Review: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Blue Rescue Team (DS)
Overview:
This isn't your typical Pokemon game. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is the first game in the series where you can actually play as a Pokemon, instead of some kid who just rules the Pokemon world with an iron fist. Mystery Dungeon has two versions, just like the rest of the games in the series, the Red version being for the Gameboy Advance and the Blue version being for the DS, which allows for dual pack gameplay using both of the DS's slots. Gameplay is at times basic and complicated, navigating through dungeons with your Pokemon Rescue Team. Think turn based Diablo. Being a huge Pokemon fan, I dove right in hoping for an immersive and detailed game with a lot of fanservice. Did I get it? Click the jump to find out. (You know you want to click the jump because you just loooooooove Pokemon)
Shininess:
The version I was sent was the Nintendo DS Blue version, which essentially is the same as the GBA version except it has optional touch screen controls, and various information is shown on the top screen. This means that you are getting a DS game with Gameboy Advance graphics, which may put off some people. The re-organization of information is odd and feels a little tacked-on at times, and the addition of the touch screen controls is more clumsy than useful. You'll find all your favorite Pokemon here, with the same sprites we've seen for the past, what, 6 years? Yeah, not much improvement. The designs of the dungeons are sparse and uninspired, giving you very little incentive to discover new ones. Except if you gotta catch em all, as it were. The music is your typical Pokemon fare, nothing too catchy but energetic when it needs to be, and calm when is appropriate. It just exists. But you don't get a Pokemon game for the graphics or the soundtrack! You get it for the
Funness:
Boy, I do love me some Pokemon. I spent upwards of 300 hours on Pokemon Ruby and almost caught 'em all. As it were. Sure, the storylines are cheesy and the schmaltz is laid on thick with the cute wittle Pokeymans but it's always been a solid RPG series with an excellent amount of replayability, with top notch multiplayer to boot. Take all the good things I have said about Pokemon and subtract everything positive. This leaves you with how much fun Mystery Dungeon is. Granted, this is the first Pokemon game I have played that seems intentionally skewed younger. You may think Pokemon games are for kids, but they actually hold up really well for an adult gamer like me. Mystery Dungeon is repetitive, over-complicated and boring. The gameplay goes like this: you walk to the post office and accept some rescue jobs. You set your team of Pokemon and you go on said rescue job in a dungeon (with instructions like "Help! My darling Magnemite is stuck on B4F! You must save him from B4F!"). The dungeon looks like the last five dungeons you have crawled through. In there, you fight some Pokemon and gain levels. You find some berries. You look for the stairs to the next level. You find the stairs. Repeat until the level where the Pokemon needing rescuing is, and the dungeon is over, transporting you back to the post office. Rinse and repeat.
The game also throws you in to this really complicated turn based/action style gameplay that is so completely unfamiliar, and doesn't give you a solid tutorial until a couple dungeons in. Needless to say, I didn't stay to catch them all. Many a Pokemon are stuck in a cave, probably starving to death now because of me.
Some of the multiplayer seems interesting, especially the dual pack mode, where your friend on the GBA version can send an "SOS" and you can go and "rescue" them. Other than that, this game just can't be fun except for hard core Pokemon fans. Which, apparently, I am not.
They are gonna take my membership card away from me, I just know it.
Worthiness:
Unless you are a hard core Pokemon fan, I wouldn't recommend picking this up. I wouldn't even recommend this for kids who haven't tried Pokemon before. In order to "get" this game, you probably have to own all previous versions, watch the cartoon show religiously, have Pikachu printed on your underwear and be able to actively debate the merits of poison versus electric Pokemon while wearing said underwear. There doesn't seem to be any benefits for purchasing the DS version besides having a different version than your friends so you can do the linking mode. Personally, I wouldn't recommend either version. Spend your money on something more worthwhile, like world peace. I hear world peace is accepting Paypal now.
Score: 1/5 Skip it!
What say you?!