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crystalelemental · 9 months ago

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I have finished Digimon Hacker's Memory now as well. Full thoughts below, but the short is I liked this one better than Cyber Sleuth.

I won't spend much time on mechanics because nothing's changed. I still feel like the game is largely too heavy on back and forth fetch-quest style events, and its intended path is not always clear. This game is at least a lot better about notifying you when it's open-ended who to talk to about it, but I don't love the constant running around over nothing. There's a specific Mirei quest where she has you gather various random ingredients around the real world and I thought I was going to lose my shit. This is compounded by a lot of optional quests that are...frustrating and pointless? I think my biggest issue really is the pacing of it. The gameplay can be fun, but exploration segments are short and broken up by a ton of scenes as each side-quest ends, and so many wind up being relatively unimportant. Even main quests can sometimes overstay their welcome, sharing way too much background information that isn't necessary. I think the game could've been parsed down on its overall dialogue, expanded for direct gameplay through the major sections, and come out better for it. And no, the Domination Battles addition is not expanding the gameplay. That grid system is wholly pointless, there's never an instance where you don't want to use maximum range and just attack things to claim their spots, it's overcomplicating a simple affair.

I'm mostly complaining, but I did say I liked this game better. Part of that is my own fault. I spent a lot of time in Cyber Sleuth filling out the field guide, and yes, I did 100% the Digimon roster across these two games. I was also able to optimize more efficiently, having a better understanding of the systems and what's good to use, and was able to run Lillymon and Lilamon this time to great effect. Lilamon in particular has earned my respect for a huge bulk of the game. Turns out poison does work sometimes, and the times it does work are divine. That said, the process of acquiring more optimized skills is...frustrating, to put it mildly. It still takes way too long to get the back and forth effects of building ABI and getting to needed levels for evolution and getting to needed levels for skills. Even with significantly simplified chains, it still took me like 8 hours to get my full team in order.

That is, however, a me problem. My wife does not do any of this and beat these games just fine, getting stuck only once. It's the Hosaka fight at the end of Chapter 9, which is an absurd fight. She got stuck badly enough I had to show her the Tactician USB trick on the farm, and after some level grinding and upgrading to Hououmon, she was able to clear it without too much fuss. So I am definitely overshooting the mark on what's sane. In fact, to really emphasize that point: I went out of my way to get Acceleration Boost on Lillithmon, and all it did was result in one-shotting the final boss in each of its forms. It is. Wildly more than necessary.

I do think Hacker's Memory is a harder game, though. It seems to use a lot more status effects, has generally bulkier enemies that like to buff their whole team's stats, and most damning of all, cast Aura. This game loves giving you fights where one of the components is a healer for the enemy team, and will heal for something like all the damage you dealt. Honestly, this was the problem with the Hosaka fight for my wife. She didn't get stuck on anything like his damage output or getting blasted by buffs. She got stuck because she couldn't out-DPS the healing of his LadyDevimon, who was spamming that shit like every turn. It's a frustrating way to go about things, especially knowing that you, the player, could not do the same. It's just the occasional moment where you can get completely progress blocked because you're not high level enough to seriously bypass the amount of healing being thrown around. Also I did actually try to work with elevated speed, and outside of UlforceVeedramon, who one time took two actions in a row, nothing ever seriously doubled up, and bosses still too multiple turns in our rotation.

But the bigger reason I liked this game better is, remarkably, story and character related.

At the outset, watching my wife play...I geared up to not like this one. They removed the ability to play as a female protagonist, and your main crew is three guys with one girl, and the one girl is sick and dying. Which is. Not an appealing setup. But credit where it's due, the game does a lot of good stuff with the dynamic. My wife could probably talk at length about themes of masculinity and what it means to be a man, but I am of course focused on Erika.

Erika, our sick and dying girl, is actually pretty great. She's snappy and violent and exceptionally talented, and functions as the heart of the group. Not as strictly an emotional center, she's as constipated as the others in that regard, but as a central focus. Ryuji, her brother, acts entirely to her whims, because he is fixated on being a good brother and trying to avoid losing her too after the death of their parents and the dissolution of his previous hacker team. Chitose is Ryuji's brofriend, and acts as levity within the group. Your protagonist is there. I mean he helps I guess, but it's whatever, I do not think he's fleshed out enough to be important, but there are bits I think are more interesting given the mandated male thing.

Things like Yu. The protagonist's best friend, Yu, has an interesting little arc. He's constantly trying to inject himself into events, and to get Keisuke (protagonist boy) to attend to him or rely on him, but it fails basically every time and you continue to press on with the Hudie group. This culminates in the realization that Yu is the one who stole your account, kicking off the events that led to you joining the current hacker group. Yu wanted to get you to rely on him, so he manufactured a problem he'd help you solve, but when Keisuke continues to rely more on Hudie, Yu's goals shift into becoming Keisuke as he wants him to be, and in his own words, ensuring that they would always be together. Now because my wife also pinged it, I am comfortable saying that Yu's feelings on this matter are extremely romantic in nature, which is why the conclusion is so frustrating. See, the mask he wears takes on the persona of a Digimon that has been manipulating Yu for whatever reason, and keeps talking about how "I have become me" in a Persona-esque focus on personal identity. But when defeated, and when you try to comfort Yu, they give you the option to say "I love you." This is then followed up with a beat before "Just kidding." You No Homo'd that boy.

Anyway, I bring up Yu partially because I think it's an interesting segment that ends really stupid, I'm kinda pissed at the game over it. But I also bring it up because that sense of personal identity is also a big theme for Erika. As mentioned, she's sick. She was in a car accident, because it is always cars that kill, and her parents died. She apparently lost control of her brain or something, don't ask about specifics, but the treatment is uploading memories and some thought process to a server in Eden, to minimize the strain on her flesh brain. As a result, there's some push and pull of the "real you," and whether the flesh and blood person is real, or if the memories aggregated in cyberspace is more real. This is complete with other instances of characters commenting on the cyber world feeling more real, because they feel like they can be their true selves there. And it's here where things started to connect narratively for me, both for this game and for Cyber Sleuth.

There's a mission in Hacker's Memory where you are tasked with solving a theft case from an aquarium. Bear with me, I promise this all connects. The event itself involves someone stealing exhibits, but then they're returned with no changes and no harm done. The revelation is that there is a woman who adored this aquarium, had some of her best memories here, but the aquarium is about to undergo renovations, complete with a huge change in tone from a quiet place of observation to something more bombastic with live performances and such. She hates this. She hates that this place that meant so much is changing, and decided the solution was to preserve it within the digital world exactly as she remembers, so she can always see it as it should be. Ryuji still turns her in to the police for the theft, in part because she still did a crime even if its victimless and Ryuji (and the cast at large) are a little bit bootlicker, but he also kinda gets on this woman's case, arguing that memories aren't something to preserve outside of yourself, they're things you carry in your heart all your life. Which...raises some interesting questions about Ryuji's stance on pictures, but that's not important.

In Cyber Sleuth, your main group were all involved in a traumatic event as children, as Yuugo was the first victim of the Eaters. Everyone was traumatized and had trouble moving past, so Suedou, in an act of compassion, deletes those memories from you. He also does so for his partner in the research, who was devastated over what happened. A later event involves this partner starting to vaguely recall that something happened, and it eats at him until he can recall that Suedou removed those memories. He asks you to unlock them, to bring them back to his conscious awareness, and this is how you learn about the first victim of Eden Syndrome. As a resolution, the man comments that "Even if my mind forgets, the body remembers." It's an interesting presentation as part of that sense of your true self. Yes, your memories and the thoughts within you make up who you are. But some memories, those traumas, are imprinted deeper. The body recalls what the mind may not, and there are still involuntary mechanisms that make up "you."

The final resolution of this quest is that the man asks you to re-seal those memories. They were a burden, and without them, he's been able to improve his life significantly. You comply, but Yuuko asks you if you think what you did was truly the right thing, and your options are largely non-commital and unsure. The way the rest of the game resolves, however, implies it was not. Suedou's goals are to erase all sadness by remaking the world, Cyrus PokemonGen4 style but sincere this time, and in the specific seems to be about removing the sense of trauma. Nothing will make people sad, no one will have to recall anything sad, and they can live happy lives this way. Ultimately your conflict with him and decision to try and tear him out from the Eaters is a statement of facing that reality directly, with your connections with friends being what helps to overcome a shared grief.

In both games, reliance on others plays a big role. Arata's final takeaway is that all of this likely could've been fine if he'd trusted and relied on his friends from the outset. Ryuji falls into a nihilistic rage when Rie's true motives are revealed and tries to handle everything himself to the end. There's a constant pressure on the need to be a little selfish, and to ask others for what you need. This is the entire resolution of Erika's arc, getting her to own up to her true desires and what she really wants. She's initially portrayed as bratty and spoiled enough to refuse a basic apology until Ryuji buys her a new computer, but what she really wants to ask is something she feels she can't, because of how much he gives for her sake due to her illness. In particular, there are several moments where characters comment that Erika doesn't have any real childhood memories playing with others, or things you would expect, and the optimistic takeaway is that she can start building those now with you and the rest of Hudie. Building those memories form the basis of who you are, and who you become.

*sigh* Which is, again, why the final scene is so frustrating. The end of the game, Erika fuses with Wormmon to become a new entity, Hudiemon, and decides to follow her desire to go to the Digital World. Which is about to be sealed off from the human world. Meaning she will never see you or the others again. It's a sad, but fairly poignant scene. We've established that following your needs and desires is important, and there's an earlier bit where Erika talks about how she wants to go off somewhere new and see things but return to where she feels comfortable afterwards, but knows this comes from a place of internal inertia; and unwillingness to meet change. This final decision makes sense and follows everything about her, even as it's sad. It lands well.

But they sneak in an extra scene after the credits. In it, we learn that the world has stabilized after everything with the eaters, and you still work with Hudie, alongside Chitose and Ryuji. But also Yu is here. And also Ryuji's parents are alive. And also Ryuji is referred to as an only child, and no one remembers Erika at all. Except for you, protagonist-kun. You remember her and are very sad. Not her brother, though. He forgor.

This? Drives me insane. Ryuji goes off on the aquarium quest about how memories stick with you and that it's important to hold on to them internally above all else, and the game hammers in this point so viciously that the resolution of that quest? It turns out she planted fucking bombs under the exhibits and planned to blow that place to hell, with Ryuji catching it on a hunch, because anyone that obsessed with preserving their memory of something externally that way obviously just wanted it all to themselves. Which is an insane takeaway to have. Especially consider, at the resolution of this, he just fucking forgets his sister.

It reads similarly to Cyber Sleuth's ending. In spite of all the focus on working through trauma rather than pretending it didn't happen, and the recognition that there's some mark on you as a person even if the specifics aren't consciously recalled, the ending...resolves everything neatly. Everyone just kinda forgets and moves on and Yuuko's dad is alive and I guess Rie is in love with him so she's not evil now and it's all packaged perfectly and we can just forget any of that happened. This feels similar, but more sinister. Because it kinda implies that Ryuji's temper tantrum was right. He is happier without his sick sister. Just fucking forget her, bro, you're better off. Who wants to live a life filled with bittersweet memories of a loved one taken too soon? Just fucking forget them entirely and do whatever, it's great!

We're two for two on the resolution of these games feeling wildly discordant with their thematic purpose. And moreover, feeling slightly out of touch with their own ethics. I feel like the game doesn't handle that particular aspect well. There's another case, around chapter 8 or something, where you're given two options: preserve the Digimon Market, or destroy it. It's framed as "Digimon are mistreated" vs "Hackers rely on Digimon and this is a means of ensuring they have access to those tools." It's backed by a deeper debate over "Are Digimon living things, or just programs?" Which is a neat idea to play with, since not everyone would know or agree with. However:

This comes way too late. We are introduced to this market by getting our starter from it, while it's shaking terrified in a cage. We're given a quest to find an Airdramon that escaped, and can verbally tell you the cages are small and painful to be stuck in all the time (that quest resolves with it going back to slavery because it's about to be sold and won't be in the cage much longer, by the way). Erika has Wormmon who talks about the world they all came from, your protagonist has now at multiple points taken the ethical stance on treating Digimon with care, and I'm pretty sure we had met Nokia by then. So this ethical dilemma is easily solved. You destroy the market. I'm sorry, but "some hackers rely on it" is not a justification for slavery.

But at the end, Erika will wax philosophical about how neither side was truly right, because Digimon are just programs. And it's like...girl, you have Wormmon. How are you still on this? It's wildly disconnected from the reality we've experienced to this point, and wants to try so hard to make an interesting dilemma at a point it cannot possibly work.

I think these games have good ideas, and on a dramatic level, most of the major scenes work. I think it's a bit bloated with unnecessary cases and padding (seriously, what is the point of the Mr Navit quests?), but on the whole, the games miss some marks. Particularly endings. Which is always a bit of a rough one to miss.

#digimon hacker's memory

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