Anybody who has ever played the original Pokémon games can tell a lot about them. They have excellent graphics and music while the story sucks as it is always repetitive. But the Mysterie series are very different. The gameplay differs, the game has an actual story, there are more things that make sense, so the series got popular as well. The idea is simple: You form a rescue team with somebody who you just met but in the same time, you have to find out why you became a Pok?mon as you were originally a human! Being a former human also means that you can do and see various things that normal Pokémon can not do, which is why the game is so interesting.

One of my first Nintendo DS games was Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time. I loved that game, and I have almost completed it 100% so after that I decided to try Red Rescue team as it is for the Gameboy Advance. I played it for a few days but stopped with it. I later tried to pick it up and I stopped with it again. But now, I am actually playing it and it is very funny, so that is the reason why I have decided to write this review.

Graphics: 10
I do not have to say a lot for this, it is well known that the graphics in Pokémon games are always excellent. There are animations for the various faces of characters, they have walking designs for each Pokémon, almost every dungeon has a different look, there are just great graphics in every part. Everything is clear and recognizable, water looks like water, lava looks like lava, lapis looks like lapis. For the battle moves there are also little things like tears, scratches, vibrations for moves like growl and so on. There are also many moving things at the background like wind, clouds, water, flowers and so on.

Sound: 8
The music in Pokémon games is also known to be very good and this is no exception. Every place has an unique tune that fits well with the place. In fact, some of the musics were so good that you can hear it back in some of the music from the newer games. There are also little sounds for battle moves, there is this weird sound you hear when you talk with others, when you completed a dungeon and many more. You have musics for when you steal, for when you are in danger, for when you are shocked, for when you have an emotional conversation, you can tell that there is a music for almost everything. The only thing that bothers me a bit is that dungeons sometimes have 'deeper parts' like a place named Mt. Blaze, a mountain that is divided in two parts as you have the mountaint itself and the peak. The peak music is just a remix of the original mountain music and while it sounds cool, I do not like it very much.

Addictiveness: 7
Well, if I have tried this game two times before I got serious with it, it has to be addicting right? It is, you can always pick up with the game and the story, the system is a bit difficult to follow but if you understand it then it is pretty easy and there are many things that keep you playing this, new dungeons, Pokémon to recruit, weird missions with great rewards, finding gummis to improve your IQ or extra sidequests. The main thing that picked me up is the story, as it is one of the few games with one of the strangest, largest and most varying stories ever.

Story: 10
The story of the game is incredibly large. It starts with you answering several questions to determine which Pokémon you are. It also depends on if you are a male or a female. I was the calm male, Mudkip. Then you get to pick a partner, I always go with Treecko. Then you are being waked up by somebody, it turns out to be your partner! You only remember one thing, you were a human! So your partner is confused at first but he likes you when suddenly a Butterfree comes in. She has lost her child because there have been a lot of nature disasters lately. So you and your partner go out to rescue a Caterpie after he got stuck into a forest. When you succeed, the mother will give you a tiny reward and you and your partner decide it would be cool to start a rescue team. Throughout the story, many things happen. Pokémon get abducted, you become a fugitive(!), monsters are being woken up by the nature disasters and many other things. The story sure is crazy and there and there are so many things that the story takes a long while to completely understand.

Depth: 8
This game has more than 30 major dungeons and also extra dungeons for training or just for small sidequests. You can do many things: Doing missions for interesting items, talking with Pokémon at the Pokémon Square, training in the Makuhita Dojo, trying to recruit more Pokémon, collecting money for Friend Areas and other things as well. The game mostly focusses on the dungeons but outside those there is a lot to do as well. You can invest a lot of time in the games, playing it for more than 100 hours is no exception. You can try to recruit every Pokémon which is somewhat easier as you can get all the Pokémon with secret passwords instead of trading but there is also one Pokémon who is so hard to recruit as there is a very difficult way to get one: Kecleon. They usually sell things in dungeons and when you try to steal something they come after you. How longer you walk around, how more of them come. They are incredibly strong and if you want to recruit one you need extra things like hard-to-obtain items so you can get one with a very low chance of success.?

Difficulty: 7
In the beginning you just need to train your Pokémon up if dungeons are too tough or you just bring in an extra team member. A great help in this game are Revive Seeds, seeds that will automatically revive you if you would be defeated by a Pokémon. They are extremely useful against bosses as most of them are overpowered. But later on you have to think about many things. When you get poisoned you have to be very cautious of your HP. IQ skills are very useful as well. All in all, this game can get very tough if you don't train a lot.?


That is it for this review, it took me a long time to write but it was worth it as this is my first review with more than 1000 words! *Cheers*
I hoped you like it and if you have feedback or advice then please reply if you have the time! Have a nice day and until my next review!

Very nice review Juul . Everything is spread out and nice, your word phrasing was really good, and you went into detail, which is really nice. Only thing I would change is to make it longer, since I had a lot of fun reading it.

I can agree with most of this, and really, it's quite a coincidence, I just started a new playthrough of this a few days ago

maguc : Thanks a lot, this is by far my best review as I took an interesting game, you can't tell a lot about Winnie The Pooh games I would have made it longer if I knew more, had more time (I was in a bit of a rush) and if Enii didn't ask me to come to the chatroom.

How far are you at the moment? I'm going to the 'Magma Cavern' right now.

juuldude : Yea, this is very good one, and a bit more words would have been nice, but it's still a very good one.

And I'm at the point just before the dungeon with Groudon,

maguc : I swear you, that was where I was! I did it yesterday and I knew that. Now I'm getting close to the end of the game...

This is a REALLY nice review!!!

I've actually been curious about the mystery dungeon games a few times, but I've never really tried them.  I felt like they'd just be too different from regular Pokémon games , and that they were perhaps geared towards more childish minds.  ( I guess you would make that argument for regular Pokémon games though. XD)

When I saw your thread title, I figured it had to be about one of these games, which is why I chose to read it.  I honestly didn't even KNOW there was a whole series of mystery dungeon games.... I thought there were one or two, and that all the rest were hacks.

I think you drew a little more curiosity from me.. Mainly in comparing the diversity of the dungeon games, to the redundancy of the regular games.  Are they each really unique?  You said that in all of those games, you play a human who has been transformed into a Pokémon.  So how to do the stories differ?

Also, I read that there are many things that you can do in the game?  So it's not based on battling like other Pokémon games?  So is it a collection of little mini-games and puzzles?

Depending on how many games in the series there are, what you do during playing the game (battling vs puzzles), and how different the plots are, I might actually give in and give one of these a shot some time.

Singelli : Wow, thank you! Like you said, there are many more games but this was the only GBA game, its counterpart, Blue Rescue Team was made for the Nintendo DS. Yeah, people say Pokémon is based for childish minds, maybe that is somewhat true but it can be played by anyone in my opinion. How the stories differ? I can't give too much away but in this game you can talk with somebody who has become a spirit while in Explorers of Time/Darkness you take a look in the future and in the space sometimes. That's also how you rescue one of the first Pokémon. 

Well, it's focussing mainly on Mystery Dungeons, there you can find items, do boss battles and clear missions. I haven't encountered any mini game or puzzle so far but I know that Explorers of Time/Darkness have one minigame where you have to take a look at people their feet and name a Pokémon by them. 

Battling is still important. When you walk through a dungeon, you will encounter Pokémon who will come straight for you once they have seen you. You do little battles with your partner where you can use a normal attack or a move, so unlike the normal series where you are a human a Pokémon never has to use struggle. The plot of this game is pretty short but there is a post-game part that I'm doing now which is bigger I believe. 

I hope this has answered your questions, if you have more questions then I can help you with them and I hope you will try this game once!

juuldude :  That was actually a VERY helpful response.  Thank you!  

I think I must have misread part of your review originally, which is why I asked about the mini-games or puzzles. I thought I read something about there being 100 little games you could try based on each pokemon or ... something. Blah.... I've read a lot of reviews today. They might all be meshing together  in my head. XD

Singelli : Really? Thanks!

Oh, no problem, I guess it must be hard to read so many reviews and do your work as a site staff. 

A great review as always  this was one of my favorite Pokémon games as there was a story and all the other ones are pretty much the same game and I never heard of Explorers of time I will have to check that one out. I always enjoy reading your reviews keep up the good work.

TheReaper7290 : Thank you, I know you like reading reviews and you also make reviews sometimes, I appreciate that

juuldude : Awesome review! This review does this game justice!

gamerforlifeforever2 : Thank you! It got so good as I had finished a big part of the game, when you make reviews it's much easier to find good words and funny details if you finished the game

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is one of those series that gets utterly wasted by reviewers but praised by the public in general. I like your review, and love the series, even though it's not my favorite Pokemon spin-off series (that' probably Pokemon Ranger). There's so much that can be done in this game, like in any Pokemon game. Out of all the Mystery Dungeon games I've played, I think I like the originals the best.

supernerd117 : I didn't know the reviewers think it's bad, I've only seen positive reviews from the public in general. I like it very much, I just wish the story would have been longer. The Mystery Dungeons on the DS have a way longer story.