Far Exceeds Red/Blue By Leaps & Bounds

It's been about a year and a half since the release of PMD Red and Blue, a pair of games that took Pokemon into a whole new direction, from a full-on RPG, to a turn-based strategy/RPG cross, and one that definitely thrilled a good bit of people, including myself. Many people held the new pair of games Darkness and Time in high anticipation, and at long last, it is out. (Well, at least in the one language I can read.)

GRAPHICS: Best unrated.

I'm never one to give a crap about graphics. (No wonder the PS3 isn't held so high in my mind.) Basically, as long as they aren't complete crap, I'll play anything with good gameplay.

SOUND: 10/10

Sounds are quite detailed all around. And, unlike last game, each dungeon has its own music. (Or at least as far as I can tell...a good 20-25 dungeons in) No music is reused.

STORY: 10/10

You can barely remember a thing. You wake up on the beach, with no memory. The only thing you're sure of is that you are human. [Partner] is the first to Pokemon to find you, lying on the beach as if recovering from passing out. To your massive disbelief, he points out that you are a Pokemon. You look at yourself, and...you ARE a Pokemon!

A Koffing and a Zubat come along and mug [partner]'s most precious treasure, his Relic Fragment, a little stone with a peculiar drawing on it. He doesn't know what it does, or where it came from, but it is his personal treasure, and begs your help in getting it back. You give chase through Beach Cave, and from there...

I think I'll stop there. If you want to know more, buy the game. Trust me you do. The story, unbelievably, can actually be (this has gotta be a first for the video gaming world) unpredictable! It's a wonderful story for a video game. At times, I can actually FEEL the story. This is actually the very first game (out of at least a good 100-150 with a story) I've bought in which I created a word document of all the questions I felt would be answered as the story unfolded. I made a few predictions, and all of them were wrong.

WI-FI INTEGRATION: 6/10

Yes, this game has Wi-Fi. No this game does not have multiplayer. The main purpose Wi-Fi serves is player rescues.

As in Red and Blue, players can rescue other players who die in dungeons. But, last time, the only ways were by password and by wireless comm./link cable/dual slot. Passwords were used for random rescues, but it was very hard to successfully post them in multiple places. Wi-Fi, however, gets your rescue out to all Wi-Fi using rescuers, and also allows to rescuer to send a helper Pokemon and item! Passwords do not allow helpers. They could still be sent through wireless comm. etc. in Red and Blue, but only for the gamers with RL friends. (Few and far between) With Wi-Fi, if you die, you can send out your SOS to Wi-Fi, go watch a little TV, and come back to hopefully see your team rescued.

Regrettably, the game is still missing multiplayer features that it could benefit from so much. Having a second player over Wi-Fi or even Wireless play your partner would make the game so much better.
OVERALL: 10/10 (Not an average)

The release of this wonderful sequel came quite quickly, as only 19 months ago PMD Red and Blue was released. In this abnormally small time, PMD has seen some serious improvement, and feels a lot better. They didn't go out of control with changes. They improved what they needed to, and kept what they did right the first time. Between awesome gameplay, wonderful story, and...well...awesome!

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness

The Mystery Dungeon series is a franchise that's been going on since the days of the Super NES – just recently Sega released a remake of one of the original Mystery Dungeon games: Shiren the Wanderer. The latest version in the series is the second one Chunsoft has made for Nintendo, titled Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness. The team created two versions of the same game, and more doesn't necessarily mean better. This sequel isn't much of a step up from the first game in the series, which wasn't all that great to begin with.

Mystery Dungeon features a distinct gaming style: it's all about randomly generated dungeons in a turn-based, real-time RPG hybrid design. The whole idea of Mystery Dungeon revolves around working your way through a series of multi-level dungeons, with each floor being generated on the fly when you get there. What this means is, potentially, you'll never see the same floor layout twice if you decide to enter the same dungeon multiple times, but since the dungeons are incredibly basic, tiled and angled layouts it's not that huge of a deal. And many times the dungeon generator will create a level that requires no exploration at all – you'll often find yourself placed in a room where you're standing right next to the exit.

For the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series, players enter the world of Pokemon as a Pokemon itself. The story revolves around discovering who turned you into a Pokemon and why. Just like in the original Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, your persona is decided at the start after you answer a series of questions about your personality. Depending on how you answer the questions, you can end up as a Bulbasaur, Skitty, Piplup, or one of a dozen and a half Pokemon in the game. Once you've landed on a mysterious beach it doesn't take long for another Pokemon to show up and join your team – his appearance is to give your character someone to play off of, and to help out in battle. This Pokemon partner is just as important as your own: if you let him perish in the game, it's just as punishing as if you were the one that failed in the dungeon.
Just like the original Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, the core gameplay of the sequel revolves around performing jobs that show up on the message board. These jobs are usually rescues or delivery tasks that require players to enter the same dungeon over and over again. As you accomplish more tasks and knock them off the list, you'll drive the story forward and learn more about the mysteries of Time, Darkness, and why there's a team of jerk Pokemon trying to get in your way.

PMD:EoD

This game is very fun. I especially enjoy the graphics, creativity of the characters, and ranging personalities. The dungeons being generated are always different and always fun. I do find some downsides to it as well as things like repetitiveness, difficulty, amount of dialog, and more. I do think this is one of the better games, especially if you enjoy pokemon and/or mystery dungeon.

aMAZING GAME!

The Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series is obviously aimed at the younger crowd, so Chunsoft and Nintendo have clearly lightened up a bit on the Mystery Dungeon difficulty. Shiren the Wanderer was brutal and unforgiving – if you died anywhere in the game, you lost all your possessions, your character lost all of his experience and strength, and you had to start the game right back at level one. In Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, if you lose in a dungeon you lose many of your possessions and all of your money, but you don't lose your progress in the game -- anything you've completed up to that point is saved. There are a few hardcore gamers out there that like Shiren the Wanderer's vicious challenge and difficulty, but personally, even though this game's lightened up for the kids, I think that Pokemon Mystery Dungeon's way of doing it is a much more satisfying game design. At the very least you retain the feeling of accomplishment instead of Shiren the Wanderer's "punched in the gut" sensation every time you die in battle.

Should be called Pokemon EPIC dungeon.

All of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games have more than met my expectations. Between a moving storyline, hard few vs. many battles, and so much to do even after the game is 100% complete storywise, these games are all easily some of the most impressive RPG's I've ever played. And no matter which PMD you choose, the famous ending scene is sure to move you, because until then, you've never realized how much you actually care about that lump of pixels that is your partner. You can spend weeks, even a few months, playing this game and not get bored. This game is truly a masterpiece.