No, it's not that much different from last time, but that doesn't stop it being just as much fun.Definitely worth a look
No Pain, No Game
Or maybe it should be a big grin worn through a mask of tiredness and two thumbs worn down to the knuckle, but still definitely up. You see, if there's one thing that Time/Darkness can be described as, it's draining. Brightly coloured and cute it all may be, but there's a whole world of random dungeons, strategic forward planning and excessive level grinding behind those pretty eyes. That the game pushes down on the difficulty pedal very early on doesn't help matters and things get really tough after just the third dungeon. Needless to say, you'll probably be cursing the harsh 'lose random items and all your cash each time you die' rule before you're barely out of your exploration team nappies.
Of course, we doubt many Pokémon fans will complain about such vicious treatment, seeing as it's been the staple of all Pokémon adventures and the need to build up the stats of your Pokémon through repetitive backtracking and combat is really nothing new. However, Time/Darkness do seem to overly punish those who try to advance before they're properly ready. True, much of the failure will be on your part - you'll be screwed if you don't make use of the bank to store away your cash or buy enough items to keep your party's strength up - but it's still a steeper difficulty curve than we would have expected from a kid-friendly game.
But, it's hard to stay mad at a game that's not only irresistibly cute and well realised, but also offers far more depth than it first lets on. The flexibility to build up a Pokémon team consisting of whoever you fancy, explore a huge number of additional dungeons aside from the main quest and generally do as you please for the most part might not be any different to previous Mystery Dungeon titles, but they're certainly most welcome. Saving the stranded teams of your friends via Wi-Fi is also a nice feature, although we can't help but think a co-operative multiplayer mode might have been better suited.
Still, we'll save the wishlist for when Chunsoft gets round to making the inevitable third game. As it stands, Time/Darkness don't exactly reinvent the Pokémon wheel but they're still just as round, useful and ultimately enjoyable as they ever were. If you can consider wheels 'enjoyable', that is