“The latest in the Digimon Story series is finally here! In this RPG, unravel a mystery that spans across the human world and the Digital World, collecting and raising a wide variety of Digimon to save the world.” – Steam Synopsis
This game not only took over my life for a couple of weeks, but it has brought me back to a simpler, more joyful time. As a game, Time Stranger has its limitations and faults, but what it has meant to me is so much more than what it is as a game, and what it does succeed in, it really does well.
I was actually pretty impressed by this game’s story. It’s by no means groundbreaking, and it does get a bit hard to follow in terms of time travel things around the mid point, but I found myself engaged, enjoying all of the characters and plot beats, and there were even a few moments that were awesome or hit a really hard emotional beat. There’s a prelude mini animation that was uploaded to YouTube that adds some context that’s really heartbreaking. But basically, just like all Digimon stories, we are fighting to protect the balance between the digital and the human world. This time with time travel, it’s serviceable.
The main characters are really good. I’ve played JRPGs all my life and a bunch this year, and I’m pretty much always fine with non-voiced mcs, but I think it would’ve been nice here. The character we play is kind of just there. We are integral to the story, but it’s really Inori and Aegiomon, along with the others, that do the heavy lifting. Their relationship in particular is very sweet, and I loved how we all became a trio, a family. Inori loses her brother before the game starts, Ageomon has no family, and we lost our father in a disaster prior to the game starting. So there are heavy found family elements that I really love.
The gameplay and presentation are where this game shines. It is actually insane to have 450+ digimon, each with at least one unique move and some with even more, and each of those unique moves has its own animation. It’s insane. I think more JRPGs need to go the way of a Persona Lite like this game. Especially taking from more recent Atlus games and their wonderful QOL features. Being able to speed up combat during combat, having auto play, and even outright skipping encounters from the overworld if you’re high enough level is so, so nice. Also, the digivolution and obtaining Digimon systems work so well for this type of game. Being able to freely digivolve and devolve if you meet the stat requirements is amazing. Farming isn’t necessary in this game on hard mode (I played through on my first playthrough), but if you want to, then it’s less tedious than a lot of other games, given that all you have to do is defeat whatever digimon you need a certain number of times (which can become lower after acquiring certain stat boosts). There are multiple types of digivolution, most of which are all faithful to the source material (I wish burst mode were a temporary boost like in the show). Then, of course, there’s the wild typings and type advantages that aren’t that out of the ordinary, but someone boggled my brain for the longest time. Overall, I just never got tired of actually playing this game. It was always fun battling, digivolving, and trying to fill out the field guide. I had an absolute blast.
This game looks solid, too. Definitely full on with the anime aesthetic that fits this series so well. Overall, it looks solid, but it shines where it really needs to in terms of the attack animations, the digimon themselves, and their victory animations (did I mention that every single digimon has its own unique victory animation?). This game even shines when it comes to its presentation. The moments in the theater are so damn well done. We spend a lot of time going through the same areas, and at least on the first go around, there are some good moments. I do wish there was more voice acting, as I said, I think this game would’ve been better with a voiced mc. Stuff like that and some cut-scenes, this game definitely shows its budget. The music is great, though. Really good stuff there, I specifically have had the In-Between Theater’s little music stuck in my head for a while now.
So yeah, this game is not perfect at all. It has its flaws, it shows its budget a lot at times. But what it succeeds at with its detail and passion for the IP is really apparent. There was so much care put into the things that matter the most. This game is addictively fun. Even when the story wasn’t grabbing me, or it was confusing, I never wanted to stop playing. It takes the systems that have been improved upon from Atlus games for decades now and uses them well, adding so many great QOL improvements. I’ll admit I was hesitant going into this, but it was really a much-welcome surprise. For almost a hundred hours I put into this game, it made me feel like a kid again, and I loved that.
Digimon Story: Time Stranger – 8/10
