Maybe it was the amount of dressing up we did as a child, but we really love a game where you can chop and change your costumes and accessories - add in some vaguely cute critters and we are SOLD. Step right up Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth - Hacker's Memory - a game which lets you dress up your Digimon team in a variety of cute and silly hats, flashy goggles and weird attachments, just for the lols - if you can figure out how to unlock them.
Though the game may not be all that great at telegraphing how to to do it, we thought we'd put together this handy guide so you too can get in on the dressing up fun. Read on to find out where, and how, to best get your paws on some accessories!
Everybody wants to wear a hat!
Online is the key
Digimon accessories are essentially rewards for playing online battles. Every match you play, win or lose, will net you an amount of coins, which can be exchanged for hats and the like for pimping your Digimon. Figuring out how to get into an online game can be a bit difficult though, as the game doesn't exactly shout about the feature. Instead, the terminal for playing online is hidden up the left hand side of the DigiLab, and looks a bit like a red orb or porthole window in the wall. Bear in mind that, in order to play online, Playstation 4 users will need a Playstation Plus subscription, whereas PS Vita players can get by without one.
This is the terminal you're looking for.
Once you've found the terminal, it's a simple matter of starting a 'Network Battle' to connect to the server, then picking a 'Ranking Battle' for your bog-standard online face off. From there, you'll be matched with another randomly chosen player online, for a 3 vs 3 Digimon brawl - but bear in mind that while online matches try to level the playing field by capping (or boosting) everyone's levels to 50, the moves your Digimon knows don't change, so you may find yourself up against someone with much more damage dealing attacks than you have, making it a bit one sided. Still, on the plus side, even losers get a commiseratory prize of 10 or 20 coins, so it's not a total write off.
If you fancy a bit of a change, you also have the option of trying out Event Battles, which are more special limited-time battles with special rules and modifiers - the one at the time of writing gives vaccine type Digimon a 50% stat boots, plus gives out abnormal statuses at the end of a turn.
Playing against the AI
If you don't like the idea of taking on real people - or if you're struggling to match with anyone - you can choose to fight a randomly-generated computer-controlled character instead. When setting up your game and clicking on 'Fight', a box pops up to set the search criteria. If you scroll up to 'Matching Method' and scroll sideways, you can switch from the default 'Quick Matching' to 'Fight NPC', which lets you battle with an AI character instead - something which is certainly a nice touch, although you do earn about half the coins you would against a human opponent. Much like human players, though, Digimon stats are boosted/capped at level 50, which means that even fighting the computer-controlled characters can be quite hard going if your Digimon haven't technically hit that level yet.
Switching over to 'Fight NPC' lets you fight computer-controlled opponents instead.
The coins you earn in online battles can be exchanged at the 'Coin Shop', found in the main 'Network Battle' menu (the one you access from the red portal that we mentioned above). Each month, a new set of limited time accessories, such as Santa hats, valentines chocolates and the like, cycle around, for 200 coins a pop. A handful of other accessories are also available from the 'Normal Items' tab in the same menu (scroll right on the analogue stick), alongside various avatars and titles for your online profile, although these are more expensive than the specials.
How to customise your player character
Of course, it's not just your Digimon that can get in on the dressing up act! If you feel like pushing the boat out, you can also buy new outfits for your in-game character, to replace your slightly boring Hudie-issue blue overcoat. Scattered around town are shops which sell outfits - there's one in the back streets of Shinjuku, for example. Currently we're sporting a fetching pink shirt with a pixel art doodle of a Gatomon, because we're totally secure in our sexuality. That and we're technically female in real life. You can change into your purchases in the Dressing Room to the side of the counter inside Hudie's headquarters.
My Gatomon shirt brings all the girls to the yard.
So there you have it - how to accessorise your Digimon to the max! Unfortunately, we don't really have much in the way of tips to make the online battles any easier, save good ol' hard work, raising your Digimon up to be the most powerful they can be. But we're at least glad that you get some coins even if you lose, which means we stand a chance of getting some cool hats regardless. All you need are some cool Digimon to put them on - so why not check out our full list of Hacker's Memory's Digimon - or find out how to nab yourself an exclusive NX Digimon to add to your party!
