Digimon Story Time Stranger Advance Review. It's fun just to walk around the city of Digimon. The latest training RPG has fulfilled my dream of running around the world on the back of Garurumon

 

"Digimon Story: Time Stranger" is scheduled to be released by Bandai Namco Entertainment on Thursday, October 2, 2025 (*). It is available on PlayStation 5 (PS5), Xbox Series X|S, and PC (Steam).

*The Steam version is scheduled to be released on Friday, October 3, 2025.

This is the latest title in the Digimon Story series after 10 years. This time, I was given the opportunity to play the exploration part and the battle part as soon as possible. I will tell you about the situation.

How has the latest title in the series evolved? What about the fun of a training RPG? If you are interested in Digimon fans, please take a look at the report.

Please note that the game we played this time is under development, so there may be some specifications that differ from the full version.

Play the latest title in the series for the first time in 10 years on PS5. The sight of Digimon living in the city and the power of the best battles in the series will only bring tears to my eyes as a Digimon fan of yesteryear.

The city of Digimon is full of life and nostalgia

Digimon Story Time Stranger is set in Tokyo, Japan, especially Shinjuku. The main character = player, who belongs to the secret organization "ADAMAS" specializing in investigating and solving paranormal phenomena, encounters an unknown creature "Digimon" in a section of Shinjuku that has been sealed off, and travels back in time to the world of 8 years ago.

The main character decides to head not only to Shinjuku in the past, but also to the alternate world "Digital World Iliad" where Digimon live. There, various encounters await, including the "Mercrimon" who rules the Central Town.

Every Digimon living in the Digital World is very unique.

Sometimes, Digimon will attack you. The main character trains Digimon to go into battle, and welcomes them as new friends by "converting" the data of the defeated Digimon.

In this pre-playthrough, we were able to explore a part of the central town of the Digital World Iliad. After passing through an underpass-like place, the state of the "Digimon City" that spreads out at the manhole is a masterpiece.

In addition to the size of the city, I was surprised by the liveliness of the Digimon who lived there.

I couldn't confirm it in this playthrough, but it seems that there are various other areas such as the sea and forests.

Even if you just walk to the target point of the story progression, you can see various Digimon everywhere in the city. Fans of yesteryear are guaranteed to be filled with nostalgia.

In addition, each of these NPC Digimon is moving in a different way. Some Digimon were running a business, while others were blossoming into stand-up conversations. It seems to convey the state of life vividly.

Some of the Digimon pairings standing on the street corners seemed to be aimed at fans who were eagerly awaiting the release of the new game. As an example, as a fan of the anime series, I almost cried when I saw Arkenimon and Mummymon talking happily. Being in the city means that you can make friends and train them in this game.

Fans will be delighted with the Digimon on-parade. Even if you are a Digimon beginner starting with this game, there will be many characters with designs that will make you wonder, "What is this Digimon?"

The city is bigger than you think, but you can move quickly by riding a fellow Digimon with "Digiride". Come to think of it, in the anime, there were many scenes of children riding large Digimon, but in the game, there were not many depictions like this.

As I moved around the city, I arrived at a section with a somewhat noisy atmosphere. In this area, the "Titan" Digimon will attack you if they see you.

In such a place, "Digi Attack" is effective. With the push of a button, your fellow Digimon will boldly jump on the opponent in front of you. If the opponent's level is low, this is all you need to defeat them, and if they are equal or higher, you will enter the battle while launching a preemptive strike.

Companion Digimon that launch a Digi Attack will automatically select a companion that has an advantage over the opponent (if the target is a Digimon)

In addition, various items could be obtained by examining objects such as boxes in the city and destroying them with Digi Attack. It seems that you can also get things related to combat and training, such as "attachment skills" described later, so you want to explore every corner of the city.

The city is so intricate, and there are many places with different elevations that can be moved by ladders. It seemed to be very interesting to explore. If you use the "Analyze" function, the position of the object in the field of view will be displayed instantly, so you want to use it actively.

We only explored a small part of Central Town this time, but we still saw nearly 10 roads that we could take a detour.

Battles with Digimon are also unavoidable when talking about this game. The battle is a turn-based battle with command input, in which Digimon of both enemies and allies act one by one in the order of action according to the parameters.

There are seven types of Digimon races, of which Data, Vaccines, and Viruses have a three-way relationship. Deal much more damage to superior races, and much less damage from their opponents. The other races have no advantage or disadvantage to any race.

In addition to boss battles, race compatibility with enemies is always important.

Since this race compatibility is a large compensation, it is also effective to swap during battle. Even if you swap Digimon, it doesn't consume action turns, so you can respond flexibly.

In addition, each Digimon has a concept of attributes, and the damage it receives depends on the attribute of the attack, such as being strong against fire and weak against the ground element. When this happens, you have to examine not only your race, but also the skills you have.

In this work, an item called "Attachment Skill" that allows Digimon to learn additional techniques has appeared. It has a very wide range of strategies and customizations, such as having players learn a wide variety of attribute moves, or specializing in specific attributes, attacks, healing, etc.

With attachment skills, the possibilities for Digimon training and strategy are almost endless.

In addition, the speed of the battle can be increased up to 5 times, and the speed of the battle was impressive. In the Digimon Story series, you'll be doing a lot of combat, so this feature is a nice one.

The reason why they do a lot of combat is to welcome Digimon as their friends. The more you defeat, the higher the "scan rate" will be. When this reaches 100%, it can be "converted" and welcomed as a fellow Digimon. The scan rate can be accumulated up to 200%, and by accumulating more and then converting, the maximum HP and talent value (level cap) will increase.

Just as important as increasing the level of your Digimon in battle, it's also important to increase your scanning rate.

In addition, by raising the level of fellow Digimon and matching parameters and conditions, the Digimon can "evolve". By evolving, the parameters will increase dramatically, and new techniques can be used, which can be expected to greatly increase the power of the team.

Speaking of Digimon, evolution. Even in this work, the evolution scene is well depicted, and as a fan, I am very excited.

In this way, you will explore a field map such as a large city, train Digimon in battle, and collect new fellow Digimon. This repetition seems to be the basic flow.

Each Digimon has multiple evolution destinations, and it is possible to degenerate them in reverse. You'll want to find your favorite Digimon and convert them to try out different evolutions.

Boss fights are all about chemistry and strategy

Next, I was able to experience the boss fight part. The opponent is "Parrotmon", which is familiar as the first strong enemy in the anime movie version.

As a fan of the anime version, when I see Parrotmon, I have a feeling that Digimon has begun.

In boss battles, the compatibility of races and attributes described earlier becomes even more important. If the races and attributes are advantageous, we were able to see up to 300% damage modifiers, or 3 times, in this playthrough.

On the other hand, in the case of disadvantaged races, the damage from the already painful attack of Parrotmon is doubled. This was bad, so I immediately replaced it with another Digimon I had.

I learned firsthand that chemistry is very important in the boss fight. In addition, it is not known which attribute attack is effective to the opponent until it is hit once.

If the compatibility is completely advantageous, it will cause a lot of damage. It feels pretty good when it's decided.

In addition, in this playthrough, we had Digimon that had been well trained and evolved to the stage of maturity, so we were able to see some flashy big moves. This is also from the perspective of a fan of the anime version, but the production of Kyuubimon shooting demon fireballs brought back vivid memories of Digimon Tamers.

Here is a part of the production of the demon fireball. Speaking of Kyuubimon, this is it.

I was fascinated by the production like that, but it wasn't a leisurely situation. Before you know it, Parrotmon will act twice or launch an all-out attack.

In some boss battles, bosses are strengthened by "critical points" (CP) accumulated by enemy actions. CP seems to increase especially when the boss attacks you with a weak point, and you will learn more and more about the importance of compatibility.

The boss battles in this game are all about chemistry in both offense and defense.

While I was thinking about what to do and typing commands, an icon suddenly appeared on the screen that said "press the × button" and a gauge that seemed to indicate the time limit. "Strike Plus" was activated, which can be activated additionally when attacking an enemy.

Since the activation of Strike Plus is based on a certain probability, it can occur at any time. It's a command-type battle, but don't let your guard down. In addition, there are many things to think about, such as when to use the trump card "X-Arts" that the protagonist can activate when the conditions are met during battle.

In addition to attacks, Strike Plus may also have a special effect called a strike effect, and the effect such as healing and assistance varies depending on the Digimon's race and personality.

As the battle progressed, Parrotmon descended to the ground and began to perform movements that seemed to accumulate power. It's a sign of a big move that's already familiar in RPGs, and that if you don't stop it, you're going to get killed.

Here, Parrotmon, which until now could only attack one part, has two attack points, the torso and the head. I tried attacking the head that was clearly accumulating power, but the result was that the fire attribute that had been effective so far was halved.

These weakness traps are simple but easy to catch. Also, you have to look for advantageous attributes from the beginning.

After that, he managed to stop the big move with a concentrated attack on the head. If they couldn't stop it, they would have been attacked at a level where they would have been almost wiped out if they didn't strengthen their defenses.

If you can't stop it, it's a great move for Parrotmon. Even if you're on defense, this multi-hit damage comes with the added effect of paralysis.

Whether or not he could stop the big move, Ballotmon's strength was still there, and I had a feeling that it was going to be a tough long battle. However, here, unexpected reinforcements appeared. Mercrimon, one of the 12 Olympian Digimon who rule Central Town, came to the rescue.

The scene where Mercrimon appears is also really cool. As expected, the twelve gods of Olympus.

With Mercrimon's overwhelming speed and power, Parrotmon is repelled. I see, this is the power of the twelve gods of Olympus, and I was strongly impressed by the story.

In addition to exploring the city, this game also greatly enhances the production during battles. I was only able to play for about 30 minutes this time, but even in that short time, I was able to fully convey the various fun aspects of the game, such as the depth of the story and worldview, and the high level of strategy of the battles.

I was able to fully enjoy the coolness that only Digimon can provide, and the drama created by various characters even in a short period of play.

This game is not only a game for Digimon fans, but also an RPG that is fully satisfying. We also conducted an interview with producer Ryosuke Hara about the commitment to development. Please take a look at this as well.