Pokemon Mystery Dungeon gets a Platinum Update. The result: It's surprisedly awesome!
The dungeons play in a unique style. Normally, you travel along the floors of each dungeon while trying to get to the stairs and get to the next floor. You move the Team Leader Pokémon and then the other members follow. You can't control your team mates directly but you can choose which moves they use and what they do through tactics and IQ skills. If an enemy Pokémon appears, you and your team mates move first before they do. If you win you gain experience. If you lose, you would be sent back to base and lose half your money and items. However, you could also get a friend to come help you out and you could continue from where you got defeated.
In Blue/Red Rescue Team, you started your own Rescue Team, made a home base, rescued Pokémon who were lost in the Dungeons, and looked for items. However, things change in PMD: Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky. In the beginning after helping your Partner get his Relic Fragment back, you decide to train at Wigglytuff's Exploration guild as an Apprentice Exploration Team. In other words, Rescue Teams have now become Exploration Teams. Besides helping Pokémon in need, you can accompany them on expeditions and travel with them to explore and discover uncharted places. There are also Outlaw missions, in which you must find a Pokémon within a dungeon and defeat it. You could also do Sentry Duty and play a mini game where you have to guess which Pokémon that the picture of a footprint belongs to. Before heading out on missions, you can stop by Treasure Town where you can find the Kanganstan Storage and the Kecleon Bros Shop. Duskull is now in charge of the Bank; Marowak is the master of the training Dojo, and Electrivire works at the Link Shop, where moves can be linked so Pokémon can use 2-4 moves at once. There are 2 new areas where Xatu opens Treasures you find in the dungeons and where Chansey looks after any eggs you receive as rewards from missions. Even 2 of the other Apprentices within Wigglytuff's Guild have service areas. At Croagunk's shop you can exchange Rare Items for extremely rare items. There are no friend areas in this game but Chimecho takes care of all the recruits (any recruit, it's now unlimited) on your team in a nice organized menu. All the Pokémon introduced in Diamond and Pearl is in these games as well as new items and IQ Skills. Time and Darkness bought new challenges to Pokémon MD and regular fans.
Now, here's where Sky comes in.
First off, new additions have been added to Treasure Town. Spinda has made a Café near the crossroads to Treasure Town. Here, Spinda will make certain items into drinks. Some of them will have their regular effects while others will gain a boost in a certain stat or IQ after drinking it. You may also get new recruits, Pokémon Eggs, or find locations to unlockable Dungeons by making drinks there. To the right of Spinda is the recycle shop, where you can recycle those items you leave in storage and never use to get better items. You could also get unlockable dungeons this way.
Speaking of items, look at the ones you collect before you use them, because there are now lookalike items. Some will hurt you, like the Oren Berry and Reviser Seed. Others are great to find like the Dough Seed, which makes lots of Poke (money) appear on the first floor. At Croagunk's Swap Shop, you could only swap items to get better versions of that item. Now you can swap any of the Exclusive/rare items for any type of Exclusive/rare items.
Missions are easier to get but even more complex. You can now get missions from Pokémon hanging out near Spinda's Cafe or from bottles that wash up on shore. Outlaws are more crafter than before! They now travel in groups or try to escape once they see you. Some Pokémon may send your team a challenge, to test their strength against you and your team. Be careful though because you may come face to face with a Legendary Pokémon!
Finally, to top it all off, this game has new Special Episodes, which are side stories that reveal answers to questions asked about the Pokémon in Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky. Learn how Wigglytuff was he went on his first exploration, Bidoof and Sunflora deal with missions, or what happens to 2 special characters as the result of the battle in the game's climax.
This is the equitant to Platinum Version. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky takes the other 2 games and makes an even better game. I've played Time and loved it and found this to be even more enjoyable. Since it's been awhile since I've played Time, playing through the main story was fun as I noticed the changes that were added to the story and learned new info about the other Pokémon in the Special Episodes. It's like a DVD with Bonus Features. Spinda's Café is a nice new addition to the game, which will prevent Full Storage spaces.
There's only one drawback to this game: The Personality Quiz. Instead of choosing your own starter, like you've been able to do in almost every Pokémon game, you have to take this to decide what you're going to be. To make things worse, you answer "Yes" to the first question, you're more likely to be either one of the newly added starters. Without using the guide, it took me at least 30 tries to get what I wanted.
Besides that, overall I enjoyed this game. I don't plan to stop playing it until I get 100%. If you liked PMD: Rescue Team but never played Time/Darkness, this is the game for you. If you're unsure, you could use GameFly (I believe).