Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth is on the mature side on the Digimon video games spectrum. It's not a dark game, even if it has its dark moments. It's a game that brings out a wide range of emotions, from happiness to dread. When I think of intense moments, the final battle comes to mind, the ending is bittersweet.
The moment that creeped me out the most in the whole game is the final line of the Case Living Doll, Dead Person: "ERROR: Nowhere To Log Out."
The Case starts simple, and it had many funny moments. It's been rumored that some group is making life-sized dolls based on real life girls, and selling them for profit. The main character is tasked with following the trails of this illegal activities.
You realize that the so-called "Perfect Girl Project" is scanning girls avatars from the virtual world EDEN. They make dolls out of them using a Digimon's help. They then, look for "healthy" young men, and make them a deal: "Promise you'll never leave your room for the rest of your life, and we'll give you this life-like girl to live your fantasies."
This is offer is provided to the main character as well. (Even when you play as a girl!)
That's not the worst part, however. Since the main character meets one of the victims in the virtual world EDEN. The boy is enjoying his life thinking he's in the real world in his room. The player tells him to Log Out, but the boy refuses since he's not logged in from the start.
"What are you talking about, this is the real world, I can't log out even if I wanted to! You must be clueless if you think this is possibly inside EDEN. Ahahaha!"
After a while the boy figures, it won't hurt to try... Only for the system to say "ERROR: Nowhere To Log Out."
Just that...
Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth doesn't offer any further explanation. The problem isn't explored further and there's no in-game Case connected to this one. It just ends there.
While we can assume the case is being investigated by the authorities after the evidence found by the main character. The fact stays that the boy is most likely dead. The illegal group that sells these dolls to "healthy" young men, is probably doing something really dark to their victims' real bodies.
Kyoko directly says "as grim as the things occult club is investigating," with the implications that these boys were killed and their organs being sold. Yikes!!
When I saw the scene the first time in this game, I was stunned... Digimon goes to really dark places sometimes. Think about it, you meet a salaryman in the street. He gives you a too-good-to-be-true deal. You go "it doesn't hurt to try," then you're trapped forever!!
This is darker even than the plan of the antagonists of this game. At least you could understand the motivation of the Royal Knights.
The fact they only show so little makes "Living Doll, Dead Person" much more intriguing and horrifying.
What do you think?
- All screenshots were taken by me.
- This post is also on Read.cash.