Game review: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon

In the Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance game Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, you take on the role of a human who’s been turned into a pokemon. While trying to unravel the mystery of how you were transformed, you partner up with another pokemon and form a pokemon rescue team. Along with your loyal partner and other pokemon you recruit, you journey through many long and dangerous dungeons, rescuing other pokemon, battling enemy pokemon, and trying to find items and information that will help you solve the mystery of why the pokemon world is currently being shaken by natural disasters, and more importantly, what role does your hero pokemon play in it all.

Plot/Story

Pros: The storyline of PMD is pretty interesting. It’s very unique compared to the other games, and even the anime. The whole mystery of why your character was turned into a pokemon is slowly revealed throughout the story, but the actual main reason isn’t revealed until the end, making the story enjoyably unpredictable and well paced. The Ninetales legend, which causes your character and partner to become “fugitives” for a while, is a nice side-story to the game’s main plot, making it seem like an actual story as much as a game. And now that all the pokemon can talk, their unique personalities are given more of a chance to shine. And even after you complete the main storyline of the game, there are a lot more tasks to do, each with its own subplot, again adding to this game’s enjoyment.

Cons: Although PMD has a great storyline, its continuity compared to the other games is kind of off. It takes place in the “pokemon world” but isn’t that where human trainers and pokemon work together and battle, etc,? So where are all the humans? Are all the pokemon in the game living in some secret world where only pokemon can live? But the pokemon in the game have knowledge of humans, and your character was a human once, so what exactly is the relationship between humans and pokemon in PMD? So where/when this game takes place and how much continuity it has with the other games is kind of confusing. Also, the ending and the whole mystery of your character getting turned into a pokemon still leaves some unanswered questions. We know that you were turned into a pokemon in order to save the world from disaster, but how this happened still isn’t quite clear. Was it Gardevoir’s power, or Ninetales’, or some other supernatural power? And in the end, you decide to stay a pokemon and continue doing rescue missions, but what about your life as a human? Whether your character has any friends, family, or even pokemon missing him in the “human world” still isn’t known. I’ve completed the main storyline of the game but not all of the events and dungeons that occur afterwards, so perhaps there’s a chance that one of them will reveal these unanswered questions, though it doesn’t seem very likely.

Gameplay

Pros: Being able to play a Pokemon RPG game as an actual pokemon instead of a trainer is quite a treat for us Poke-fans. Not only that, but all of the pokemons’ attacks, abilites, etc., are pretty much the same as the other games and nearly all of the 386 pokemon appear in each version of the game. The items in the game are quite different, but it’s not too hard to get familiar with what they do. As for the dungeon activity, which is the main part of the game, it’s still turn-based, just like the regular Pokemon RPG games, but you now have the ability to move your team of pokemon anywhere on the field, whether it be towards enemies, items, etc., or away from them. But there are still lots of great similarities between the other games – for example, pokemon can still hold items, learn up to four attacks, and use TMs and HMs. But there’s plenty uniqueness to PMD as well; you control your lead pokemon, and can assign tactics to the other pokemon in your team, for example, whether they should follow your lead pokemon, attack enemies on their own, flee on their own, etc,. And by feeding them specified gummies, you can raise their IQ so they’ll learn things like how to avoid dungeon traps, use their attacks sparingly, etc., and thus be more efficient in rescue missions. You have the potential to recruit pretty much every pokemon in the game, including the legendaries, and once you complete the game’s main storyline, you can change your leader and partner pokemon, allowing you to form a rescue team of any of your favorite pokemon. All of this adds to PMD’s unique pokemon goodness ^_^

Cons: Despite my love of Pokemon games, I came across a few big issues with PMD. First of all, leveling up your pokemon. It’s nearly ten times harder to raise pokemon in PMD than the regular games. I remember how shocked I was to see that a LV13 pokemon wouldn’t reach LV14 until it gained 6,000+ experience points! In the regular games, a LV13 pokemon would only need a few hundred to reach the next level. Not only that, but pretty much all of the wild pokemon you battle in the dungeons, with the exception of the legendaries, are only worth around 60 to 100 experience points, 200 to 300 in the harder dungeons. So as the dungeons get harder, your pokemon barely get enough experience to level up. The only bit of compensation for this is that with the dungeons and bosses, in the main storyline at least, levels aren’t too important. I was able to beat the LV33 Articuno with just a LV20 or so Bulbasaur and Mudkip without too much trouble, which would be pretty much impossible in the other games. But now that I’ve completed the main storyline and want to use different pokemon for my team, the dungeons get way harder and levels really do start to matter a whole lot, especially now that you want to start using other pokemon besides your experienced hero and partner pokemon. Which leads to the other issue I have with the game; getting the exact pokemon you want for your rescue team after you complete the main story.

First of all, you can only recruit unevolved pokemon, or pokemon who don’t evolve. So let’s say you want a powerful pokemon like Salamence on your team. That means you’ll have to recruit Bagon and raise it to LV55! Remember how hard it is to raise pokemon in PMD? If it takes over 6,000 points to raise a pokemon in the teens, I can’t even imagine how much it would take for the fifties! That would take a ton of dedication and many hours of tireless, repetitive dungeon battle. Even the highest level boss is only LV50, so there’s not much to do with a pokemon at that level. Also, there’s only a limited variety of pokemon that appear in the storyline dungeons, but what if you want a pokemon that only appears in a post-storyline dungeon? For example, I want my favorite pokemon, Vaporeon, in my team. But to get him, I have to first get Eevee, who only appears in Joyous Tower, which I can’t get to until I complete a bunch of extremely hard dungeons. And in order to pass these hard dungeons, I’m still stuck using my original leader and partner pokemon, since they’re the only ones with high enough levels to get through. And even if I do manage to get Eevee, he’ll probably be at a much lower level, so I still wouldn’t be able to use him for the new and harder dungeons. Sure, I could go through a million easy bulletin board missions first to raise up his level to an adequate one, like LV35, but that would seriously take forever. And who knows when I’ll ever get a Water Stone to evolve him. I’d have to go through a bunch more hard dungeons and missions in order to find one, many of which only my original leader and partner would be strong enough to get through. Sure, I could stick with my original leader and partner pokemon for the entire course of the game, since they have the experience from all the storyline dungeons, but the whole point in the later part of the game is to use different pokemon for your team. But probably all of the other pokemon you’ve recruited up to this point are below LV30, so if you try and use them in these later dungeons, you’ll get creamed. So basically what I’m saying with all this is that it’s much harder to build your “dream team” of evenly-raised, high level pokemon in PMD than in the other games. It’s not impossible, but it would take a long, long time – time that you would probably want to spend actually moving along smoothly in the game rather than interrupting the story with repetitive dungeon battle in order to raise your low-level pokemon.

Graphics

Pros: The graphics in PMD aren’t anything spectacular, but they’re good enough for the light “feel” of the game. Despite being small, the sprites of the 386 pokemon are pretty well done. The graphics of the setting such as the dungeons and Pokemon Square are pretty good too – not the most detailed, but they match the bright and colorful world of pokemon well. Also, when some of the pokemon are talking, a small box with their face in it will pop up to show their respective mood, whether they’re angry, scared, etc., which is pretty cute too.

Cons: What’s unique about the game isn’t that there are two different versions, but that one version is made for the Nintendo DS and one for Game Boy Advance. But graphics-wise, there really isn’t a difference between the two. So DS players looking for superior graphics are going to be disappointed. There really isn’t much need to use the DS stylus and touch screen either. The DS does have a few advantages, such as the dual-screen, where you can choose between a few different views in the dungeons, like whether you want the dungeon map to appear on the top screen, or overlapping the main screen, etc,. But GBA players only get one choice, with the dungeon map overlapping the main screen, which I think is kind of obtrusive. Also, as I mentioned, only some of the main pokemon get that small “face-box” showing their expressions as they talk. It would be great if all 386 had it, but I guess that would be too much =P

Conclusion

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is a unique and enjoyable addition to the line of Pokemon games. It has its share of flaws, but there’s plenty to do in it and it guarantees many hours of unique gameplay. Although it can get repetitive, it’s not boring, and although non-pokemon fans probably wouldn’t get much out of it, fans of the other Pokemon games definitely will ^_^

My rating for this game: 3.5 out of 5

Ups: – Interesting storyline
– Game doesn’t end quickly; lots to do
– Good amount of similarities between the other games, but a lot of uniqueness too

Downs: – Very hard to raise pokemon
– Hard to form your perfect team
– Dungeons can get a bit repetitive and difficult