Digimon Story: Time Stranger Was Enjoyable

By Media.Vision/Bandai Namco Entertainment - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1984270/Digimon_Story_Time_Stranger/, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=80100427

The last time I ever consumed a piece of Digimon media was watching the third season of the Digimon anime (Digimon Tamers) when I was a child. After this, I grew out of doing anything Digimon related, whether it is watching the anime or playing the Digimon trading card game. I have never played a Digimon video game until I picked up Digimon Story: Time Stranger on a whim and some promising reviews. I finished playing the main story, and I have some quick thoughts about my experience.

Overall, I think Digimon Story: Time Stranger is a good JRPG. Essentially, you play as an agent that travels back in time to prevent a catastrophe that will destroy both the human and digital worlds. I enjoyed the story, as it did not feel too complex and there are occasional explanations of the story behind some of the characters in the game.

Digimon Story: Time Stranger plays most similarly to the Shin Megami Tensei series of RPGs where you have a team of Digimon to fight other Digimon in turn-based battles. I found the battling to be fun and challenging at times, as you must consider not only type weaknesses/resistances, but also element weaknesses/resistances. There were many battles where I kept losing, which forced me to focus on what Digimon to use for the most favourable matchups, what moves to teach to those Digimon, and if I need to equip any items to make my Digimon stronger.

There are some nice quality of life mechanics that I appreciate. I like that in battle, you can use an item and it does not waste your turn. Also, after every battle, every single Digimon that you have (in your party and in your box) get the same amount of experience. This leads into the next thing that I like about Digimon Story: Time Stranger. There is a huge emphasis on customization and experimentation of party setups. You have multiple branches of digivolving and de-digivolving your Digimon, as well as using tools like equipping items, training your Digimon, and sacrificing unwanted Digimon to power up other Digimon to get the party of Digimon that you want for upcoming battles. I spent just as much time building my party and collecting new Digimon through digivolving/de-digivolving than I did playing the game.

Digimon Story: Time Stranger is going to get the comparisons to the Pokémon games, even though this game does not play like the Pokémon games. In fact, I think this latest Digimon game is better than Pokémon Legends Z-A. The biggest reason is that Digimon Story: Time Stranger has voice acting, and there are some surprisingly good voice acting performances in this game. Then you look at a video game franchise like Pokémon and wonder why Game Freak refuses to implement voice acting in their games. 

Anyways, playing Digimon Story: Time Stranger was a pleasant surprise and I enjoyed my time with this game.