Digimon Story: Time Stranger [Review]

Digimon Story: Time Stranger caught my attention since its announcement. It is a killer combo of looking like a decent RPG and a time traveling plot that instantly picked my interest. As a Story, indeed, it is great: the characters are memorable and while everything is indeed full of tropes, it feels like a very good Anime plot overall.

I've created a silent protagonist aptly named “Alex” and, at the start, the feeling of being lost in the story is very well done, with things happening but not much being over explained. A lot of important characters are foreshadowed and introduced, and the game trusts its opening narrative enough to make everything believable.

It is a lengthy opening, and while the story trusts the player, the gameplay most definitely does not. It takes about 4 hours of boring simplistic battles, fake corridors and blocked paths to finally have the game a bit open. The issue is that not everything is really well explained, and I often referred to in game tutorials on the menus to really understand some systems of the game that, in the end, are pretty simplistic. Things like the personality progression, Digimon types and digievolution paths.

While the battle system indeed reminded me of an ATLUS game – Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE – everything else on the game is more or less its own thing. I'm supposed to be attached to the Digimons I have, evolve and get them to be the best versions of themselves. The focus is not that much on collecting them all (a viable but daunting idea), but on making tangible connections with these digital beings and feel them as “Party Members” instead of simple battle monsters.

Unfortunately, not all the systems of the game work towards this vision of “fully fledged party members”. The personality system is over simplistic and too random on its cadence, it feels like some arbitrary roadblock. The speed of progression is also bad, as the evolutions are tied to the Agent Level and there's not much I could do to raise it outside their intended pace.

This suffocation of player progression and expression creates a harsh disconnect between the main character and his party of Digimon and the rest of the world (digital or not). The side quests are often misses, consisting of revisits of previously explored areas with almost nothing new beyond the side quest itself. There are some with better writing, but I have mostly done them to get the Agent Points required to Digivolve my dudes. Also, as the game progresses, some stages get more and more simplistic, with “2-D Side scrolling” sections that aren't that different from cheap mobile games or handheld titles from the past.

Atop of all that, maybe my biggest problem with this game is its pricing. Lacking regional prices under the PlayStation Store, both NAMCO-Bandai and SONY (SIE) are at fault for providing such a mediocre experience for such high prices outside the Global North. Also, with small to no physical release on markets outside the US, Europe, and Japan. Even in the US, this game is overpriced for a 70 USD release, which makes its appeal for a global audience questionable.

Even considering these issues, there are moments where this game really shines. The “Story” in its title is well-earned, again, the characters are nice, and getting the Digimon I wanted was satisfying in the end. There were some boss battles throughout the game that were very intense and fun, and the battle system is good, even if bare bones and derivative.

If the rest of the game were as good as the Battling and the Story, this would've been one of the best RPGs of the generation. Instead, lacking interesting exploration, convincing systems and player expression, it is hard to fully recommend this at full price.

7/10