Digimon Story: Time Stranger Review

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I first watched the Digimon anime when it premiered on Fox Kids in August 1999, and I was instantly captivated. I’ve been a Digimon fan ever since, frequently revisiting the initial seasons of the anime and consistently finding it surprisingly emotional and thrilling, even though it’s made for children. However, my experiences with the Digimon video games haven’t been as enjoyable. Digimon World on the PS1 was fun, but it had some strange design choices that made it unnecessarily hard, and later games took the series in so many different directions that it never really established a consistent identity. With Digimon Story: Time Stranger releasing many years after those original Digimon games, I had high expectations. As someone who grew up with Digimon in the 90s, Digimon Story: Time Stranger definitely resonated with me, but it’s clear that the perfect Digimon video game is still yet to be made.

Digimon Story: Time Stranger is a role-playing game where battles are turn-based. Players collect and train a team of Digimon, each with unique abilities, to overcome enemies. These Digimon can evolve into stronger forms during combat. The game’s turn-based battles are easy to understand; attacks can deal extra damage depending on the enemy Digimon’s type and other conditions. You control a team of three Digimon in battle, with three more available as reserves, and you’ll often be joined by temporary allies. Digimon can learn new attacks and gain stat boosts through equipment, and you can use one item each turn, making it easy to keep your team healthy. While Time Stranger’s turn-based combat isn’t groundbreaking, it has a stylish feel similar to Persona and effectively delivers a solid gameplay experience.

Change Into Digital Champions to Save the Digital World

The boss fights are where the combat really stands out. Throughout the story of Time Stranger, players face exceptionally strong enemies that demand more thoughtful tactics than typical encounters. These enemies frequently have a powerful, charging attack which, if left unchecked, can be devastating. The boss fights in Time Stranger are truly challenging, and they add a significant level of excitement to the game.

If you want to defeat the tougher bosses in Digimon Story: Time Stranger, you’ll need to digivolve your Digimon. Digivolving isn’t just about reaching a certain level, though. Each Digimon has specific requirements, generally involving reaching particular stat levels. Sometimes, simply leveling up will get you there, but you might max out a Digimon’s level and still be unable to digivolve it. When this happens, focus on upgrading your agent using points you earn from completing quests. This will boost your Digimon’s stats and eventually allow them to digivolve.

I’m really enjoying how Time Stranger does digivolving. It shows you all the different Digimon a creature *can* become, and it clearly tells you what you need to do to make it happen. But here’s the cool part – it doesn’t just *tell* you what the evolved form is unless you’ve already encountered it or unlocked it. That adds a really nice layer of mystery, just like the original TV show, and honestly, it’s always a rush seeing what a Digimon transforms into. I also think the way you “catch” Digimon is brilliant. Basically, if you beat a Digimon enough times in battle, you unlock it for your team. That makes every single fight feel worthwhile, not just for the XP, but because you could be adding a new Digimon to your roster. It’s super rewarding!

I also really enjoyed how Digimon Story: Time Stranger references the original anime series. The first boss is Kuwagamon, which is probably a reference to the fact that this giant red bug Digimon was the first enemy the Digidestined faced in the show’s first episode. While exploring one of the game’s main areas, I even saw all of the partner Digimon from season 2 together. If you’re a fan of the anime, you’ll find lots of fun, nostalgic Easter eggs in Digimon Story: Time Stranger.

Digimon Story: Time Stranger Dungeons Are Repetitive

While Digimon Story: Time Stranger gets many things right, it unfortunately has a major problem. The game forces players to replay several dungeons at least twice, which feels very repetitive and is a letdown. I really enjoyed the first part of the game, but the second half mostly retreads old ground, with just tougher Digimon battles. There was even one dungeon where, immediately after beating the boss, I was sent back through the entire thing again. Instead of reusing dungeons, Time Stranger would have benefited from simply removing the repeated sections. I understand the repeated dungeons are tied to the story’s time travel element, but that doesn’t excuse how they disrupt the game’s flow and create a strong feeling of déjà vu.

Time Stranger tells the story of three heroes trying to prevent the end of the world by going back in time. The narrative jumps between the present and events from eight years ago. It’s interesting to see how characters develop and which Digimon evolve over time, but the story’s flow is uneven. To be clear, the story is funny at times and has some genuinely good moments, but it often relies on clunky, overly-explanatory dialogue and repetitive scenes. This becomes more noticeable in the second half of the game. Players will witness a story event, only to be immediately taken to a slow and unnecessary recap, as if the story wasn’t easy to follow in the first place.

The narrative in Time Stranger is uneven – it has some really good parts, but is often bogged down by slow, uninspired sections and plot twists you can see coming. And it’s all presented in a very basic, unremarkable style. The Time Stranger visuals are standard anime fare, which wouldn’t be a huge problem if the game’s locations and levels were more engaging. The Digimon themselves look good, but the world around them is just a series of dull corridors.

To be honest, the side missions in Time Stranger can be a little boring. They usually lead to really cool fights, but you have to do a lot of repetitive stuff to actually get there. The rewards are great – you *need* to complete them if you want to get your Digimon past the Ultimate level – so they’re worth it, but I wish the stories and tasks themselves were more interesting.

It took me just over 20 hours to finish the main story of Digimon Story: Time Stranger, though I played with battles running at 5x speed for much of the game.

Okay, so Digimon Story: Time Stranger has its good points, honestly. But man, the quests and dungeons get really repetitive. It started to feel like a chore to keep playing, which is a bummer. I think die-hard Digimon fans might still enjoy it though – you can tell the developers clearly put a lot of love into the game and the franchise itself, so they might be able to look past the issues.

Digimon Story: Time Stranger will be available on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X starting October 3rd. We at Game Rant received a PlayStation 5 code to review the game.

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2025-10-01 17:07