Difficulty Differences in Digimon Story Time Stranger – What Should You Play?

Digimon Story Time Stranger has five different difficulty modes: Story, Balanced, Hard, Mega, and Mega+.

That’s a lot of difficulty modes, but that’s usually the case with Digimon games, as the game revolves around the same core mechanics. Veterans would want a challenge, while beginners might want to get used to the mechanics first. Here’s everything you must know about the difficulty modes in DSTS.

What Difficulty Should You Play in Digimon Story Time Stranger?

Initially, you’ll have Story, Balanced, and Hard difficulty modes to start your new playthrough. Mega and Mega+ won’t be available on your first playthrough, so you won’t have those options yet.

Story difficulty is meant for a relaxing playthrough, reducing enemy stats, such as ATK, INT, and SPD values. These values don’t affect the actual stats of your Digimon, as they are applied during battle. This is crucial because stats play a big factor in Digivolutions, so you don’t have to worry about literal stat squishes in the game because of difficulty.

If you just want a smooth playthrough with little to no challenge at all, play the Story difficulty mode.

For Balanced, it will have some challenges here and there. You might be forced to level up your Digimons or switch around battle and reserve members to play around strengths and weaknesses. Certain boss fights will definitely force you to think and maybe even micromanage turns, items, and time Cross Arts perfectly to win.

If you are an experienced Digimon player, Hard should still pose a challenge. Enemy stats are increased by around 20%, excluding speed stats. Things are already challenging as it is, but Hard should force you to grind, level up, and micromanage a little harder.

Now, each difficulty will be different when you have the Ultimate Edition. Since Ultimate Edition owners have access to two early Mega+ Digimons, Agumon (Bond of Bravery) and Gabumon (Bond of Friendship), things will become way easier with them around. Players can still opt not to use them if they want a challenge.

The story is quite average in terms of length compared to your typical JRPGs, so it is still up to you if you want to breeze through your first playthrough and try a new playthrough with Mega and Mega+ when you are ready.

How to Change the Difficulty in Digimon Story Time Stranger

You can change your difficulty at any point in the game. Open the main menu and go to “Game Settings.” Look for Difficulty and swap it to your desired difficulty.

You can even change your difficulty when you keep losing in the same battle over and over again. It’ll give you an option to retry the same battle but with a reduced difficulty. When you lower the difficulty, you can also increase it whenever you want.

You can also change the voice-over language if you go down to Language & Sound Settings.

If you’d like to see more helpful guides, news, or features from Prima Games, please consider adding us to your preferred sources (available to users in the US or India).