Translated Details from Habu Interview About Hacker's Memory

[MarcFBR]

Famitsu recently interviewed Producer Habu about Hacker's Memory.



Unfortunately garm is a bit to busy at the moment to translate the full interview, but she did go over it for any details of note, and translated those.

A few of these we already knew, but he goes into a bit of additional detail.



Treating the 1st game as 1.0 and completely new content as 2.0, hacker's memory is about 1.7-1.8 in terms of new content.


They did a survey on players who played the previous game, and surprisingly (for Habu at least) in regards to play time, '99 hours or more' got the most answers.


When Cyber Sleuth first sold overseas, there were media remarks on "Why does Japan still make turn-based games?" but the makers of CS feel that turn-based system is one that doesn't grow outdated, and it allows for full control over your units' movements and tactics.

But because it had been a long time since a Digimon game was localized, Cyber Sleuth's release in the west was met with lots of enthusiasm.




There is emphasis on how Hacker's Memory's protagonist is "a normal person".


For both CS and HM , they chose the starters based on wanting recognizable Digimon [those that have left strong impressions on people], but that don't often see the spotlight. For hm, the fact that the protagonist is not a 'hero' is another reason why they chose these starters. They considered Impmon and Gomamon as well.


Hudie/Butterfly is an important keyword in HM's story, and is linked to Zhuangzi's dream of a butterfly; how the digital world is sort of an extension of the real world and part of our daily lives, until you start to question which one is the actual reality? e.g. you have hackers that lead normal lives in the real world, but are 'special' in the digital world. One of the questions the hackers will face is 'as a hacker, which world should I protect?', linking back to the dream of a butterfly.




There are more members of Hudie other than the protagonist and Erika, which will be revealed in the future.


Ikebukuro is a new place appearing in HM, and the cafe there acts as Hudie's base.



The Digimon have been rebalanced, rules and beginner-friendly options have been added to online.


When asked if new Digimon will appear in HM, Habu just said he can't reveal anything yet but there's something that will shock fans in store.







Hacker's Memory releases this year in Japan, and early 2018 in the rest of the world.

The game is already available to pre-order at Amazon on Playstation 4

The Vita version will be digital only.

 

[Deep Saver]

Interesting to see what other Digimon were considered as starters. I really like both Gomamon and Impmon, but am pretty satisfied with the final choices too, especially Betamon.

 

[LucasPSI]

When asked if new Digimon will appear in HM, Habu just said he can't reveal anything yet but there's something that will shock fans in store.

This part gets me so hyped. I would love it if they would add even more frontier and xros wars digimon like they did with next order

 

[saifors]

Kind of odd how he mentions criticism of turn-based battles. I've read the grand majority of reviews on metacritic as well as a number of youtube review videos and there really wasn't any criticism about the game being turn based. And with the critical acclaim of Pokémon games and Persona 5 I really fail to see the presence of criticism of this. What there was criticism of was people like myself who think the battle system was a bit too simplistic and kinda generic compared to the previous Story games, as well as the difficulty. Not really criticism of the turn based battle system but how basic it was.
I am glad to hear that there's been some rebalancing of Digimon, maybe online won't be down to "who has the faster UlforceVeedramon"
Also "something that will shock fans" does make me wonder, my best guess would be like a big bad like ZeedMilleniumon or maybe something nostalgic to previous entries in the Story series like maybe Chronomon or ExoGrimmon.

 

[Deep Saver]

When asked if new Digimon will appear in HM, Habu just said he can't reveal anything yet but there's something that will shock fans in store.

This part gets me so hyped. I would love it if they would add even more frontier and xros wars digimon like they did with next order

It would be cool to see some tributes to various iterations of the franchise. We already have some classic early Digimon confirmed, maybe they could go on to include some obscure Armor Evolutions, some Devas to flesh out the Perfect levels, full Spirit Evolution lines, some more obscure Savers lines like the Kamemon line, a few X-Antibody mons, and various Xros Digimon. I would be in heaven!

 

[Rohan]

Hudie/Butterfly is an important keyword in HM's story, and is linked to Zhuangzi's dream of a butterfly;

Aaaaaand let the comparisons to Persona begin.

But in all seriousness, I'm very excited for this game and the Digimon yet to be revealed.
That concept art of Keisuke is also very amusing, I sense I am going to love the faces he makes.

 

[MarcFBR]

Kind of odd how he mentions criticism of turn-based battles. I've read the grand majority of reviews on metacritic as well as a number of youtube review videos and there really wasn't any criticism about the game being turn based. And with the critical acclaim of Pokémon games and Persona 5 I really fail to see the presence of criticism of this. What there was criticism of was people like myself who think the battle system was a bit too simplistic and kinda generic compared to the previous Story games, as well as the difficulty. Not really criticism of the turn based battle system but how basic it was.

Yeah... it does seem like a misunderstanding. No one really complained that it was turn based that I recall, just that it was such a vanilla form of turn based that after a very short period it became boring. I tend to personally think things like Mario RPG or the Mario & Luigi series integration of pressing stuff at the right time to modify attacks is a good way to add depth to the system without making it a chore.

 

[BlankShell]

I think he might have meant more than JUST being turn-based, as opposed to putting a spin on it; like, in the case of Persona 5, there's a lot of movement capabilities that CS didn't have. Pokemon would probably be a more apt comparison. Maybe he meant they were too close to Pokemon =P.

 

[salman332]

Hudie/Butterfly is an important keyword in HM's story, and is linked to Zhuangzi's dream of a butterfly;

Aaaaaand let the comparisons to Persona begin.

But in all seriousness, I'm very excited for this game and the Digimon yet to be revealed.
That concept art of Keisuke is also very amusing, I sense I am going to love the faces he makes.

Given that P5 has the protagonist being falsely accused of crime he didn't commit...
Crossover when?

 

[Xros]

you guys/garm skipped over a lot of notable details from that interview.
Things like
- People being able to open rooms and invite friends in multiplayer.(has been a huge criticism about CS Multiplayer)
- Save files being able to be imported from the previous game.(Benefits unspecified, maybe something akin to Unova link from Pokemon Black&White 2?)
- them adressing the balance criticism of the game. (is even related to that 99+ playtime remark)
- them adressing the fan desire of a Digimon game with all of the Digimon

 

[MarcFBR]

you guys/garm skipped over a lot of notable details from that interview.
Things like
- People being able to open rooms and invite friends in multiplayer.(has been a huge criticism about CS Multiplayer)
- Save files being able to be imported from the previous game.(Benefits unspecified, maybe something akin to Unova link from Pokemon Black&White 2?)
- them adressing the balance criticism of the game. (is even related to that 99+ playtime remark)
- them adressing the fan desire of a Digimon game with all of the Digimon

To go over your points...
The multiplayer being improved has been mentioned before, specific details haven't, but then it's hard to gauge this sort of thing, especially with Bandai's habit of changing elements of the game when it gets it's international release.

Save file importing had been mentioned in relation to the Japanese PS4 version of CS being included (including the Digimon being available in CS.)

It's a new game, balancing changes are assume, not to mention the fact that we did mention this in the article.

Habu is a great guy and a fan friendly producer, but he also has a history of making 'pie in the sky' type comments to fans to get people excited. Fans wanting a game with every Digimon and Habu commenting on it doesn't really mean much. I'm aware of the comments he made despite garm not translating them, and they aren't really any different than comments many game producers of many franchise have made in the past about character lineups.



Please feel free to translate the entire interview if you feel important details were missed, as the article specifically notes "Unfortunately garm is a bit to busy at the moment to translate the full interview, but she did go over it for any details of note, and translated those." That statement alone should suggest things are missing and/or not included.

 

[Xros]

To go over your points...
The multiplayer being improved has been mentioned before, specific details haven't, but then it's hard to gauge this sort of thing, especially with Bandai's habit of changing elements of the game when it gets it's international release.

Save file importing had been mentioned in relation to the Japanese PS4 version of CS being included (including the Digimon being available in CS.)

It's a new game, balancing changes are assume, not to mention the fact that we did mention this in the article.

Habu is a great guy and a fan friendly producer, but he also has a history of making 'pie in the sky' type comments to fans to get people excited. Fans wanting a game with every Digimon and Habu commenting on it doesn't really mean much. I'm aware of the comments he made despite garm not translating them, and they aren't really any different than comments many game producers of many franchise have made in the past about character lineups.



Please feel free to translate the entire interview if you feel important details were missed, as the article specifically notes "Unfortunately garm is a bit to busy at the moment to translate the full interview, but she did go over it for any details of note, and translated those." That statement alone should suggest things are missing and/or not included.

The point I was trying to make was not that "lel this translation isn't finished". It was that you specifically stated you picked out only the important tidbits yet I think lots of important tidbits were left out.
Sure you mentioned that the game would get rebalanced, but why that is and / or what idea Habu and the team had behind these rebalances are missing and they're quite important.

 

[MarcFBR]

The point I was trying to make was not that "lel this translation isn't finished". It was that you specifically stated you picked out only the important tidbits yet I think lots of important tidbits were left out.

No, it was that garm picked out the important bits as related to the game and translated them.


The multiplayer and save bits 'probably' could have been clarified (mostly the multiplayer part, as the save thing we knew and the interview doesn't seem to give us new information on it.)


But your third point was mentioned, and the fourth one has little to do with reality to be honest.

Going into detail on 'why' they rebalanced isn't really important, because everyone knows various parts of CS were unbalanced. That's the important part.

I understand why people would be 'excited' over the fourth one, but it's the equivalent of Hugh Jackman commenting he'd like to be Wolverine in an Avengers movie. It's an interesting quote, but it just... doesn't have anything to do with anything.


And of course, the reason I said feel free to translate it wasn't suggesting you were taking potshots at it, it was that garm is busy, had limited time, and she did a quite good job of picking out the bits that were important to people looking forward to the game, that contained new and relevant information. If you personally disagree that the important bits are there, and can translate, then translate it and I will go about putting up the whole thing.

 

[Xros]

Look, I just want to make sure that sounding rude wasn't my intention and I appreciate that Garm took the time off to translate as much as she could.
I just think that for a translation claiming it has all of the notable parts it is really missing quite a few.
Maybe I'm just overselling "interesting" stuff as "super important" but at least that's how I feel (and you don't wanna present my translations on your site I goof way too often).

as the save thing we knew and the interview doesn't seem to give us new information on it.

We did? To my knowledge this is the first time we hear of a save import feature. The thing we did knew about was Cross save but that's an entirely different thing.

 

[DoruAlphamon]

That's really cool! I haven't played Cyber Sleuth or Next Order, but this should pan out to be something interesting! Can't help but wonder who the surprise 'mons are gonna be. Wouldn't be surprised if Omnimon(Omegamon) Alter-S and its two component Digimon had some involvement with this new title.

Anyways, as for the wish to have a game with every single possible Digimon in it.. not sure how they're gonna pull that off. o3o; I went through Wikimon and used a calculator to round up the number of Digimon that have been released so far and... it's a whopping 1,256 'mons!(This is including variants, revamps, and obscure 'mon exclusive to mangas and other mediums) With more on the way with the new products such as Hacker's Memory and the remaining Tri movies, I'm not sure how they'd figure that into one disk/console. Especially if you take into consideration all the different possible evolution path deviations that each individual can take when not using their core line. I could be proven wrong one of these days but we'll just have to see.

Apologies for the long and halfway off-topic reply after the first 3 sentences, I just wanted to get that minor analysis out of my system*sheepish expression*

 

[MarcFBR]

I just think that for a translation claiming it has all of the notable parts it is really missing quite a few.

Mind quoting where I said all?

Because I said "any details of note."


To say nothing of the fact that what is notable to some will not be notable to others.



I mean, as an example. I like Habu. But his responses in many interviews skew to hyperbole. The hyperbole itself isn't notable to me unless the interview is fully translated, because those elements aren't going to actually be in games. Others may disagree.


Now, if you intention wasn't to be rude, let's let the thread get back on topic to the actual stuff he said that is relevant for discussion, based on the news post.

Anyways, as for the wish to have a game with every single possible Digimon in it.. not sure how they're gonna pull that off. o3o; I went through Wikimon and used a calculator to round up the number of Digimon that have been released so far and... it's a whopping 1,256 'mons!(This is including variants, revamps, and obscure 'mon exclusive to mangas and other mediums) With more on the way with the new products such as Hacker's Memory and the remaining Tri movies, I'm not sure how they'd figure that into one disk/console. Especially if you take into consideration all the different possible evolution path deviations that each individual can take when not using their core line. I could be proven wrong one of these days but we'll just have to see.

Realistically no, they aren't going to do that, and certainly not in this game.

 

[DoruAlphamon]

Realistically no, they aren't going to do that, and certainly not in this game.

Yeah.. from the way I can see it, sounds like it'd be a programmer's worst nightmare with that much data and coding to input into one game if they did attempt to pull that off.

 

[Shadow Shinji]

Man I really admire this guy so so much...Looking forward to know more details about the interview!!

 

[LucasPSI]

People being able to open rooms and invite friends in multiplayer.(has been a huge criticism about CS Multiplayer)

Oh thank god. This is something that should have definitely been a thing in the first game. I honestly have no idea what they were thinking with not being able to invite friends in the first one. Actually, I'be got a funny story regarding it. I was in a relationship around the time of cyber sleuths release. My boyfriend and I who were both huge fans of the game and were a bit far away from each other but really wanted to play together, so we decided to have an online date night where we would play against each other in cyber sleuth's multiplayer multiplayer... only to find out you couldn't invite friends

 

[Vaioumon]

Always funny to see people make grinding rpgs and then be surprised people have large play times.

I wonder what he means by "normal person". The previous protagonists seemed like normal people too. If anything, this guy is less normal for being an actual hacker.

Anyways, as for the wish to have a game with every single possible Digimon in it.. not sure how they're gonna pull that off. o3o; I went through Wikimon and used a calculator to round up the number of Digimon that have been released so far and... it's a whopping 1,256 'mons!(This is including variants, revamps, and obscure 'mon exclusive to mangas and other mediums) With more on the way with the new products such as Hacker's Memory and the remaining Tri movies, I'm not sure how they'd figure that into one disk/console. Especially if you take into consideration all the different possible evolution path deviations that each individual can take when not using their core line. I could be proven wrong one of these days but we'll just have to see.

Realistically no, they aren't going to do that, and certainly not in this game.

I'd bet they could do it if they ever opted for a full-effort PS4 game instead of just Vita games that get touched up PS4 versions.