PREVIEW: Digimon Story: Time Stranger Bares its Brave Heart

Bandai Namco has made Digimon Story: Time Stranger impossible to ignore, promoting the game as much as they can. If you haven't seen any of the many videos highlighting specific Digimon and their unique special moves, you've at least seen the news about Digi-riding. We were granted permission by Bandai Namco to preview Time Stranger a few weeks back, for more of a hands-on glimpse at the game. Never mind monster-taming, it's shaping up to be a great RPG, period.

The fun starts with the quality-of-life features. Right from the get-go, the game allows you to control the speed of battles by simply flicking an analog stick. So whether you want to see all of the fancy Special Moves or are in a hurry to grind for experience points, you have options. It's also possible to swap party members or use an item without spending a turn, though you can only do so once per Digimon in your party. This keeps battles quick and reduces annoyances with party management. It's also possible for your Digimon to heal automatically outside of battle, provided you stand still for a few seconds. While I was in the flow of exploration, I found myself forgetting about this ability, but it came in handy once I was preparing for tough battles. For people worried about difficulty: don't worry, there's a Hard mode. And even if you're experienced, you might find yourself in tense battles; our exploration in the early areas forced us to evade a Chaosdramon. Being that Chaosdramon is an Ultimate-level, and we only had Rookie-levels, we had to tread carefully to avoid getting flattened.

After the game allowed us to choose our first Digimon partner (between Patamon, Gomamon, and DemiDevimon), we're set loose to battle Digimon while protecting the city of Shibuya. Even here, there are plenty of quality-of-life features: you can have a Digimon partner take a pre-emptive strike at any of the on-field Digimon you see (a "Digi-Attack"). This can also be used to destroy obstacles, but it's better for getting a much-needed swipe in. Also, if an enemy Digimon is that much weaker than yours, you can dispatch them with just a Digi-Attack without going into the battle screen. Battles themselves are a matter of strategy: Digimon come in various types, which have advantages or disadvantages against each other (Viruses beating Data beating Vaccines beating Viruses). But they also come in various elemental flavors. And while each Digimon has its own unique move, like Gomamon's Marching Fishes, they can also be taught generic moves. Factoring types and elements, an attack's power can range from 50% to 300% effectiveness. Battles quickly become a matter of ensuring you're using Digimon and attacks that the enemy is weakest to. Not to mention, it's in your best interest to target weaknesses, as doing so charges your Cross Arts, which can do a variety of things like buff your party or deal damage to the enemy party. There are also Extra Links, quick-time events that can pop up after a Digimon performs a normal attack. These require a bit of timing and can do anything from allowing you to make a second attack to earning you a buff.

We continued through Shinjuku, fighting Monodramon and Gotsumon--though not taming any. Because there was a twist to earning Digimon: you gathered data of the Digimons you fought. Once you've traced 100% of the data for a given Digimon, you can "copy" an instance of that Digimon into your party, stage notwithstanding. However, the Digimon you copy will be stronger if the trace percentage is higher than 100%, up to 200%. It's in your best interest to fight a given Digimon as many times as you can until you have the 200% Trace rate. We did so with a handful of Baby-level and In-Training-Level Digimon we encountered, and the result was being able to Digivolve them on the spot into a collection of fairly uncommon Rookie-levels that assisted our basic Gomamon quite nicely.

As it is known that Digimon can turn into anything, from armored refrigerators to cyborg dinosaurs to latex-clad goths, Time Stranger also features a very freeform method of raising Digimon. Each possible form is barred off from a Digimon unless it has the requisite stats. At any moment, you can de-Digivolve any Digimon in your collection to a "lower" stage; doing so allows a Digimon to inherit some of the stats from its higher-stage form. This is the key to unlocking some of the rarer and more exotic forms, as this allows a Digimon to pile on the stats in a hurry. But we didn't get to experiment with this; try as I might, I didn't have the time to evolve the Kudamon I had gotten from a 200%-Traced Punimon into a Champion-level Digimon.

What we did get to experiment with a little was the Personality system. Each Digimon has a Personality, which affects its stat growth. Since each Digimon is better at certain things than others, it might be more helpful for a Digimon to have one Personality over another. The easiest way to affect a Digimon's personality was by talking to them between battles. We had a handful of conversations that nudged each Digimon towards one Personality or another. The Personalities were named after and symbolized by the Digidestined's Crests from Digimon Adventure! In some moments, messing with a Digimon's Personality allowed us the option of messing with their passive ability, like granting them the ability to gain SP when they use healing moves.

The first stage of our play session ended when we used our collected Digimon to fight against a giant boss; with my party of above-average Rookies, we made short work of them. The second phase of our play session had us jump to a different moment in the game, with a pre-made party of Champion-level Digimon of all sorts. After playing around with our party members (and making some bad choices--we had lots of Fire and Virus-types in a section with a lot of aquatic Virus digimon), we set off to help a Divermon to appeal to his boss Sharkmon's better nature in sparing a seaside village of Digimon. It was here that the Digi-Ride ability came in handy; many Digimon can carry you around certain areas. Some Digimon hoof it on foot, but others--like the Kabuterimon I was using--fly around. With so many areas in the cove that I was exploring being sunken, crossing them was slow and left me exposed to a lot of Coelamon; flying around on Kabuterimon's back, however, allowed us to make better time, even if the fights were slowed down. We did, however, get some relief from the Divermon who was traveling with us and would toss his harpoon at a few enemies for us. This especially came in handy once we met his evil boss, Sharkmon; he would occasionally lower his head to charge up for a powerful attack, forcing my team to drop everything and attack to stagger him. Pretty much every time we managed to stop Sharkmon from carrying out his attack, it was because Divermon and his friend Submarimon landed some choice hits.

Unfortunately, this was the extent of our time with Digimon Story: Time Stranger. And doubly so, it left us wanting more. There's a lot for Digimon fans to sink their teeth into: the systems for raising Digimon are simple enough to understand and deep enough to be wildly engaging. We didn't even get a chance to play around with the Daycares, but we still had tons of fun crunching numbers for stats. And, of course, there's the elusive possibility of raising one of your favorite Digimon among the roster of over 400; we saw Monodromon in the early areas, which has us excited at the chance to raise a Justimon. For folks who have never played a Digimon game before, however, there's still plenty to appreciate in terms of Time Stranger simply being a fun RPG. The mechanics are engaging, the quality-of-life features cut down on a ton of headaches, and there's plenty of room for fun experimentation. You'll very likely find your new best friend in here--and all the better, because you'll need all the friends you can get to beat bosses like Sharkmon...