Between games, various anime series and movies, new virtual pet devices, and a popular trading card game, Digimon has seen more popularity in recent years than it has in a long time, despite its shortcomings.
Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth was the start of this trend, a game that was released internationally to positive reception from fans, while the visual novel and tactical JRPG hybrid Digimon Survive is the most recent Digimon game to see the light of day – even after some significant delays. But which is the better of these two significantly different games?
10/10 Cyber Sleuth: More Digimon
Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth has 249 Digimon to obtain, while the Complete Edition added 92 new Digimon from Hacker’s Memory. Since Digimon Survive is primarily a visual novel, but with tactical combat, the number of Digimon available has been reduced significantly, with only 113 available.
A lot of digivolution lines are mixed in both games. While this provides an easier way in Cyber Sleuth to acquire new Digimon, it’s more annoying to see so many recruitable Digimon in Survive have similar Digivolution Trees due to the smaller number. However, since getting Digimon isn’t the focus of Survive, it’s a forgivable mistake.
9/10 Cyber sleuth: more content
Since Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth is a more basic, turn-based monster-taming JRPG, it has a lot more content than Digimon Survive. The base game is much longer, lasting about 50 hours, an increase of 20.5 hours from Survive’s average playtime of 29.5 hours.
Unlike Survive, Cyber Sleuth has a lot of post-game content through side missions, the most notable of which are the Royal Knights and the Seven Great Demon Lords. These two powerful groups of Digimon must be fought and defeated, with many members adding a mechanic that makes fighting them more challenging.
8/10 Survival: Better Human Characters
While the characters in Cyber Sleuth aren’t bad, they aren’t written as deeply as those in Digimon Survive – which aren’t as deep, just deeper in comparison. In Cyber Sleuth, the player character is a bit of a blank slate, similar to the player characters in many JRPGs, while Takuma is written with his own thoughts and beliefs. However, you are still making his choices for him.
Since you spend more time interacting with characters in Survive, it makes them easier to dislike than the ones in Cyber Sleuth. It is also important to increase Takuma’s affinity level with characters, as it is necessary to unlock certain Digimon and endings.
7/10 Survival: Partner Digimon has more personality
The Digimon you obtain in Cyber Sleuth don’t feel unique in personality, similar to how Pokemon feel in their main games. While the extra recruitable Digimon in Survive still feels that way to some extent, the human cast partner Digimon is more like real characters, as they all have their own unique dialogue and real personality traits.
Instead of communicating with them exclusively via text message, as in Cyber Sleuth, the Digimon partners in Survive do what they can to help, encourage, or balance their human partners. These digital monsters may be naive, but they often have surprising moments of wisdom.
6/10 Both: moderate localization
One problem that both Digimon Survive and Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth have is that they are full of localization errors. There are plenty of examples in Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth and Hacker’s Memory, one of the most infamous is when bakemonoa Japanese word meaning monster is repeatedly translated into Bakemon, a ghost Digimon – despite this particular Digimon being irrelevant.
Digimon Survive also contains many errors, including wrong Digimon partners, numerous grammatical errors and more. One moment that stands out like a sore thumb is when placeholder text is shown while Takuma and his portrait are shown, despite there being no dialogue.
5/10 Survival: More in common with anime series, especially Digimon Adventure
Digimon Survive has quite a few similarities to the original Digimon Adventure series and its sequel. These similarities include randomly snowing during a summer field trip, the cast unknowingly traveling to the digital world, the main character wearing glasses and having Agumon as his partner, and several of the same Digimon who have equally important roles.
The main difference between the two is that Survive has consequences that are grittier, such as cast members dying depending on the path taken. Digimon Adventure Tri briefly experimented with this, with Tai fearing consequences, but it felt more out of place for a series with previously established characters.
4/10 Cyber Sleuth: More in common with previous games
The world of Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth is different from the worlds of the anime series in that Digimon mostly lives in Cyberspace Eden – a virtual world similar to the ones in Digimon Adventure: Our War Game and Digimon World 3 However, Digimon can still appear in the real world, under specific circumstances.
Additionally, Mirei Mikagura, who plays a major role in Cyber Sleuth, is originally from Digimon World Re: Digitize, a Japan-exclusive title for the PSP. Some side missions also feature cameo appearances from characters from previous Digimon games, such as Sayo from the Nintendo DS titles Digimon World Dawn and Dusk.
3/10 Survival: more repeat value
Due to its multiple choices, endings, and shorter length, Digimon Survive has more replay value than Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth. Of course, once you’ve unlocked all the endings, Digimon, and collectibles, there’s nothing left to do. Since there is no flowchart like in other visual novels and character affinity is not carried over, completing everything also takes longer than you might think.
Because Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth is about the same length as most standard JRPGs, at around 50 hours, it has much less replay value than Digimon Survive – especially since you can do everything in just one playthrough if you’re a completionist.
2/10 Cyber Sleuth: Sequel and Complete Edition
In 2018, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth received a sequel called Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth – Hackers Memory, which is set during the events of the first game but mainly focuses on a distinct set of characters.
As mentioned, the complete edition of Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth, including Hackers Memory and the 92 Digimon added to the first game, was launched in 2019. It’s unclear if Digimon Survive will get a sequel, but because of how good it is sold and the sequel tease shown in the real ending is more likely to get a sequel than fans previously thought.
1/10 The Verdict – Which Game Is Better?
In our opinion, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth wins for all the reasons mentioned earlier, such as length and having more Digimon. However, Digimon Survive is a better choice for those who enjoy the original Digimon Adventure anime series, visual novels, and shorter game times.
The best way to play Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth is through the Complete Edition on Nintendo Switch and Steam as it includes Hacker’s Memory, the extra Digimon and some localization fixes. If you’d rather play the first game alone, you’re out of luck unless you can find a physical copy – it was removed from PlayStation Store in 2019 before the launch of the Complete Edition.
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