Simply the best Digimon game ever released.

Surpasses all the mechanics from previous games, including the Cyber Sleuth ones, not to mention that it ain't a grinding hell either, even at hard difficulty. Also, each digivolution level is unlocked depending on your agent rank and stat requirements, rather than the classic talent (aka ABI) and stat requirements, as well as the skills you get via levelup can be collected, bought and/or inserted into, unlike other Digimon World titles, which otherwise would force you to pass through several different digivolution trees to get the skills you want on each single digimon. It also gives what the players long wanted: mounts (unless you've played Digimon MMOs, which overall suck), however, you only have one single female digimon mount across the whole game (and it's Witchmon), which really makes you wonder if the devs took that old Harley Quinn's "Don't you wanna revup your Harley?" joke from Batman cartoons that serious in an ill yet bitter fashion.

It's what you expect from an anime-styled game, and this feel is often visually supported by diagonal camera angles, although it ain't that close to the likes of Dragon Ball FighterZ (which IMO could really improve the signature skill visuals) and some signature skill animations are recycled from Cyber Sleuth. The UI has a better "digital" art style rather than prior games up to the point of even adding some 3D perspective to it akin to the ones from games like Borderlands. However, despite the graphics being ok, some models have mismatched size proportions (i.e.: your Leviamon has the size of a surfboard) which some make it it questionable the way you ride them, and this issue also repeats once story-wise where Ceresmon is so insanely huge yet the textures are stretched like a PS2 game from the early 2000's. Other than that, it visually gives what the played needs to see.... except the title drop, which will only appear chapters later.

Story ain't GOTY-tier but still great, although predictable sometimes due to its excessive foreshadowing. It is more cinematic compared to its predecessors and it gives the story the epic feel it needed, as the story gives you the true feel of messing the fabric of time and space via time traveling, although I feel that adding paradoxes into the lore would make it more complete to the theme being worked on. It also has indirect cameos to other contents of the franchise as well as some form of either fanservice or product placement of other Bandai Namco franchise (i.e.: Tekken 8 shirts and posters). When it comes to questing, it connects the necessity for the player to go through it, as quests are needed to increase your agent rank, which you need to unlock the said digivolution levels. However, if there's a con to it, I would say that a vast majority of the side quests, which are tons of them, are locked at the endgame right at the door of the final boss' realm, which the player might neglect, unless you're focused on obtaining agent rank 8 to get Jogress level digimon.

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8.5/10 - Please, give us more female mounts

Better than anything Pokemon company has released in the last 15 years

Never ask a woman her age
Never ask a man his salary
Never ask a Time Stranger fan why all his Digimon are humanoid women