I think Digimon Story: Time Stranger is secretly a PS2 era Shin Megami Tensei game. I adore Atlus' Shin Megami Tensei (or MegaTen) games, for all their flaws. I have a particular soft spot for the PS2 era of games - Nocturne, Digital Devil Saga and its sequel, and Persona 3 are highlights. There's a constant level of surprising tension to Time Stranger that just kept on reminding me of the 'too-edgy-for-you' MegaTen games that I am enamoured with. And I really wasn't expecting to have that strong a reaction to a Digimon game after the half-baked experiences in Next Order, Survive, and even the slightly (slightly) better runs through Hacker's Memory and Cyber Sleuth.