With the return of a classic monster-taming RPG, Digimon Story Time Stranger is the most recent entry in the Digimon Story sub-series. A traditional turn-based RPG with a diverse roster of Digimon to both battle with and explore different evolutionary paths. Along with that, you are also presented with a story that follows the conflicts and relationships between humans and Digimon.
A Brand New Digital World
Similar to many RPGs, you choose either your male or female-presenting protagonist. The interesting thing about them is that you can change their first names, but not their last names. This signifies you are not just playing as a silent protagonist who was just dropped into the story. Your relevance as the protagonist is that you are related to an important researcher named Dr. Yuki. He was said to be involved with the study of Digimon, which in turn, comes back to the protagonist using them in battle. Without getting into too much comparison to Pokemon, you similarly have the choice of picking one of three starter Digimon. From there on you, explore the ruins of a walled off sector of Tokyo with hostile Digimon to fight. After defeating one of the bosses of this area, you are transported back in time 8 years and attempt to stop the event of Digimon appearing in Tokyo.
Along with time traveling, you also get to experience traveling to the Digital World. This is the world where Digimon come from and where you’ll spend a majority of the game’s story in. The various areas of the Digital World are some of the most unique locations in a monster-taming RPG. There are entire societies built in these areas with Digimon who fit perfectly in them. The train Digimon, Locomon serves as this world’s method of transportation for all Digimon and the player. Those who have been longtime fans of the franchise will appreciate the level of detail in these areas and the various NPC Digimon to interact with. And I would even say that may apply to new players as well just based on the liveliness of the Digital World.
Digitize into Battle
As previously mentioned, once you choose your starting Digimon you are thrusted into three different fights. Upon entering your first battle, the game teaches you about the Attribute system. Although there are seven Attributes, four of them are just neutral in the overall system. The main three are Vaccine, Virus, and Data. These Attributes work like Rock, Paper, Scissors. Digimon with the Vaccine Attribute do more damage to Digimon with the Virus Attribute. Inversely, Vaccine Digimon do less damage to Data Digimon. To add on to this game’s battle system, there are also elemental weaknesses and resistances. The only type in this game’s case are the Attributes. There are no “Fire Type” Digimon because every Digimon has their own unique weaknesses and resistances.
Battles are done with three of your Digimon being active in the fight with three more in the reserves that you can swap with mid-battle. You may also have guest party members that help you and they change depending on where you are in the story. The game uses a turn order system to show who and when certain Digimon can act. This can be influenced by applying certain buffs or debuffs, as well as certain moves and passive abilities that allow a Digimon to act first or last in the turn order. One of the most important aspects of this combat is preparing your team for the right situation. Team building is quite interesting as you need to always account for the different Attributes of your Digimon and the enemies. One of the safer team comps that I found most effective was having a team of 2 Vaccine, 2 Virus, and 2 Data Digimon. However, it is usually unfortunate if you’re in a boss fight with a Data Attribute Digimon and your Vaccine Digimon are afflicting less damage and taking more.
Talking about the Digimon themselves, this game is incredibly unique with how it handles Digivolving your Digimon. Digimon are not subject to one Digivolution line. I would describe Digivolution as a sprawling web. Along with Digivolving, you can De-digivolve your Digimon, in which you can revert them back to a prior stage of evolution. This can be done to explore more Digivolutions paths and raise their stats.
Train and Explore
Aside from battling and experiencing an engaging story, there are many other side activities that add to this game’s value. One of the game’s most important, yet optional, features is the Digifarm. You can leave a certain amount of Digimon in your Digifarm and do one of two activities with them. One of them is training your Digimon to raise a specific stat. The more effective the training item, the more real world time it takes for them to finish. The other option is to feed your Digimon to raise their Bond stat. Every Digimon has their own food preference, so you’ll need to go through some trial and error to find out which ones they like over others.
It’s not an RPG without a side mode to kill time in. Early on, you can play a side game called Jogmon. You use cards to battle opponents this time around. The mechanics are very simple as they use Attributes system for battling. You can collect cards by taking cards your opponents have used or you can buy them from certain shops. My biggest gripe with this side game is that it is very luck based. You can use a card that has an advantage in both Attribute and power level and could still lose that interaction without knowing what the chance of losing was. At the very least, I can appreciate that both the Digifarm and Jogmon draw inspiration from Digimon’s roots as a virtual pet toy.
Conclusion
Without going on for too long, I could talk about this game forever. This coming from someone who is a longtime fan of the Digimon franchise. Though for those who are new and want to try out a different style of a monster-taming game, I cannot recommend Digimon Story Time Stranger enough. Much of the discussion online of this game comes down to the comparison of this to Pokemon. It’s been over 25 years since these franchises began and there is still discourse about the two. A favorable comparison I would give to Time Stranger is the Shin Megami Tensei series solely based on the gameplay. Regardless, this is a solid monster-taming RPG with a diverse variety of Digimon to Digivolve and fight with.
