Currently playing: Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Complete Edition

I've had Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth: Complete Edition on my wishlist for ages, but I always passed it by because it looked way too complicated. However, I noticed it was on sale for the Switch the Nintendo Game Store and finally caved. Hours of gameplay later (I'm in Chapter 4 of Cyber Sleuth right now), and I can confidently say it's very much my kind of thing. 

The difficulty level has issues - I'm playing on Normal, and the vast majority of the enemy Digimon are incredibly easy to beat, but there are a few stronger (boss?) Digimon that have left me scrambling to survive. In one fight, Devimon instantly destroyed my Black Gatomon (which I had around for element balance and because I thought it looked adorable). I only survived that battle because I had one backup Digimon and a large collection of HP items. I imagine that if I upped the game's difficulty level, most fights would be a little more stimulating, but the boss battles would be just about impossible for me.

Which isn't entirely a complaint, because the primary reason I'm playing is to find and Digivolve as many Digimon as I possibly can. The overall weakness of the enemies allows me to do that without much stress. I just wish "I think that Digimon looks cool/cute" correlated more with "that Digimon is strong, fits my overall party balance, and will help me survive." Poor Black Gatomon.

Yes, there are hundreds of Digimon, each with different strengths, abilities, and attributes that need to be kept in mind depending on what part of the game you're in and the difficulty setting you've chosen. That could get pretty complicated...if you decide to set the game to Hard rather than Normal. I like the more casual feel of the Normal difficulty setting.

My feelings might change in the later chapters, but for now I like it. It's relatively forgiving of the fact that I have very little idea what I'm doing (I had to write myself notes about which elements and attributes are strong or weak against each other, the sum total of my Digimon battle strategy knowledge), the story isn't great but is at least mildly interesting, the character designs are nice, and I'm having a lot of fun randomly Digivolving stuff. At some point, when I've filled out my Digimon Field Guide more, I might consult a wiki and attempt to deliberately aim for particular Digimon, but for now it's fun not knowing what I'll be getting. Although I admit that some of the Digimon designs are absolutely horrifying. Most disappointing so far: Nanimon and Gold Numemon. I will never take either of those two into battle because I don't want to see them running behind my game character.

I haven't played any of the Pokemon or Persona games, the other franchises I've seen this compared to, but the comparisons make me think that I should probably try those at some point as well.