Digimon Story: Time Stranger is addictive and great fun, with an interesting story full of vibes. Collecting monsters has never been so fun, and it makes me so happy to be playing a Digimon game again. I've been a fan of Digimon AND Pokemon for years, but only playing the original classic Playstation 1 game. While the Pokemon games got more love.
There's a pretty intense focus on weaknesses and strengths in Digimon Story: Time Stranger, with up to THREE different variables determining how much a Digimon can withstand or dish out against specific opponents. CHANGING out Digimon is key, and gives me Persona vibes which isn't necessarily a bad thing!
This is a game where side quests are kind of important to complete. They aren't anything egregious, or too interesting, but they do the job and are short. You need to do them to acquire Anomaly Points, which you then use to level up your Agent skills, which in turn can boost the overall stats of Digimon, how much XP they earn, and more. You can talk to your Digimon sometimes, which changes their personality, which will be affected by Agent skills, which can boost stats. This is a surefire way to get the Digivolutions you want, which require your Digimon to attain certain stat levels. You level up your Agent rank by USING Anomaly Points you get from Main Story and Side Quest Missions, so do as much of the side content as you can!
As I said, side quests are decent but not anything special, but then we have the little dungeons you can undertake, and those are really fun and provide unique gameplay! See if you can do them all! Once you find a dungeon, it will be added to a list you can select and go to from a mysterious theater in another dimension, that gives me MAJOR PERSONA VIBES! So, you don't have to go to the place where you found the dimensional entrance to a dungeon.
So far, this is a good game with some frustrating aspects. Some of the bosses are irritating to say the least, and the game WILL punish you very hard if you aren't collecting enough kinds of Digimon and training them up sufficiently. This game will also punish you for not equipping enough kinds of skills, called Attachment Skills, to your Digimon. There is some grinding, but it's not too bad. The game alleviates this with many options at your disposal. Just make sure to discover those options, collect more Digimon friends, and make sure you are buying Attachment Skills to diversify your ability output!
