Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Hacker’s Memory released last week, and this game mostly improves on the already solid RPG formula used in its prequel, Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth. While there are many monster-collecting RPGs out there, Digimon is most often compared to Pokemon. The two series started at around the same time, and with so many stylistic similarities, comparisons are unavoidable. Pokemon clearly wins the video game battle from a sales and popularity perspective, but that doesn’t mean that the series can’t learn anything from the recent Digimon Story titles.
Better Side Quests
What Pokemon Can Learn From Digimon Story
While Pokemon has a few good side quests throughout its history, most of the franchise’s world-building comes through the main storyline. On the other hand, both Cyber Sleuth and Hacker’s Memory are filled with side quests. Not every side quest is a narrative masterpiece, but enough of them are engaging side adventures that add more context to the games’ world. Cyber Sleuth is built for this type of side quest, but there’s no reason that Pokemon couldn’t adopt a similar “job board” mechanic.
Digimon Story makes quests worth the time, and both EXP and items are often given for completing them. However, the rewards are not the only aspect of Digimon Story’s side quests that attracts players. These mini-stories add up to be just as impactful as the game’s actual storyline. Many Digimon are featured throughout the side quests, and by putting more Digimon in the spotlight, more of Digimon’s expansive lore is shared made known to the player. Pokemon, a series with such a large cast of critters, would surely benefit from having its lesser-known Pokemon fleshed out. As it stands, only a handful of 802 Pokemon ever receive significant attention, and side quests similar to Digimon Story would be a great way for GameFreak to fix that.
This post was originally written by Sean Pyle.
Effective Storytelling
What Pokemon Could Learn From Digimon Story
Even though Digimon arguably draws from a darker source material, the Pokemon universe has no shortage of dark content. From creepy Pokedex entries (Drowzee, anyone?) to the haunting tales of Lavender Town, there have always been glimmers of adult-oriented material in Pokemon games. While it’s unfair to expect developer Game Freak to abandon their niche and suddenly develop an M-rated Pokemon game, Digimon models a safe way of incorporating just the right amount of mature content in their games. I want to avoid spoilers, but those who played Cyber Sleuth may remember a disturbing scene with a certain doll, or the tragic story of Pete, as examples. At the very least, Game Freak should work towards constructing a more engaging narrative. Black and White lightly touched on the ethics of Pokemon, and Sun and Moon deviated from the tiresome apocalyptic endings of some previous generations. If Game Freak continues down this path and adds more complexity to their storylines, all while sprinkling in more of Pokemon’s darker lore, than the next game’s story may be more captivating.
Pokemon has never been great on the character front, and this continually hurts the depth of the series’ storylines. Even the fan-favorite rivals, Blue and Silver, are quite flat. Nostalgia may be a big reason these two are still propped up as the series’ best, and although many fans of Pokemon clamor for a return to the days of “true rivalry” between the player and his or her rival, the reality is that an effective character can go in many different directions. A dynamic, compelling character is a great way to add depth to a story. Lilly and her family was certainly the right direction, and although many disliked him, a friendly character like Hau could function fine if given an interesting backstory.
The Monster’s Models
What Pokemon Can Learn From Digimon Story
While the environments of Pokemon outclass Digimon Story’s, Digimon Story’s character models look much better. Each Digimon is beautifully cel-shaded and has a number of animations for its different moves. The sense of scale is also impressive, with the small rookies looking accurately dwarfed by their mega and ultimate counterparts. This scale is certainly missing in Pokemon, although the outrageous sizes (both big and small) of some of them make a true 1-1 scale nearly impossible.
Pokemon will have a serious chance to catch up in this regard with their next mainline release on the Nintendo Switch. Game Freak is working with significantly more powerful hardware for the first time in the Pokemon series, and we can’t wait to see how this is implemented. Even an HD touch on the Sun and Moon models would be incredible, and several YouTubers have tested this very adjustment. However, whether Nintendo will simply stick with this level of upgrade or do something more jaw-dropping remains to be seen.
More Multi-Battles
What Pokemon Can Learn From Digimon Story
Throughout the series, Pokemon has gradually introduced spins to its classic formula. From rotating battles to aerial ones, the original one-on-one style has been mixed up in recent iterations of Pokemon. However, these different battle styles are greatly outnumbered by the number of standard battles the player fights, and including more two-on-two and three-on-three fights would benefit Pokemon.
In the Digimon Story games, all battles feature up to three of the player’s Digimon, which adds more variety to battles, and more depth. Comparatively, one-on-one battles rely on swapping out Pokemon for different types the moment players find themselves at a disadvantage. At the very least, we’d like to see more double battle encounters that don’t rely on the gimmick of encounter a duo of trainers. There’s no reason that double battles can’t happen more often when facing off against another single trainer, and hopefully the next game in the series will incorporate double battles more frequently. Even the competitive scene adopted doubles as its primary mode of play, and that has to mean something.
Having more than one monster fighting at a time is a great way to make battles feel like more of a team effort. Rather than a changing series of one-on-one match-ups, larger brawls better give the sense of a dynamic, cooperative team strategically trying to outdo their adversaries. Having three on the battlefield at any given time also makes using more of the roster easier. When you have three Digimon on the battlefield, it’s easy to have one of them serve a niche role, even if that Digimon doesn’t have much use in the “meta” otherwise. On the other hand, standard, one-on-one Pokemon battles almost require that every Pokemon on a team is capable on their own, which limits the number of viable Pokemon.
Pace of Battle
What Pokemon Can Learn From Digimon Story
The fights in the Digimon Story titles aren’t that much quicker quicker than the mainline Pokemon games at the start, but both Cyber Sleuth and Hacker’s Memory have options for players to speed up battles. Animations can be skipped, and players can even choose to set battles to “auto” if they’re simply grinding for experience. This is a nice feature, simply because it lowers the time spent while trying to level up Digimon. This type of “quality of life” change is something that adult players deeply appreciate, as it allows them to play in a way better suited to their schedules. Games should always be as accessible as possible, and in this particular area, Digimon makes leveling up on a tight schedule much easier than Pokemon does.
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