I’ve mentioned in the past that Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth is not only one of the best games from the past decade in my opinion, but easily one of the best and most underrated JRPGs of all time. It fills my heart with joy to see that, at least nowadays, a lot of people have managed to catch up on what was initially a pretty obscure release with little to no marketing fanfare, only to realize it, alongside its side-sequel Hacker’s Memory, was indeed that good. Maybe it was the mixture monster catching with Shin Megami Tensei combat? Maybe it was the fact Game Freak hasn’t been releasing good Pokémon games lately? Regardless of the reason, when Digimon Story: Time Stranger was announced, I was ECSTATIC. Finally, nearly ten years later, a game meant to capitalize on Digimon being cool and hip again.

And it’s finally out. Not limited by the hardware limitations of the Playstation Vita (where Cyber Sleuth was originally developed for), not limited by a ridiculously small budget, and with the power of modern consoles to, at the very least, boost it up visually and in terms of content. Was it worth the wait? In one very short answer: absolutely.

For the uninitiated, the Digimon Story games are basically what fans of the franchise, jealous of Pokémon’s success, had always asked for: it’s, by and large, Digimon‘s own Pokémon. Turn-based RPGs that are all about collecting, raising, training and battling monsters within a brand new plot. As previously mentioned, it’s the collectable nature of Pokémon, with a bit more maturity, darker themes, and a combat system very reminiscent of Shin Megami Tensei. Digimon Story: Time Stranger follows the same premise. The difference, this time around, being aiming exactly at the limitations imposed by the first couple of Digimon Story games, and fixing and/or expanding them.

For instance, many fixes have been applied to the combat system. Granted, at its core, it’s still the same (turn-based, each Digimon has a unique move, rock-paper-scissors mentality), but Cyber Sleuth and Hacker’s Memory had specific movesets that basically broke any semblance of difficulty. Those were defense-ignoring moves, and anything regarding Magic, the equivalent to Pokémon‘s Special stat; just like in the first generation of Pokémon, the Magic stat comprised both magic attack and defense, making any magic user much stronger than physical attackers. In Time Stranger, those stats have been split, and defense=piercing moves have been removed, More monsters feel useful as a result.

This is also due to how Digivolution and raising monsters has been improved. That’s not to say that the arguably best feature of the previous Digimon Story games has been removed. Oh no, it’s still here, and you’re going to spend A LOT of time tinkering with evolving and unevolving your Digimon in order to look for new forms, evolutionary paths, and whatnot. But everything feels a lot more streamlined, a lot more practical. For instance, the level caps haven’t been removed, but they are not conditions for evolution. The game treats the fact you can’t reach a certain level to beef up your stats enough of a reason already.

In Time Stranger, the two main conditions for evolution are your monster’s stats, which are self-explanatory, and your main character’s rank. The more story and side missions you complete, the more agent points you acquire. These points are spent in various skill trees that can beef up the general stats of all of your Digimon, based on their nature (more on that on the next paragraphs). The higher your rank, the more levels your monsters can achieve. You need to be Rank 3 to acquire Champions, Rank 5 for Ultimates, Rank 7 for Megas, and so on. The Digifarm is still available, and it’s still useful, but it plays a very different role than before.

You don’t need to access the Digifarm to perform evolutions (you can do that from the pause menu), but that doesn’t mean the future is useless. You can use the Farm to change your Digimon’s natures, which act just like how they do in Pokémon, influencing their overall stats. Furthermore, after unlocking some Agent Skills, you can reduce the stat thresholds in order to evolve a Digimon based on their nature. In other words, the Farm plays a smaller role than before, but it’s still useful. Everything feels more streamlined and balanced, with most Digimon being useful enough, with movesets being customizable, and with stronger monsters being easier to obtain. So, what about the rest of the game?

There’s no denying that Digimon Story: Time Stranger is a vastly more expensive game (development-wise) than its predecessors, and as a result, its visuals are excellent. The Digimon designs are outstanding, their animations are great, lighting effects have been improved, and the Digiworld designs are gorgeous. Because yes, you actually visit the Digiworld in this game, and environments are actually varied, ranging from Xenoblade-esque forests to a world contrasting lava and ice platforms. It’s clear that some designs and animations were borrowed from Cyber Sleuth, but it’s still night and day. Everything looks more polished. Signature move animations, in particular. There isn’t a single Pokémon game that looks as impressive as Digimon Story: Time Stranger.

That directly contrasts with one of the game’s weakest aspects: every single locale that isn’t set in the Digital World. Digimon Story: Time Stranger suffers from being set in the single most clichéed location in modern JRPGs: modern-day Tokyo. Like Persona, Shin Megami Tensei, Varlet, The World Ends With You, Like a Dragon, and ten trillion other games, you will explore Shinjuku and Akihabara ad nauseum, with little in terms of innovation and excitement in these sections… not to mention the sheer amount of repetitive and lame underground areas to explore.

If there is anything else that isn’t very good in this game, that’s its pacing. Let me clarify that the story in Time Stranger is actually great. The main plot takes ages to kick off, but once things get going, it’s hard to put the controller down. There are also some very noticeable tonal shifts between its handful of acts; it’s almost like if this game is comprised of four or five different seasons, each one with different stakes, characters, locations and objectives, all linked to a common thread. That part is the good one. The problem is that, say, the first entire act is really slow – if you’re not a fan of the previous games, you might feel a bit demotivated to withstand the linearity and crawling exposition of the plot.

Sidequests are a bit disappointing as well, which is a slight contrast with Cyber Sleuth. In that game, the sidequests felt more interesting than the main plot. In Digimon Story: Time Stranger, the plot goes from Shin Megami Tensei to Pokémon, to Ocarina of Time, to Metal freaking Gear, and even Evangelion in some areas… but the sidequests are rarely ever exciting. They are usually brief and limited in scope, being nothing more than a quick way to grab agent points. The whole “detective agency” appeal from the first games is absent.

But all in all, there’s little to complain about. Digimon Story: Time Stranger is everything I wanted from a higher-budgeted sequel to the criminally underrated and overlooked Cyber Sleuth. By upping the ante in terms of plot, length, stakes, visuals, and even gameplay, what we have here is more than a high-quality licensed manga game. This is easily one of the best JRPGs I’ve played in a while. Without a doubt, the best monster collecting JRPG with “Mon” in its name you can grab right now. Take notes, Game Freak.

Graphics: 8.0 The Digimon designs are outstanding, their animations are great, lighting effects have been improved, and the Digiworld designs are gorgeous. A stark contrast when comparing to the bland and repetitive Tokyo environments.	Gameplay: 9.0 It’s as much of an improvement over the combat in other Digimon Story games as Pokémon Gold and Silver were with Red and Blue. The Digilab is accessible from the pause menu. Level exploration is pretty much the same as before, but the camera placement is a tad bit wonkier. But all in all, a noticeable improvement.
Sound: 7.5 Decent voice acting in both English and Japanese (though Japanese feels more authentic). The music is not as catchy as the one from previous Digimon Story games, but it’s still very good.	Fun Factor: 9.5 The pacing is a bit slow at first, but once it gets going, you can’t stop playing it. More than just an improvement upon the addictive gameplay from its predecessors, Digimon Story: Time Stranger ups the ante with its plot, stakes, and character development. Truly an amazing JRPG.
Final Verdict: 9.0

Digimon Story: Time Stranger is available now on PS5, Xbox Series S/X and PC.

Reviewed on Xbox Series S.