Let's Play Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth! (screenshot LP)

You got your body back body back body back! Yay!

Can't say I fully understand all the battle mechanics, but then I tell myself it's a JRPG and to just go with it. Interested in seeing the intricacies of type matchups and status effects come into play... so far, it seems like the battles are pretty easy, but I know that can change come the first real Boss battle.

One of the criticisms I hear about this game is that it's quite easy, but then I also see that coming from people who min-max their Digimon even during the story, so I can't say for sure. An upcoming boss battle gave me a little difficulty when I test ran the game, so we'll see how that goes.

Right now battle strategies are just "smack enemies around, don't use weak elements or attributes too much." Helps that most opponents are still In-Training, as well. But hey, now it's time to get into more plot, woop woop.

Part 7: The Hospital is the Best Place to Pick Up Chicks
(please don't try it in real life)

So, as you may remember from last time, Mercury got enough data to make his body appear normal again, began training his Digimon in earnest, and started to master his hacking and Connect Jump powers. Now all we need is an old man to teach us how to shoot energy out of our hands and I can pretend this is leaked footage from Dragon Ball Super.



Having logged out of EDEN, Kyoko's theory plays out and Mercury materializes right where he left - in the Kuremi Detective Agency. Ahh, I missed everything being not a shade of blue.

Kyoko, for her part, is pleased she guessed correctly. Before we can get too deep into discussing all that happened, though, there's a knock at the door.



This old fellow, currently described as "bitter man" by the text box, walks in. He stares us down for a moment...



...then promptly proceeds to greet Kyoko like an old friend. I immediately take a liking to the old dude. He comments on how Kyoko is fortunate to have grown into a beautiful woman and a talented detective - although he calls her Kyo-chan, suggesting there's warmth and familiarity between the two. Kyoko's a little embarrassed by the nickname, the first we've seen her cool facade crack a little bit, and it's apparent that "old friends" is exactly the right term.

Clearly "bitter" refers more to his appearance than his personality. (He has a line before he enters the office where he's designated as "cool voice." I'm inclined to agree here.)



Finally noticing Mercury standing there, he apologizes and says he'll let Kyoko finish with us before he gets to his request. It's okay, Mercury doesn't stand out much. He just kinda hangs around awkwardly without saying much of anything.
this game does a remarkable job of letting me roleplay as if I'm actually the character



He asks what we're up to here, and we have two options to reply. The top one is "I'm a detective's assistant." The bottom is "It's a secret." Yeah, like it's even a choice. We're totally gonna be an assistant detective!

This pleases our new acquaintance. Also, look at the side-eye Kyoko's giving Mercury in that screenshot. She knows what we're gonna say and she's pleased.

I HAVE MADE SENPAI PROUD



Kyoko fills in the gaps for what we've already figured out. (This is a part where translation was a bit iffy, so bear with me as always.) The man's name is Goro Matayoshi, and apparently he and Kyoko's father go way back, meaning he's known Kyoko since she was a child. He's also a detective, though the word here is "keiji" so that means he's definitely the police sort. Some of Kyoko's dialogue translated to something about a government office, so it's possible that Matayoshi's pretty important. In any case, Kyoko's the one he goes to for advice about cybertechnology-related cases.



Now, this bit here tripped me up. Actually, it did several times. You might ask, "but Mercury, why is this so difficult? You have a phone app that can translate things, right?"

Yes, but here's the thing. Google Translate isn't 100% reliable, as anyone who's ever used it can tell you. Also, Japanese is a finicky language, and this game is written in a style that's more adult-oriented, i.e. lacks the furigana that would usually be used to help younger or unfamiliar-with-the-language readers decipher meaning.

The first word Matayoshi says here made me spend a good fifteen minutes just now trying to figure out what the hell he meant. See that word? It's お っと (and boy I hope this text translates on the forums), which is read o tto - and that space is important!

The problem, however, is that for whatever reason, Translate messed up and read it as a different word, pronounced otto. The kanji for that would be 夫. You know what that means? It means "husband." I spent a good deal of time trying to figure out why he'd be talking about husbands. In fact, he uses this word several times throughout this scene! Is he saying Kyoko needs to get married? Is he confusing me for her husband? totally be fine with that in all honesty What did he mean? It confused me when I played through this segment and it confused me again now. Which, as you may guess, is what led me on this tangent talking about how I tried to translate one word.

Oh, what did お っと/o tto actually mean?

IT MEANS "OOPS." I SPENT THIRTY MINUTES DECIPHERING THE WORD "OOPS."
I don't even know what the rest of the sentence says, I felt too deflated after this

Anyway, moral of the story: this stuff is hard to do and I spend a lot of time on it, and even if it's not always perfect I hope you understand the work I put into figuring out what's happening in this story. Also, appreciate the work done by professional translators, because this stuff is difficult.



Kyoko gets us back on track by asking what case Matayoshi's brought to us today. Right, there's a plot here.





She offers to brew some "delicious coffee," which Matayoshi hastily declines, saying he's already had enough coffee today. Hmmmm.



Matayoshi's case is definitely something that interests us, though. He claims to have some rumors about something called "EDEN Syndrome."





Ooh, yay, scenery change. Matayoshi isn't entirely comfortable talking about the clearly sensitive case around us, but Kyoko assures him that we're something of a specialist when it comes to investigating EDEN.

I'll sum up what Matayoshi explains from here on out. The "EDEN Syndrome" he mentioned is a strange medical condition that's been popping up lately. Some people who log into EDEN never log out, and their bodies are completely comatose. It seems news of this illness has been kept on the down-low thanks to Kamishiro Enterprises pushing their weight around, but Matayoshi happens to have had a lead on just where these victims may have ended up.

Specifically, it's at "Central Hospital," which just so happens to be owned by - you guessed it - Kamishiro. Stranger still, there's an entire ward that seems to have been blocked off to visitors, and armed guards are watching over it at all times. Since all he has is a suspicion, Matayoshi doesn't have the authority to investigate any further, but he's letting Kyoko know to see if there isn't something she can dig up.

Got all that? Phew! Oh, and as Matayoshi leaves, he gives Mercury a quiet warning...



...to not drink the coffee Kyoko's brewing.



This can only end well!



Kyoko definitely thinks this is something worth checking out, and decides she's going to Central Hospital post-haste. She also suggests we come along too... because if the similarities to what we've heard aren't just a coincidence, there may be some information about what happened to Mercury too.





We arrive at Central Hospital, and Kyoko tells us it's our job to sniff out information. Trying to get information head-on won't lead us anywhere (and she commends us when we choose a dialogue option saying as such), but with our unique talents we might just be able to find something worthwhile about.

Also she tells us that she wasn't lying when she told Matayoshi that we were an expert, and that this is our chance to prove ourselves as a detective's apprentice.

You know, Mercury's day didn't start out the greatest, but everything turned out all right in the end. So now it's time to see if we can find any leads-



Ooh, an animated cutscene, I bet that's important.







AUGH PERSONAL SPACE



-oh, okay, that was just a zoom. Phew. Mercury and the "reticent girl" have a bit of a staredown.



(Hmmm... maybe she's also a silent protagonist and that's why she isn't talking. This is awkward, I should bring up a dialogue box or something.)



The three options here are as follows: "Hello!" "Hey, look what I have!" and "Hey, girl, have I met you somewhere before?"

Hospitals are a great place to chat up girls, right? Especially ones that look totally down like this, right?
I have no idea if this is a dating sim, but between Nokia, Kyoko, and this gal I think we may be heading for the harem route



Look at him. He looks so proud of himself, and he's such an awkward dork. It's like I'm really in the game.



No, there is no "I hate to see you leave but I love to watch you go" dialogue option here. Would that I could, dear reader. Besides, we have no time to be flirting awkwardly! There's work to be done. We'll have to get detective-ing, however, in the next update.


Next Time: A Star is Born

Sorry for a bit of delay on this one, folks, life happened. Hopefully this is worth the wait!
also weather happened, this would've been up yesterday had it not been for storms in my area

Part 8: A Star is Born

So, let's recap. Last time on Cyber Sleuth, one of Kyoko's contacts brought her a lead on the mysterious "EDEN Syndrome," which might also shed some light on the strange condition our hero is experiencing. Our investigation takes us to Central Hospital, where we're about to start sleuthing for a trail.



Immediately before us is this helpful nurse, who tells us that if we're here to visit someone, the 12th floor is where we need to go. Might be worth checking out.



This young woman tells us that there's a spooky rumor of a secret ward where nobody is allowed visitors, even family. That definitely sounds like something we should investigate. There's some other people in the reception area but none of them have any info relevant to the case.

There's also a nurse who indirectly confirms that there is a "special ward" by telling us she can't talk about confidential patient information. Hmm...



Hey, it's a message from Mirei! I did a little digging and the name of the IM client is, in fact, "DigiLine," not "DigiRain." That makes a lot more sense.

She says our Digimon found a "Flare Guard DX" thanks to their development efforts. We'll check in on that -



...well, how about right now? This is the first terminal that we've come across in the real world, and I revisit a lot during the course of my investigation in the hospital. From here, we can access EDEN and return to everywhere we've already been. For now, our goal is the first Coulomb, where we've already seen one of the access terminals that lets us return to the lab.



Hitting up the DigiFarm nets us the item, which is intended for usage in-battle. The Flare Guard DX reduces the effect of fire damage on our Digimon. I might just have a use for this sooner or later...



Check it! Hagurumon hit max level while we were out training before, meaning that from here on out he can't gain any experience or, naturally, levels.



So this means it's time to evolve! As I've shown before, there are a lot of evolution options for most Digimon. Any of these Champion-levels would be a solid foundation for Hagurumon's future, though I have a specific one in mind. Also, note that while you can't tell exactly what the Digimon are, you can make a reasoned guess based on the silhouettes if you're familiar with the franchise.



Let's rock and roll, partner.



Now our starter has gone from Rookie Hagurumon to the Champion-level Starmon, and what a change it is. While some of his stats have gone down a little, most have enjoyed a boost thanks to the new form - and the ones that have shrunk will catch back up in time, and be even larger than before.

Most notably is the increase in level cap to 37, the change from Virus/Electric to Data/Null, and the increase in potential from 0 to 3. Oh, and he can equip two pieces of equipment!

Also, I found out that the traits - remember how I talked about Hagurumon being a "Defender" type before? - also influence which of their stats grow the most. Starmon will still take blows like a champ pun unintended but could hypothetically change if I gave him a certain item that will be available later.

But forget all that, we have our first Champion Digimon! I'm proud of my boy.



Kyoko sends us a DigiLine message reminding us of how useful the function is, and is impressed with the speed of our reply. Making a good impression on the boss, aw yeah.



With all that out of the way, we can finally take the elevator the rather quiet girl we met last time. Mercury's options are to head directly to the "special ward" (curious that they put that as an option), the twelfth floor, and back here. Let's hit up floor 12!



I get that it would have been silly to program in eleven entirely irrelevant floors, but I find it highly amusing that we can just go straight here.



This is about all that's here, though. A long hallway, some rooms you can't go in, and a lot of people.



Here's my favorite NPCs on this floor. The little girl is worried that she'll be kept inside forever due to her sickness, but her father tells her that that's just a rumor, and she'll be able to back to school when she's feeling better.

Good parenting, sir. Good parents in JRPGs are hard to find.

...where even are Mercury's parents?
well we're in a JRPG so they're either dead or one is the main villain





I may be guilty of a slight fib when I said you can't enter any of the rooms. This one's open! Inside is a Kunemon medal. It's a Digimon I like a lot but sadly isn't obtainable in this game.

That's all on this floor, let's head up to the special ward.



Yeah, that's about what I was expecting. Talking to the guards yields nothing, aside from the obvious fact that we're not allowed in here.



Kyoko calls in to offer some advice on what we can do. Her first suggestion is knocking out the guards, followed by hacking the door and breaking in.

I'm not even joking here, that's what this screenshot says.

Her second, and much more practical solution, is using our trump card - our Connect Jump ability. Kyoko says the terminal at the nurse's station back on Floor 12 should be our key to getting in the special ward and finding out just what's in there.





Heading back down brings up a refresher on Connect Jump and how to use it. Just as Kyoko said, the nurse's station has a computer we can use for our purposes.



Much like with Kyoko's television, entering the computer lets us enter the network lines and find a path. There are Digimon here, too, by the way, so you know what that means. Grinding time! Here's the highlights reel:



Accompanying Poyomon is Motimon, who happens to be Hagurumon's In-Training form. We couldn't degenerate to Motimon before because we hadn't already possessed one, I believe.



Salamon shows off her signature move, Puppy Howling.



And her victory pose. Not one of my favorites, really.



The team changes up a little so I can train the others.



Oh hey, Goblimon can evolve. Not his intended path but -



OH GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE?! Nanimon is... yeeeaaahhh. His official profile states he's an invader from another dimension, and he is in fact based on a Tamagotchi character called Oyajitchi. Digimon are in fact based off - and from the same company as - Tamagotchi. They were originally designed to be a boy-oriented counterpart to the other toy, which was more popular among young girls.

Nanimon swaps out with Renamon in the party so I can at least see his moves and such. I may regret this.





...I regret this.

that's totally just strawberry ice cream, don't let anybody tell you different



First chance I get I'm taking you back to the lab and turning you back into Goblimon.



Let's make up for that disturbing evolution with some ToyAgumon cuteness!







Now this... this I regret nothing about.



Salamon learns a new move. The more healing options I have, the better.



Otamamon can evolve now too!



Please don't hate me, Otamamon. Now he's the Champion Numemon and, unlike Nanimon (who also devolves back to Goblimon in the middle of all this), this is his intended evolution.

There's a point to it, I swear. You'll see eventually.





ToyAgumon doesn't have the necessary stat to evolve to his intended Champion form yet, so Guardromon will have to do for now.



After all the grinding is done, I put a solid team back together to finish our mission. Hey, you wanna know what Starmon's special move is?



DROPPING METEORS FROM THE SKY

Clearly the best choices have been made with my starter. I'll brook no objections.



Even his victory pose is awesome.



Goblimon attempts to emulate it, but without as much success. I still think you're cool too, Goblimon.





Guilmon learns what I believe is our very first buff skill. As you can see, it raises the attack of one Digimon on our side. Simple, but quite useful.





I scan in a couple new Digimon, as well. Getting Motimon will prove to be very useful in the future.



I evolve him to Hagurumon's twin Solarmon for the time being. He won't be sticking this way, I just wanted to add another Digimon to my "seen" list.



I finally get a triple Xros Combo going! This earns me a trophy as well. From careful observation during battle, I found out that Digimon do not have to be in adjacent battle zones for this - I think it may mean "adjacent on the turn order" but I will have to experiment more to be sure.

In any case... that's a lot of grinding! Let's see what's on the other end of the network line, eh?



Ahh, now this should be most informative...


Next Time: Drop it Like it's Plot

Alright, addressing things in order:

Dude, can you rename Digimon? Because if so your starter needs to be named Keton, because he looks like Space King Keton from Gurren Lagann.

HOLY HELL THAT THING IS TERRIFYING KILL IT WITH FIRE oh thank goodness he's a goblin again.

Is the numemon so you can get a monzaemon later?

Is there any chance you can reveal what toy agumon's intended evolution is?

Nope, no renaming Digimon in this one. I think the resemblance to King Kittan will be much more obvious in his next evolution, haha.

Nanimon was worth it for showing off more Digimon in the game. It was not worth it for the trauma we all received. Goblimon says he's really sorry.

Numemon can evolve into Monzaemon in this game! However, that's not the path he'll be heading down... as for ToyAgumon, you'll just have to see when we get to that point!

EDIT: I LIED YOU CAN TOTALLY RENAME DIGIMON

...actually, I didn't know this before, but I got told just a little while ago. I'll be picking out suitable names for my team, I hope.

Oh man, monzaemon rocks. Unless you can get...what was it, waru-monzaemon? Is that the corrupted one? That one rocks.

Nanimon... yeesh! That thing is freaky-lookin'!

Looking forward to Salamon's evo into... Gatomon? Angemon? Who knows? I can tell you're planning something, but I'm still clueless as to what...

Monzaemon is pretty cool, and without saying too much I can guarantee we'll be seeing one eventually. WaruMonzaemon is not present in Cyber Sleuth, though.

As for Salamon... well, I played ahead and developed another buffer, so it won't be too long before you see her Champion form. And oh, I am planning a great many things. Hopefully they aren't entirely expected!

I want you all to know that I was in the middle of typing this update when an ad decided to redirect me to a different site.

So I've had to retype this. It's the second time I've done this update, and that's after I had delays due to weather and real life stuff. My fury is incandescent.

ah whatever we all know what we're here for

Part 9: Drop it Like it's Plot

So last time we did some grinding for a long time in the hospital's network and materialized in the secret ward that hopefully has some information about what's going on!

Let's get to investimagating.



...once I take this call. Kyoko informs us that we're looking for a network control center in the back, meaning we're close to completing our mission.



The ward is occupied with plenty of beds. Just how many people are suffering from this mystery illness?



Trying to lead gets us a friendly reminder that A: we haven't finished our mission and B: there are armed guards outside.

Has there been a reason given why our Digimon can't enter the real world yet? I think Starmon could knock those guards' heads together faster than they could do anything. I'd watch that cutscene.

Something catches Mercury's eye as he proceeds toward the control room and...



Oh.

Oh.



Our hero theorizes that if his body is here being treated for EDEN Syndrome, then the other people here might well have gone through something quite similar to what we did. Not a settling thought by any means.

In any case, there's no time to celebrate our actual body being safe and sound, so let's move on with the mission.





File 001: About EDEN Syndrome

Let's just skim this for important bits... initially referred to symptoms of vomiting and illness caused by unfamiliarity with the virtual world... eventually grew to unconsciousness while logged in... even one case of death caused by complications from being comatose long-term... well, that's pretty sim-

WAIT DEATH WHAT



File 002: Treatment of EDEN Syndrome

Currently the illness is treated as unclassified and research is undergoing. They hope to get support from the government...

Okay, that's great, but can we get back to the part where someone died already?!



File 003: Policy of Cooperation with Kamishiro Enterprises

...now we're talking.

Unfortunately this doesn't tell us much that we don't already know or had suspected - the hospital's owned/funded by Kamishiro, who has their fingers in all sorts of pies, and the tech being used to monitor the victims of EDEN Syndrome comes from them as well.

Well, there's the long and short of it. Let's get out of here and tell Kyoko. What a remarkably short update due to the lack of plot twists in our path!



Well, I guess I better come up with a witty title for next time then. Hmm, I wonder what I could do...





Ohhhhhh. Right, I wondered what happened to her.

OK, look, about hitting on you before, that was just because I thought choosing that option would be funny, I didn't think you'd actually take it seriously or anything! You didn't have to follow me all the way up here to say no!



"Reticent girl" stops being so reticent and immediately demands to know who we are and what we're doing here. And, y'know, how we got past the armed guards.
it's because I'M BATMAN



After an awkward pause, we have another choice of answers. Sadly, none of them are asking for her number. I wish I could roleplay Mercury as awkwardly attempting to hit on every woman he ends up in a tense situation with because he can't think of anything else, but sadly the game does not let me do so this time.

The questions, in order, are "Who are you?" "Are you related to one of the patients?" and "Are you with Kamishiro?"



"...come on, don't answer the question with another question."



Our hero attempts to play it off and be cool by repeating Kyoko's line about being a humble detective, just trying to help.



The girl mutters something about "this might be Kuremi" and - okay, wait, hold on a second. Do I look anything like Kyoko? Her hair's long and blond, mine's short and red. I dress in normal clothes but incredibly garish, while she wears normal clothes in extremely small amounts. ALSO SHE IS A WOMAN AND I AM NOT.

In any case, the girl's tone changes immediately and she offers to tell us everything she knows about EDEN Syndrome.



Yeah, that's about my reaction here too.

The girl goes on to explain that she merely wants to prove that there is no wrongdoing going on here, and admits that she's affiliated with Kamishiro. Mercury gives it some thought and decides to hear her out. Meaning it's question time!


have I ever mentioned how much I hate when the lower-right stuff on the screencaps covers up the text because I really hate that

Taking it from the top:
1. "EDEN Syndrome can be cured, right?"
Apparently not, because the oldest case known thus far has lasted eight years. Criminy. The girl expresses a desire that someday someone will find a cure, but the look on her face says it all. She doesn't have much hope, and it's genuinely tearing her up. Clearly, she's not a bad person.

2. "After someone gets EDEN Syndrome, what happens?
Apparently what we see is what they get. So far, everyone who suffers from the illness exhibits exactly the same symptoms, with no known differentiation between patients.

That's kinda freaky.

3. "And the patient at the far end?" (referring to Mercury's body)



Unsurprisingly, she's very confused by this. She notes that the "patient" has only recently been moved in, and she wonders if it's an uncanny resemblance between strangers or that it's a close relative. Yeah, something like that.





Asking about the dark rumors surrounding Kamishiro sets the girl off, and she exclaims that it's all a misunderstanding, that Kamishiro is trying to help, and then a bunch of stuff I can't translate but seems very clearly like it's something personal for her. She seems almost on the verge of tears. Mercury's a little surprised by her outburst.



Kyoko takes this moment to interrupt, saying that we're about to have uninvited company.



And right on cue, we hear a feminine, sing-song voice outside the door. It's the voice of a woman who acts cute, but is about as empathetic as a shark. She's congratulating the guards for their "hard work" and saying she's about to come in.

The text box calls this person "Uninvited guest?" I love it.



"R- Rie-san...?! She's not supposed to be here today...!

For the uninitiated, "-san" is a Japanese honorific usually used to address one's superior, whether it be a boss, one's senior in school, or just anyone the speaker respects. It's mostly commonly translated as "Mr." or "M(r)s." when those terms would be applicable. In this case, our new friend would probably be calling the intruder "Ms. Rie." The use of a first name, however, indicates some familiarity between the two.
say what you will about my translation ability, but at least this run is educational

Meanwhile, still outside the door, this Rie character is apparently admiring one of the guard's chests... because his heartbeat has increased quite drastically. Whoever this Rie is, she must be pretty intimidating.



And then she decides she's coming in.

Although we haven't officially met her yet, Rie's dialogue is difficult to translate because of the way her sing-songy voice is transcribed. The tilde is like a lilt in the voice while the dots between characters express that each syllable is said in a punctuated manner.

Like I said, sounds cutesy, anything but in terms of kindness. I have to give credit to the voice actor in this scene because it really does sound like Rie is slightly crazy.

One of the guards tries to point out that they've been on duty the whole time and nobody could've come in, but Rie isn't paying attention. Incidentally, the guard calls her "Kishibe-san," which is a more formal take on the whole honorific thing I mentioned above. Also this means we know our mystery intruder's full name is Rie Kishibe.
wow, first time we've known a character's name in this game before seeing what they look like



Kyoko contacts us and lets us know we should high-tail it out of there. Apparently this Rie Kishibe is one of Kamishiro's executive officers, and getting caught by her would make this entire operation pointless. So, time to get out the way we came! Kyoko reminds us not to panic, and says she'll meet us back in the lobby.



Apparently our unnamed friend can't hear what Kyoko tells us, but she agrees with the sentiment and tells us we need to hide quickly. And we run for it.

Mercury's panicked animation of looking around him back and forth is hilarious.





And at long last, we see the woman herself. Yup, she craycray.
and thus marks the only time in my life I will ever use that phrase



"Oh Yuko-cha~an, it's on. Ly. You?"
see what I have to work with here

Besides introducing the diminutive honorific "-chan," which is used for girls who are your junior in school/young children and can also be used in an insulting way, Rie also names our pal as Yuko. Thank goodness, another name I don't have to keep typing around.



While we hide in the back room, we eavesdrop on their conversation. Rie claims to be able to "sense" things that are going on and, uh, well, she's crazy. Yuko insists she's alone here, but Rie decides to tease her about it.

You know, instead of transcribing the dialogue here, I think I'm just gonna show off some of the body language in this scene and let you decide for yourself.



For example, here? This is Yuko's line. Rie is just standing there with her mouth wide open - and no, that's not a thing with her model. The dialogue parts of this game are good about having characters' lip flaps match what they say fairly well, and they close their mouths when they're talking. Except here. She just keeps that expression on her face. It's creepy.







I could take the time to discuss the concept of body language and how it can be quite easy to understand across language and culture, but honestly I'm just glad that, the second time through typing this update, I have an easy part.

But yeah, you can figure out their relationship, and the kind of person Rie is, pretty easily.



When she's bored of playing with Yuko, Rie walks up to the door and talks directly to us inside, telling "Yuko's lover" to come out. No, I'm not making it up, that's the exact phrase she uses.
should've known that throwaway joke a couple updates ago would come back with a vengeance

And when she opens the door...





Like a ninja. A cyber ninja. ...sleuth.

Realizing that there is in fact no one here, at least not anymore, Rie takes one last opportunity to taunt Yuko about her so-called boyfriend and then leaves.



"That person... where did he go?"



Cyberspace, that's where.


Next Time: We Should Have Listened About the Coffee

Are you really Batman?

(Interesting story update, sad to see no Digimon action though, but you can't win 'em all)

If I am Batman, I want my car back. And my mansion. I could do without the whole "dead parents" thing, though.

And yeah, that's something that's bound to happen with such a story-heavy game, especially when it's something that has to be translated to be understood. I actually take a lot of screencaps that don't make it into the thread proper. There's about 40 in this most recent update, while the total number of screencaps I took from the start to the end point covered there numbers about 120.

On the plus side, I've played a fair bit ahead (I said this in my original post and forgot to bring it up when I redid it, whoops) and there will be a chapter or two of just running around fighting stuff in EDEN soon enough. Not quite yet, but soon.

In fact, I played up to right before the next major boss, so I have motivation to get to a point where readers can vote on who I take to said boss so I can keep playing the game!

Just started reading through, and I'm going "huh, did people from the SMT franchise work on this?"

Mainly because the character designs remind me of SMT. Seems really awesome just from seeing Cuolombs

EDIT: I'd put 5 bucks on "Nokia" being the 'unbreakable character'
EDIT2: This is shaping up a lot like Devil Survivor in terms of how the players start out. Still loving this
EDIT3: There's even a cathedral of shadows it seems like.... Does Atlus now own Digimon?
EDIT4: Okay, loving the LP but I gotta call something. End of game we're treated to what the players look like (a reveal a la .Hack//Sign or TWEWY).
Also I played Digimon World, and loved it. It's really impressive to see how far the games have come, and all these details make me go "if this was somehow on 3DS, they'd give pokemon a run for it's money BIG TIME"

LoverIan wrote:Also I played Digimon World, and loved it. It's really impressive to see how far the games have come, and all these details make me go "if this was somehow on 3DS, they'd give pokemon a run for it's money BIG TIME"

That, so much that.

It's funny you mention Shin Megami Tensei with the character designs. Good eye! The character designer for this game (as well as Re:Digitize, where Mirei originated from) is Suzuhito Yasuda, whose works include the Devil Survivor games.

Also, I wouldn't expect too much from seeing our online friends IRL - Nokia will be showing up in a chapter or two, as will Arata, and they look exactly the same as they do in EDEN, haha.

Oh, and since there was no Digimon action in this most recent update, have an image I took when I got in a fight on the way out:



Boosted damage against all enemies. It was total overkill.

Ooooh, plot! Rie is creepy... inb4 reveal that she's somehow a Digimon disguising herself as a human.

And yeah, if this game were localized and on the 3DS i'd totally get it and play the heck out of it, it looks amazing! There's a dearth of good story-driven monster battlers out there... and this one is really something special!

I forgot about the parts on this page > . <
Though I kinda chuckled. *pat pat* we all make errors like that.
But the comatose people and the syndrome just made me go "cue the .hack// theme music".

I'm gonna agree with IT, Rie is likely a digimon. Orrr the first victim of Eden Syndrome and managed to survive like Mercury. I like her malevolence and her attitude. "You should be scared of me but I don't want to feel like a jerk all the time" or maybe "This is how non-threatening humans act, correct?" *holds a knife in her hand*

So far the best way I can think of to describe Rie is a bit like Umbridge from Harry Potter - she acts sickeningly saccharine sweet, but that's just the attitude she puts on. In terms of her words and actions she comes off as frighteningly psychopathic.

For our first real villain so far, I quite like her.

What?! Another update already?! ...well, I did say I wanted to catch up so I could let y'all vote which'd let me play again, so... yeah.

Part 10: We Should Have Listened About the Coffee

Last time we learned some more about EDEN Syndrome and found out we're now our own twin, found out that mystery girl Yuko may well be on our side, and narrowly avoided the increasingly unsettling Rie Kishibe. Let's get out of this hospital already!



Popping out the side of the network line we entered from cuts off the minidungeon. Don't worry too much about it - there were no items, and if we wanted the scan data from Digimon who resided there, the area is now available in the Mirror Dungeon over in the DigiLab.



As promised, Kyoko meets us back in the lobby, and congratulates us on a completed mission. It's time to go back and discuss what we learned.



Back at the agency, Kyoko comments on how difficult it was to comprehend seeing our own body lying there, and hypothesizes that the other victims likely suffered a fate not unlike ours - though they weren't as lucky. Although we didn't learn too much in all, she advises us not to get too hasty.



Kyoko reminds us of the agency's motto ("From Beginning to End"), a phrase that was passed down to her from her father, who was also a detective, as a way of... well, honestly, I actually had trouble translating this. The white-on-white messed with my translation app, and "father" is the only word it could accurately and consistently get. I tried entering the characters into Google Translate manually, but that took ages and Japanese is very complicated to actually write out.

So let's pretend this is an inspirational reference to her dad, and we're being told this to keep up our spirits about figuring out what's going on. Yay!



Of course, there is still the question of what we do next.

Fortunately, Kyoko comes to our rescue again, and reiterates her offer to let us work as her assistant. Besides being intrigued by our case, she thinks we have talent, and will provide us with food, clothing, and a place to stay for as long as we're working with her. That's quite handy considering our body is in the hospital and it might raise questions if we tried to take care of all that ourselves...



Mercury quickly agrees, and Kyoko happily announces that our contract is established.
if this game was a couple years earlier I'd make a Madoka joke

And with that, she gives us our official title, dennou tantei, or in English... "Cyber Sleuth."

TITLE DROP GOOOOOOOOO
that's a Youtube link by the way, kids, prepare for noise



Anyway, to celebrate our official partnership, she tells us to wait on the couch and she'll brew some of her famous coffee to make a toast!

...wait, wasn't there... something about the coffee? Something important?



Oh god, that doesn't look right. That doesn't smell right.



Kyoko proudly announces this as one of her special recipes... sea grape and fermented bean paste.



I think this may be the only possible response to such a concoction. Oblivious to Mercury's reaction, Kyoko goes on about the merits of the specific ingredients. And then we get this:



I don't know what any of these mean. I think the first one, which is apparently "chibitsu," is a way of saying "cheers" or something similar. The second one is "gubitsu" but I don't know what that means. The last is just "gugugugugugubitsu" and that's hilarious.

In any case, we gotta drink the coffee. Bottoms up, guys.



For that ordeal we get 1000 CSP! ...what's a CSP? Well, there's bound to be a tutorial.



For our next task as an official Cyber Sleuth, Kyoko suggests we look around Nakano Broadway and familiarize ourselves with the shops and shopkeepers. This is going to be our base of operations from now on, after all, and it's best to know your own home turf.

In fact, she directs us to the whiteboard next to her desk, where we can check out requests from anyone who comes in needing help, and posts up our task as a request there.


yes that whiteboard



Even better, we're officially in Chapter 2! What's the chapter title mean? Ahh, I have to leave some surprises...



It's the first time we've been able to walk around the office! Nice. As before we earn a trophy for reaching the next chapter, and here we can walk over to that whiteboard and check out the requests.



See? Told you there'd be a tutorial. This first screen explains that, any time we come back to the office, we can check the whiteboard and see if any requests are up. We can take them one at a time and the currently active one is marked with the blue symbol. If we decide to take a different one we have to put the current request on hold, but why not just finish them one at a time? Conveniently, we can also check our digivice in the player menu if we forget the parameters of the current request.

(Even more convenient is the online guide I'm using to avoid running around aimlessly!)



The color of the magnet pinning the request up also denotes what kind of quest it is. Red quests are important ones - you know, story quests. Blue and yellow are normal requests. Green are requests that came from Digimon on our farm island. Purple requests are accessed through downloadable content.

Oho? DLC, hmm? Well, I wonder if we'll see any other content of that sort. *cough*specialDigimonfrompreorderDLC*cough*



Here's the one available request. Each one has a title referring to the goal of the request, and a difficulty. One star, as you can surmise, is rather easy. Now this quest happens to be called "High-Quality Coffee Beans" -

Oh. OH GOD NO. I CAN'T DRINK THAT AGAIN.



The quest tells us the client and their location (in this case, that'd be Kyoko and she's right here in the office).

There's a briefing as well. Here's what Kyoko's telling us to do:
"I'd like some coffee beans bought from the shop K-Cafe. It's located at... no, I'll let you find it yourself. Don't forget to introduce yourself around either."

Last is our reward - 300 yen, 500 CSP, and five healing items. The tutorial didn't tell us, but CSP are "Cyber Sleuth Points" and they accumulate over time to increase our rank. It's experience to level up as a detective! I'm not sure what the purpose is, though. I'll try and find that out at some point.

After accepting the quest, Kyoko reminds us to check the whiteboard every once in a while. It's the only way to progress the game, in any case, so we'll be stopping back here often. If there's any particularly interesting or amusing sidequests I'll show them, but for the most part I'll skip over them (or skim the relevant bits) when I can for the sake of moving the run along.

Now we can explore Nakano Broadway! Our first destination is, conveniently outside Kyoko's office. There we see a familiar face.



Hiya, Mirei! She greets us as a cyber sleuth (that's dennou tantei again for you who don't remember) and talks about how fate once again has brought us together. Mercury eloquently expresses his surprise at seeing Mirei in the real world, and suggests that her philosophical tangents are somewhat distracting from the main point.



Like so.

Mirei decides to get to the point and tells us to hold out our hand and close our eyes.
fun fact: I mistyped that as "hold out our eyes and close our hand" and almost didnt' catch it



Silly Mirei, I already had that glove. You can't fool me. I do look stylin', though, thanks for noticing.

In actuality, Mirei installed a program into the glove on our right hand. Our being is a cyber-body right now, remember, which means we're essentially a physical program. What Mirei just gave us is the ability to reconfigure any items we obtain in the real world to data and bring them with us to the digital world!



Mirei goes on another spiel about destiny and says that, while she can't tell us the future (or implies we might not want to know) despite being at a fortune-teller's spot right now, the boundaries between the physical and digital worlds are blurring, and that the powers we now hold might well be the light of hope for this world.

So, you know, no pressure.

More helpful is that we can access the DigiLab from this spot at any time! We don't even have to jump into EDEN, all we have to do is step outside the office and pop straight into the lab.



Or, well... we'll be able to once we finish the request we're on right now. I have some Digimon at max level and we could do some evolving... if we could get in! Ah well, best get to exploring our new home...


Next Time: Nakano Broadway or the Highway

"Updates three days in a row," you say, "that's impossible!" BUT NO! It is possible, and it is here! How far can this streak go? As long as I can keep it!

Part 11: Nakano Broadway or the Highway

Last time we took a new career path, stomached what might be a human rights violation, and got a mission to explore our new center of operations. So let's get on that, shall we?



Oh wait, who's this here? She just appeared outside Kyoko's office after I finished speaking to Mirei. Let's see what she has to say, shall we?


she has quite a few text boxes so pardon me in advance for only posting the first here

DLC Delivery Clerk: "Thank you for downloading our content! Here, please cherish this downloadable content we're distributing. ...oh my goodness, you don't have enough internal memory for this. To get the downloadable (spoiler) you'll need to free up 5 blocks of memory. When you have space in the party memory, please talk to me!"

Well, dang.



We do have plenty of room for free items, though! Our spoils include several status effect healers, three each of the A-rank HP and SP restoring items, and some farm food that increases stats other than friendship.

Sadly, we don't get a free party memory expansion, which would've been useful right about now. We'll just have to wait til we finish up Kyoko's task and grab the Digimon this lady's holding for us!



Okay, now it's time for a proper tour of the place. This is the outside of Nakano Broadway and will lead us to the world map once that's available. You may recall that I mentioned Nakano Broadway is a real-world location. Here's a picture of it in real life. Not a bad likeness, eh?

Nakano Broadway's considered to be "Tokyo's other otaku heaven," right after the district of Akihabara. I'd love to visit Japan someday, and this game has put Nakano right near the top of the list of places I'd like to see.



The game's super generous with where you stand in relation to NPCs. The guy talking here is the fellow on the far right. He tells us there's a CD store on the second floor and a cafe on the fourth.



This is the first of the shopkeepers we need to introduce ourselves to. The place isn't open just yet, but when she learns we work with Kyoko she becomes quite friendly and says we're welcome anytime. That's pretty good, because this woman happens to keep the first item shop of the game. It's pretty convenient that the agency, the portal to the DigiLab, and a store are all so close.



This is a gachapon machine that dispenses Digimon medals. You'll recall we've been picking up some of those already, and while I don't think I've shown it they can also appear as loot from battle.



Why, there's a familiar face! Considering what we went through, it's good to see Nokia made it out safe and sound. Let's go talk to her, she'll probably want to know what's going on.



She's glad to see us safe and sound, though she's also worried about Agumon and Gabumon. She also somehow manages to mangle the word "Digimon" into "Hakudzuyomon."

Yeah, I dunno either. She says that there's something that bothers her about the situation, like a memory from childhood she can't quite recall. Hmm, that sounds a bit odd but we can't do much with it now...



Also, she thinks our new job is super cool.



...or at least, she thinks the sound of it is, because she has no idea what the heck "cyber detective" means. Oh, Nokia.

To sum up the rest of the rather one-sided conversation (motormouths love a good silent protagonist), she has no idea where Arata is and asks us to keep an eye out for him, and also mentions that she's listening to a new album by some guy called "Jimmy KEN." That is... quite possibly the worst name for a rock star I've ever heard.



Talking to her again after our conversation has her sing some of Jimmy KEN's lyrics, which, even with the translation barrier, sound positively horrible. She thinks the music's addictive, though, so... to each their own, I guess.



Poking around near the second-floor card shop nets us an Agumon Hakase medal. Yes, that is a real Digimon. No, we can't obtain him. I only wish. The card shop isn't open, either. I think this is where we turn medals in but I'm not sure yet.



Here's some more stuff on the second floor, which this part which is apparently outdoors. Nothing of interest here, just showing off some scenery.



Not so much with the fourth floor! Here's a terminal which will let us into EDEN - handy, since Mirei's place only gets us to the lab and back.



This is also the site of the offline coliseum, where we can take on some ingame challenges. The... maid in cat ears... named Oruru, lets us sign up for the Bronze Cup, which requires us to win five fights in a row. Let's get some Digimon fighting in!



...we may be overqualified for this tournament. The first opponent, aptly named "Boy," just has a Punimon and Botamon.



Our second opponent, "Girl," has a Poyomon and Tokomon. Just barely stronger.



Ah, now here's something interesting! "Salaryman," who is apparently a bigger success at Digimon battling than he is at his career (his words, not mine), has two Digimon we haven't seen yet - two Baby-level Kuramon, and its In-Training evolution Tsumemon.

Oddly, Kuramon is the only Baby who can't be easily obtained before this point. You could make use of evolution charts to grind up a Digimon to a level that could then be degenerated to a member of this line, but that'd take forever and be kind of boring. We'll be able to see new Digimon related to these guys soon enough.

Also, a minor fun fact - Digimon Capture works during all these battles, too! We get scan data from every Digimon we face, and some people intentionally throw this fight to repeat the battles and get enough scan data for Kuramon.

That's lame and I'm not gonna do it. And I say this as someone who fully intends to use a Digimon that evolves from Kuramon.



Our fourth opponent, an office lady, has three Digimon. We've already seen Nyaromon and Pabumon, but we haven't seen Wanyamon... and might still have trouble seeing him because he's partially hidden behind her dialogue box. Whoops!



The final opponent between us and the crown is this masked man, noted as a "Demons Hacker." I think that means there's a hacker group called "Demons," which sounds like they're trying far too hard to be edgy. I'll bet he's 13 years old, 15 at most.

His Guilmon is a mild challenge, but our team still wipes him out in a single turn.



For victory we get a... "Brave Point"? I'll have to look up what that is later.



For now, this is our destination, K-Cafe. It's where Kyoko sent us to grab some coffee beans, so let's do that!





Inside the cafe, the waitress and the manager have a little comedic spiel about... well, I think the joke, such as it is, is that the waitress is far more competent than the manager, and manages to strongarm him into giving her a raise after she finds the particular brand of coffee beans Kyoko wants.

For much more comedy value in far less time, look at Mercury's expression in that screenshot. He is so beyond putting up with them.
the funny thing is that's only the third dialogue box and he's already done



And we're done with the quest! All we have to do is turn it back in to Kyoko and get our reward.



There's actually a little bit more to deal with before that, though! Kyoko reveals that, besides the reasons she explicitly stated, our mission was one last test to make sure that our cyber-body would pass as normal in society. Success!

Also, we finally find out just what the heck is up with Mercury's non-present parents - they're on a longterm overseas business trip! How convenient is that? Apparently word got to them that Mercury - or rather, his body - is in the hospital, but Kyoko's set things up so that our hero can call his family and assure them that he's okay. This is, after all, technically true. She's also letting them know that Mercury is her assistant for the time being, which they're thankfully okay with.

In addition to that, Kyoko suggests that we return to the "scene of the crime," as it were - not in the digital world but in the physical world. If we go back to Shinjuku, where we materialized after narrowly escaping, we might find some useful clues!

Before that, though, I have something far more important to take care of...



OW OW OW OW

No, it's okay! I'm fine! Let's just do some Digimon management and forget about the horrific experience we just endured...




d to


First off, the evolutions. Guilmon evolves into Growlmon and Renamon into Kyubimon. These are pretty logical enough, but where'd Frigimon come from? Why, that was Salamon! Yup, one of her evolution options in this game is Frigimon.

All three of these are their "canon" evolutions, so to speak - as in, these are the next step in the evolutionary lines I've planned out for them. Generally, as our Digimon evolve and degenerate I won't post every single change - just new forms and relevant highlights.





Guardromon returns to ToyAgumon, and we scan another Tanemon which shortly after evolves into Lalamon.





And oh hey, now we can make room in our party for those DLC Digimon we couldn't get at the start of the update! Now, I'm pretty excited, because let me tell you guys, these Digimon are really cool. First off, they -

Oh, would you look at that. I guess we're out of time for this update. Tune in next time when I reveal the identities of our new partners and inch ever closer to the next boss battle!
yes, I'm terrible, but I'm sure you guys could figure it out on your own if you really want to know before then


Next Time: Paint it Black, Arata's Back

You're incredibly mean, ending on a cliffhanger like that. By the by, is there somewhere we can see a list of what all digimon are actually in this game? Just curious since you do seem to know them all already. (Also no joke, I almost typed pokemon there)

Haha, I gotta keep people coming back somehow. Also, there's a full list over here, on the same site where all those Digimon profiles I link to are. There's also some Japanese sites I used before that to learn what all the Digimon in the game were and their evolutionary paths, which is how I figured out what my teams were going to be in advance. I even made a little guide for myself to keep track of all that.

Great, thanks so much, I'm gonna look through the list later and make my overall suggestions for final team and whatnot. I know it doesn't matter that much, but it'll be fun.

Hrm....

I'm believing you on the hacker group being named Demon but at the same time I just want to believe it's a reference to a number of SMT games

Hmm...I didn't even think of the SMT connection there, but you're right. I'm gonna cast my vote in with that as well.

(Also this game's list of included digimon is freaking huge, holy hell)

Well, not to spoil too much but I did a little research right after that last update and the hacker group really is called Demons, haha. We'll probably be seeing a bit more of them in the future.

There are quite a few Digimon in the game, numbering at 240 total. Of course, considering that there's around two thousand Digimon species at this point (give or take a bit) that's quite a small selection, and there's a few exceptions that I find particularly odd (I might do a side update about this later or just discuss it in a post). However, copies of the game came with a link to an online survey that asked about potential sequels, and asked what kind of Digimon people would like to start with in such a game, and what additional Digimon they'd like to see in general.

So rest assured that if there's ever a Cyber Sleuth 2 or whatever, and it's on a console that isn't region-locked, there will most likely be a playthrough of it here too.

As for this game, there'll probably be another update tonight. Was going to last night but didn't quite have the energy for it, and I'd rather be at the top of my game when doing these so rest assured you will be getting QUALITY CONTENT AW YEAH.

and also a resolution to that cliffhanger, which wasn't originally going to be a cliffhanger but it was getting late and the post was feeling long enough already