Digimon Story: Time Stranger – Review (Nintendo Switch 2)

Digimon Story: Time Stranger is one of the biggest Digimon-themed games developed by Bandai Namco and was first released on major consoles and PC in October 2025. The game was reviewed by many, including Sirus Gaming. The game has since been ported to the Nintendo Switch 2 and has proven its worth to Nintendo gamers who love playing games in handheld mode.

Digimon Story: Time Stranger is the 7th installment of the Digimon Story series, and features an all-new cast of characters, a total of 450-plus Digimons, and stories that forever change both the human and digital world. This new JRPG centers around the protagonist, who is known to be an Agent of Adamas, whose mission is to save the world by investigating and solving anomalous phenomena. In the course of their investigation, they encounter an unknown creature called a “Digimon” in Shinjuku, an area sealed off by the government. They are caught up in a mysterious explosion. Later, they wake up 8 years in the past and are given a new task to prevent the so-called Shinjuku Inferno and learn what connections exist between the Digital World and the Human World.

Gameplay utilizes turn-based combat, and as this system is an RPG game, it is suited for the Nintendo Switch 2, as most of the big games developed and released are for this console. It is fairly straightforward to determine which attacks can inflict bonus damage depending on the type of Digimon you are fighting. Players can choose up to 3 Digimons in combat and 3 others as reserves, with up to 3 guest party members joining mostly during the story missions.

All the major features found in the major console ports of Digimon Story: Time Stranger are present in the Nintendo Switch 2 version. From the map of farming the skills of your collected Digimon, exploring the vast cities of Japan and the Digital World, and also facing challenging enemies, this game is one of the best JRPG games that Nintendo gamers should have.

At launch on Nintendo Switch, players are given a choice of two graphical settings:

• Performance Mode: Targets a smooth 60 frames per second at 1080p in both docked and handheld modes, making it the highly recommended way to play.
• Quality Mode: Targets a higher 4K resolution (1080p handheld) with HDR at 30 frames per second, but comes with occasional frame pacing drops and sluggishness.

Between the 2 modes, I love playing the game on Quality mode, as you can see how different the graphics are despite some of the character models being generic. The Digimons look out of place as they still use the same appearance and rendering as they used in the previous Digimon Story games.

For example, when you look at Agumon in the game and put him in the background of Central, you notice quickly how out of place his appearance is, and if anything needs to be criticized, it should be how developers can make them fit in within the whole map. However, with the choice of Quality mode, it can create a huge difference and make the game better and make the characters not feel out of place.

Though the game was already released for the PS5, PC, and Xbox, and its downloadable content is all released, I am quite saddened by the fact that the DLC Story missions aren’t available and will be released for the Nintendo Switch 2 on a later date. If I were the one calling the shots, I would release the game with the DLC bundled together, or at least release the game fully as they did with Digimon Story: Cybersleuth and Hacker’s Memory. But in hindsight, this will give players a chance to prepare themselves better before the DLC story missions come out.

To make up for the delay of the DLC story missions, Bandai Namco has been giving players on all consoles, including the Nintendo Switch 2, free DLC Mission updates in which players can earn bonus exps, and rewards that help utilize the full abilities of any active Digimon in one’s roster and gain anomaly points to upgrade an agent’s skills. That is actually quite helpful, and I really hope that there will be more future updates for the game to make it both challenging and nostalgic at the same time.

Overall, if you are a hardcore Digimon fan and you own a Nintendo Switch 2, I highly recommend Digimon Story: Time Stranger. But since this is also one of the more challenging Digimon titles out there, I also recommend trying out the game’s demo on the Nintendo Switch before making the purchase.