Life would be so much better if our digital world was more like the one in Digimon Story Time Stranger. Unlike real life, where logging on can feel like walking straight through the gates of hell, my first trip to the land of ones and zeros in Time Stranger is the happiest a game's made me all year. Beautifully paying off several slow burn hours spent exploring the hyper-modern cleanliness of Tokyo and its grungy concrete sewers, the so-called Digiworld is a joyous explosion of life, color, and personality. And it owes every ounce of that joy to its oddball citizens.
Everywhere you look in Central Town, the digital city a large chunk of Time Stranger centers on—every nook and cranny and rooftop and window, inside every trashcan and on every discarded box, floating through the sky and crawling up power lines—are Digimon of every size and shape you could imagine. There’s the squishy Tanemon rushing in and out of a baby-sized door in the wall. Gekomon serenading a crowd. Literal Satan, Devimon, trying to relax with a cold one at the bar.
