainted with every single member of both group, Keisuke only befriends Omnimon, Alphamon, Veevee, Craniamon and Beelzemon, whilst Crusadermon is a direct enemy to both Keisuke and Aiba. Despite befriending all of Aiba friends, Keisuke himself never meets Aiba however they crossed paths at the start of the story.

Following the leads of K, Keisuke dealt and defeated various hackers in the process, but eventually found the true suspect who stole his true account is the former himself. Keisuke learned K's true identity as Yu, who was madly in love with him but was at the back side manipulated by a Matadormon posing as a mask giving him higher hacking abilities and ended up controlling him completely. Keisuke later the Matadormon and freed Yu from it's clutches, though the latter, frustrated and regretted everything he's done ignores Keisuke.

Similar to Aiba and their friends, Hudie also had to deal with the Eaters. In Under Zero, Crusadermon summons a giant group of them, attacking countless numbers of hackers, causing them to acquire EDEN Syndrome. Ryuji is seconds away from contacting the disease, but pushed out of the way at the last second by his best friend, Chitose. This shocks the leader of Hudie, who goes into a deep depression from seeing his best friend sacrificing himself to defend him. This dark depression winds up, attracting the attention of an Arcadiamon at the depths of Under Zero. It teamed up with Ryuji in his mission to destroy all hackers as petty revenge for Chitose's sacrifice. Ryuji would destroy the hackers, whilst Arcaidamon would absorb or devour their Digimon to Digivolve all the way up to its highest level.

Ryuji and Arcadiamon caused massive trouble all over Eden and the real world. Whilst doing so, Erika tasks Keisuke to track down an Eater. After defeating it, they hack it and use it's data to reach the Eaters home world, where they come across the real Yuugo Kamishiro. Explaining that they had come to locate Chitose's memory data, Yuugo allows them to do so, which they find due to the help of Chitose's Ankylomon. They restore Chitose's mental data, causing him to be the only person to awaken from Eden Syndrome. Keisuke attempts to inform Ryuji, only for Ryuji not to believe him, leading to Keisuke defeating Arcadiamon. Chitose then arrives and yells at Ryuji for his actions, the shock of Chitose actually being back alive shocking Ryuji out of his depression. However, Arcaidamon has woken back up and attempts to murder Chitose. Like Chitose had done before, Ryuji pushes Chitose out of the way and takes the attack instead, before flying off to Odaiba. Keisuke and Erika locate Arcadiamon, who was now in it's Ultra stage. They are unable to harm it, leading Erika to have her Eater Bits, which she had created using the previous hacked Eater data, attack it which slows it down enough to harm it. Keisuke then kills Arcadiamon, freeing Ryuji and Cyberdramon. Erika however had overexerted herself and passes out, which leads to her Eater Bits attacking her and merging with her to become Eater Legion.

Eater Legion attempts to get to the Digital World, as do the massive amount of Eaters, it caused EDEN to shut down. Needing to get into Eden to free Erika, Fei allows Hudie to use Yuuko's personal EDEN computer, which with the help of Yu and the various hacker groups Keisuke had fought against, manage to gain access, though only enough power existed to allow Keisuke, Chitose and Ryuji to enter. Finding Eden to be infested with countless amount of Eaters, they fight their way through, eventually finding Eater Legion. They attempt to defeat it without killing the body, but this proves to be impossible and Erika instructs them to kill Eater Legion as her body was too assimilated with it. Erika's non corrupted memory data from her server merges with her Wormmon to become Hudiemon and she aids in killing her real world vessel. A large group of Eaters then merged with the rest of her corrupted memory banks, creating Eater EDEN, which Hudie managed to kill as well. Due to the actions of Aiba in the Digital World, the world is reset and changed so that EDEN never existed, the Digimon never arrived in the real world to interact with humans. Erika made the choice to remain as Hudiemon, rather than return as Erika because should she return to a human world without EDEN, she will die due to EDEN being the only reason she was still alive. In addition, she was directly responsible for the death of her parents in a car crash, which is what caused her illness in the first place, so erasing herself out of existence will not only remove all burdens from her brother but will also cause her parents to stay alive. Keisuke left his Digimon with Erika, as do Chitose and Ryuji. Hudie return to the real world, with their memories of Digimon and Erika erased. With no Erika in the new world, Ryuji is an only child. He still however, is the leader of Hudie - with Chitose and Keisuke working for him. Without the influence of Matadormon, Yu became a member of Hudie and remains on good terms with Keisuke. Unlike the rest of the group however, Keisuke retains his memories and cries in what used to be Erika's bedroom.

Development
Like Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, the western version Hacker's Memory has English and German subtitles.

On December 28, 2017, the Japanese Digimon games account tweeted that if their tweet got more than 2018 retweets before January 5, four new Digimon would be added to the game as free DLC. The amount was achieved in a few hours. Famitsu later revealed the four Digimon would be Ryudamon, Ginryumon, Hisyaryumon, and Ouryumon. They later added a stretch goal of 10,000 retweets to add one more Digimon, with the tweet reaching 10,000 one day before the deadline. The final Digimon was revealed to be Apocalymon. The first four Digimon were added on January 24, 2018 worldwide, whilst Apocalymon was added February 13.

The Sistermon Noir/Sistermon Blanc pre-order DLC was censored in North America, due to Noir being a nun and this not being suitable in North America, so Noir was changed from a black cat like nun Digimon, into a blue mouse like nun Digimon, Sistermon Ciel, as Namco USA had forced the change. Every other region however was unaffected by the censorship and had access to Noir, rather than the censored Ciel.

Gameplay
The gameplay is identical to its predecessor, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, only with a few balance changes, such as Sleep no longer taking a turn to wake up. A second battle type however was introduced, Domination Battles. ABI has been doubled, now maxing out at 200, meaning bonus stats can now be increased up to 150, being 50+half of 200 (150). SPD was also nerfed, now only giving Digimon multiple attacks in a row if the Digimon is on the field for a long time. Penetrating attacks were also changed, now being either "medium", "strong" or "extra strong". In addition, Hacker's Memory brought back what Cyber Sleuth removed, being able to fight 4/5 wild Digimon at once, rather than three maximum.

List of obtainable Digimon
The Field Guide shows the Digimon's model, can show attack and walking animations, like previous Story games, shows stats for any level between 1 and 99, with the default being level 1, shows the attacks each Digimon can learn, shows their Digivolution trees and has a profile for each Digimon in the game.

Hacker's Memory includes all 249 Digimon from the original Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, adding 92 new raiseable Digimon, taking the total to 341. This includes the pre-order exclusive Digimon of the first game, which outside of Europe, could only be obtained by pre-ordering the game, or buying a new copy. Hacker's Memory also includes pre-order exclusive Digimon, which like the predecessor, outside of Europe, can only be acquired by pre-ordering or buying a new copy of the game. Unlike the original game however, the Sistermon, four of the pre order Digimon, were added to the PlayStation store as free DLC one month after the release of the game. The NX Digimon however, remain exclusive to pre-orders/new copies. Examon, a Mega level Digimon in Cyber Sleuth, was retconned to an Ultra level in Hacker's Memory, DNA Digivolving from Breakdramon and Slayerdramon, rather than digivolving from RizeGreymon and DoruGreymon. Due to the addition of BaoHuckmon and SaviorHuckmon, Hackmon no longer digivolves directly into Jesmon, with SaviorHuckmon and Duramon instead Digivolving into the Royal Knight. Otherwise, all digivolution options remain the same as the original game, with the new Digimon placed into the existing evolution trees. Some Digimon, MetalGarurumon and Alphamon, had their special attacks replaced (though Alphamon's attack in English versions of the game retains the name "Blade of the Dragon King", even though the attack was changed), whilst some Digimon, such as Monzaemon retained the same attack, with the attack having a completely different effect. (Monzaemon's Hearts Attack is a Penetrating Attack in Cyber Sleuth but heals one ally's HP and increases ATK, DEF and INT by 10% in Hacker's Memory). Some Digimon, such as AeroVeedramon had their attack animations changed, though the effect remains the same, whist AeroVeedramon and UlforceVeedramon's Swiftness Support Skill was changed to only work on the Digimon themselves, rather than the whole party. PlatinumSukamon's Support Skill was changed from Platinum Service to Platinum Bonus, which increases experience by a lower amount, whilst PlatinumSukamon and PlatinumNumemon had their DEF stats changed to 999, by far the highest stats in the game.

Unused Digimon
Bearmon, SkullBaluchimon, and Kimeramon have unused models in the game's code.

Credits

 * Producer: Kazumasa Habu
 * Composer: Masafumi Takada
 * Creature design: Oh!Great
 * CG scenes:
 * Digimon design: Kenji Watanabe

Preview
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