Pokémon: Fushigi no Dungeon Blue Import Hands-On

We recently got our hands on an import copy of Pokémon: Fushigi no Dungeon Blue, an action role-playing game that melds Nintendo's pocket monsters with a long-running dungeon-crawling series that lets you explore randomly generated maps. The game bypasses the whole Pokémon trainer concept found in most games in the series, instead putting you in direct control over good old Squirtle and some of his pals, including Charmander and Pikachu. We spent some quality time with the crew and are here to give you our first impressions of how this Diablo-style Pokémon game finally turned out.

The title alone suggests that this game requires a working knowledge of Japanese, and sure enough, we discovered that this Pokémon isn't particularly import-friendly. Though it's clearly suited for a younger audience, the game is still packed with text-based menus, prompts, and questions. It's too bad more of this wasn't presented graphically (such as with icons representing your various items or moves), as if nothing else, it would have helped improve the game's presentation. The Pokémon themselves look quite good here, emoting cutely and generally resembling their counterparts from the anime. But the rest of the game looks fairly plain, with sparse dungeon settings that appear as randomly thrown together as they actually are. Fortunately, the Pokémon themselves are the stars of the show, and they're unmistakably familiar. All the graphics are 2D, closer in quality to a nice-looking Game Boy Advance game than to some of the latest graphically impressive DS titles.

Squirtle is depicted prominently on the game's packaging--and is certainly is blue like the title suggests. But when we answered the survey at the very beginning of the game, we wound up in control of Machop, a bruiser of a Pokémon who prefers busting Pokémon heads instead of shooting water droplets at them. Right off the bat, we befriended Charmander, and soon enough the two of us were spelunking through a dungeon filled with pidgies and other wild Pokémon. As in any good dungeon crawl, the object is to beat up the bad guys while searching for exits to lower levels, all while gaining experience and leveling up. Given the tried-and-true Fushigi no Dungeon format of this game, we could tell right away that the action could get pretty addictive.

It's also quite forgiving, which we can safely report, since our poor Machop got himself thrashed. But there's no Game Over, at least not at first, since you just wind up back at home, having slept off the damage. The gameplay itself mimics the traditional turn-based combat of the series, since even though you run around in real time, when faced with an opposing Pokémon, you trade hits. It's possible to attack diagonally, and the strategy seems to involve positioning your partner Pokémon so they can back you in your attack. For instance, Charmander helped weaken our opponents with his leer ability, while we softened them up with Machop's tackles. The partner character isn't controlled directly, but you can influence what it does to help you out. It's also clear from the start that you can have up to four Pokémon in your party at a time.

The game doesn't do much to take advantage of the Nintendo DS, with most of the action playing out on the bottom screen. Sometimes the top screen is just plain blank, such as during the introductory cutscenes. You do have touch-screen access to the main menu options, though they're tucked away along the bottom edge and are sort of hard to put your finger on. But the game is quite easy to get the hang of, and it moves nice and quickly. In fact, there's even a way to rush your Pokémon across the screen in a dungeon so that you don't get the feeling that you're running around doing nothing.

Pokémon: Fushigi no Dungeon Blue is basically Pokémon meets Diablo, though in fairness, the Fushigi no Dungeon series actually predates 1996's influential action RPG. It's a different spin on the franchise, but it seems to get a lot of the source material nailed down correctly, while setting all the battles in some randomly generated dungeon levels filled with foes and loot. There are no current plans for this game to be released in North America, so Pokémon fans might want to consider getting their hands on an import copy--or they might want to start crossing their fingers in hopes that a translation will make it overseas.