Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness (Nintendo DS, 2008)

It's been about a year and a half since the release of PMD Red and Blue, a pair of games that took Pokemon into a whole new direction, from a full-on RPG, to a turn-based strategy/RPG cross, and one that definitely thrilled a good bit of people, including myself. Many people held the new pair of games Darkness and Time in high anticipation, and at long last, it is out. (Well, at least in the one language I can read.)

GRAPHICS: Best unrated.

I'm never one to give a crap about graphics. (No wonder the PS3 isn't held so high in my mind.) Basically, as long as they aren't complete crap, I'll play anything with good gameplay.

SOUND: 10/10

Sounds are quite detailed all around. And, unlike last game, each dungeon has its own music. (Or at least as far as I can tell...a good 20-25 dungeons in) No music is reused.

STORY: 10/10

You can barely remember a thing. You wake up on the beach, with no memory. The only thing you're sure of is that you are human. [Partner] is the first to Pokemon to find you, lying on the beach as if recovering from passing out. To your massive disbelief, he points out that you are a Pokemon. You look at yourself, and...you ARE a Pokemon!

A Koffing and a Zubat come along and mug [partner]'s most precious treasure, his Relic Fragment, a little stone with a peculiar drawing on it. He doesn't know what it does, or where it came from, but it is his personal treasure, and begs your help in getting it back. You give chase through Beach Cave, and from there...

I think I'll stop there. If you want to know more, buy the game. Trust me you do. The story, unbelievably, can actually be (this has gotta be a first for the video gaming world) unpredictable! It's a wonderful story for a video game. At times, I can actually FEEL the story. This is actually the very first game (out of at least a good 100-150 with a story) I've bought in which I created a word document of all the questions I felt would be answered as the story unfolded. I made a few predictions, and all of them were wrong.

WI-FI INTEGRATION: 6/10

Yes, this game has Wi-Fi. No this game does not have multiplayer. The main purpose Wi-Fi serves is player rescues.

As in Red and Blue, players can rescue other players who die in dungeons. But, last time, the only ways were by password and by wireless comm./link cable/dual slot. Passwords were used for random rescues, but it was very hard to successfully post them in multiple places. Wi-Fi, however, gets your rescue out to all Wi-Fi using rescuers, and also allows to rescuer to send a helper Pokemon and item! Passwords do not allow helpers. They could still be sent through wireless comm. etc. in Red and Blue, but only for the gamers with RL friends. (Few and far between) With Wi-Fi, if you die, you can send out your SOS to Wi-Fi, go watch a little TV, and come back to hopefully see your team rescued.

Regrettably, the game is still missing multiplayer features that it could benefit from so much. Having a second player over Wi-Fi or even Wireless play your partner would make the game so much better.
OVERALL: 10/10 (Not an average)

The release of this wonderful sequel came quite quickly, as only 19 months ago PMD Red and Blue was released. In this abnormally small time, PMD has seen some serious improvement, and feels a lot better. They didn't go out of control with changes. They improved what they needed to, and kept what they did right the first time. Between awesome gameplay, wonderful story, and...well...awesome!

This game is very fun. I especially enjoy the graphics, creativity of the characters, and ranging personalities. The dungeons being generated are always different and always fun. I do find some downsides to it as well as things like repetitiveness, difficulty, amount of dialog, and more. I do think this is one of the better games, especially if you enjoy pokemon and/or mystery dungeon.

The Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series is obviously aimed at the younger crowd, so Chunsoft and Nintendo have clearly lightened up a bit on the Mystery Dungeon difficulty. Shiren the Wanderer was brutal and unforgiving – if you died anywhere in the game, you lost all your possessions, your character lost all of his experience and strength, and you had to start the game right back at level one. In Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, if you lose in a dungeon you lose many of your possessions and all of your money, but you don't lose your progress in the game -- anything you've completed up to that point is saved. There are a few hardcore gamers out there that like Shiren the Wanderer's vicious challenge and difficulty, but personally, even though this game's lightened up for the kids, I think that Pokemon Mystery Dungeon's way of doing it is a much more satisfying game design. At the very least you retain the feeling of accomplishment instead of Shiren the Wanderer's "punched in the gut" sensation every time you die in battle.

All of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games have more than met my expectations. Between a moving storyline, hard few vs. many battles, and so much to do even after the game is 100% complete storywise, these games are all easily some of the most impressive RPG's I've ever played. And no matter which PMD you choose, the famous ending scene is sure to move you, because until then, you've never realized how much you actually care about that lump of pixels that is your partner. You can spend weeks, even a few months, playing this game and not get bored. This game is truly a masterpiece.

I bought this Pokemon spinoff because I wanted to try something new in Pokemon. I got this along with another spinoff, Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia. I must say, I enjoyed Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia tons more. A lot of people compare these two spinoffs with each other, and put both of them down. If you're deciding between the Ranger spinoffs and Mystery Dungeon spinoffs, Ranger is by far better. This game lacks the polish and depth that Ranger has. I have bought the original Ranger and Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue team to further enjoy/compare (respectively)the spinoffs of the Pokemon series.