A pair months in the past, my colleague and our Senior Content material Supervisor Andrew Stretch performed Digimon Story Time Stranger at Summer season Recreation Fest and loved it. He is a longtime cheerleader of the Digimon Story franchise, however I by no means believed him sufficient to attempt it for myself.
After three hours with Digimon Story Time Stranger at PAX West, I am a believer now. It fairly shortly shot as much as close to the highest of my October wishlist.
This demo session began off with what was primarily the start of the sport, and I received a little bit of setup for the general plot and a simple onramp for the gameplay. Then, we transitioned to a later level within the story with stage 20 Digimon.
Digivolving to a Higher High quality of Life
The primary main features I observed with Digimon Story Time Stranger is simply what number of quality-of-life options there are. Whereas I have never performed earlier ones within the collection, I do know my approach round a basic JRPG, and this one had quite a lot of beautiful shortcuts.
We beforehand reported on a few of them, like how one can auto-defeat wild encounters in case your common stage is stronger and nonetheless earn XP—even for ‘mons in your storage. Fight animations can be sped up by as much as five-times pace.
I observed just a few new ones in my hands-on time at PAX, too. You’ll be able to stand nonetheless within the overworld to robotically regenerate well being and stamina. Your storage for all of your Digimon can be accessed anyplace within the overworld, making it straightforward to swap your ‘mons out as wanted.
“We needn’t do all of the wasteful actions that individuals in previous Digimon story titles needed to undergo,” Producer Ryosuke Hara informed me by way of a translator. “And belief me, we all know there are those who have spent lots of, if not 1000’s of hours in Cyber Sleuth and whatnot.”
Battles are sometimes decided by your understanding of kind effectiveness, as you’d anticipate from a monster-taming sport. I am largely new to the franchise although, so studying the completely different attributes and components felt like rather a lot to wrap my head round initially.
Nevertheless, the fight UI makes it tremendous straightforward to know what’s tremendous efficient and the way sturdy (or weak) the multiplier can be. In spite of everything, this can be a huge monster-hunting turn-based RPG with lots of of 1000’s of matchups to think about.
Total, these quality-of-life enhancements go a protracted solution to making the sport extra handy and streamlined, in accordance Hara-san. He and the crew iterated to search out that good stability of ease with out making it too straightforward. There’s one huge anchor that they used to stability this comfort in opposition to.
“Ultimately, we tried to stability it with the boss battles. We tried to make the boss battles extra enjoyable. We tried to not shake it up an excessive amount of,” Hara-san mentioned by way of a translator. “Each boss battle goes to be appropriately arduous for the place you might be within the story. That acts because the balancing within the sport.”
He assured us that whereas the boss battles in the end function the ability checks, you seemingly won’t ever be caught in an unimaginable situation. In case your crew is not matching up properly, you’ll be able to at all times De-Digivolve and re-Digivolve your crew to search out new methods in.
Digimon Will get Private
With the newly launched Character system, these conveniences really feel like they’re going to go a protracted solution to making Digimon Story Time Stranger time. Relying on which Character a Digimon has, their stats will develop a sure approach.
This method works on two ranges, I’ve observed. On the floor, you’ll be able to actually form a Digimon’s character and really feel extra of an attachment to them. In the event you really feel like your Agumon is the courageous, heroic kind, you’ll be able to foster that by interacting with him and answering questions with courageous responses. It helps you develop extra of a private bond.
On a deeper stage, understanding their Character kind will allow you to optimize their stats, permitting you to amplify their strengths and canopy up their weaknesses. This creates a deeper endgame for gamers who actually need to go that further mile and make a crew of completely good Digimon–or hell, even make an ideal model of all 450+ Digimon within the sport.
So What is the Digimon Story?
On this universe, there is a Digital World that coexists with actuality, and there is an ongoing battle between Digimon that might result in a cataclysmic apocalypse in each. You are a part of ADAMAS, an investigation crew that is making an attempt to cease the calamity.
The protagonist is a Tamer that collects and controls Digimon to combat rogue Digimon and different threats. Within the second a part of my play session, a personality talked about one thing referred to as the “Shinjuku Inferno,” which sounds associated to (or may very well be) no matter unhealthy factor we’re making an attempt to stop.
The sport would not actually waste time getting conflicts into movement; the opening hour or so throws you into the thick of a protest that goes incorrect, and it in the end leads what looks like a significant inciting incident.
With a 40–50 hour marketing campaign, there can be rather a lot to sink our enamel into when Digimon Story Time Stranger releases on Oct. 3. Personally, between the sturdy turn-based fight, quality-of-life upgrades, and intriguing apocalyptic story, I am satisfied I ought to’ve been a Digimon Story fan a very long time in the past.
Digimon Story Time Stranger was previewed after three hours of gameplay at PAX West courtesy of Bandai Namco.
