Digimon Story: Time Stranger Review (PS5, Xbox Series X/S, & PC)

The battle between Pokémon and Digimon is on, best believe, after Digimon Story: Time Stranger utterly blew my mind. Not even with the story, which definitely has its moments of emotion and intrigue. But with the combat, pulling you in with its many ways, you can tweak attributes, skills, personalities, and Digimon creatures themselves that fight in your stead. It’s an incredibly deep and involved system that will easily take tens of hours of your time. And you will give it freely, returning every so often to unlock stronger versions of your growing Digimon repertoire. 

Digimon fans will know what I’m talking about, whether you’ve watched the anime or played the previous instalments. Yet, imagine Cyber Sleuth and Digimon Survive elevated to the next level. To enough satisfaction to rival Pokémon, and quite possibly, it’s upcoming Pokémon Legends: Z-A. Which one will be better, do you think? My bet is on Digimon Story: Time Stranger, for the reasons we’ll explore in our in-depth review below. 

All So Really Strange

Three parts: story, combat, and monster taming. Each has its own appeal in Digimon Story: Time Stranger. Intermingled, they help keep your playthrough refreshing. But first, the story takes its time laying the foundation of what to expect. Perhaps too long a time, with the exploration of the human world where your protagonist, a nameless secret agent, resides. They specialize in investigating anomalies involving Digimon (or digital monsters). And on one particular mission, the encroachment of the Digimon world onto the human one results in aggression and a catastrophic,post-apocalyptic outcome. 

No fret. You are transported eight years back in time, charged with investigating the cause of your world’s destruction, and hopefully putting a stop to it. Nothing new here: you must have played through similar storylines. But as soon as Digimon Story: Time Stranger is done dragging its feet, entering the Digimon world proves a lot more is in store. A world, alive, with freely roaming Digimon of all kinds and walks of life. Leisurely hanging about in bars, challenging you to intense battles across varied biomes. It’s fun to interact with these innocent creatures, and their more mysterious, more threatening counterparts, most especially because each Digimon has its unique flair and personality. Their design carries impeccable detail and flourish in the odd, odd world you’ve been pulled into. 

No Regrets Whatsover

It’s very much the Digimon universe from previous instalments and the anime itself. But with a new story, fleshed out in a most inviting world to explore all reaches of its different zones. Some moments slow down when dialogue between not-entirely-interesting NPCs. And others are genuinely attention-grabbing, with the Digimon especially, who’ve all been brought to life from the ground up. All 450 of them you can collect, train, and battle with and against. It’s a shame the protagonist isn’t voiced when other characters receive their impressive Japanese and English voice-acting treatment. When every Digimon has its unique special attack animation, though, with its distinct one-liners for unleashing and finishing, you can’t help but melt with joy. 

They’re the stars of the show, aren’t they? The Digimon, in such overwhelming numbers. You’re merely their chaperone, stuck in their world, eight years back in time, trying to fix whatever has gone wrong with the world order. You’re stopping catastrophes and, hopefully, saving the human world in the process. But the moment-to-moment gameplay when you’re interacting with Digimon, learning of their unique quirks and abilities, and recruiting them into your own Digimon army is where the series has always captured hearts. It’s all easy to learn, granted, taking a bit of time to consume all of the information you need to do battle. Firstly, it is yourself and your ranking that you need to level up through completing main and side quests. And in turn, level up the Digimon in your party.

It’s Fighting Time

You can have three Digimon active in battle, and three more on stand-by. Switching out fallen Digimon is pretty easy and doesn’t cost a turn. And there are additional guest Digimon you can automate. Soon, you’ll need to add more Digimon to your starter Patamon, Gomamon, and DemiDevimon. And you can collect more through battling Digimon out and about in the world. Every battle against a particular Digimon builds data that, upon hitting 100%, will allow you to scan it to add it to your roster. The higher the Digimon rank, the more encounters you’ll need to hit 100%. And further, waiting out for 200% will add the Digimon to your roster stronger.

The regular enemies you encounter will be easy fodder when you exploit their weaknesses. And it’s pretty easy to identify weaknesses when you attack enemies with certain elemental attacks and they lose a significant amount of health. But you can make it more interesting than that, factoring in the attributes alongside elements. Each Digimon has a core attribute, whether data, vaccine, or virus. And depending on the attribute, it’ll either be stronger or weaker than another. For instance, the vaccine will beat the virus, data will beat the vaccine, and so on. 

Fear is Pointless

Tie these in with the various elements Digimon either wield or are susceptible to, such as fire and water, and you can come up with a rock-paper-scissors mechanic to take out enemies with ease. And at higher damage outputs, if you play your cards right. When a Digimon has the vaccine attribute stronger than a virus-based enemy, and their fire-based elemental attacks are devastating to a fire-weakened enemy, you should make easy fodder of the opponent. And it’s here where, once you’ve figured out the kinks of the enemy’s strengths and weaknesses, you can speed up combat by up to x5, or even auto-automate it. And in turn, receive XP rewards. 

The bosses, though, won’t be as easy. Here’s where your Digimon need to be leveled up, or you might stand little chance of surviving. Fortunately, the progression system is so deep and wildly abounding with customizations. It’s the returning Digivolution system the Digimon series has perfected. Essentially, the version you acquire Digimon at can evolve into new, stronger forms,  unlocking more nuanced skills and abilities. However, before evolving your Digimon, you need to meet requirements like a certain rank for your protagonist or stat level for your Digimon, whether speed or health. Another interesting feature is Digimon personalities, which influence the passive skills they can learn. And you curate these personalities via your interactions with Digimon. 

One of the Guys Now

It sounds like a whole bunch of minor systems you need to somehow cohesively bring to life in combat. And it can get overwhelming, but in a good way. Discovering the limitless ways your Digimon can evolve, the many skills and abilities they can learn (and unlearn) in your favor or otherwise. I won’t lie to you, some of the experimentations you’ll so excitedly jump into will prove futile against some malicious pain-in-the-ass bosses. And on the flip side, your Digimon can become so overpowered that fighting regular enemies starts to grow tedious. Speeding up battles, automating, or avoiding them altogether certainly helps. And yet, you’ll still find yourself tinkering around with the upgrades and the infinite ways you can mix and match attributes, elements, and attack types. 

Pretty handy is the Digifarm, where you can take unused Digimon to train and level them up. It’s a fun way to indulge your creativity in the training sets you design and the decorations you can put up for your Digimon to indulge in. Some training sets can be time-consuming, but here’s where your hard-earned in-game currency comes in to speed things along. There are also mini-games you can distract yourself with, though they don’t come with any game-changing rewards as far as I can tell. As for the visuals and sound design, it’s all wonderfully anime. Digimon Story: Time Stranger sure looks good, especially the Iliad digital world where Digimon reside. 

Verdict

Plenty more can be said for Digimon Story: Time Stranger’s depth and thoughtful ride through the fantasy universe of Digimon. Where adorable and malicious monsters alike live and blossom as humans do, leading everyday lives. And catastrophe strikes at any moment, spiking intense action and urgency to bolster peace and survival. Your character may be blander than expected, largely due to a lack of voice acting. But the Digimon more than make up for it, with their flair and distinct personalities. Over 450 Digimon you can collect, train, and battle with sounds like clutter. But even in the excess, you’ll certainly pinpoint favorites you can’t help constantly evolving and devolving, across alternate skill tree paths and wild possibilities. 

For all the Digimon creatures can do, complete with unique animations for mostly distinct special skills, Digimon Story: Time Stranger feels well-suited to ousting Pokémon Legends: Z-A off its pedestal. It feels well-rounded, with so much to do, tinkering around the skill trees or just hanging about at the Digifarm.