Let's Play Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Chapter 01 "Welcome to the Kuremi Detective Agency"

I finally settle on Palmon as my starter. Before proceeding, I acquire 100% scan data for Poromon, Bubbmon and Koromon.

You can increase the base stats of the converted Digimon by acquiring greater than 100% scan, but it's never really been worth it because the final increase is only about 20% of the original. In Digimon Story the maximum started at 999% scan data, but in Cyber Sleuth the maximum has been reduced to 200% scan.

Chapter 01 "Welcome to the Kuremi Detective Agency"

Nakano Broadway, Kuremi Detective Agency

The situation is pretty dire. We're in a data state--even though we can obviously hear her voice, sit on a couch and hold conversation. Kyouko thinks we're like the Mary Celeste, an unsolved mystery. We last logged into Cron, and it seems that when we logged out our Avatar data parts were left behind as junk data.

As they're about to investigate, the protagonist feels drawn to the TV.

Mysterious Voice: Over here...jump.

The protagonist's "jump" gives us access to the game's first Network Dungeon. Get accustomed to seeing these; they're just transitional passages between areas, virtually identical to one another aside from the actual layout of their paths.

"That voice urged me to "jump"...what in the world is going on?"

There are three new digital monsters in the area; Pukumon, Punimon and Botamon. From now on, just assume that I'll be grinding 100% scan data for every monster we come across. Picking up Pukumon's makes Poyomon's redundant for reasons we'll see later, but you never really know when you might need this stuff. Our strategy at this point is pretty simple, since Palmon can oneshot anything on her own but only gets half as many turns as opposing parties.

At the end of the Network Dungeon, we emerge in an Open Space in EDEN's third level.

Kyouko rings us up on the Digivice. To us, the network has become a type of road we can traverse freely. Kyouko decides to call this jump a "Connect Jump," our way of transitioning between the real and digital worlds.

The people here are all really concerned about our appearance, and how we got into their discussion space when we're not a member. Some of them think we must have an error, or have been hacked, but the lone hacker of the group quickly gets over it. He's seen something like this before.

"--Over here...come."

As we try to leave, the mysterious voice speaks up again.

"Welcome to the Digi-lab. This is where the Digital World and the weak mingle, a paradise for Digimon. I am Mikagura Mirei. I opened the way for you into this paradise. [...] Digital Monster Laboratory...Tal-lab and Mon-tory, didn't quite work. [...] I am the Digi-lab's assistant. I called out to you...well, it's a little different. You called out to me."
Mirei is a character brought back from Re:Digitize on the PSP and 3DS. Prior to release those games were speculated to be canon to her appearance in Cyber Sleuth, but we'll see if that holds up. She says we were brought together by a destined crossing of paths, and that when the time comes we'll understand everything.

There are a ton of things we can do at the Digi-lab. We can heal our Digimon for a small fee, buy items at a shop, convert Digimon from scan data, evolve and degenerate them, and use the lab to participate in colosseum battles. I'll show off the online play when we have a more developed party. The Mirror Dungeon service lets us recreate past dungeons to get any scan data we missed, and the Farm Island option helps manage our in-game virtual pet.

This our Digi-farm, the first of several Farm Islands we'll receive. Like in past games, the Farm Island can be customized with goods we've bought, but there's not a real reason for me put anything in the farm right now because all of the Digimon I can convert fit cleanly inside my 20 memory party limit.

Everything in the shop is outside our current buying power; the most expensive items right now are 25000 yen, ten times what we're carrying.

This is the Digi-convert screen. Out of everything we've encountered, the only Digimon we can't convert yet is Chrysalimon. I'm a big fan of using as many Digimon as possible, so I'll be all over this. Koromon and Botamon are redundant in terms of using one or the other though, as we have a limit to how many Digimon we can have--10 per each island and up to 11 in our party based on how much memory they take up. Since we've met all of the Baby forms of our Child-level Digimon, we can freely degenerate them to increase their maximum possible level. Koromon has the most exciting possibilities currently because of all his branching evolutions.

Koromon can evolve to Agumon at level 9 with 10% friendship (友 情), an unknown Digimon at level 9 with 20 aptitude (寸能) if we've already met him, Guilmon at level 7 and Toy Agumon at level 8. Koromon had a maximum level of 9, but by degenerating him to Botamon and then raising him again to Koromon at level 3 his max level increases to 13. However, these max level increases are really only visible after evolving back to the stage you were at--unlike in Digimon Story, you don't get to increase it through degeneration alone.

As for Palmon, she's already met most of the base stat requirements for her evolutions. Some of these are guesses based on silhouettes, but she can reach Kuwagamon at level 14; Togemon at level 16 with 25% friendship; Veggiemon at level 12; Sunflowmon at level 14 and with 40+ Brains; and Woodmon at level 14. Basically being level 14 will open up three different evolutions, but she can't degenerate right now because we have to meet her degenerated form (Tanemon) first to do that. I suspect that either Togemon or Sunflowmon will be the routes through which we can get Rosemon, but the others will still be worth pursuing to learn their skills and passive abilities.

Time for a mass egg-hatching session! Nade-nade!

Digitama have always been a pretty neat mechanic. Originally they helped differentiate which virtual pet you had, and their designs here reflect the original dot matrix V-pets, visualized in three dimensions. This one most nearly corresponds to the V-pet Ver.1 Digitama, or its Pendulum equivalent. In Cyber Sleuth Digitama are colored based on the element of the Digimon that hatches from them; for Koromon that's Fire.

Pukumon's is Water, so his egg is blue.

Bubbmon and Punimon both hatch from gray eggs, because their element is Null. As it turns out, Bubbmon is redundant on our team. He evolves into Palmon's Baby II stage; thus his primary purpose is to reach that stage so that Palmon can degenerate to it, then he'll be off the team. Unlike wild Digimon, all of the Baby Digimon born out of Digitama know Bubbles, a 2 SP skill with a base effect of 30 and a 90% hit rate. Any Digimon that degenerates to the Baby level will also learn Bubble, and retain it through their evolutions.

I use the Mirror Dungeon service to recreate the Digital Network we were just in, raise everyone's levels to 5 in about four battles, and then head back to evolve my Digimon. Look at Botamon dance! He's one of my favorite Baby Digimon.

Bubbmon evolves to Tanemon, and is promptly reduced to scan data. No excess copies of evolution lines is a rule I play by to keep things organized.

Punimon can evolve to Tsunomon and through him the Gabumon line, but I'm saving that for later. For now he evolves to Nyaromon, part of the Tailmon→Angewomon line. Of note is that Nyaromon can also pursue the Armadillomon and either Terriermon or Lopmon (it's hard to tell from the silhouettes) lines.

Meanwhile Poyomon evolves into Tokomon, for Patamon→Angemon. I guess to someone unfamiliar with the franchise it's crazy that I can index all of these, but most games only have a pool of around 200 Digimon and it's not hard to remember anything from the first season once you've seen it. Now anything from Xros Wars, I have no idea how those evolutions work.

Finally, Botamon evolves to Wanyamon. Note that while I didn't return him to his Koromon stage, he still has a maximum level of 13 because I went through the extra hoops of degeneration. Later on he'll get access to the iconic Greymon lines, but I want to take him through these other routes first to increase his overall stats and grab up skills.

Before we leave, Mirei gives us a hacking skill. This lets us use our Digimon for their intended purpose, as a hacking tool to bring down firewalls.

Right now we can only bring down level 1 firewalls, but that's perfect for getting back into the Cron Junk Park.

Kyouko calls us up as we enter the Junk Park plaza. We relay the situation about Mirei to her--Kyouko wishes she could have met her too, and wonders what her real objective is. Anyway, right now we need to recover the Avatar parts from Cron's junk data.

The Avatar parts are spread out like Jiggies, in four or five parts. To recover them, we have to battle Digimon that have latched onto the data.

One of these battles finally brings elements to the table in a serious way. There are three elemental cycles in Cyber Sleuth, and the most basic is Virus > Data > Vaccine > Virus. Digimon take 2x damage from whatever they're weak against, but the Free element is completely removed from this cycle taking and receiving neutral damage. Then there's Fire > Grass > Water > Fire, with Null as the unaligned element. Digimon in this cycle take 1.5x damage. There's also Ground > Electricity > Wind > Ground which is another 1.5x damage cycle. Finally, Light and Dark both take and receive 1.5x damage from each other. In the above example, Shakomon is Virus-Water, so takes 1.5x damage from Palmon's Grass but dealing 2x against her Data. Most all Baby I and Baby II Digimon are Free, so they're exempt from the double damage equation. Gotsumon is Data-Ground, 1.5x weak to Wanyamon's Wind. And Piyomon is Vaccine-Wind, so 2x vulnerable to Palmon's Data attribute.

I'm not going to specifically run these down for every encounter, just be aware of the computer element symbols and the classical element colors visible above.

It's much simpler to say that Palmon's carrying the team.

There are four status effects that affect turns; confusion (causes random actions), paralysis, sleep and stun. Then there's three status effects with more specific conditions; poison causes gradual HP loss, and Flat (I'm borrowing Digimon World's term) results in "dot drawification" (ドット絵化) reducing our Digimon to a dot matrix sprite that can't use its skills. Bug inflicts a computer bug and I'll burn that bridge when I cross it.


Our last Jiggy battle is a tutorial on XROS combos. If you have two or more allies next to one another on the timeline, you can perform a XROS combo of one of four types. Chain Attack by using your normal Attacks together, Damage Up by using multiple attacking skills, Heal Up by using multiple healing skills, and Skill Up by using status skills. Your ability to use XROS combos is affected by your Digimon's Friendship, which if Cyber Sleuth handles it the way past Story games did is primarily raised on the farm.

Mission accomplished. Kyouko suggests we log out, but we can't use this particular departure point because of Arata's temporary modifications to the logout zone. Instead we have to backtrack to the Junk Park plaza and exit there.

Now that we've recovered our Avatar parts we at least look right, but we're still in a half-digital state. Kyouko finds our case especially interesting.
 

"...As always, you come without knocking, old man."

Our conversation gets interrupted by another guest. Detective Matayoshi Gorou is an elite police detective that goes way back with Kyouko--he knew her father when she was still a child. Whether she's become a beautiful woman or not today, Kyou-chan is still Kyou-chan to him. Right now he has a particular case on his hands related to EDEN, and Kyouko invites him to sit down about it.

A special disease has been going around in relation to EDEN, EDEN Syndrome. EDEN users fall into a sleep from which they never awake. The central hospital has been seeing a number of cases related to it, and quarantining the afflicted to prevent its spread. Something else has been going on behind the scenes though, and Kyouko thinks this has Kamishiro Enterprise written all over it. While EDEN is a Kamishiro property, so is the central hospital--which gives the corporation certain liberties to cover things up. It's not unthinkable that those patients aren't waking up because somebody at Kamishiro doesn't want them to. But security is tight, and it's proving very difficult for Gorou to investigate the central hospital directly. As Kyouko's about to offer him some coffee, Gorou suddenly finds himself called away elsewhere.

"Kid...be careful with Kyou-chan's coffee. Watch the color."

"'Ask, and it shall be given you.' ...No, in your case "Open Sesame!" is more appropriate."

At the same time that we're trying to figure this one out, Kamishiro is also on the move. Is it just chance that we've turned up here? Kyouko's decided to investigate the central hospital, and we're coming too. In our current condition, what else can we do but go along with it?

Our objective is to get data on EDEN Syndrome, and we're not leaving without it. We can't exactly go in guns blazing, so it's time to split up and look for a way into the network.

Approaching the elevator, we catch sight of a young woman speaking with the nurses.

We have three ways of introducing ourselves:
"Hello!"
"W-what are you looking at!?"
"Hey babe~ Where've I seen you before?"

But no matter what we choose, the woman vanishes into the elevator.

I'm telling you guys, I get a really Dreamcast feeling from the central hospital and I can't for the life of me figure out why. Does it really look that much like Station Square!?

We can access the lobby, twelfth floor and top floors of the central hospital from the elevator. The twelfth floor is host to a lot of different things. The nurse station, a nurse worrying about the patients, a woman waiting for her old man to die...

And at the end of it, a Kunemon medal!


With these guards in front of the Intensive Care Unit, there's no way we'll get back where the information on EDEN Syndrome is. It's too risky, so Kyouko calls us up again with a plan to head down to the nurse's station back on the twelfth floor.

Of course this brilliant plan involves performing a Connect Jump in broad daylight.

The nurse's station network is more of the same. The only new Digimon in this network is Tanemon, who we've already crunched down into scan data.

Kyouko is trusting us to take care of this. She can't access the network, so we'll be her eyes and ears in the ICU. There's just one hang up...

"This is...me!? My own..my own body!? So, I have the syndrome..." 

Us. We caught the "syndrome"--Eater--so naturally we're here too.

At the end of the hall are three files on EDEN Syndrome, coping strategies for treating the syndrome, and Kamishiro Enterprise's collaborative objective.
File:001 [About EDEN Syndrome]
"A strange disease wherein while using the EDEN network at the moment of luminization the afflicted's subconscious breaks down. Beginning with an inability to adjust to using cyberspace, vomiting and dizziness ensue, and the various symptoms have been grouped together under the general term EDEN Syndrome. It is symptomatic of developing into a serious illness when the patient faints, at the time of subconscious luminization while using the EDEN network. In the long term the patient is rendered comatose, causing complications and general breakdown."
[ＥＤＥＮ症候群について]
EDENネットワークを利用中に意識下明となり衰弱していく奇病
元々は、慣れない電脳空間を利用することによる嘔吐やめまいなどの諸症状を総称してＥＤＥＮ症候群と呼んでいた
ある頃から重病化し、ＥＤＥＮネットワークを利用中に意識下明となり昏倒する症状に使われるようになった
長期的な昏睡状態により、衰弱や合併症を引き起こし
Luminization may be total garbage as a translation; they're calling it 明となり "becoming bright."

File 002: [Coping with and Treating EDEN Syndrome]
"At this time, no cure has been discovered. As the afflicted patients have not been categorized, with government authorization we are investigating the cause and coping methods."
[ＥＤＥＮ症候群の対処と治療法」
現在、治療法は発見されていない
未分類患として、政府に認可を求め
対応と原因を究明していくものとする

File 003: [Kamishiro Enterprise's Collaborative Objective]
"EDEN is a large-scale digital space managed by Kamishiro Enterpise. It is also deeply rooted in administrative cooperation. There are an increasing number of businesses with operating areas in EDEN..."
「カミシロ・エンタープライズとの協力方針」
ＥＤＥＮはカミシロ・エンタープライズが運営する大規模な電脳スペースである
行政機関との提携も根強く
ＥＤＥＮを営業エリアとしている企業も増えいている
一刻も早い改善と、長時間のログインを...

From here the file goes on about Kamishiro's imperative to improve EDEN for its users, its interface, and as a whole reads more like an advertisement for the company than medical files.

One thing is clear; our body is in the ICU. We didn't experience vomiting or dizziness, and we had no trouble adjusting to cyberspace in the first place. These symptoms don't match what we know.

"Why are you here...!? How did you get in here? Are you just that clever? In fact, just who are you?"

We've got company! We ask who she is to be asking us that.

"Don't answer my question with a question. Now, answer."

"A humble detective...no, an assistant."

The girl is shocked that we're with the Kuremi Detective Agency, but surprises the protagonist when she says she'll answer any questions we have about EDEN Syndrome.

Has anyone recovered from EDEN Syndrome?
She's never heard of anyone recovering. The longest anyone's stayed under has been eight years. But she's certain that person will be fine--they'll open their eyes someday. As long as she waits. 

How do you get EDEN Syndrome?
Uncertain. No one with symptoms of the Syndrome have been found. Everyone that gets EDEN Syndrome is already in the coma when they're diagnosed.

Who is that patient?
They were carried in last night. Something seemed worrisome about them...

"This person, have you met them...? By any chance, are you siblings...? [...] I see...but...for someone else to have the same resemblance..."

I want to hear about Kamishiro's "black rumor."

"That's...a misunderstanding! You're mistaken! Kamishiro is trying to cure EDEN Syndrome! [...] EDEN's cause...who would want to cause such misfortune..."

Kyouko's sorry to break up such an important conversation, but we really need to cut the chit-chat and get out of there. We've got bad news on the way.

"Oh hello, security-san ♪ Thank you for your hard work~♪ Hn ♪ You've been a good boy today, too ♥"

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

"So dependable security-san. Rie...wants to see you, my heart is beating so fast. Aaan, patience, I-can't-do-it...tut-tut-tut."

"K-kishibe-sama! I'm at work..."

"Oh, what a gentleman."

"Kishibe Rie...our "behind the scenes" actor appears. What's a Kamishiro big shot doing here?"

Kyouko tells us to get out of here and meet her in the lobby.

"Hide, quickly!"

Kishibe: Yuuko-chan~ Are you feeling well~?
Yuuko: Rie-san, what are you doing here today? I didn't see you on the list...
Kishibe: Oh, I just wanted to see my favorite kids.
Yuuko: You're worried about me, being by myself?
Kishibe: Well, my Rie-chan sensor just went bibibi and I came~ Yuuko-chan has such a dark face~? Are you having a hard time? From various things?
Yuuko: Not really.
Kishibe: Huhuu~ So STRONG~ Big sis understands~

Kishibe: This place...What's going on in this place I wonder~?
Yuuko: Nothing really...
Kishibe: Nothing like, a picnic?
Yuuko: Y-yes--no, I mean-- 
Kishibe: Yuuko-chan, is something wrong? Ohhh? Besides us, perhaps, somebody is here? Possibly...your boyfriend~?
Rie: N-not that sort of thing!
Kishibe: Oh so then, your GIRLfriend ♥ Let's take a look ♪ What's going on in there is~ lewd ♥ ...not, maybe just ominous ♥ Fufu

Kishibe: Come on now~ Open up here~♪ Yuuko-chan's lover-san~♪ It's big sis Rie's responsibility~ To approve of Yuuko-chan's lover~

Kishibe: ...What the heck, there's nobody here~ But you know Yuuko, you really should tell me, whether it's one boyfriend or two or three.
Yuuko is left wondering where we went.
 

We went where we always go, of course!

There's nothing particularly special about this network. We just pick up 100% scan data for another Baby Digimon, Mochimon, before proceeding back to the nurse's station and then the elevator.

In the lobby Kyouko congratulates us for handling that by ourselves.


Back at the office, we review what we've discovered. Our own body being in the hospital makes us quite the unusual patient. But what do we plan to do from here? To get back our original body and uncover the truth about this case, we're going to join the Kuremi Detective Agency. EDEN has become the site of a cyber crime, and we're going to solve it. Kyouko will do the planning; what we need to do is use our abilities as a half-digital entity to investigate cyberspace. From now on, we're her assistant Cyber Sleuth.

So to celebrate, let's have some coffee!

Today's menu is sea grape coffee, Kyouko's own self-made blend! If we're going to start working here, we have to get on her level.

"So then, to becoming the assistant Cyber Sleuth...Cheers!"

...Sip.
...Gulp!
>>...Gulpgulpgulp!
 

*CRASH*

"You got 1000 Cyber Sleuth Points."

"Would you like to save?"