Pokemon fans deserve better than this
I'm a self-proclaimed Pokemon fan, so I had no qualms about picking up this title shortly after it was released. I was hungry for a fun new DS game, plus recent announcements regarding Pokemon Diamond and Pearl left me wanting a Pokemon game. So, I took the plunge, scrounged up forty bucks, and picked up Pokemon Mystery Dungeon next time I stopped by at FYE.
And man, was I disappointed. The game was actually relatively fun at first -- "at first" being categorized as "for the first twenty minutes". Strangely enough for a Pokemon game, the best part of this game is its premise and plot. You, the main character, wake up one day only to find out that you're a Pokemon -- this is where the whole "mystery" part of the game comes from. The process by which you're cast as a Pokemon is also pretty cool, as your forced to answer a number of questions to determine your personality, and a Pokemon is selected with the same or similar personality.
The game unfolds, essentially, in a convoluted attempt to find out exactly what happened to you. You meet up with another Pokemon (you get to decide what Pokemon it is) and decide to start up a Rescue Team. These teams are groups of Pokemon that have banded together to help others in trouble, a need provided by the fact that a number of natural disasters have been occurring recently.
It's weird, really, because the main plot arc has nothing to do with the gameplay premise. That is to say, the Rescue Team doesn't have anything to do with the real intrigue of the game. That said, though, the story is pretty well-told, and the characters (Pokemon!) are well-developed, if only one-dimensionally. Still, the storytelling is surprisingly good for a Pokemon game, which is a nice little surprise.
Another surprise came in the way of the gameplay, but it wasn't a good surprise. I was expecting something relatively fun, perhaps not incredibly deep, but at least as addictive as the regular Pokemon games. I was disappointed, though, and in a very big way. To begin with, the whole gameplay premise of the game is absolutely pathetic. The idea is that you, as a Rescue Team, accept missions from other fellow Pokemon. You'll go to the dungeon specified in their help request, then complete the quest.
The first problem that the game has is that the quality of the missions themselves is very poor. There's no variety whatsoever -- the majority of mission objectives pretty much are "rescue my friend", "take me to see such and such", or "get this item for me". The missions, no matter how they're disguised, are pretty much the same: they all just involve trudging through dungeons trying to get to the designated floor where you can complete the level. And even more pitifully, that last mentioned type of mission type doesn't even require you to go to a dungeon; as long as you have the requested item, or even if you just go buy it at the store (more on that later), the quest can be completed.
The dungeons are actually kind of interesting and deserve a bit more discussion. See, what keeps Pokemon Mystery Dungeon from boring players out of their minds (or does it?) is the fact that every time you play a dungeon, it changes. The dungeon floors are randomly generated each and every time you enter them, ensuring that you never play the same way twice.
The battle system, however, is where this game really meets its maker. Of course, Pokemon games have always thrived off a good bit of repetition; battling wild Pokemon to gain levels, battling trainers, and the like. However, never has repetition been defined quite so exhaustively as it has been in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. If you can tap the A button, you will do well in this game -- oh, and you also need to have mastered the complex intricacies of the D-pad, as well.
See, attacking is a simple matter of pressing A -- this initiates a basic attack, dealing a decent amount of damage. The battles take place in a weird sort of real-time/turn based hybrid. You can move freely, but in between the time that you move, opponents in the dungeons move as well. When you actually engage in a fight, the turn-based aspect of the system becomes much more pronounced, because you can only perform an action when it's your turn.
Simply hitting the A button is enough to do plenty of damage for a standard attack, and then your partner moves. What's wrong with this? Well, the whole meat of the game, battling, is simplified to hitting the A button. I don't care if you're catering to casual gamers: this sort of laziness is absolutely inexcusable. Yes, there is a standard moveset for each Pokemon, but you've got to navigate a number of menus just to get to it. Plus, there's no sort of hotkey system that would allow you to, say, assign a specific attack to a certain button.
There are some other aspects to the gameplay mechanic, but to be honest, they just don't matter. The battle system is so terrible that the pure boredom and monotony that it features will completely overshadow all other aspects of this game. There is a party-building mechanic present in the game; sometimes after you defeat an opponent, he'll want to join your party. If you consent, he'll be available to take with you on subsequent missions. It's a handy sort of feature, especially as the game gets a bit more difficult.
There's also a little Pokemon town that's the hub of your life as a Pokemon. This is the place where you accept missions, interact with other Pokemon, and perform a variety of other mundane tasks. There's a bank for you to store all your Poke (currency of the Pokemon world), which is important because if you lose a mission, all your cash on hand will disappear, an item store to stock up on stuff for your missions, and a little item storage area, where you can store items that you don't think you'll immediately need. It's all pretty standard and all fairly forgettable -- there's only enough in that "town" to make sure that you can scrape by in the game.
In addition, there's also a Move Linker in the town. This Pokemon will link two moves for you for yourself, your partner, or anybody in your party. Linking moves involves connecting two moves so that when you use one, you use both. While it may seem kind of lame or useless, it actually implements a bit of strategy. A good idea is to combine a defense lowering move with a strong offensive one, to serve as a knock-out blow to any foes. It's fun experimenting with this linking idea, and it's a fun way to imbue the game with a bit of strategy.
The game does have a surprising difficulty level, but it's not the type that's good. A lot of games are tough just because they're…well, though. Not the case with Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, though. Instead, this game is tough because it's kind of cheap. Defeating an Pokemon is pathetically easy; as I already mentioned, this involves simply tapping the A button a few times in a row. So, to make the game tough, the developers just cram more enemies into the dungeons. Being overwhelmed by Pokemon and then losing and having to start all over again is immensely annoying, and it kind of feels like the game is cheating. It's really annoying, and will likely just cause you to leave the game once you get far enough into the game.
In terms of both graphics and sound, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon fails miserably. This is essentially a GameBoy Advance game pretending to be a DS game, and it does a poor job of disguising itself. The graphics are absolutely horrendous; they look like early-GBA era visuals. It's absolutely inappropriate, after seeing how graphically powerful the DS really is, to have graphics this poor for a DS game. The music, also is poorly done. The tunes themselves are repetitive, boring, and forgettable, and the audio quality is terrible.
One surprisingly unique aspect of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is the Friend Mail system. If you fail in a dungeon, you'll have to start over. However, if you're too far into a dungeon or you just don't want to have to go through this hassle, you can take the Friend Mail code, given to you by the game, and give it to somebody else. That person can then enter the code in their game and come to your dungeon. If they succeed in reaching you without dying, then you'll be revived and able to continue through the dungeon. It takes the place of multiplayer, but it's a very cool way to interact with other gamers without even needing WiFi play.
Overall, while it does have some decent aspects to it, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon just fails to impress. It seems to start out strong, with a well-done plot. However, as you play the game more and begin to perceive the incredibly repetitive nature of the game, it'll quickly get on your nerves. There's plenty of game time potential here, but I'd bet money that you'll quickly become too bored with this title to want to play it for very long. It's unimpressive in terms of presentation, and is overall a big disappointment. Perhaps if you're purchasing for a young child who doesn't have good motor skills, then the simplicity of this title would be good. Otherwise, though, there are plenty of better RPGs or strategy titles for you to play.