Digimon Christmas tournament ends in Japan, Nokia avatar added for Omegamon-themed event

At noon January 1st, 2018, the first event battle for Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Hacker's Memory came to a close. Titled "Vaccine-type & Light-attribute Special Tournament" (ワクチン種＆光属特攻大会 Wakuchin-shu ando Hikari-zoku Tokkou Taikai) the theme of the event was using Vaccine-Light Digimon like Holydramon and Sleipmon. To commemorate the holiday season, the unique rewards available included three different colors of Santa hats, and three colors of present box, any of which players could use to decorate their Digimon for the season. Digimon tamers battled against one another to for coins, then redeemed them in the online shop for the digital accessories.

The official coin shop. Both versions of the Ryuji avatar were priced at 1000 coins, while the Youji and Tooru avatars were only 800. The most expensive item in the shop was the Digimon accessory Present Box (Gold), at 5000 coins.

As part of the limited-time promotion, four different online avatars were also available for purchase. These included two avatars based on Hacker's Memory supporting character Mishima Ryuji (standard as well as hospital-wear) and minor antagonists Shiga Youji and Kayaba Tooru. Tamers received 60 coins for a win versus a human opponent and 30 for a loss, or 30 coins for a win versus a computer opponent and 5 for a loss. The shop items were as follows:

• Santa Hat - 200 coins
• Black Santa Hat - 200 coins
• Green Santa Hat - 200 coins
• Present Box (White) - 200 coins
• Present Box (Red) - 200 coins
• Present Box (Gold) - 5000 coins
• Ryuji - 1000 coins
• Ryuji (In-patient) - 1000 coins
• Shiga Youji - 800 coins
• Kayaba Tooru  - 800 coins

The special rules for the event were;

• No level restrictions, bonus stats invalidated
• 100 Memory limit
• Vaccine-type Digimon status 50% up (Attack, Defense, Intelligence, Speed)
• Light-attribute Digimon status 50% up (Attack, Defense, Intelligence, Speed)
• Basic status errors invalidated

Unlike the primary ranked battle format for Hacker's Memory, Digimon levels were left untouched during the event, thus level 99 Digimon remained at 99 instead of being set to 50. Tamers could use any combination of Digimon as long as their combined Memory was within a 100 Memory threshold, but any bonus stats gained through training were invalidated, and they were not able to use the six standard status effects. (Sleep, Stun, Confusion, Bug, Poison, and Dot/Liquid Crystallization.)

The Battle Missions for the month had a combined payout of 5750 coins, supplemented by several titles and accessories. Completing all three earned tamers the "King Crown" accessory.

Mission 1

• Rank 1.) Battle 15 times total. (300 coin reward)
• Rank 2.) Battle 35 times total ("Christmasher" title & 700 coins)
• Rank 2.) Battle 60 times total ("Silver Crown" accessory & 1200 coins)

Mission 2

• Rank 1.) Battle 5 times total with 3 Light-attribute Digimon (150 coins)
• Rank 2.) Battle 15 times total with 3 Light-attribute Digimon. ("Light Fang" title & 300 coins)
• Rank 3.) Battle 25 times total with 3 Light-attribute Digimon. ("Bronze Crown" accessory & 500 coins)

Mission 3

• Rank 1.) Battle once with 2 or less allied Digimon getting knocked out. (300 coins)
• Rank 2.) Battle once with 1 or less allied Digimon getting knocked out. ("Crusader" title & 700 coins)
• Rank 3.) Battle once with no allied Digimon getting knocked out. ("Gold Crown" accessory & 1600 coins)

The "King Crown" hat, awarded for clearing all ranks of all Battle Missions.

"The three extortion brothers who haunt the Akihabara Mayohiga." Original image & description posted by @Digitamagon.

Some tamers used the accessories and their systems' built-in screenshot feature to spread a bit of holiday cheer; @Digitamagon took the chance to make a pun on Mercurimon (メルクリモン Merukurimon) Merry Christmas (メリークリスマスMeriikuriisumasu) and the typical Japanese abbreviation "MerryChri." (メリクリ Merikuri)

Original image uploaded by @Digitamagon.

A rare player-versus-player match on December 31st.

While one might expect the final days of the event to be busy, participants say otherwise. Many tamers chose to use the newly-enhanced battle search function to specifically avoid human opponents, selecting "NPC-only" for grinding coins. The Cyber Sleuth sub-series' AI are not subject to the same restrictions as human ones, often having impossible stats and strategies that a normal player could never replicate. One such AI currently being used is 017DEBANNSUKUNAI, whose party consists of a single Shakkoumon that always moves first and can deal 4000~6000 damage to the entire party with a single unenhanced Aramitama.

Moreover, the payout for fighting these bots is only half of what one gains from playing against humans. But for many tamers this is preferable to matching up against players who had already finished the game, or have a head-start from converting their Cyber Sleuth save data to Hacker's Memory. Well into the second tournament, tamers are still choosing to battle AI opponents rather than play against their peers.

The second event battle is "A New Year! Happy Omegamon Tournament" (新年!あけオメガモン大会) with the theme for both the tournament and the item shop being New Year's celebrations. While many such celebrations take place on New Year's Eve, or on the first day of the New Year, some traditions aren't carried out until as late as the second week of January. The Omegamon tournament will last until January 15th.

The Santa hats in the coin shop have been replaced by three colors of kagami mochi, a traditional New Years decoration in Japan consisting of three layers of mochi rice cakes topped by a Japanese bitter orange;

• Kagami Mochi (White) - 200 coins
• Kagami Mochi (Festive) - 200 coins
• Kagami Mochi (Gold) - 5000 coins
• Kagami Mochimon (Doll) - 200 coins
• Chitose - 1000 coins
• Chitose (In-patient) - 1000 coins
• Nokia - 1000 coins

The title Shin'nen! AkeOmegamon is based on the traditional expression Shin'nen Akemashite Omedetougozaimasu (新年明けましておめでとうございます) analagous to "Happy New Year." This expression is often contracted to simply Akeome (あけおめ) and from this contraction we get AkeOmegamon.

The "Kagami Mochi (White)" hat.

The "Kagami Mochi (Festive)" hat.

The "Kagami Mochi (Gold)" hat.

The "Kagami Mochimon (Doll)" hat.

Replacing the present box-shaped hats is a "Kagami Mochimon (Doll)." And replacing Ryuji, Youji, and Tooru, tamers can now purchase two avatars based on Imai Chitose and one based on Shiramine Nokia. The items will remain in the shop until January 31st.

The Nokia avatar.

The rules for the Omegamon New Year's tournament are;

• Level 50 fixed/Enhanced stats invalid
• 100 Memory limit
• Critical rate 50% up

The Battle Missions for Shin'nen! Akemashite Omegamon Taikai have a combined payout of 6450 coins, and as in the first event, the prize for clearing all of them is the King Crown accessory.

Mission 1

• Rank 1.) Battle 3 times total with Omegamon in your party. (150 coins) [Using Omegamon NX or Omegamon Zwart does not count towards this Mission.]
• Rank 2.) Battle 10 times total with Omegamon in your party. ("Happy Omegamon" title & 300 coins)
• Rank 3.) Battle 20 times total with Omegamon in your party. ("Bronze crown" accessory & 600 coins)

Mission 2

• Rank 1.) Win 5 battles total. (500 coins)
• Rank 2.) Win 10 battles total. ("Chosen Child" title & 900 coins)
• Rank 3.) Win 25 battles total. ("Gold Crown" accessory & 1800 coins)

Mission 3

• Rank 1.) During battle, deal 300 or more damage to the opponent in one attack. (300 coins.)
• Rank 2.) During battle, deal 600 or more damage to the opponent in one attack. ("Command Tamer" title & 600 coins.)
• Rank 3.) During battle, deal 1000 or more damage to the opponent in one attack. ("Silver Crown" accessory and 1300 coins.)

Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Hacker's Memory will launch worldwide for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita January 19th, 2018.

Happy New Year!

Han Megumi to Portray Kuzuhamon in Digimon World -next 0rder-

January 29th, 2016. Kuzuhamon's official profile has been added to the Digimon World -next 0rder- title site, detailing information previously covered in last week's issue of Weekly Shounen Jump magazine. Kuzuhamon is voiced by Han Megumi, a longtime Digimon fan who previously voiced Shiramine Nokia in Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth and Takaishi Takeru in the 2013 Digimon Adventure PSP game (replacing the retired Konishi Hiroko).

Kuzuhamon
"Lowlifes ought not to form such humble ideals."
A powerful enemy appearing before the protagonists. Questioning the state of the Digital World, she is a Ultimate-level Digimon assisting Shouma's plan. With a calm disposition, she fights alongside Gaioumon, but often disagrees with his way of thinking and clashes with him in small ways. 

Digimon World -next 0rder- will launch in Japan March 17th, 2016, on the PlayStation Vita for 6,980 yen (7,539 JPY after tax). It is the latest entry in the World series, succeeding directly from Re:Digitize Decode on the 3DS, Re:Digitize on the PSP, and World on the PSX.

Those that preorder the game will get access to five special DLC Digimon, a remastered copy of the 1999 Digimon World soundtrack, and two original Vita themes, "ver. Nostalgic" and "ver. Dot." Theme ver. Dot features a montage of original Digimon LCD sprites, while theme ver. Nostalgic turns the screen into the layout of a Digital Monster virtual pet.

Concerns Rise Over "Engrish" in Cyber Sleuth

October 8th, 2015. Several hours ago Bandai Namco EU streamed an early English-language build of Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth to Twitch, giving a first look at its translated script and confirming the previously announced cross-buy option between the PlayStation 4 and Vita editions of the game. The English script is drawing some concern however, as the Cyber Sleuth shown during the stream wavered between professionally-edited dialogue and translation that was spotty at best. In several of the game's cutscenes character's lines were improperly represented, with core cast member Shiramine Nokia's subtitles memorably reading "I'm late" rather than what her spoken Japanese indicated--"You're late." Bandai EU stated in a response to one comment that the game would not be "early" 2016 for Europe as has been said for North America, but confirmed a physical release of the game on PlayStation 4 in select European countries in addition to the established digital download option.

Several errors in the script caught the attention of viewers. In particular, one of the main dungeons of the game Kuuron クーロン--translated in our Let's Play as "Cron" from the software utility--had no consistent name in the stream's script, which alternated between referring to Kuuron as "Coulomb" (from the unit of electrical charge) and "Kowloon." (Also used as the name for a location in Digimon Story Sunburst & Moonlight.) The area of Kuuron visited was also inconsistently referred to as either Junk Park (Garakuta Kouen) or Galacta Park, drawing from the same phonetics. (In-game Kuuron is spelled out in English as "Cool-wrong," to the derision of Cyber Sleuth's fanbase.) However, Bandai EU assured viewers that this was only an early version of the game. The stream's script most likely does not represent the finalized incarnation of Cyber Sleuth's English edition.

10/9/15 update: In response to questions regarding the script, Bandai EU has stated that the CS build streamed was not final, and is not representative of the game's commercial release.

More than six hundred people tuned into the stream, at its peak bringing in 681 live viewers. Chat comments were focused on the game's lack of an English dub, which has proved particularly controversial with the American gamers tuning in. Some would call it entitlement rather than genuine criticism, a belief that Cyber Sleuth is somehow not good enough for gamers unless it has a dub. However, the decision to retain the original Japanese voiceover has found praise elsewhere, as Cyber Sleuth has several extremely talented actors on board, with special regard to Han Megumi's rapidfire mouth-running performance as Nokia. Finding an appropriate match for this show stealer in the English dub industry would be both incredibly difficult and expensive, as would matching voices to several other characters like Duftmon (Wakamoto Norio), and tracking down a diverse cast to voice the game's numerous Digimon. A recording of Bandai EU's stream can be viewed here.

Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth will launch in English in early 2016 in North America, and 2016 in Europe.

Let's Play Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Chapter 03 Digital Monster

Chapter 03 Digital Monster

(The chapter title is written in hiragana rather than katakana; normally digital monster is デジタル・モンスター but here it's でじたる・もんすたあ. Trying to communicate the effect in English is basically fruitless; both are phonetic scripts, but hiragana is how one would write Digital Monster if they had never seen it written before. Think of a child writing down Wednesday as "whensday" and you'll have an idea of what this looks like in Japanese.)

Nokia apologizes for troubling us, calling us out all the way here. She wants us to lend her our ear; to tell the truth, she has a request.

This time the client is one of our friends. Kyouko's fine with that; her assistant's request is also her request. Nokia wants us to find some Digimon for her. Not just any Digimon, but the two that saved her in Cron. She's worrying herself sick over Agumon and Gabumon, but can't go to Cron herself. Naturally, Kyouko puts Nokia's case in our hands, and we'll begin investigating immediately. It's going to be hard to top a case like this one--it doesn't get more interesting than searching for a missing Digimon.

Before meeting up with Nokia at the Junk Park, I get this two-star Tentomon medal and sell off my current collection for 100 yen. There are no new requests on the whiteboard, so let's go right into it.

With the Farm Expansion Plug-in we're able to expand Island 1 into a pair of jointed islands, allowing more farm goods to be used. The farm goods are still too expensive at this point to really be affordable, and right now I'm rotating through Digimon so often that training their stats isn't going to be that useful for me. We'll probably see the Farm Island come up more once I start getting Ultimate-level Digimon.

It turns out I managed to confuse my own Digimon before. Black Agumon did become Growmon, but it was DORUmon who became Waspmon. Oops. I am going to be putting Black Agumon (degenerated all the way to his Baby II stage Tsumemon) in the party for this update, but I'll come up with a nickname at some point or another. Gargomon becomes Lopmon again, to pursue a different evolution line and free up memory.

When we arrive in Cron, Nokia's being accosted by a pair of delinquent hackers interested in taking her account.

They're a total waste of image hosting--a Gazimon and Pico Devimon that are as outdated as the ones we fought last time. We don't really need an attribute advantage to win this fight.

Nokia thinks this is the worst, walking into ZAXON and having to deal with pervert hackers after her SCB (Sexy but still Cute Body.) Nokia actually thought they were trying to seduce her, rather than take her account. The moment we tell her, she recognizes it as account hunting like she saw on the news. Account hunting or no, we promise to protect her.

By the end of Cron Lv. 1 there's no sign of Nokia's babies, so we backtrack to the elevator to Lv. 2.

There's a curious graphical glitch involving the elevators. The first floor elevator operates fine, but the second floor elevator will cause Nokia to disappear while it's moving.

No luck on level 2, so we'll have to hack our way past the firewall up to Lv. 3. The hacker guarding it has been gone for a while, but if you try to pass before going to the end of Lv. 2 your hacking skill will be disabled.

Nokia stops us at the entrance to Lv. 3, asking if we come here often. It's a really dangerous place, She's really glad to have us around, what with the hackers and all.

To get through to the back of Lv. 3 we have to answer this guy's riddle. He gives us the keyword "What should I do to get a girlfriend?" (どうすれば彼女ができるか)

(04/02 edit: late night editing strikes again! I completely missed the subject drop on this one. He's asking what should he do to get a girlfriend, not what a girlfriend should do. So the sentence is more like "What should [I] do that I can [to get] a girlfriend?)

This area introduces Toy Agumon, Betamon and Patamon.

To the right of the Lv. 3 plaza is an area where we can learn four keywords that act as possible responses. They are; [Make] Friends, Smile, [See a] Matchmaker and Digimon. The one we learn from these two guys in the center is the one that we need.

There's a Memory Up hidden in the northern part of the area, and an Igamon medal in the center.

Naturally, the password is Digimon! The guard actually thanks us for relieving him by figuring it out.

Nokia's been thinking about the two Digimon that saved her before, and the way they reacted to her scent. She wants us to tell her how she smells. We can tell her slightly sweet or somehow sour.

"Uwaa! W, What are you doing!?"

"S, stop it...!?"

Nokia: "Did you here that? This time, did you hear it!? Those voices...This time, I'm sure....!!"

As we near the end of Lv. 3 we find an access point near the platform where Agumon and Gabumon are...so, boss fight!

For whatever inane reason, Wizarmon is the standard Adult stage for Lopmon in the Story games, rather than Wendimon or Turuiemon. His support skill is Expert Wisdom, which gives a 15% increase to Brains.

Nokia: I knew it! It's those kids! What's with this dangerous atmosphere...hurry!!

These two insist that they found the Digimon first. They try to throw around their weight as ZAXON hackers, but we're not exactly impressed. "What's that I hear? 'Those ZAXON creeps are so sorry to keep you waiting Nokia-sama, please leave this to me'?" She sends us after them as her "disciple," and Agumon and Gabumon think Nokia's the coolest for coming to their rescue.

We don't even have to fight two of them. Goblimon's been outdated for a while, and Black Tailmon's Virus-Dark attribute may mean we don't get any advantages over her, but it really doesn't matter when Burai can just oneshot the cat in the first place.

Nokia: Spectacular...you really are super strong! Well of course, it would only come naturally...to my disciple.

Rockin' Satanic Voice: Nonononoo...YOU GUUUYS, are not rock!

Relatively Curious Hacker: J-jimmyken-sannn!?

Nokia: Eh? Jimmyken...THAT Jimmy Ken? Jimmy Ken of Jimmy KEN!?

"YYYEEESS, EYE AHM JIMMY KEN! Hyaaaaaaa!!"

Jimmy Ken: Oioioi...ＯｉＯｉＯｉ...you guys, you're not "in," not at all...what are you doing, with this not-"in" feeling? TEAL MEPLZ ASAP!?
The two hackers start groveling for forgiveness, explaining how this girl beat them for the Digimon. Jimmy calling them not-rock inappropriate for his rockin' roll lifestyle. This feeling makes him want to spew.

(Translation note; Jimmy Ken "speaks" English the way that some Americans "speak" Japanese. He uses expressions like テルミー・プリーズ・スーン・アズ terumii puriizu suun azu "tell me please soon as" without understanding anything about English grammar or even how to form a complete sentence. But he also uses a variety of phrases that are best described as "internet Japanese" used by actual Japanese persons, and I've tried to represent both with poor pronunciation and some English internet equivalents.)

Jimmy Ken: ...And who are you asshats? Those devil kids trying to start a fight?
Nokia: H...how should I put this...is that Jimmy Ken?
Jimmy Ken: THAT's a stupid question~wwwww Superstupid questions are the opposite of rockwww the oppositewww

(Translation note;  Jimmy Ken's "www" is Japanese net lingo for laughter, an abbreviation of warau "to laugh." They are notably not voiced in dialogue, but only represented in the transcript of his speech.)

Jimmy Ken: Which is to say...I am the SUPER STAR! The great me's WONMOAR FACE is here!
Jimmy treats himself as the rockstar of ZAXON, the king of Satanic Rockin' Roll, and the hackers act as his cheerleaders.

Nokia: No, no more...my MP's at zero...
Nokia wants to die. This is completely crashing on her dreams; she didn't think Jimmy Ken would have some awful job like this.

 At any rate, Jimmy Ken's not going to let us take these Digimon. Pets, AI, whatever, they're his.

Meet the first real boss of the game: Jimmy Ken and his backup dancers.

Jimmy's strategy is that every time Devimon's turn rolls around, he uses Panic Wisp to induce the Panic status effect in one of our Digimon, effectively taking it out of commission for five turns. That Digimon will only use its normal attack command on random targets, usually itself but sometimes against allies or one of the enemy Digimon. The Meramon are his primary damage dealers. The lack of a good Light attribute Digimon is both a blessing and a curse versus Devimon's Dark attribute, but what would make this battle a lot easier is a Vaccine. The Meramon go down quickly for me, in a combination of Freeze Fang and any other skill. Once they're gone, Devimon will keep using Panic Wisp until two of our Digimon are Panicked, then go all-out with Death Claw, which shaves off about ~200 HP per hit. I would have been better prepared for this if I leveled up Wizarmon more or brought along a Vaccine-attribute, but the fight goes smoothly nonetheless. Jimmy Ken gives a Memory Up and two Panic Recoveries (of course!) when defeated.

Jimmy Ken can't believe he was defeated, it's totally not-rock. Nokia doesn't even let him try to use the "my Digimon are too weak" excuse; it's his fault, and he's going to have to take that. Jimmy Ken insists he wasn't serious, and maybe he needs to do some tuning to bring his stronger Digimon next time.

Familiar voice: Stop right there.

It's Team ZAXON's leader Yuugo, and his second-in-command (or according to Jimmy, "lover") Fei.

Yuugo tells Jimmy to clear out. He starts to protest, but Fei shuts him down quickly. These are his leader's words, after all. Jimmy says this has to be a rockin' joke, but follows through along with his lackeys.

(Translation note; Fei refers to herself using Wacchi, a technically gender-neutral pronoun that is nonetheless preferred by working men. She speaks in the Kyoto dialect, a variation of the Kansai regional dialect of Japanese. A lot of old movie villains speak some variation of Kansai, but the Kyoto dialect is used creatively in fiction as a "feminine" dialect. It's a very strange usage though, as Fei is implicitly a foreigner and by all rights would have learned to speak Tokyo Japanese.)

Fei doesn't know what team we're with, and she really doesn't care. She wants those Digimon.

We're not gonna let her take them! But this only excites Fei. She's interested that someone would try to oppose her; it's getting her body all hot...

"Stop, Fei."

It's time for them to leave. ZAXON won't be giving us anymore trouble here. Fei's surprised, but reluctantly folds.

Agumon and Gabumon are ecstatic that Nokia came to save them, but she admits that she didn't really do much. So instead, they thank us.

With Agumon and Gabumon rescued, this case is closed. Nokia's happy that they're finally safe. But amid the celebrations, something comes up.

Nokia: Now that I think about it, aren't you two hacking programs used by humans?
Gabumon: Used by humans...?
They laugh.
Nokia: Wait, it's not that way?
Agumon: Nokia, stop it~! It's not that way at all! We're all perfectly alive, aren't we? Come on, take a good look!?
Nokia: Yeah...that's right, exactly alive and healthy...! Just like us...
Gabumon: We came from a different world from the human one.

"A different WORLD?"

Agumon and Gabumon came form the digital world. It's a world fastened in suspension to the human one. The Digimon don't just exist in cyberspace; many of them began migrating here from the digital world because of an order from another Digimon. But Agumon and Gabumon came to this world of their own volition. There's something they have to do here.

Nokia: Something you have to do? Like what? Eh? You can't say? Don't tell me...world domination!?
Agumon: Not quite...
They can't remember. But whatever they were supposed to do here, it was something really important.

Nokia: It'll definitely be fine! Absolutely fine! Those inner memories will return! We'll all do our best together!

...Although Agumon isn't exactly sure what "doing your best" is.

Nokia: Nkyaaa!? ♡ Kyawaiiiiii!! ♡ Ofofofoffcourse!
Gabumon shyly asks if he can come along, and Nokia promptly explodes. She thought he'd never ask! So from hereon out, they'll be her Digimon.

We get 1000 CSP for completing this request. Kyouko wants to invite us back to the office for coffee, but it seems a great incident has taken place in Shinjuku. The police are in need of professional help.

Nokia heard all that, and knows we have to go soon. She's very grateful we came along; without us, she couldn't have possibly helped Agumon or Gabumon.

Agumon & Gabumon: Thank you! See you again!

"Would you like to save?"