Digimon Story Time Stranger
Genre: Turn-Based Monster-Collecting JRPG
Players: 1
The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference
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Review:
The Digimon series has long been stuck in the shadow of the Pokemon franchise, and there are no signs of that changing any time soon. However, these games are often still well worth playing, and the latest case in point is Digimon Story Time Stranger, a Monster-Collecting Turn-Based JRPG released in 2025 on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, and ported in 2026 to Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2. While this game more or less follows up the excellent 2015 and 2017 Digimon Story Cyber Sleuth games, this isn’t a direct sequel, and is designed in a way that it can be enjoyed by both newcomers and series fans alike.
The game’s story jumps right into things, with the player’s character working for the secretive ADAMAS organization, which investigates “anomalies”, the way the organization refers to the titular Digimon finding their way out of their digital realm into the real world and wreaking havoc. During one such mission, your character runs into a woman who acts like she knows you scrambling much as you are to prevent an apocalyptic event. However, as your poor luck would have it, not only do you fail to do so, but you find yourself sent into the past, now working to prevent the same calamity you failed to stop in your own time.
While it’s not the most engrossing of stories, it’s not bad, and this game places a strong focus on its story that really differentiates it from a typical Pokemon game. In fact, in a lot of ways, this game reminded me of the Persona series – it’s set in contemporary Japan, your character dresses like something between a runway fashion model and a cosplayer, you’re going back and forth between the hidden world of the monsters and the real world, and the apocalyptic elements are reminiscent of the Shin Megami Tensei franchise.
The presentation here is pretty good too, using 3D visuals with cel-shaded anime-style characters, backed by decent if somewhat unmemorable soundtrack with mostly synthesized songs. The only complaint I have here is the over-abundance of aliasing, but overall this game looks good, even if it’s not really pushing the Nintendo Switch’s hardware.
When it comes to the gameplay… well, this plays a lot like Pokemon. Turn-based RPG combat, collecting critters with elemental affinities (as well as attribute types) with paper-rock-scissors style strengths and weaknesses, as well as evolving your critters into more powerful variants.
That said, there are quite a lot of differences here. You can bring three members of your active team of six into battle at a time. The Digimon can often evolve into different forms, usually based on reaching stat thresholds. Plus, you’ll gradually be unlocking upgrades for your human character as well. However, perhaps the biggest difference here is how streamlined everything is compared to Pokemon.
In this game, you don’t need to head to a specific locale to swap out members of your team. After using a typed attack on an enemy the game will memorize how well that attacked worked and outright tell you if the enemy is strong or weak against it in the combat menu from that point on. Catching digimon just involves fighting enough of them to meet a specific threshold, and you can summon a better one if you hold off until you reach double that threshold. You’re notified when this happens, and you’re also notified when a digimon is ready to evolve. If you’re a player used to the Pokemon series, playing this game will feel in many ways like a breath of fresh air due to how it simplifies doing things.
Despite this, I don’t think it quite reaches the same level as Pokemon, in part because it’s simply not as ambitious as Pokemon. There’s no multiplayer, the gameplay doesn’t have quite the same depth, the world you’re exploring is fairly constrained and linear. And as per usual, the actual digimon themselves just aren’t as memorable or instantly discernible as pokemon tend to be – when you go up against the purple single-eyed kuramon or the white bunny-eared koromon, not only are their names not easy to remember, but if it’s not a simple matter to tell their type weaknesses. But in Pokemon, if you see a squirtle or a bulbasaur, you can instantly see “water turtle” and “plant dinosaur” and immediately have some idea what types they’re weak to.
However, while it may not aim as high as Pokemon, Digimon Story Time Stranger still overall succeeds at its goal of delivering a more story-focused and streamlined take on the genre that works well, and fans of Monster-Collecting JRPGs should absolutely give this one a try, as it’s not only a nice change of pace from Pokemon, but it has a style all its own that’s great in its own right.
tl;dr – Digimon Story Time Stranger is a Monster-Collecting Turn-Based JRPG that has players taking the role of a member of a secretive organization who finds themselves sent back in time, trying to prevent an apocalyptic event in your time tied to the titular digital monsters. This game isn’t as ambitious as Pokemon, but it has its own style, has more streamlined gameplay, and a stronger focus on story than Pokemon. The result is a game that might not reach the heights of the best games in the genre, but is nevertheless an excellent game well worth picking up for any fan of the genre.
Grade: B+
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The Nintendo Switch 2 Difference
Digimon Story Time Stranger (Nintendo Switch 2)
Genre: Turn-Based Monster-Collecting JRPG
Players: 1
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Review:
Digimon Story Time Stranger is a bit of an odd case in that it has separate Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 versions with no ability to upgrade one to the other, nor any ability to transfer data from one to the other… but if you got the Nintendo Switch version of the game, you can download a free update on Nintendo Switch 2 to improve the graphics and performance in the same way the Nintendo Switch 2’s visuals are improved. Basically, you get a free upgrade to something that’s technically different from the Nintendo Switch 2 version, but is functionally identical.
In other words, if you want to play this game on Nintendo Switch 2, you should probably get the Nintendo Switch version and download the Nintendo Switch 2 patch rather than getting the Nintendo Switch 2 version – not only will you be getting a version that plays on both Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 without sacrificing the latter’s upgrades, but if you’re buying the physical version you’ll be avoiding the “Game Key Card”, only needing to download the patch.
Anyway let’s look at what changes when upgrading to the Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game… or when getting the patch.
The Nintendo Switch version of the game runs at a 30FPS framerate with a resolution of 1080p in docked mode and 720p in handheld mode. Compare this to the Nintendo Switch 2 version, which offers a quality mode (30FPS with a 4K resolution in docked mode and 1080p resolution in handheld mode, with both enabling HDR) as well as a performance mode (60FPS framerates and 1080p resolution in both docked and handheld mode, with no HDR).
For me, I felt like both modes were an extremely noticeable improvement on what we got on Nintendo Switch – whether you choose to bump up framerates or resolution, both make a noteworthy difference, with the quality mode also virtually eliminating the issues the Nintendo Switch had with aliasing.
The loading times see an improvement too. The Nintendo Switch took me 23 seconds to load to the title screen, 11 seconds to load a game save, and 5 seconds to transition from one location to another – not bad, given the quality of the visuals. However, Nintendo Switch 2 still tops it, with those same loading times reduced to 16 seconds, 4 seconds, and 2 seconds.
For a free upgrade, this is an overall excellent improvement to graphics and performance, and it definitely makes the Nintendo Switch 2 version superior to the Nintendo Switch version. I don’t think this change is so transformative that it completely changes the game, but it’s a wonderful upgrade all the same.
tl;dr – Digimon Story Time Stranger is a Monster-Collecting Turn-Based JRPG that has players taking the role of a member of a secretive organization who finds themselves sent back in time, trying to prevent an apocalyptic event in your time tied to the titular digital monsters. This game isn’t as ambitious as Pokemon, but it has its own style, has more streamlined gameplay, and a stronger focus on story than Pokemon. The result is a game that might not reach the heights of the best games in the genre, but is nevertheless an excellent game well worth picking up for any fan of the genre.
Grade: B+
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