Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Review

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Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Review

Intro

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, Blue Rescue Team for the DS and Red Rescue Team for the GBA, is a very different Pokemon game. Instead of being a trainer, you'll take on the role as a Pokemon. You'll be able to choose from up to 16 different Pokemon. Also, depending on which gender you choose, the Pokemon available to you as a starter also changes, here's the complete list:

Male: Bulbasaur, Charmander, Cubone, Cyndaquil, Machop, Meowth, Mudkip, Pikachu, Psyduck, Squirtle, Torchic, Totodile, Treecko.

Female: Bulbasaur, Charmander, Chikorita, Cubone, Eevee, Mudkip, Pikachu, Psyduck, Skitty, Squirtle, Torchic, Totodile, Treecko.

The exclusive male Pokemon are Cyndaquil, Machop, and Meowth. The exclusive female Pokemon are Chikorita, Eevee, and Skitty.

After your Pokemon is determined, you will be able to choose a partner Pokemon. Whether you chose male or female, these are the Pokemon available as partner Pokemon: Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle, Pikachu, Chikorita, Cyndaquil, Totodile, Treecko, Torchic, and Mudkip.

You can not choose a partner Pokemon that is the same type as your own Pokemon. So depending on which Pokemon are you, this list of Pokemon may be limited even further.

To determine the Pokemon you'll be, you will take a personality test. For myself, there was no doubt in my mind, I'm going for the Psyduck. In case you didn't know already, my favorite Pokemon is Psyduck. So I tried to answer the questions how Psyduck would, which wasn't too hard for some questions (Psyduck's personality certainly doesn't reflect my personality, so don't worry, I'm not a dumb duck). I didn't get it the first time, but obviously you could just restart the game and try the personality test again. It took me a three tries, but I finally got my Psyduck.

The Game

After you got your starter Pokemon (you), and your partner Pokemon, you'll be off to your first adventure immediately. Butterfree will ask for your help to rescue Caterpie, who has fallen into a hole and can't get out of the dungeon. And here, in Tiny Woods, you'll experience the dungeon battle system.  The battle system is turn based. So when you move one tile, your partner Pokemon will move one tile, and other Pokemon opponents in the dungeon can move one tile. There are three basic ways to attack: a basic attack (attack the Pokemon directly in front of you), a move (a Pokemon's move), or a weapon (such as rocks that you can throw from a distance to do damage). The game will give you tips early on in the game on how to navigate your way through the dungeons and other useful tips as well. Of course, you could easily find this information in the manual that came with your game. Like many people, I skip the manual altogether and I eagerly dive into the game blindly. So having the hints along the way proved very helpful.

The Story

I was surprised that the storyline for Mystery Dungeon is actually quite engaging, very dramatic at times even. They could have thrown together any story, and I would have enjoyed the dungeon crawling as it is, but the story definitely carried this game to a higher level. Your Pokemon is actually a human that has been turned into a Pokemon. You don't know how, and you don't know why. All of those questions will be answered by the end of the game of course. But for now, you're stuck in this Pokemon world, so you make the best of it by going along with it. You and your partner Pokemon form a rescue team. In the Pokemon world lately, there have been many natural disasters, so many Pokemon have formed rescue teams to rescue Pokemon in need of help. You can get rescue missions directly from your mail box or check the bulletin board (choosing whatever missions you like, missions will state their difficulty and their prize for a successful rescue mission). In certain situations, a rescue mission that relates more closely to the storyline will be forced upon you, so you need to complete it to move the story along. Story sounds simple enough, right? But the story will get much more interesting as you journey to discover the truth behind yourself, these natural disasters, and other plot lines that develop in the game.

It took me about 12 hours to get to the ending. I wasn't rushing through the game at all, in fact, I was looking to improve my Pokemon's level so I know I'll be ready for the next big mission that comes along. I think part of the reason I got through the game so quickly was that I played the game for many hours before the game was released. So I was already accustomed to certain strategies and stuff you need to do that are important (buy lots and lots of Reviver Seeds when you see them on sale at the Kecleon Shop!). Still, I've heard many people that have finished the game in 12-16 hours range, some even quicker, some took longer. Depends how you want to play the game (and if you run into any trouble I suppose).

Post Game

So the story ended, game over right? No. A big "NO." In fact, after the ending (the credits roll), this is where the game really begins. The story will still continue on a little bit, but there's not too much after that. In the post game, you still have many other dungeons that you haven't visited before, and many Pokemon you haven't encountered before. You'll also see new features for the first time, which will make the game much more difficult. For example, traps. Easily one of the most annoying things in Pokemon, but traps make the game more challenging, which is a good thing. The dungeons will now have invisible traps, depending on which one you step on, it can cause an explosion, damaging your team, or drain all your PP for a certain move. And for the first time ever, you'll face the daunting challenge of going through a dungeon with 99 floors. Not easy, especially if you get unlucky and hit some traps that make things even more difficult.

Not everything is bad and more difficult in the post game. One of the new things you'll discover is that you'll be able to evolve your Pokemon now. So if you wondered why your Pokemon wasn't able to evolve before, get to this point of the game and it will be explained to you. Your Pokemon will have to meet certain conditions (like level) and might have to hold certain items to evolve.

Tired of controlling the same Pokemon over and over again? Well now you can change your leader Pokemon to whatever Pokemon you have in your rescue team. You can even change it to a legendary Pokemon if you have one of those (controlling a Mewtwo is fun, I like floating off the ground).

Catch 'Em All

No really, you can catch 'em all. All 386 Pokemon are available for capture. Except for a certain set of six Pokemon that are exclusive to that version:

Red Rescue Team only: Porygon, Mantine, Plusle, Roselia, Feebas, Milotic.
Blue Rescue Team only: Magikarp, Gyarados, Lapras, Aipom, Porygon 2, and Minun.

To get the Pokemon from the other version, you need to get a password from the other game containing that Pokemon in the mission. Once you've done that, the Pokemon will appear in the wild in their dungeons. Other than these exceptions, every single Pokemon, all 386 of them, are available. Yes, that means Mew, Celebi, Jirachi... you name it. In other words, this will keep you very, very busy. To give you an idea of how busy, as of writing this article, 40 days after the release of the game, I have logged over 67 hours of game play and explored over 3610 floors (all these stats recorded for you in the game, so no, I wasn't keeping count myself), and I'm still nowhere near "done."

Multiplayer Options

Through wireless communication, you can go save another player if they got knocked out in a dungeon. This will gain you points and items, and allow the person you saved to continue on their mission without losing their items and experience. The more popular method of saving another player is through the password feature. When a player gets knocked out, he/she can get a password to give another player to save the player. The recipient of the password will need to reach the destination of where the other player got knocked out. Once the rescue mission is completed, the player will give an A-Ok password to the other player so that player can continue the game.

I have saved many people through the password feature, and I'm glad I was able to help people out. You're doing rescue missions in the game anyways, so why not help a real person in need? Be sure to check out our forum, at our Mystery Dungeon board, there are plenty of people waiting to be rescued and plenty of people waiting to go on a rescue mission. So whether you need to be saved or want to save others, check out our forum in the Mystery Dungeon board!

The obvious lacking feature is the lack of the Wi-Fi online connection. This game is designed for people to connect with each other and help each other. Although the password feature is nice, I would have loved to see a feature where I don't have to meticulously type out a password for someone, so an online feature would have been great here. I was also disappointed that the items don't appear on the Pokemon. For example, it would have been nice if the scarf items actually made the Pokemon look different by being able to see the items on the Pokemon (my Psyduck would look great in some dark shades).

Besides these minor complaints, I can't find any major problems with Mystery Dungeon. In Japan, the combined sales of both versions of Mystery Dungeon made it the 3rd best selling game in Japan in 2005 on any console (selling over half a million units each, for a total of more than 1 million units sold in 2005). So clearly the Japanese fans liked the game very much, but they're also used to these dungeon crawling games. Based on the feedback from fans I've been talking to, the feedback on Mystery Dungeon were mostly positive. Most fans in the US haven't played a game like this before, so I'm glad to see many people enjoyed the game so much. Mystery Dungeon sequel anyone?

Conclusion

Having played for over 67 hours now, I think you can come to a conclusion yourself to whether or not I liked this game. When I first got the game, I played it non-stop, it's an addicting game. I would have undoubtedly logged more hours on this game if I had more time (running a site and forum takes up a lot of time if you're wondering). But I managed to make time for Mystery Dungeon.

This game is repetitive, there's no way around that fact, but I like it. It depends whether or not you like going into a dungeon over and over again. To me, it's fun repetitiveness. And because the dungeons are randomly generated each time you enter, it's a different adventure each time. And clearly, the games will last you a very long time. Even if you complete the main story line very quickly, you will be very occupied by the post game. With so many Pokemon to recruit to your team (all of them) and so many legendaries to recruit (all of them), this game will keep you busy for a quite a long time.

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