Preview: Why Digimon Story Time Stranger Will Scratch Your Pokémon Itch on PS5

It’s been decades since this author has interacted with anything involving Digimon, but at a recent behind closed doors Bandai Namco event, the key art proved an attractive draw.

Building on the blueprints of past Digimon Story titles, specifically Cyber Sleuth – which first released on the PS Vita – and its pseudo-sequel Hacker’s Memory, Digimon Story Time Stranger is a creature taming RPG where its closest analogue is a famous Nintendo franchise that begins with the letter ‘P’.

We got to play close to three hours of the game, including its entire opening mission and one which takes place about 40% into the campaign.

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Now, let’s get the caveats out of the way first and foremost: as we alluded to earlier, it’s been roughly 30 years since we interacted with the Digimon franchise, so we’re looking at this through fairly fresh, uneducated eyes. In addition, we’ve no idea if your favourite ‘Mon is in the game.

This untainted perspective allows us to talk about the game from a totally unique perspective, however, and we’re sure there will be newcomers among you – as well as perhaps lapsed fans.

So, as a turn-based JRPG, were we impressed? In a nutshell, yes. This is clearly a lower-budget production compared to something like, say, Persona – but it scratches a nearby itch, with its vibrant anime presentation and monster rearing gameplay.

The opening mission starts in Shibuya, and it’s quite fun running through a cel-shaded facsimile of the real-life Tokyo district – even if it serves as a barely interactable backdrop as you submerge yourself into the world of “digital monsters”.

The full campaign will see you travel between Earth and the Digital World: Iliad, with the latter featuring during the second half of our demo. Needless to say, if the environments seem a little static during the opening mission, they transform dramatically once you crossover into the virtual realm.

Fairly early into the start of the campaign, you’re tasked with selecting a starting Digimon, so we settled on Gomamon, as it’s a design we actually recognised.

The turn-based combat is fairly straightforward: your Digimon are equipped with skills which can be used in combat. Battles can be sped up to reduce the emphasis on animations, but the work here is quite impressive and deserves to be appreciated in our opinion.

There’s a dizzying amount of detail that goes into the creature taming systems, but even as experts we wouldn’t have had time to grasp it all within three hours. For starters, we didn’t really have an opportunity to explore the Digifarm, which is a system that allows you to develop and grow your recruits.

But we did have enough time to grasp the basics: as you discover and defeat Digimon, you’ll be able to generate your own versions of them – but the higher your understanding of them, the better their starting stats will be.

You can also influence the personality of your Digimon through on-field conversations and a variety of other factors, which influences their evolution progression. Unlike Pokémon, this is non-linear, so you don’t necessarily need a Charmander equivalent to raise a Charmeleon – but stats and behaviour traits will play a part.

It’s dense and complicated stuff – the kind of thing that can make you sweat at the end of a long day of demos following an early morning train ride. But the complexity – while potentially a time sink – does seem like it’ll give you a ton of options to build the team you want.

While in the opening mission we only just about managed to assemble a squad of three, the latter part of the demo allowed us to really appreciate the extents of the team building options available.

According to the inventory, it looks like you can have up to 999 party members at any one time, but you’re probably going to be using less desirable Digimon to bulk up the stronger creatures in your party.

As someone who hasn’t interacted with the series in decades, we really loved some of the designs. One neat touch is that all of the ‘Mon have sprite-based Digivice alternatives in the main menu, which is a wonderful visual flourish.

There also appears to be a simplified version of the Digimon Trading Card Game available as a minigame in specific spots here, and again there’s some gorgeous virtual card art for you to appreciate. Overall, we really like the presentation in this title, running on a base PS5 at a steady-ish 60fps.

The battles definitely get much more exciting and complicated once you’ve got a full team. You can send three Digimon out onto the field, and you’ll pair them with a fourth guest Digimon who’ll join you as part of the story. You can then put a further three in reserve, and freely swap them in at any time.

Traditional JRPG rules apply, where you need to buff your teammates, and think strategically about your opponent’s weaknesses to get the upper-hand.

We wouldn’t say this aspect is particularly complicated – if you’ve played any similar game before, you’ll know the drill – but it does look like there’s a good amount of flexibility to the combat, with certain Digimon having their own unique combat abilities. You can also manually equip other skills as attachments purchased from various merchants in the game.

As we alluded to earlier, the opening mission’s Shibuya setting was a bit dreary, but once you get into Digital World: Iliad the developer really cranks up the HDR and the sheer number of characters on screen. Movement feels a bit archaic – like you’re playing a PS2 game – but it’s not really the appeal here.

We’d also like to add that, while we forgot to take a note of the name of the Digimon involved, there are some larger-than-life battles here. Some of the foes you’ll be fighting against take up the whole screen, and go through various phase changes.

So, even as relative newcomers, we’re sold on the creature taming aspects. The only thing we’re a little cold on are those moments when you’re out of battle and running through corridors – especially in the samey looking real-world environments.

But as we alluded to earlier – three hours, while it may sound like a long time, was not really enough to scratch the surface of this game. There are some dense systems here which will take time to truly appreciate. That said, we think we’re on board.

While there have been several Digimon Story titles already, it feels like Bandai Namco is aiming this one at new recruits or lapsed fans. That steady learning curve may frustrate franchise veterans, but we think it’s the right call to get novices up to speed.

And with few obvious Pokémon alternatives on the PS5 – no, Palworld definitely doesn’t count – this may scratch an itch you can only otherwise get on the Nintendo Switch.

Will you be Digivolving into this one, or sticking with that other famous ‘Mon series? Is Time Stranger the Pokémon alternative you’ve been waiting for? Let us know in the comments section below.