I haven't written a retrospective review in a while, but there's something in the background that I've been working on that I think writing a base review for the original game would benefit from. That, and I honestly haven't seen any reviews talking positively about the gameplay for all the high scores discussing how much they loved this childhood classic. So, why not knock out two birds with one stone?
The gameplay of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series plays out like a very traditional turn based dungeon crawler roguelike. As a newly transformed amnesiac Pokemon who can only faintly remember being a human, you and your partner must traverse floor after floor of randomized mystery dungeons layouts, fighting scores of hostile Pokemon while micromanaging your hunger (represented by a belly capacity), health, and stamina (PP) to safely make it out in one piece. In between dungeons, you can participate in the daily toilings of Treasure Town as a member of Wigglytuff's Guild, claiming fortune and fame in the name of adventure while helping out those in need through various job board requests and bounties upon those who seek to do wrongdoing to others. By completing quest after quest and gaining rewards and experience along the way, and recruiting a few friends and allies in your journey too, you and your partner slowly begin to make out your place in this familiar yet ever so sprawling universe and seek to put an end toward the growing calamity that threatens to put an end to the very domain of life and death as we know it.
Perhaps the greatest strength of Explorers of Sky to me is that it's almost a picture perfect translation of the Pokemon JRPG turn based battling system as a spinoff, in that almost every move has a purpose and can't be easily labeled as "useless." Weaker moves with lower base power and higher PP have their use because you can't just go to a Pokemon Center whenever you run out of PP; you have to use a Max Elixir to restore PP, and inventory space is a very coveted resource. Meanwhile, a lot of these weaker moves also distinguish themselves from their stronger cousins, in that many of these weaker moves have differing range (i.e. using Heat Wave or Lava Plume over Flamethrower to hit all enemies in a room over all enemies surrounding the player respectively) that can be strategically used to pick off enemies (or deal with more than one at a time) that would otherwise pose a more significant threat up close and personal. Stat gain and reduction moves like Growl are just as useful too, because health is absolutely a resource when you don't have all day to just sit around and recover, and Vile Seeds (which decrease enemy defenses when thrown) are far too valuable to just be used on singular dungeon enemies. Even the gimmick moves that you'd never normally see in competitive Pokemon battling or factored in during min-maxing have niches here. Pay Day, the move that gave you a bit more moola if used in Trainer battles, is suddenly invaluable in EoS because Wigglytuff's Guild is extremely stingy and will take away 90% of all your Poke currency earnings from jobs. Recycle, the move that was really only used on the "Funbro" infinite stall set on Pokemon Showdown, can be used here to restore used TMs, an absolute godsend when TMs are a super rare treasure/lottery earning and cost thousands of Poke to purchase from Kecleon that you probably don't have. Even Rock Smash, a base 40 attack that's forever relegated to HM slaves in the mainstream Pokemon games, has a practical use here as a reliable way to destroy dungeon walls that can hide treasure and provide safer routing to other rooms and stairs. I could go on and on about the creativity of the greater Pokemon system translated into the roguelike medium, but needless to say, there's a surprising amount of freedom of expression to be found in the combat in Explorers of Sky from the moves alone.
I'll point out the elephant in the room as a follow-up; one of the biggest gripes that I've always had with the Pokemon series is the huge amount of luck/RNG to be found with the combat, and Explorers of Sky is no exception to the rule. Remember the gen 1 miss? EoS often feels a bit like that but more exaggerated; moves love to miss randomly for no apparent reason, and even moves in the base games that typically have a starting accuracy of 100% like Thunderbolt (as opposed to stronger moves that have a set lower accuracy like Thunder) and the standard attack from tapping A can miss for no apparent reason. In general, all attacks in EoS have "Hit Ratios" that don't align 1 to 1 with accuracy in the other Pokemon games, and in fact have two accuracy checks if the move is damaging. As such, I can agree that combat can be a bit frustrating as such; Water Gun shouldn't just randomly miss, Dragon Breath shouldn't be paralyzing me every other hit, and Mud Shot shouldn't be slowing me down every single time. Often, the randomized behavior of enemies plays just as huge of a part in survival as your inherent skill. And yet, I think this challenge is what makes Explorers of Sky so interesting to me; learning to roll with the blows and mitigate the danger plays a significant part in your personal growth and a strong reason why I find EoS a lot more fun at times than the main series.
To elaborate upon that, there are two major factors regarding this "problem" of taking damage, where defeating the opponent with little negative consequence is the solution. The first factor is in regards to recovery and acting during danger; even when crippled or affected by RNG, there is usually something you can do. For example, while paralyzed, your Pokemon's turn speed is halved and it won't be able to use moves or standard attack, but you can still move around and use items. So, one solution here is to switch places with your ally Pokemon and have them take up the gauntlet, or you could instead throw a seed at the enemy Pokemon to cripple them or throw damaging items in lieu of an attack, and so on so forth. Similarly, when your Pokemon is cringing as a side effect from getting hit by Rock Slide or Bite, etc, you can still move despite not being able to attack with moves, so a perfectly viable solution is to step backwards and force the opponent to approach while you regain your turn. Playing in part to this is also the preparation beforehand; negative statuses and damage can be mitigated or prevented entirely with the right items, IQ skills (from ingesting enough Gummis), and seeds or berries. In a similar vein, traps and randomly spawned Monster Houses (rooms where tons of enemy Pokemon suddenly descend upon you) can be a huge pain, but having the right ranged moves and offensive Orbs for crowd control can save a run from total chaos. Despite how difficult and often unfair the game can feel, there really is a certain satisfaction to being prepared for all of these different nightmare scenarios and carefully plotting out your next moves to navigate and escape dungeons with great loot and valuable experience.
I'd be remiss not to mention the new additions and changes between Explorers of Time/Darkness and Sky, which is considered to be the "definitive" version. Time and Darkness both have exclusive items (Vile vs Violent seed) and exclusive Pokemon (picking between Celebi and Mewtwo for example), and Sky, as the Platinum of its series, forgoes this entirely; the whole gang is here to be recruited to maximize your friend list. Sky's also got Spinda's Cafe, which streamlines item management and stat growth in the form of drinks that can provide random stat boosts alongside using up seeds/berries/Gummis and a Recycle Shop that finally provides a reliable source of Reviver Seeds without spending over a thousand Poke and has a Prize ticket lottery where you can win rare TMs among other great loot by discarding unnecessary/useless items. There's also the post-game Shaymin Village + Sky Peak sidequest with tons of other Pokemon to recruit (including, you guessed it, Shaymin!) and Sky Gifts to send to your friends. Finally, Explorers of Sky has some side episodes where you can play as other important story Pokemon facing their own struggles and further illustrating the depth of characterization to be found in the game. I'd be spoiling too many memorable moments by explaining the plot details here, but needless to say, it was great learning more about the background of those that the protagonist meets in their adventure, and you won't want to miss any of those episodes.
Many before me have spoken at length about this, but ultimately I think the reason why Explorers of Sky is so compelling is because the game is a journey of growth. Of course, there's the gameplay perspective regarding this growth; the mechanics that you deal with at the beginning of the game are the exact same as the mechanics required to tackle the final dungeons and the challenging and plentiful post-game dungeons. While there are more elements of danger to juggle and more creative elements to abuse, it all boils down to the same tense yet satisfying turn by turn dungeon crawling roguelike combat, just with higher stakes on both your end and the opponents' end; the personal growth through what your team has accomplished and become feels so gratifying because it was all your own hard work, and your increased experience and knowledge base will continue to carry you through. Nevertheless, there's also the journey of personal growth as reflected in the overarching narrative. Again, I won't get too nitty gritty with the details in case others want to make the dive, but you and your partner really do go from anxiety ridden, budding greenhorns to legends of Treasure Town by overcoming previously thought to be insurmountable obstacles and fighting against the very nature of time and destiny itself. I'd be lying if I said there weren't plenty of moments where I teared up from the emotional stakes across the colorful cast, and the fantastic soundtrack and vibrant visuals really help sell the spirit of adventure and fighting for those who have supported you every step of the way.
Look, I get it; as a kid who absolutely had to get his hands on every single Pokemon game imaginable and has still been closely following the future of the franchise, Pokemon has changed. Going from a once beloved and epic monster collector battle simulator where some kid from the middle of nowhere became a champion, to game after game, sequel after sequel of watered-down, repetitive, thoughtless, and empty hand-holding titles inundated with padding and souless exhaustion has not done Nintendo's cash cow any favors in terms of critical reputation, and the perception of my once favorite franchise has nosedived off a cliff. Even going back to classic Pokemon spin-off titles from my childhood has not held up well against my nostalgia, and I've been constantly disappointed so, so, many damn times. Finally, it didn't help that the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon franchise met a strange stagnation after its peak, with the immediate WiiWare successors only being released in Japan and the following global successor resulting in a noticeable drop in quality. Having said that, even in the face of the growing critical reevaluation, we'll always have Explorers of Sky. It's proof that Pokemon, at some point, was more than just another copy and pasted 4Kids sellout that's taken us for granted and in fact had some of the most complex, varied, and compelling gameplay that I'm happy to say more than holds up and remain glad that it was an integral part of my childhood. From the little I've played of the original Pokemon Mystery Dungeon's remake, I'm cautiously optimistic regarding the franchise's future, but even so, maybe the era of the superfluous videogame remake doesn't matter here. Sometimes, it's just nice to revisit the good times and remember that despite all the doom and gloom in the modern video game industry, they'll never be able to take away those moments that define us; maybe those then, were the real treasures that we've been searching for all along in Explorers of Sky.
The gameplay of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series plays out like a very traditional turn based dungeon crawler roguelike. As a newly transformed amnesiac Pokemon who can only faintly remember being a human, you and your partner must traverse floor after floor of randomized mystery dungeons layouts, fighting scores of hostile Pokemon while micromanaging your hunger (represented by a belly capacity), health, and stamina (PP) to safely make it out in one piece. In between dungeons, you can participate in the daily toilings of Treasure Town as a member of Wigglytuff's Guild, claiming fortune and fame in the name of adventure while helping out those in need through various job board requests and bounties upon those who seek to do wrongdoing to others. By completing quest after quest and gaining rewards and experience along the way, and recruiting a few friends and allies in your journey too, you and your partner slowly begin to make out your place in this familiar yet ever so sprawling universe and seek to put an end toward the growing calamity that threatens to put an end to the very domain of life and death as we know it.
Perhaps the greatest strength of Explorers of Sky to me is that it's almost a picture perfect translation of the Pokemon JRPG turn based battling system as a spinoff, in that almost every move has a purpose and can't be easily labeled as "useless." Weaker moves with lower base power and higher PP have their use because you can't just go to a Pokemon Center whenever you run out of PP; you have to use a Max Elixir to restore PP, and inventory space is a very coveted resource. Meanwhile, a lot of these weaker moves also distinguish themselves from their stronger cousins, in that many of these weaker moves have differing range (i.e. using Heat Wave or Lava Plume over Flamethrower to hit all enemies in a room over all enemies surrounding the player respectively) that can be strategically used to pick off enemies (or deal with more than one at a time) that would otherwise pose a more significant threat up close and personal. Stat gain and reduction moves like Growl are just as useful too, because health is absolutely a resource when you don't have all day to just sit around and recover, and Vile Seeds (which decrease enemy defenses when thrown) are far too valuable to just be used on singular dungeon enemies. Even the gimmick moves that you'd never normally see in competitive Pokemon battling or factored in during min-maxing have niches here. Pay Day, the move that gave you a bit more moola if used in Trainer battles, is suddenly invaluable in EoS because Wigglytuff's Guild is extremely stingy and will take away 90% of all your Poke currency earnings from jobs. Recycle, the move that was really only used on the "Funbro" infinite stall set on Pokemon Showdown, can be used here to restore used TMs, an absolute godsend when TMs are a super rare treasure/lottery earning and cost thousands of Poke to purchase from Kecleon that you probably don't have. Even Rock Smash, a base 40 attack that's forever relegated to HM slaves in the mainstream Pokemon games, has a practical use here as a reliable way to destroy dungeon walls that can hide treasure and provide safer routing to other rooms and stairs. I could go on and on about the creativity of the greater Pokemon system translated into the roguelike medium, but needless to say, there's a surprising amount of freedom of expression to be found in the combat in Explorers of Sky from the moves alone.
I'll point out the elephant in the room as a follow-up; one of the biggest gripes that I've always had with the Pokemon series is the huge amount of luck/RNG to be found with the combat, and Explorers of Sky is no exception to the rule. Remember the gen 1 miss? EoS often feels a bit like that but more exaggerated; moves love to miss randomly for no apparent reason, and even moves in the base games that typically have a starting accuracy of 100% like Thunderbolt (as opposed to stronger moves that have a set lower accuracy like Thunder) and the standard attack from tapping A can miss for no apparent reason. In general, all attacks in EoS have "Hit Ratios" that don't align 1 to 1 with accuracy in the other Pokemon games, and in fact have two accuracy checks if the move is damaging. As such, I can agree that combat can be a bit frustrating as such; Water Gun shouldn't just randomly miss, Dragon Breath shouldn't be paralyzing me every other hit, and Mud Shot shouldn't be slowing me down every single time. Often, the randomized behavior of enemies plays just as huge of a part in survival as your inherent skill. And yet, I think this challenge is what makes Explorers of Sky so interesting to me; learning to roll with the blows and mitigate the danger plays a significant part in your personal growth and a strong reason why I find EoS a lot more fun at times than the main series.
To elaborate upon that, there are two major factors regarding this "problem" of taking damage, where defeating the opponent with little negative consequence is the solution. The first factor is in regards to recovery and acting during danger; even when crippled or affected by RNG, there is usually something you can do. For example, while paralyzed, your Pokemon's turn speed is halved and it won't be able to use moves or standard attack, but you can still move around and use items. So, one solution here is to switch places with your ally Pokemon and have them take up the gauntlet, or you could instead throw a seed at the enemy Pokemon to cripple them or throw damaging items in lieu of an attack, and so on so forth. Similarly, when your Pokemon is cringing as a side effect from getting hit by Rock Slide or Bite, etc, you can still move despite not being able to attack with moves, so a perfectly viable solution is to step backwards and force the opponent to approach while you regain your turn. Playing in part to this is also the preparation beforehand; negative statuses and damage can be mitigated or prevented entirely with the right items, IQ skills (from ingesting enough Gummis), and seeds or berries. In a similar vein, traps and randomly spawned Monster Houses (rooms where tons of enemy Pokemon suddenly descend upon you) can be a huge pain, but having the right ranged moves and offensive Orbs for crowd control can save a run from total chaos. Despite how difficult and often unfair the game can feel, there really is a certain satisfaction to being prepared for all of these different nightmare scenarios and carefully plotting out your next moves to navigate and escape dungeons with great loot and valuable experience.
I'd be remiss not to mention the new additions and changes between Explorers of Time/Darkness and Sky, which is considered to be the "definitive" version. Time and Darkness both have exclusive items (Vile vs Violent seed) and exclusive Pokemon (picking between Celebi and Mewtwo for example), and Sky, as the Platinum of its series, forgoes this entirely; the whole gang is here to be recruited to maximize your friend list. Sky's also got Spinda's Cafe, which streamlines item management and stat growth in the form of drinks that can provide random stat boosts alongside using up seeds/berries/Gummis and a Recycle Shop that finally provides a reliable source of Reviver Seeds without spending over a thousand Poke and has a Prize ticket lottery where you can win rare TMs among other great loot by discarding unnecessary/useless items. There's also the post-game Shaymin Village + Sky Peak sidequest with tons of other Pokemon to recruit (including, you guessed it, Shaymin!) and Sky Gifts to send to your friends. Finally, Explorers of Sky has some side episodes where you can play as other important story Pokemon facing their own struggles and further illustrating the depth of characterization to be found in the game. I'd be spoiling too many memorable moments by explaining the plot details here, but needless to say, it was great learning more about the background of those that the protagonist meets in their adventure, and you won't want to miss any of those episodes.
Many before me have spoken at length about this, but ultimately I think the reason why Explorers of Sky is so compelling is because the game is a journey of growth. Of course, there's the gameplay perspective regarding this growth; the mechanics that you deal with at the beginning of the game are the exact same as the mechanics required to tackle the final dungeons and the challenging and plentiful post-game dungeons. While there are more elements of danger to juggle and more creative elements to abuse, it all boils down to the same tense yet satisfying turn by turn dungeon crawling roguelike combat, just with higher stakes on both your end and the opponents' end; the personal growth through what your team has accomplished and become feels so gratifying because it was all your own hard work, and your increased experience and knowledge base will continue to carry you through. Nevertheless, there's also the journey of personal growth as reflected in the overarching narrative. Again, I won't get too nitty gritty with the details in case others want to make the dive, but you and your partner really do go from anxiety ridden, budding greenhorns to legends of Treasure Town by overcoming previously thought to be insurmountable obstacles and fighting against the very nature of time and destiny itself. I'd be lying if I said there weren't plenty of moments where I teared up from the emotional stakes across the colorful cast, and the fantastic soundtrack and vibrant visuals really help sell the spirit of adventure and fighting for those who have supported you every step of the way.
Look, I get it; as a kid who absolutely had to get his hands on every single Pokemon game imaginable and has still been closely following the future of the franchise, Pokemon has changed. Going from a once beloved and epic monster collector battle simulator where some kid from the middle of nowhere became a champion, to game after game, sequel after sequel of watered-down, repetitive, thoughtless, and empty hand-holding titles inundated with padding and souless exhaustion has not done Nintendo's cash cow any favors in terms of critical reputation, and the perception of my once favorite franchise has nosedived off a cliff. Even going back to classic Pokemon spin-off titles from my childhood has not held up well against my nostalgia, and I've been constantly disappointed so, so, many damn times. Finally, it didn't help that the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon franchise met a strange stagnation after its peak, with the immediate WiiWare successors only being released in Japan and the following global successor resulting in a noticeable drop in quality. Having said that, even in the face of the growing critical reevaluation, we'll always have Explorers of Sky. It's proof that Pokemon, at some point, was more than just another copy and pasted 4Kids sellout that's taken us for granted and in fact had some of the most complex, varied, and compelling gameplay that I'm happy to say more than holds up and remain glad that it was an integral part of my childhood. From the little I've played of the original Pokemon Mystery Dungeon's remake, I'm cautiously optimistic regarding the franchise's future, but even so, maybe the era of the superfluous videogame remake doesn't matter here. Sometimes, it's just nice to revisit the good times and remember that despite all the doom and gloom in the modern video game industry, they'll never be able to take away those moments that define us; maybe those then, were the real treasures that we've been searching for all along in Explorers of Sky.
''Never forget...''
I technically never really grew up with Explorers of Sky but rather with the original dual release version, Explorers of Time/Darkness , tho funnily enough, I can't really recall which one of the two it was exactly; what I do recall without even an ounce of effort, is the things I felt while playing it all those years back. It was one of the first times my younger self cared to pay attention to the dialogue of a game, one of the first times I was enthralled by the music and visuals of... well, anything ever; and the excitement I felt over new story beats and at the gameplay reached absurd points. However, I couldn't explain why the game had such an effect on me, plus I never got to beat it (got stuck at one of the boss fights... still have traumas over that) so it's not like I ever got a definitive conclusion to the story, nor a resolution to the feelings I had with the game.
And so, I left behind the game, and the only thing left were the good memories of it without really being able to explain why I liked it. Many years later, I was able to get a copy of Explorers of Sky for cheap (or at least, cheap compared to what it normally goes for), and not so long ago I finally beatBlue Rescue Team and delved in how, despite being a fun Dungeon Crawler RPG and having a brand new interesting take on the franchise, it was a deeply flawed one, with hiccups in the gameplay front, but especially in the narrative department, and that affected the enjoyment the moment to moment rescuing and exploring.
Many moons have passed, experienced has been gained and my views on games and the media as a whole have matured since I picked that DS for the first time (or at least I like to think that they have, if only a little bit), so now, the most expected thing is that I’d know to pin-point what did I exactly like so much about this game, or even that my opinions on it would sour a bit after coming back to it and reaching the end…
… but this one has a Croagunk with a big-ass cauldron, so that automatically makes it the best game in the entire franchise.
’’A future worth fighting for’’
It’s almost scary how good Explorers of the Sky builds on top of what was already established while also creating its own whole identity, and it’s doubly impressive when taking into account how much it borrows from the previous installment: the dungeon-traversing gameplay has seen little to none changes; everything that can be found in Treasure Town, from the shops to the dojo, are lifted straight up from the original Rescue Team games, with the only thing changes being some of the Pokémon at the front of these stores as well as one or two new shacks for two new mechanics, the eggs and the chests; the game retains the same chapter by chapter structure of its predecessor, and practically all of the bulletin board missions types are ones brought from the past entry. This is much more than taking just base or general the idea of a past game, most of Explorers is pretty much a direct follow up of every concept that the franchise stablished in its inception, and that should mean that it should carry the problems Blue/Red Rescue Team had that I previously described, or at the very least it should feel derivative, but I think it’s pretty clear where I’m going with this.
Thanks to a lot of systems being stream-lined or more options being given, mainly the whole territory buying to get new team members being COMPLETELY removed and the introduction of the Spinda Café to make the CI leveling process a lot more easier as well as to introduce a way to recycle items, the pacing of the game is made WAYYYY faster both in and out of dungeons, while also incrementing the amount of strategizing needed; while I’ve lost way less times than in Rescue Team and I’ve even won some battles that the game doesn’t expect you to normally beat, main battles in those previous games felt extremely repetitive. You don’t really come up with new ideas on the flying or plan ahead for what’s coming next; your response to the boss encounters doesn’t really differ from one another, and you are not rewarded from exploring outside of the box using different items; you just go headfirst into danger, throw some sleeping items and prey to god it works. The boss battles in Explorers work completely different, not only there’s more variety in the Pokémon you fight and even in the way they are organized, but the amount of seeds at your disposal as well as the new move-sets make strategy building on the fly some of the most fun I’ve had in the entire series. This even applies, at least to a certain extent, to the normal floor battles; even if most of the encounters are usually pretty easy and the difficulty comes mainly from your own resource management, half-way though the game some dungeons start to REALLY ramp up in difficulty, and even some of the normal enemy Pokémon start becoming a problem. You even need to take into account the weather present in some cases and considering changing it, and while I don’t have a exact way to confirm this, I’m pretty sure that the possibility of encountering monster houses has been raised considerably, and I actually like this! It gives spheres even more reasons to be used and show that sometimes a direct confrontation doesn’t really have to be the way forward, teaching indirectly even more ways to strategize and introducing a risk reward aspect into the game, since they usually have a ton of good items in them … But no yeah Monster Houses are still dumb. The fact the ladder or even you can spawn in one of them only creates artificial difficulty, and it’s alongside the randomness of the traps and the impossibility of using spheres in boss battles the only things I REALLY don’t like about the game (tho I understand why the latter is the way it is, even if I believe it would make sense to be able all the tools at your disposal in the major battles, specially the ones with multiple enemies). I also wanted to mention how the introduction of Wigglytuff’s guild is just… so fucking good. Having a main hub area related to the main story, our characters arc and that expands the story behind certain Pokémon and the rescue teams is one fantastic thing, but also be it one that makes so much sense with the setting, simplifies a ton of the mission systems, and also introduces a whole new minigame it’s just pure gold… tho I could have gone the rest of life without knowing the shape of Nidoking’s feet, that wasn’t really necessary…
Make no mistake, if the gameplay is so good in this game, it’s only because it was good in the first place; these changes aren’t revolutionary, but they do improve and strengthen a system that was already fantastic in the first place, making it more rewarding than it ever was. Explorers is a sequel after all, one that seeks to enhance everything that could have been enhanced, and that includes a certain something that, not in a million years, could I ever had seen coming.
Not in this way. Not like this.
’’A story that had to be told’’
Explorers of Sky is a culmination. No, I’m not talking about a culmination of Time/Darkness, which it is, but that’s not what I’m referring to. Back when I beat Blue Rescue Team, I left with this deeply sour taste in my mouth, I had enjoyed what I played, yes, and there were some stellar moments, but a ton of it’s potential was squandered for the shake of telling a flashier, less intricated plot. And hey, looking back maybe I was a bit too mean, maybe that was exactly the story they wanted to tell; a story that touched on some interesting themes but ultimately was just an excuse to live a couple of fun adventures and battle some cool looking Pokémon, maybe I just had my expectations misplaced and was just too overly critical to a story that didn’t deserve even if it did affect the gameplay… or maybe I knew a glimpse of what would come next.
If I already praised Blue Rescue Team for its fantastic visuals and music, then I don’t know what I’d need to do to express how Explorers goes above all and beyond everything I thought was good about the original game; I think I’m exaggerating when I say this is probably the best original pixel-art in any DS RPG along side the one in Bowser’s Inside Story. Every single scenery on here is worth putting on a portrait, hell, singular stones have more detail than entire games in the franchise. The beautiful close-ups and scenes that happen and certain moments, like watching a myriad of bug Pokémon flying around a tower of water, or contemplating the sunset on top of a cliff with an impossible shape, plus the fantastic use of the dual screens not to enhance gameplay, but to improve certain moments and cutscenes are such fantastic details that I cannot do nothing but smile when simply thinking about it. Add on top of that an amazing minimalistic sound design and probably the best OST in the entire franchise and DS catalogue along with the fifth-generation games… and I don’t really know what more to tell you, man.
This moments, no, everything I’ve said about the game, it’s pretty good on their own right, and they are impressive by any game standard, but what makes me absolutely adore them, what makes me gush and appreciate them even more, it’s how every single occurrence, behind every single event, a story is taking place. Blue Rescue Team took the story as more of a excuse to present harder challenges than normal and introduce certain concepts, and as such a lot of the duration of the game was taken by missions that didn’t really amount to anything in the great scheme of things. Explorers has, let’s just say, a different philosophy on this. The world is no mere back-drop for cool things to happen, every single location has a place, every single event, every step we take amounts to something; the few moments things stop for a minute feel genuine and add the sensation that time needs to pass for certain characters to do their thing, but it’s never too long before everything’s back in action. The world is filled with fantastic characters and I adore them all, even the stinky ones that I’m supposed to hate, I love every single one of them. They all have their moment to shine, their own unique aspirations, even their own fears and weaknesses, and even when you expect certain plot-points to happen, there’s far more depth behind the curtain. The episodic format does nothing but wonders for this, not only because it allows to have an overarching plot while introducing sub-stories in a cohesive way, but it gives more room for every single critter to breath and have their own moment, couple that with the extra episodes in Explorers of Sky that dig deep into certain characters past and even future, and we have an experience that only gets stronger as it goes on.
I felt genuine emotion for the events that happened, specially the ones close to the end: the wrath, the sadness and the happiness are contagious because of how well everything is laid down and accompanied by the fantastic music, and whereas, in the first game, I felt like the companion or the main betraying bad guy were just a shadow of they could have been, these are it, these are what they seemed to want to be since the beginning. I understand why so many people adore Grovyle, I adore Wigglytuf’s comedic relief, I loved every single mon at the Guild (yes, even you, Chatot, you deserve a hug), and I’m fascinated by the main character’s arc, I didn’t think that I could care about my Piplup self and my Vulpix companion this much, but I do, I really do, and it saddened me struggle and made me happy to see them overcome the challenges. And these characters being put in this setting, a setting that I didn’t think could be even done this exceptionally by a Pokémon game, a story that touches on overcoming personal flaws and anxieties, and culminates on the inevitability on saying goodbyes to your loved ones, even if it hurts.. and it does fucking hurt, and I love that it does.
''I’ll never forget you’’
Explorers of Sky wasn’t made by another team wanting to make a different take on this idea, it was the same team at Chunsoft that worked in the original games, even the writers, Shin-ichiro Tomie and Emiko Tanaka, to the artist and composers, are the same for both entries; and it’s in that moment you realize that all these people cared beyond belief, cared to tell a fantastic, cohesive narrative, a beautiful story about fate and fear, darkness and time, love and courage, of despair and hope.
Like a perfect dance, everything flows magically, and the experience it’s only that even to this day it’s hard to describe. It’s not flawless, mind you, but it’s absolutely fantatic, and it’s hard to find just the right words to define such an experience, an experience that feels so right and hits all the right notes in both gameplay and narrative. An experience that truly broke the bounds of the series and changed the minds of millions on what these little silly animals could tell though a story and its themes, and that transcended and became not only a good Pokémon spin-off game, but a fantastic game by its own and a highlight of entire franchise. An experience that, like all dances, sadly ends, even if there’s more adventures to be had, and I’ll surely have, but for now, and at the risk of repeating myself, I really recommend Explorers of the Sky; I’ve tried really hard to not spoil concrete plot-beats and only talk about the themes and strengths of the game, ‘cause I believe this a game worth playing blind, a experience worth discovering… worth exploring.
’’…farewell…’’
I technically never really grew up with Explorers of Sky but rather with the original dual release version, Explorers of Time/Darkness , tho funnily enough, I can't really recall which one of the two it was exactly; what I do recall without even an ounce of effort, is the things I felt while playing it all those years back. It was one of the first times my younger self cared to pay attention to the dialogue of a game, one of the first times I was enthralled by the music and visuals of... well, anything ever; and the excitement I felt over new story beats and at the gameplay reached absurd points. However, I couldn't explain why the game had such an effect on me, plus I never got to beat it (got stuck at one of the boss fights... still have traumas over that) so it's not like I ever got a definitive conclusion to the story, nor a resolution to the feelings I had with the game.
And so, I left behind the game, and the only thing left were the good memories of it without really being able to explain why I liked it. Many years later, I was able to get a copy of Explorers of Sky for cheap (or at least, cheap compared to what it normally goes for), and not so long ago I finally beatBlue Rescue Team and delved in how, despite being a fun Dungeon Crawler RPG and having a brand new interesting take on the franchise, it was a deeply flawed one, with hiccups in the gameplay front, but especially in the narrative department, and that affected the enjoyment the moment to moment rescuing and exploring.
Many moons have passed, experienced has been gained and my views on games and the media as a whole have matured since I picked that DS for the first time (or at least I like to think that they have, if only a little bit), so now, the most expected thing is that I’d know to pin-point what did I exactly like so much about this game, or even that my opinions on it would sour a bit after coming back to it and reaching the end…
… but this one has a Croagunk with a big-ass cauldron, so that automatically makes it the best game in the entire franchise.
’’A future worth fighting for’’
It’s almost scary how good Explorers of the Sky builds on top of what was already established while also creating its own whole identity, and it’s doubly impressive when taking into account how much it borrows from the previous installment: the dungeon-traversing gameplay has seen little to none changes; everything that can be found in Treasure Town, from the shops to the dojo, are lifted straight up from the original Rescue Team games, with the only thing changes being some of the Pokémon at the front of these stores as well as one or two new shacks for two new mechanics, the eggs and the chests; the game retains the same chapter by chapter structure of its predecessor, and practically all of the bulletin board missions types are ones brought from the past entry. This is much more than taking just base or general the idea of a past game, most of Explorers is pretty much a direct follow up of every concept that the franchise stablished in its inception, and that should mean that it should carry the problems Blue/Red Rescue Team had that I previously described, or at the very least it should feel derivative, but I think it’s pretty clear where I’m going with this.
Thanks to a lot of systems being stream-lined or more options being given, mainly the whole territory buying to get new team members being COMPLETELY removed and the introduction of the Spinda Café to make the CI leveling process a lot more easier as well as to introduce a way to recycle items, the pacing of the game is made WAYYYY faster both in and out of dungeons, while also incrementing the amount of strategizing needed; while I’ve lost way less times than in Rescue Team and I’ve even won some battles that the game doesn’t expect you to normally beat, main battles in those previous games felt extremely repetitive. You don’t really come up with new ideas on the flying or plan ahead for what’s coming next; your response to the boss encounters doesn’t really differ from one another, and you are not rewarded from exploring outside of the box using different items; you just go headfirst into danger, throw some sleeping items and prey to god it works. The boss battles in Explorers work completely different, not only there’s more variety in the Pokémon you fight and even in the way they are organized, but the amount of seeds at your disposal as well as the new move-sets make strategy building on the fly some of the most fun I’ve had in the entire series. This even applies, at least to a certain extent, to the normal floor battles; even if most of the encounters are usually pretty easy and the difficulty comes mainly from your own resource management, half-way though the game some dungeons start to REALLY ramp up in difficulty, and even some of the normal enemy Pokémon start becoming a problem. You even need to take into account the weather present in some cases and considering changing it, and while I don’t have a exact way to confirm this, I’m pretty sure that the possibility of encountering monster houses has been raised considerably, and I actually like this! It gives spheres even more reasons to be used and show that sometimes a direct confrontation doesn’t really have to be the way forward, teaching indirectly even more ways to strategize and introducing a risk reward aspect into the game, since they usually have a ton of good items in them … But no yeah Monster Houses are still dumb. The fact the ladder or even you can spawn in one of them only creates artificial difficulty, and it’s alongside the randomness of the traps and the impossibility of using spheres in boss battles the only things I REALLY don’t like about the game (tho I understand why the latter is the way it is, even if I believe it would make sense to be able all the tools at your disposal in the major battles, specially the ones with multiple enemies). I also wanted to mention how the introduction of Wigglytuff’s guild is just… so fucking good. Having a main hub area related to the main story, our characters arc and that expands the story behind certain Pokémon and the rescue teams is one fantastic thing, but also be it one that makes so much sense with the setting, simplifies a ton of the mission systems, and also introduces a whole new minigame it’s just pure gold… tho I could have gone the rest of life without knowing the shape of Nidoking’s feet, that wasn’t really necessary…
Make no mistake, if the gameplay is so good in this game, it’s only because it was good in the first place; these changes aren’t revolutionary, but they do improve and strengthen a system that was already fantastic in the first place, making it more rewarding than it ever was. Explorers is a sequel after all, one that seeks to enhance everything that could have been enhanced, and that includes a certain something that, not in a million years, could I ever had seen coming.
Not in this way. Not like this.
’’A story that had to be told’’
Explorers of Sky is a culmination. No, I’m not talking about a culmination of Time/Darkness, which it is, but that’s not what I’m referring to. Back when I beat Blue Rescue Team, I left with this deeply sour taste in my mouth, I had enjoyed what I played, yes, and there were some stellar moments, but a ton of it’s potential was squandered for the shake of telling a flashier, less intricated plot. And hey, looking back maybe I was a bit too mean, maybe that was exactly the story they wanted to tell; a story that touched on some interesting themes but ultimately was just an excuse to live a couple of fun adventures and battle some cool looking Pokémon, maybe I just had my expectations misplaced and was just too overly critical to a story that didn’t deserve even if it did affect the gameplay… or maybe I knew a glimpse of what would come next.
If I already praised Blue Rescue Team for its fantastic visuals and music, then I don’t know what I’d need to do to express how Explorers goes above all and beyond everything I thought was good about the original game; I think I’m exaggerating when I say this is probably the best original pixel-art in any DS RPG along side the one in Bowser’s Inside Story. Every single scenery on here is worth putting on a portrait, hell, singular stones have more detail than entire games in the franchise. The beautiful close-ups and scenes that happen and certain moments, like watching a myriad of bug Pokémon flying around a tower of water, or contemplating the sunset on top of a cliff with an impossible shape, plus the fantastic use of the dual screens not to enhance gameplay, but to improve certain moments and cutscenes are such fantastic details that I cannot do nothing but smile when simply thinking about it. Add on top of that an amazing minimalistic sound design and probably the best OST in the entire franchise and DS catalogue along with the fifth-generation games… and I don’t really know what more to tell you, man.
This moments, no, everything I’ve said about the game, it’s pretty good on their own right, and they are impressive by any game standard, but what makes me absolutely adore them, what makes me gush and appreciate them even more, it’s how every single occurrence, behind every single event, a story is taking place. Blue Rescue Team took the story as more of a excuse to present harder challenges than normal and introduce certain concepts, and as such a lot of the duration of the game was taken by missions that didn’t really amount to anything in the great scheme of things. Explorers has, let’s just say, a different philosophy on this. The world is no mere back-drop for cool things to happen, every single location has a place, every single event, every step we take amounts to something; the few moments things stop for a minute feel genuine and add the sensation that time needs to pass for certain characters to do their thing, but it’s never too long before everything’s back in action. The world is filled with fantastic characters and I adore them all, even the stinky ones that I’m supposed to hate, I love every single one of them. They all have their moment to shine, their own unique aspirations, even their own fears and weaknesses, and even when you expect certain plot-points to happen, there’s far more depth behind the curtain. The episodic format does nothing but wonders for this, not only because it allows to have an overarching plot while introducing sub-stories in a cohesive way, but it gives more room for every single critter to breath and have their own moment, couple that with the extra episodes in Explorers of Sky that dig deep into certain characters past and even future, and we have an experience that only gets stronger as it goes on.
I felt genuine emotion for the events that happened, specially the ones close to the end: the wrath, the sadness and the happiness are contagious because of how well everything is laid down and accompanied by the fantastic music, and whereas, in the first game, I felt like the companion or the main betraying bad guy were just a shadow of they could have been, these are it, these are what they seemed to want to be since the beginning. I understand why so many people adore Grovyle, I adore Wigglytuf’s comedic relief, I loved every single mon at the Guild (yes, even you, Chatot, you deserve a hug), and I’m fascinated by the main character’s arc, I didn’t think that I could care about my Piplup self and my Vulpix companion this much, but I do, I really do, and it saddened me struggle and made me happy to see them overcome the challenges. And these characters being put in this setting, a setting that I didn’t think could be even done this exceptionally by a Pokémon game, a story that touches on overcoming personal flaws and anxieties, and culminates on the inevitability on saying goodbyes to your loved ones, even if it hurts.. and it does fucking hurt, and I love that it does.
''I’ll never forget you’’
Explorers of Sky wasn’t made by another team wanting to make a different take on this idea, it was the same team at Chunsoft that worked in the original games, even the writers, Shin-ichiro Tomie and Emiko Tanaka, to the artist and composers, are the same for both entries; and it’s in that moment you realize that all these people cared beyond belief, cared to tell a fantastic, cohesive narrative, a beautiful story about fate and fear, darkness and time, love and courage, of despair and hope.
Like a perfect dance, everything flows magically, and the experience it’s only that even to this day it’s hard to describe. It’s not flawless, mind you, but it’s absolutely fantatic, and it’s hard to find just the right words to define such an experience, an experience that feels so right and hits all the right notes in both gameplay and narrative. An experience that truly broke the bounds of the series and changed the minds of millions on what these little silly animals could tell though a story and its themes, and that transcended and became not only a good Pokémon spin-off game, but a fantastic game by its own and a highlight of entire franchise. An experience that, like all dances, sadly ends, even if there’s more adventures to be had, and I’ll surely have, but for now, and at the risk of repeating myself, I really recommend Explorers of the Sky; I’ve tried really hard to not spoil concrete plot-beats and only talk about the themes and strengths of the game, ‘cause I believe this a game worth playing blind, a experience worth discovering… worth exploring.
’’…farewell…’’
This review contains spoilers
Bro if Special Episode 5 ended a couple minutes earlier, it probably would have been one of the most gut wrenching experiences I have ever had.
"Grovyle, please tell me... my life... did it shine?" Like hell nah bro that line fuckin broke me, I can't believe a Pokemon game is doing this to me
"Grovyle, please tell me... my life... did it shine?" Like hell nah bro that line fuckin broke me, I can't believe a Pokemon game is doing this to me
the fact that a fucking pokemon spinoff is one of the greatest stories in any game ever is wild bro. game could reason to play a lot better but who cares
Takes what Explorers of Time & Darkness did, added some great features, and 5 playable special episodes as different characters which flesh out the universe even more. One of my favourite games ever made and narrowly misses my top 5. I never thought in a million years Pokémon could have this good of a story, or even a game, let alone a spinoff, but they did and will never do so again.
Nintendo DS Pokemon was legendary with this being its magnum opus.
probably the only pokemon game i would call good compared to its jrpg contemporaries story wise as opposed to just other pokemon games, but mystery dungeon gameplay is really not fun to me. the soundtrack is really great and visually the game is probably one of the best on the DS when you aren't in a dungeon
There isn’t really any way I can praise this game without spoiling the story, and I won’t. It’s as fantastic as they all say, and replays let you catch details on it. I’ll never deny someone a blind experience of it. It’s such a lived in world with how the NPCs all have their own miniature arcs too. Special episodes (barring the Sunflora one, really unsure what that one’s point is, sorry) are all very good for building the world and making you feel for the cast. The story only strengthens itself with a perfect OST that employs leitmotifs constantly, perfectly setting the tone of moments. It’s also a complete treat in terms of spritework. The Explorers games were a cornerstone of my childhood, and they still hit for me as an adult. There’s still annoyances, like Aegis Cave being forced in the postgame, but it’s an overall amazing experience. I understand the Mystery Dungeon gameplay doesn’t gel with everyone but it works for me bc I’m good at it so idgaf. I also beat the main story in only 3 days this time because it’s so irresistible to me. Childlike wonder and shit.
I've been going between 3.5 and 4 stars for this. PMD: EoS is an interesting game that struggles with pacing. Its narrative can feel sluggish, as its attempts to explain itself to a (very) young target audience can make dialogue repetitive, especially with its reliance on flashbacks to very recent events. At the same time, many of its most interesting & effective emotional beats (mainly its eleventh-hour dramatic reveal it) feel like they would have benefited from being introduced earlier and given more time to stew & develop.
Its pacing issues also extend to its mechanics, with filler missions padding out playtime (and almost entirely constituting the postgame). Again, some of its interesting mechanics are held back later than seem necessary, such as the SOS Mail (a fantastic concept that allows players to "rescue" each other from wiping in some dungeons) and evolution, which is incomprehensibly withheld entirely until the post-game and only fully usable on the main two characters after the postgame.
That being said, there's a lot to appreciate with EoS. It leans into its randomness effectively, with mechanics adapted from the mainline Pokemon series that can effectively create surprising emergent scenarios. (Those surprises range from humorous to infuriating, but the main game is broadly gentle enough to make the worst "That's bullshit!" moments fleeting.) There's a lot of care & charm in rare little things a player may never see. The plot, while often simple, has a lot of effective characterization & charm to it, and it delivers a surprisingly strong emotional blow at its end. The spritework is fantastic, and the music is as energetic and fun as the game's visuals.
At its best, it's very hard to put down, mixing a nearly-Firaxis level of "one more turn" syndrome with delightful charm and a spark of wonder. At its worst, it's shallow in ways that hurt because of how much potential it displays. Ultimately, it's a game that I expect will feel cozy & nostalgic for fans of Pokemon & kid lit, and may be middling for those who don't care about either.
Its pacing issues also extend to its mechanics, with filler missions padding out playtime (and almost entirely constituting the postgame). Again, some of its interesting mechanics are held back later than seem necessary, such as the SOS Mail (a fantastic concept that allows players to "rescue" each other from wiping in some dungeons) and evolution, which is incomprehensibly withheld entirely until the post-game and only fully usable on the main two characters after the postgame.
That being said, there's a lot to appreciate with EoS. It leans into its randomness effectively, with mechanics adapted from the mainline Pokemon series that can effectively create surprising emergent scenarios. (Those surprises range from humorous to infuriating, but the main game is broadly gentle enough to make the worst "That's bullshit!" moments fleeting.) There's a lot of care & charm in rare little things a player may never see. The plot, while often simple, has a lot of effective characterization & charm to it, and it delivers a surprisingly strong emotional blow at its end. The spritework is fantastic, and the music is as energetic and fun as the game's visuals.
At its best, it's very hard to put down, mixing a nearly-Firaxis level of "one more turn" syndrome with delightful charm and a spark of wonder. At its worst, it's shallow in ways that hurt because of how much potential it displays. Ultimately, it's a game that I expect will feel cozy & nostalgic for fans of Pokemon & kid lit, and may be middling for those who don't care about either.
why is this game called explorers of sky when there's literally a flightless bird on the cover. screw penguins i hate them. evolutionary mistakes
The best pokemon mysterious world of all for its characters in the story and on top of that extra episodes and its story the best of the pokemon saga I hope they make a remake for nintendo switch
I didn't expect to end up liking this more than almost all mainline entries. Now every time I'll listen to On the Beach at Dusk I'll get into a melancholic mood.
Tão divertido quanto uma visita ao Detran
january 2021 replay:
yeah this is still a 10/10 for me. theres like 2 or 3 hours of filler near the beginning of the game (hence why game review sites panned this one so bad, cuz they played like 4 hours in and dropped it) but after a point like 5 hours in the story goes from ok to pretty cool, and a few hours after that you just get 10 hours straight of probably one of the best stories i've ever played in a game with like zero filler the entire time. this shit is GOATed
edit: if you are gonna play (or replay) this tho, definitely check out the skytemple patch that lets you use moves with l+abxy, such a small fix makes the game play so much better
march 2022 edit: sorry no more 10/10 because ive played more games that are much more consistent in their quality but this is still really fuckin good. definitely worth a playthrough if you're even marginally interested
yeah this is still a 10/10 for me. theres like 2 or 3 hours of filler near the beginning of the game (hence why game review sites panned this one so bad, cuz they played like 4 hours in and dropped it) but after a point like 5 hours in the story goes from ok to pretty cool, and a few hours after that you just get 10 hours straight of probably one of the best stories i've ever played in a game with like zero filler the entire time. this shit is GOATed
edit: if you are gonna play (or replay) this tho, definitely check out the skytemple patch that lets you use moves with l+abxy, such a small fix makes the game play so much better
march 2022 edit: sorry no more 10/10 because ive played more games that are much more consistent in their quality but this is still really fuckin good. definitely worth a playthrough if you're even marginally interested
without a doubt the most charming and engaging game in this entire franchise. don't even have nostalgia for this one, i wish i did because this is the sort of game you'd play as a kid that would change the course of your entire life. fights are both faster and more complex than the main games, but never in an overwhelming or exhausting way. repetitive fights that would've been half a minute of slow text boxes are now two seconds long and make you account for positioning, you have to strategically ration your moves/hunger for longer dungeons. it has a pretty lengthy and engaging story, it's not mind-blowing as an adult but it has a cool ass world and surprisingly lovable characters. it's just so charming!!!! it has such great music and those side chapters go fucking HARD, i love Wigglytuff now. i wish the world was larger (it felt weird only having Treasure Town and like, Shaymin Village) mostly just because i wanted more of it and its setting real bad. genuinely twisted, sick, and a little damaged that this is as overlooked in comparison to the main series as it is.
Pokémon fans discovering basic roguelike trends and even more basic storytelling for the first time and hailing both of those as a masterpiece because they clear the low bar of mainline Pokémon slop
this game is why im trans
Explorers of Sky would potentially sit right at home if adapted as a Saturday morning cartoon, its entire story and sequential chapters making solid episodic content, especially alongside Sky's new chapter additions that function as side episodes within select characters from the cast. It would join the leagues of Avatar: The Last Airbender and Infinity Train in that regard, because its lighthearted exterior builds a foundation to unravel a story with real depth to it.
That's where most of the appeal of Explorers of Sky comes from, and it certainly had a profound impact on me in my childhood, of which still lingers to this very day with every replay. Every particular scene has charm and real intent behind it, slowly showcasing the epic that is Explorer of Sky's narrative. The music helps too, with absolute bangers ranging from Treasure Town to Through the Sea of Time, emphasizing the emotional weight behind some of these story moments. Not a single hour went by where I wasn't immersed in the mysticism and engaging world on offer here, even shedding a tear at certain scenes.
It's a little disappointing that the somewhat below standard roguelite rpg gameplay that underlines it isn't particularly interesting or good, although I have found it to be less irritating over time. That has more to say about my unapologetic love of the game though than it is to say that it does actually get better. There is postgame on offer that does make use of its sparse mechanics, but generally it is something to give your hands something to do in between scenes. It takes up more than a solid 1/3 of the runtime though, so it's something to consider before jumping in.
That being said, I would recommend Explorers of Sky wholeheartedly. It's still one of my favorite games to this day, and my heart still wails after the end credits. At the very least, I do hope you give it a try, for a grand tale of time and darkness awaits you!
That's where most of the appeal of Explorers of Sky comes from, and it certainly had a profound impact on me in my childhood, of which still lingers to this very day with every replay. Every particular scene has charm and real intent behind it, slowly showcasing the epic that is Explorer of Sky's narrative. The music helps too, with absolute bangers ranging from Treasure Town to Through the Sea of Time, emphasizing the emotional weight behind some of these story moments. Not a single hour went by where I wasn't immersed in the mysticism and engaging world on offer here, even shedding a tear at certain scenes.
It's a little disappointing that the somewhat below standard roguelite rpg gameplay that underlines it isn't particularly interesting or good, although I have found it to be less irritating over time. That has more to say about my unapologetic love of the game though than it is to say that it does actually get better. There is postgame on offer that does make use of its sparse mechanics, but generally it is something to give your hands something to do in between scenes. It takes up more than a solid 1/3 of the runtime though, so it's something to consider before jumping in.
That being said, I would recommend Explorers of Sky wholeheartedly. It's still one of my favorite games to this day, and my heart still wails after the end credits. At the very least, I do hope you give it a try, for a grand tale of time and darkness awaits you!
"Time can heal most things, even if some hurts seem insurmountable at first."
spoilerish review !!! heavy spoilers ahead !!! do NOT continue if you haven't played this game which you shouldve because it's the most perfect thing in the world !!!
when i was younger i had a DS with an R4 damn full of games that ranged from incredible to absolutely fucking junk like the mister bean game ? barbie ? giulia passione qualcosa idk whats called in english ? im sorry but anyway that was like my golden era of videogames i would spend all day long playing shit like mario and luigi or pokemon or dragon quest orrrrrrrrrr i forgot what other games i liked but anyway yeah those
so i played explorers of sky at like 10 years old and it ricocheted in my heart as one of the most emotional experiences ive ever had in my entire life i was a crying mess at the end of it and the characters were all so well written that they felt real and breathing and stuck with me for a lot of time that even now i still thought of explorers of sky as one of my all time favorite but i needed to replay it to be sure it was actually as i remembered and not like nostalgia doing all the work
well i will be damned if i didnt say that the ending made me cry again after 10 years and possibly even more now that it did back then because of life experiences and a general broader understanding of the world of the people living in it and of the importance of life and shit like that like i told my friends that i was playing this game again and as the great crybaby i am i was sure to end up absolutely scarred again its not even funny anymore
i cannot begin to tell you how ironic it is that a game about pokemon talking and doing their things tells a story thats so incredibly humane and full of emotions like this is a fucking PEGI 3+ game and realistically im 21 years old and this game was too much for me too what the fuck did they put out for kids in
i kid you not this is the first time i remember as a boy actually having this kind of emotional turmoil due to some kind of media like probably some other media also did that but the memories about this game are so incredibly ingrained into my mind that not even amnesia will ever be able to change that i remember so vividly everything about this game the beautiful art style the emotional music most of the story beats character interactions and trivia and thats something that i can also say for other games of the DS like this was the time i made SO MANY memories with videogames i kid you not and thats probably why i love them so much even now
so that being said apart from my mentally unstable self whats pokemon mystery dungeon
as much as i love the series i have checked neither the previous games nor the next ones that came after like im pretty interested in red blue squad or whatever the fuck but i always end up playing this one anyway im sorry i just love this game this fucking much i cant do this shit anymore
anyhow lets just leave out of the way the most obvious flaw and thats probably the gameplay now please dont @ me for the love of jesus i dont hate the gameplay but i do think it couldve benefited from some tweaks now what tweaks you ask me ??? the fuck if i know im not a game developer what do you want from me but talking BASICS if you ever played an mystery dungeon game in your life yknow what theyre like (you probably played this one lets be real) so the main gameplay element is in a delicious JRPG action obviously turn based but the main this is that it acts like a SRPG think fire emblem without the bullshit and without the strategy (i mean mostly non strategic but some parts will make you scratch your head) and add the dungeon crawling aspect all of this with pokemon flare if you didnt understand any of this dont worry neither did i
now this is a pretty interesting concept but over time it grows a bit boring . not really tiring because i mean once the real story sets in everything is gonna be like 10 times better so it goes for the gameplay itself too and i mean the gameplay could be better but its good for the type of game it is so im not gonna complain sometimes dungeons can be a fucking bitch or theres gonna be a stupid fucking boss fight with 10 pokemon coming at you for a gangbang/bukkake scenario so whatever anyway the general flow is pretty consistent and once you understand some little tricks here and there youre gonna breeze through most of the dungeons without any real problem whatsoever unless youre stupid like me and thats a real possibility honestly
i downloaded a patch that basically lets you use all your abilities with a combination of L + button so thats actually pretty handy instead of being something that can only be used with 1 move and makes the gameflow actually pretty fast so i really recommend it to you guys its just a little QOL to make the game generally more digestible
so yeah i mean the gameplay loop is set you get quests and go into the dungeons you fight some enemies get some items here and there get killed or get to the top (or bottom) of the dungeon recruit some more pokemon for your personal genocide and talk with a lot of pokemon and do stuff in the hometown again this is not like the ONLY single gripe i have with the gameplay but its genuinely not that bad honestly its kind of simple and gets repetitive but its not anything too offensive or shit so im gonna support this games gameplay till i die and also as i was saying sometimes it really does get into SRPG territory because some dungeons and enemies and traps will really crush your brains out
that being said second base is the art direction . people i cannot comprehend how incredibly sweet the entire pixel art of this game is theres not a single screenshot i could make of this game that wouldnt be a great additions to the paintings on the wall of my living room every single aspect of the game is crafted to hell and back the sprites of the pokemon in game and the portraits have so much love put into them and especially you can see it in the portraits of the main cast of the game that have a lot of different expressions here and there that really drive home the experience if you ask me then you have the design of borgo tesoro which is literally one of the comfiest towns in videogames ever i love all the different shops i love pokemon groups just hanging out in the plaza going to the beach and going to the guild to do stuff every single place in the hub has this vibrant dreamy vibe and i would honestly just die in this place im not joking then again the dungeons also do offer some of the most interesting designs for dungeons ever i was honestly pretty scared that dungeons were all gonna look samey to me with little to no variation but as i remembered correctly every single dungeons looks acts and FEELS entirely different and theres no way in hell youre not gonna remember at least a bunch of these iconic places istg
and then you have the beautiful BEAUTIFUL ILLUSTRATIONS on the title screen you will have some of the most incredible concept art ive seen about pokemon and my personal fav one with little shinx(https://www.rpgfan.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Pokemon-Mystery-Dungeon-Explorers-of-Sky-Artwork-003.jpg) or like this artwork for the final special episode(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ElsaMQJWMAAKWp_.jpg) or this one also being one of my favorites of the bunch(https://cdn.staticneo.com/ca/pokemon_mystery_dungeon_explorers_of_the_sky_conceptart_PA0x2.jpg) and this are ONLY THE ARTWORKS but ingame you will have some incredible dualscreen art like this one(https://i.pinimg.com/736x/fb/79/b9/fb79b9a00090455241dd7c4727e2901d.jpg) and that one(https://pm1.aminoapps.com/6507/ddbf25c1c740ccd0f78e336bbce6fe0746ea2855_hq.jpg) honestly every single one of these is a fucking masterpiece dont get me started and i dont want to post every single one of them so just play the fucking game the hell
and all this stuff would be absolutely fucking nothing if it werent for some of the most jawdropping scores in the entirety of the DS catalogue and honestly ? in the entirety of the videogame media up to date i wont even lie to you the fuck this has everything it has some silly tunes for fun moments with your friends for tranquil moments spent in the town and in the guild some moody tunes for many many MANY different dungeons and for approaching threats and shit like that and you also get some emotional scores for when the game decides to absolutely destroy your fucking heart you dont understand
music is an integral part of the experience in pmd and its insane to me that they made this bomb ass music tracks in a hardware so weak such as the one of the Nintendo DS literally it has 2 speakers that have the power of an mp3 I think or something so yeah it's absolutely insane to me that they managed to not only make passable music but even music that I listen to fondly and tracks that are ear candy to say the least and probably some of the most emotional cuts in any game ever stuff that will make you bawl in 3 second with absolutely incredible instrumentation and composition I don't even know what to tell you pokemon music is always kind of a banger but this time they really made the game with these songs
tracks like the main theme or the wigglytuffs guild theme or the treasure town theme get stuck in your head forever i remembered these tracks vividly while replaying it and got hit by basically every single emotion ever clouded with a fucking lot of nostalgia I tell you
plus theres an ost for EVERY . SINGLE . DUNGEON . not only every dungeon is different but with the added unique ost it gives such a definite vibe for each and every dungeon and that adds to the memorable factor like every single dungeon felt familiar BECAUSE of this theres not a single miss sand dungeons are chaotic ice dungeons are mysterious forest dungeons are tranquil everything has something to make the experience as particular as possible
spanning something like 200 songs they also excel as some super emotional cuts that strike at your heartstrings like nothing else in the world through the sea of time is probably my favorite one of the bunch it has such a great composition absolutely emotional and majestic and really the starting point of the final segment of the game that will result in you getting emotionally scarred forever and then youre smacked in your fucking face with an arrangement of the song for when you have to say goodbye to grovyle this shit is wild who THE FUCK thought this game was alright to put into the world im forever traumatised I genuinely cannot and yet again the final boss theme which is grandiose straight to the point and absolutely breathtaking this is one of the most incredible boss fights in videogames and you cannot tell me otherwise because I will not listen to you anyway I dont fucking care
this is the one this is the moment i was fearing would kill me again and it definitely did . this track is one of the most wonderful pieces of art ive ever listened to and the fact that it's so fucking good it's so good I cannot even understand how such a great piece of music can come from not only pokemon but also from a kids game this is so powerful and so incredibly heart breaking that you can ONLY cry in this moment and if you don't you dont have a heart im sorry it's true
and then yknow what when you think its all done you get smacked with ANOTHER KILLER TRACK and THE ANOTHER ONE WHILE YOUR PARTNER IS ON THE FLOOR CRYING BECAUSE HE BOTTLED UP HIS EMOTIONS FOR MONTHS AND FINALLY LET IT ALL GO AT THIS MOMENT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA THIS GAME IS NOT REAL I CANNOT BELIEVE IIIIIIT
anyway apart from messing with my heart and soul this games soundtrack is full of bangers please play this game I cannot stress this enough im gonna go crazy
with all that said i think i need to get into the real juice of this game and thats clearly the fucking story and characters now i need to tell you that this is the most perfect story in any game ever and definitely the highlight of the pokemon series i don want to tell you this but its the truth
the starting test chose that im riolu which is one of my fav pokemon so im definitely not gonna complain about that and then i chose shinx because he IS my favorite pokemon ever and his evoline is incredible and im really emotionally attached to him yada yada shit like that and by the way that first test to choose what pokemon you are is basically the MBTI test but better im sorry but somebody had to say that lmao and i took that responsibility on me
so the player due to some events turned from human to pokemon and wound up to the shore of titular hometown borgo tesoro and was rescued by his companion that was actually trying to get into the guild but didnt have the balls to do that because hes a fucking wimp BUT also one of the most special characters of my life so its a good compromise
shit happens you help some people out and finally get into the guild where your life as explorers will begin for some day to day life of getting quests going to dungeons rescuing people/getting items and so on for idk how many hours honestly but yeah YOURE IN !!! Uno! Lavorare non fa male! Due! A chi scappa niente pappa! Tre! Ogni sorriso va condiviso! and thats gonna be your life from now on
so first things first i love everyone at the guild and basically every single pokemon in this game basically instead of pokemon being carbon copy of general archetypes since youre basically living IN the world of pokemon AS a pokemon every single character has a different personality that usually really encapsulates the general vibe of the physical aspect of the pokemon wigglytuff is always daydreaming and shows love for everybody chatot is a finicky leader but cares for their childs bidoof is a wimp sunflora is a weirdo the guy who screams screams and diglett still looks like a penis theres something for everybody but yeah basically they made the characters live and breathe so seamlessly youre gonna care for every single one of them until the end of the game and i assure you youre gonna spend a lot of time with them
now this first part of pmd is probably the most boring one but i say that because theres little lore that is given to you between mostly doing a lot of quests here and there to get a sense of dungeons and gameplay and get to slowly know the world and the pokemon that inhabit it so thats fine it does have a lot of game stuff for the amount of intel theyre gonna give you but when it gets good it gets good
the underlying plot that slowly unravels is that of a mysterious thief that goes around wrecking havoc by stealing gears of time and disrupting the timeflow (thats also why pokemon dont evolve in the game) and the nature of the players amnesia pokemon transformation and ability to sometimes see past or future events thanks to physical cues connected to that event
BUT FIRST LETS DO A HUNDRED QUESTS ??????
some time later and then SPOILER TERRITORY
the lake expedition probably is the first turning point in the narrative since you get a general sense of where the game is going and how its gonna develop its storyline but rest assured theres a lot of plottwists here and there
gears are usually guarded in weird places that are protected by azelf uxie and mesprit yknow the 3 twinks from pokemon platinum and so yeah theyre gonna get stolen lmaooooo anyway as soon as you encounter dusknoir this is really the point where the entire game gets good af hes a traveler from the future who is trying to save the day and prevent the bad guy thief grovyle to stop the time forever he talks about the future being destroyed yada yada yknow the drill some more explorations later and they capture grovyle they get his ass and everybody is fine peace is finally restored dusknoir is gonna get into the portal for the future get grovyle to justice and restore the timeflow UNTIL dusknoir gets your ass captures you and pushes you into the future portal so youre in the future dusknoir is actually the bad guy you were captures and youre gonna get executed because youre in a gay relationship but gays always win so you run away and boom you become besties with grovyle
grovyle tells you that he was actually doing the thievery to SAVE the future instead of what dusknoir was claiming and youre back to square one but instead now you need to go back to the present in the meantime youre gonna go through dungeons and get to know grovyle and his motives better i gotta say grovyle is absolutely such an interesting character apart from an incredible hunk if you ask me SORRY OMGGGG SORRY WHO SAID THAT ok so anyway theres that the future is absolutely fucking broken apart also due to dialga going fucking crazy and time collapsing on itself so you go syke and get back to the present
here you cry go back to the guild cry again and get reunited with your friends and this is where the final arc of the game begins you go to some missions to find out where the tower of time is while grovyle gets the last gears of the bunch when everything settles you go to one of the last dungeons of the game that brings you to a place to go to the tower of time then you fly with lapras and go to the tower of time and its the moment to SOME MORE DUNGEONS JESUS and youre in front of the tower now here the partner is sent to use its stone to unlock the path to enter the building and in the meantime grovyle tells you that being a pokemon from the future youre gonna vanish with him since this is not your place to be . yknow whats COMING GUYS LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOO
so tower of time dungeon you go to the summit fight dialga get the gears back and the day is saved everybody is happy whatever while you get back you begin to vanish due to you not being from this world and you get a super emotional and heartwarming scene for the finale were the 2 main characters say goodbye
BOY I WAS A FUCKING MESS YOU DONT GET IT I WAS A MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESS WHO THE FUCK WROTE THIS GAME IM GONNA GO CRAZY this is the most heartbreaking ending ever basically every single thing they say makes me go buck wild and its absurd to me how this is a game for kids anyway youre vanished shinx gets back and lives his life in the guild again
then one day he goes back to the shore where you first meet and begins to have feels and memories fill his head and has a deadass crying fit in the middle of the shore while bidoof is helping him WHEN THE MEMORIES WERE ROLLING I WAS AN ABSOLUTE MESS AGAIN I HATE THIS FUCKING GAME WHY WOULD YOU MAKE ME SO EMOTIONAL FOR FUCKING POKEMON UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
so you go omg only 2 crying fits thats weird then dialga says thank you player for what you did so im gonna send you back to the present and then youre gonna hug with your partner 3RD CRYYYYY GUYS THIRD CRYING FIT OF THE DAY LETS GOOOOOOOO
so umh this game absolutely ruined me as much or probably even more than it did when i was 10 years old and i cannot stress you enough to play this game because this storyline is absolutely crazy something out of a cartoon and yet something that crushed my heart and yeeted it in a bin im a grown man and still bawled my eyes out i genuinely cannot
i do think the storyline is one of the most beautiful aspect of the game but it needs some time to actually get good but when you start OOOOOOOOF youre in for a hell of an emotional trainwreck i kid you not its absolutely fucking insane and even though i knew what was gonna happen i still ended up crying like a fucking bitch
so yeah this game is absolutely incredible everybody should play it it should be illegal to not play it at least one time in the entirety of your life thank you everybody
to this day i still think this is one of the greatest games ive ever played and even though it is not a perfect game in itself it IS a perfect game for me vibes unmatched gorgeous art and sensational OST emotional storyline and interesting characters to boot this sits right up there as one of the most powerful releases in the series and one that really stays with you for the entirety of your life every time people say pmd i either begin to overflow with informations about my personal experience or cry in front of everybody at the family reunion and if youre lucky maybe even both at the same time thank you nintendo and thank you great empire of japan
POST GAME WOWOWOWOWOWOW
when i first played this game i probably dipped at the credits because i was NOT prepared for the amount of post game content this game has to offer theres so much stuff its honestly humbling you could play this game forever for the amount of side content and events there are its just such an amazing experience altogether i cannot stress this enough
shaymin village quest is so soothing theres a lot of somber motifs and chill dungeons here and there and i just love him hes such a fucking cutie
the manaphy storyline is so simple yet so fucking effective that I was left bawling AGAIN this game is fucking unreal yall I can't do this shit anymore please also it confirmed that the protagonist and his partner are married and in love I didnt make it canon nintendo did
the regi cave is a nice addition and the whole progression is pretty interesting sure it gets repetitive after a while but its still intriguing and the fact that you see team charm again is a blast girls supporting girls
the cresselia darkrai quest is probably the culmination of what explorers of sky was doing in its post game content and its such a fucking joy to experience the storyline is tight as shit the new characters are intriguing and the twists are jawdropping dungeons are great even if a little on the harder side of things and it just has the cherry on top of making you cry one last time I fucking hate this game I cannot do this shi anymore
so since the post game is actually kind of beefy you should play it teehee
SIDE STORIES WOWOWOWOWOWOW
i never played the extra stories and i dont remember shit about the post game so my thoughts and considerations go after this beep BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP
BIDOOFs episode is pretty interesting and i really enjoy the character already so this was a nice surprise and then you have jirachi which is one of the pokemon with the best designs ever so yknow its gonna be good also here theres some crying to do but its pretty surface level and really ties this story well with the main story of pmd and i was NOT expecting the gameplay elements i thought it was gonna be different but anyway this is great lets see what the others are
also what the fuck is up with the star cave having SUCH a cool fucking dungeon theme the HELL this is incredible turutututuutiturutututu
WIGGLYTUFFs episode is another one for a good crying fit like i finished it and i was going to k1ll myself honestly this ones tells the story of how wigglytuff became wigglytuff with some focus on his early life and relationship with a mysterious explorer i swear to fucking god i was NOT expecting that finale not now and not even in a 100 years that absolutely ruined my day and left me dehydrated again i genuinely cannot believe this game anymore anyway wigglytuff is goofy as fuck of course this is good
SUNFLORAs one is pretty cute doesnt really reach the highs of the other stories but friendship stories are always a hit for me in any way shape or form so of course i would love this even though traversing the dungeons with ONLY sunflora was actually a chore but whatever it did pay off in the end i like gay people sunflora is a male idc if they use she/her pronouns in the game
LOPUNNY and co side story is probably my least favorite of the bunch not because its bad but because it feels kind of out there compared to the other ones since those were about members of the guild and this one is another new team entirely but yknow not so bad all in all the 3 main gals are fun as hell and lopunny is genuinely so charming now i get why shes so popular on rule34
GROVYLE and his bf make a new appearance in this side story that explains more of what happens after the time travel to the future and its honestly pretty gripping and heartwarming i wasnt a huge fan of the endless dungeons this part throws at you but the payoff is absolutely timeless and ending made me bawl dear lord
all in all this game has lifelong and valuable messages incredible themes and lessons things that will stick with your FOREVER this is such a great piece of art and to the people that say videogames cannot be art please play this and think again because theres no other piece of media that thought me so much that had such a huge impact on my life till now and im so glad every single day for the fact that i could play and finish this game in a moment of my life that really needed lessons like these yknow games CAN be just games its not like I'm gonna pretend that something like fortnite is a piece of art lets not confuse art with garbage but sometimes shit like this can change lives can change the way your head works the way you go through your day to day life and make you FEEL things and that what art is all about this game has so many lessons about life about friendship about work about how we live life and how we should live our life and there's nothing more precious than this I might not be the biggest pokemon fan and I might not even be the best person to tell you this but this game is a masterpiece a true universal unprecedented masterpiece and I will never forget it till the day that I die theres really nothing else I could say about it apart from thank you nintendo for making one of the most important works of art of my life and thank you for being dumb as fuck so I could pirate this at 10 year old BYEREEEEEE
"But things we take for granted... They're really the most essential things. And they're precious."
spoilerish review !!! heavy spoilers ahead !!! do NOT continue if you haven't played this game which you shouldve because it's the most perfect thing in the world !!!
when i was younger i had a DS with an R4 damn full of games that ranged from incredible to absolutely fucking junk like the mister bean game ? barbie ? giulia passione qualcosa idk whats called in english ? im sorry but anyway that was like my golden era of videogames i would spend all day long playing shit like mario and luigi or pokemon or dragon quest orrrrrrrrrr i forgot what other games i liked but anyway yeah those
so i played explorers of sky at like 10 years old and it ricocheted in my heart as one of the most emotional experiences ive ever had in my entire life i was a crying mess at the end of it and the characters were all so well written that they felt real and breathing and stuck with me for a lot of time that even now i still thought of explorers of sky as one of my all time favorite but i needed to replay it to be sure it was actually as i remembered and not like nostalgia doing all the work
well i will be damned if i didnt say that the ending made me cry again after 10 years and possibly even more now that it did back then because of life experiences and a general broader understanding of the world of the people living in it and of the importance of life and shit like that like i told my friends that i was playing this game again and as the great crybaby i am i was sure to end up absolutely scarred again its not even funny anymore
i cannot begin to tell you how ironic it is that a game about pokemon talking and doing their things tells a story thats so incredibly humane and full of emotions like this is a fucking PEGI 3+ game and realistically im 21 years old and this game was too much for me too what the fuck did they put out for kids in
i kid you not this is the first time i remember as a boy actually having this kind of emotional turmoil due to some kind of media like probably some other media also did that but the memories about this game are so incredibly ingrained into my mind that not even amnesia will ever be able to change that i remember so vividly everything about this game the beautiful art style the emotional music most of the story beats character interactions and trivia and thats something that i can also say for other games of the DS like this was the time i made SO MANY memories with videogames i kid you not and thats probably why i love them so much even now
so that being said apart from my mentally unstable self whats pokemon mystery dungeon
as much as i love the series i have checked neither the previous games nor the next ones that came after like im pretty interested in red blue squad or whatever the fuck but i always end up playing this one anyway im sorry i just love this game this fucking much i cant do this shit anymore
anyhow lets just leave out of the way the most obvious flaw and thats probably the gameplay now please dont @ me for the love of jesus i dont hate the gameplay but i do think it couldve benefited from some tweaks now what tweaks you ask me ??? the fuck if i know im not a game developer what do you want from me but talking BASICS if you ever played an mystery dungeon game in your life yknow what theyre like (you probably played this one lets be real) so the main gameplay element is in a delicious JRPG action obviously turn based but the main this is that it acts like a SRPG think fire emblem without the bullshit and without the strategy (i mean mostly non strategic but some parts will make you scratch your head) and add the dungeon crawling aspect all of this with pokemon flare if you didnt understand any of this dont worry neither did i
now this is a pretty interesting concept but over time it grows a bit boring . not really tiring because i mean once the real story sets in everything is gonna be like 10 times better so it goes for the gameplay itself too and i mean the gameplay could be better but its good for the type of game it is so im not gonna complain sometimes dungeons can be a fucking bitch or theres gonna be a stupid fucking boss fight with 10 pokemon coming at you for a gangbang/bukkake scenario so whatever anyway the general flow is pretty consistent and once you understand some little tricks here and there youre gonna breeze through most of the dungeons without any real problem whatsoever unless youre stupid like me and thats a real possibility honestly
i downloaded a patch that basically lets you use all your abilities with a combination of L + button so thats actually pretty handy instead of being something that can only be used with 1 move and makes the gameflow actually pretty fast so i really recommend it to you guys its just a little QOL to make the game generally more digestible
so yeah i mean the gameplay loop is set you get quests and go into the dungeons you fight some enemies get some items here and there get killed or get to the top (or bottom) of the dungeon recruit some more pokemon for your personal genocide and talk with a lot of pokemon and do stuff in the hometown again this is not like the ONLY single gripe i have with the gameplay but its genuinely not that bad honestly its kind of simple and gets repetitive but its not anything too offensive or shit so im gonna support this games gameplay till i die and also as i was saying sometimes it really does get into SRPG territory because some dungeons and enemies and traps will really crush your brains out
that being said second base is the art direction . people i cannot comprehend how incredibly sweet the entire pixel art of this game is theres not a single screenshot i could make of this game that wouldnt be a great additions to the paintings on the wall of my living room every single aspect of the game is crafted to hell and back the sprites of the pokemon in game and the portraits have so much love put into them and especially you can see it in the portraits of the main cast of the game that have a lot of different expressions here and there that really drive home the experience if you ask me then you have the design of borgo tesoro which is literally one of the comfiest towns in videogames ever i love all the different shops i love pokemon groups just hanging out in the plaza going to the beach and going to the guild to do stuff every single place in the hub has this vibrant dreamy vibe and i would honestly just die in this place im not joking then again the dungeons also do offer some of the most interesting designs for dungeons ever i was honestly pretty scared that dungeons were all gonna look samey to me with little to no variation but as i remembered correctly every single dungeons looks acts and FEELS entirely different and theres no way in hell youre not gonna remember at least a bunch of these iconic places istg
and then you have the beautiful BEAUTIFUL ILLUSTRATIONS on the title screen you will have some of the most incredible concept art ive seen about pokemon and my personal fav one with little shinx(https://www.rpgfan.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Pokemon-Mystery-Dungeon-Explorers-of-Sky-Artwork-003.jpg) or like this artwork for the final special episode(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ElsaMQJWMAAKWp_.jpg) or this one also being one of my favorites of the bunch(https://cdn.staticneo.com/ca/pokemon_mystery_dungeon_explorers_of_the_sky_conceptart_PA0x2.jpg) and this are ONLY THE ARTWORKS but ingame you will have some incredible dualscreen art like this one(https://i.pinimg.com/736x/fb/79/b9/fb79b9a00090455241dd7c4727e2901d.jpg) and that one(https://pm1.aminoapps.com/6507/ddbf25c1c740ccd0f78e336bbce6fe0746ea2855_hq.jpg) honestly every single one of these is a fucking masterpiece dont get me started and i dont want to post every single one of them so just play the fucking game the hell
and all this stuff would be absolutely fucking nothing if it werent for some of the most jawdropping scores in the entirety of the DS catalogue and honestly ? in the entirety of the videogame media up to date i wont even lie to you the fuck this has everything it has some silly tunes for fun moments with your friends for tranquil moments spent in the town and in the guild some moody tunes for many many MANY different dungeons and for approaching threats and shit like that and you also get some emotional scores for when the game decides to absolutely destroy your fucking heart you dont understand
music is an integral part of the experience in pmd and its insane to me that they made this bomb ass music tracks in a hardware so weak such as the one of the Nintendo DS literally it has 2 speakers that have the power of an mp3 I think or something so yeah it's absolutely insane to me that they managed to not only make passable music but even music that I listen to fondly and tracks that are ear candy to say the least and probably some of the most emotional cuts in any game ever stuff that will make you bawl in 3 second with absolutely incredible instrumentation and composition I don't even know what to tell you pokemon music is always kind of a banger but this time they really made the game with these songs
tracks like the main theme or the wigglytuffs guild theme or the treasure town theme get stuck in your head forever i remembered these tracks vividly while replaying it and got hit by basically every single emotion ever clouded with a fucking lot of nostalgia I tell you
plus theres an ost for EVERY . SINGLE . DUNGEON . not only every dungeon is different but with the added unique ost it gives such a definite vibe for each and every dungeon and that adds to the memorable factor like every single dungeon felt familiar BECAUSE of this theres not a single miss sand dungeons are chaotic ice dungeons are mysterious forest dungeons are tranquil everything has something to make the experience as particular as possible
spanning something like 200 songs they also excel as some super emotional cuts that strike at your heartstrings like nothing else in the world through the sea of time is probably my favorite one of the bunch it has such a great composition absolutely emotional and majestic and really the starting point of the final segment of the game that will result in you getting emotionally scarred forever and then youre smacked in your fucking face with an arrangement of the song for when you have to say goodbye to grovyle this shit is wild who THE FUCK thought this game was alright to put into the world im forever traumatised I genuinely cannot and yet again the final boss theme which is grandiose straight to the point and absolutely breathtaking this is one of the most incredible boss fights in videogames and you cannot tell me otherwise because I will not listen to you anyway I dont fucking care
this is the one this is the moment i was fearing would kill me again and it definitely did . this track is one of the most wonderful pieces of art ive ever listened to and the fact that it's so fucking good it's so good I cannot even understand how such a great piece of music can come from not only pokemon but also from a kids game this is so powerful and so incredibly heart breaking that you can ONLY cry in this moment and if you don't you dont have a heart im sorry it's true
and then yknow what when you think its all done you get smacked with ANOTHER KILLER TRACK and THE ANOTHER ONE WHILE YOUR PARTNER IS ON THE FLOOR CRYING BECAUSE HE BOTTLED UP HIS EMOTIONS FOR MONTHS AND FINALLY LET IT ALL GO AT THIS MOMENT AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA THIS GAME IS NOT REAL I CANNOT BELIEVE IIIIIIT
anyway apart from messing with my heart and soul this games soundtrack is full of bangers please play this game I cannot stress this enough im gonna go crazy
with all that said i think i need to get into the real juice of this game and thats clearly the fucking story and characters now i need to tell you that this is the most perfect story in any game ever and definitely the highlight of the pokemon series i don want to tell you this but its the truth
the starting test chose that im riolu which is one of my fav pokemon so im definitely not gonna complain about that and then i chose shinx because he IS my favorite pokemon ever and his evoline is incredible and im really emotionally attached to him yada yada shit like that and by the way that first test to choose what pokemon you are is basically the MBTI test but better im sorry but somebody had to say that lmao and i took that responsibility on me
so the player due to some events turned from human to pokemon and wound up to the shore of titular hometown borgo tesoro and was rescued by his companion that was actually trying to get into the guild but didnt have the balls to do that because hes a fucking wimp BUT also one of the most special characters of my life so its a good compromise
shit happens you help some people out and finally get into the guild where your life as explorers will begin for some day to day life of getting quests going to dungeons rescuing people/getting items and so on for idk how many hours honestly but yeah YOURE IN !!! Uno! Lavorare non fa male! Due! A chi scappa niente pappa! Tre! Ogni sorriso va condiviso! and thats gonna be your life from now on
so first things first i love everyone at the guild and basically every single pokemon in this game basically instead of pokemon being carbon copy of general archetypes since youre basically living IN the world of pokemon AS a pokemon every single character has a different personality that usually really encapsulates the general vibe of the physical aspect of the pokemon wigglytuff is always daydreaming and shows love for everybody chatot is a finicky leader but cares for their childs bidoof is a wimp sunflora is a weirdo the guy who screams screams and diglett still looks like a penis theres something for everybody but yeah basically they made the characters live and breathe so seamlessly youre gonna care for every single one of them until the end of the game and i assure you youre gonna spend a lot of time with them
now this first part of pmd is probably the most boring one but i say that because theres little lore that is given to you between mostly doing a lot of quests here and there to get a sense of dungeons and gameplay and get to slowly know the world and the pokemon that inhabit it so thats fine it does have a lot of game stuff for the amount of intel theyre gonna give you but when it gets good it gets good
the underlying plot that slowly unravels is that of a mysterious thief that goes around wrecking havoc by stealing gears of time and disrupting the timeflow (thats also why pokemon dont evolve in the game) and the nature of the players amnesia pokemon transformation and ability to sometimes see past or future events thanks to physical cues connected to that event
BUT FIRST LETS DO A HUNDRED QUESTS ??????
some time later and then SPOILER TERRITORY
the lake expedition probably is the first turning point in the narrative since you get a general sense of where the game is going and how its gonna develop its storyline but rest assured theres a lot of plottwists here and there
gears are usually guarded in weird places that are protected by azelf uxie and mesprit yknow the 3 twinks from pokemon platinum and so yeah theyre gonna get stolen lmaooooo anyway as soon as you encounter dusknoir this is really the point where the entire game gets good af hes a traveler from the future who is trying to save the day and prevent the bad guy thief grovyle to stop the time forever he talks about the future being destroyed yada yada yknow the drill some more explorations later and they capture grovyle they get his ass and everybody is fine peace is finally restored dusknoir is gonna get into the portal for the future get grovyle to justice and restore the timeflow UNTIL dusknoir gets your ass captures you and pushes you into the future portal so youre in the future dusknoir is actually the bad guy you were captures and youre gonna get executed because youre in a gay relationship but gays always win so you run away and boom you become besties with grovyle
grovyle tells you that he was actually doing the thievery to SAVE the future instead of what dusknoir was claiming and youre back to square one but instead now you need to go back to the present in the meantime youre gonna go through dungeons and get to know grovyle and his motives better i gotta say grovyle is absolutely such an interesting character apart from an incredible hunk if you ask me SORRY OMGGGG SORRY WHO SAID THAT ok so anyway theres that the future is absolutely fucking broken apart also due to dialga going fucking crazy and time collapsing on itself so you go syke and get back to the present
here you cry go back to the guild cry again and get reunited with your friends and this is where the final arc of the game begins you go to some missions to find out where the tower of time is while grovyle gets the last gears of the bunch when everything settles you go to one of the last dungeons of the game that brings you to a place to go to the tower of time then you fly with lapras and go to the tower of time and its the moment to SOME MORE DUNGEONS JESUS and youre in front of the tower now here the partner is sent to use its stone to unlock the path to enter the building and in the meantime grovyle tells you that being a pokemon from the future youre gonna vanish with him since this is not your place to be . yknow whats COMING GUYS LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOO
so tower of time dungeon you go to the summit fight dialga get the gears back and the day is saved everybody is happy whatever while you get back you begin to vanish due to you not being from this world and you get a super emotional and heartwarming scene for the finale were the 2 main characters say goodbye
BOY I WAS A FUCKING MESS YOU DONT GET IT I WAS A MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESS WHO THE FUCK WROTE THIS GAME IM GONNA GO CRAZY this is the most heartbreaking ending ever basically every single thing they say makes me go buck wild and its absurd to me how this is a game for kids anyway youre vanished shinx gets back and lives his life in the guild again
then one day he goes back to the shore where you first meet and begins to have feels and memories fill his head and has a deadass crying fit in the middle of the shore while bidoof is helping him WHEN THE MEMORIES WERE ROLLING I WAS AN ABSOLUTE MESS AGAIN I HATE THIS FUCKING GAME WHY WOULD YOU MAKE ME SO EMOTIONAL FOR FUCKING POKEMON UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
so you go omg only 2 crying fits thats weird then dialga says thank you player for what you did so im gonna send you back to the present and then youre gonna hug with your partner 3RD CRYYYYY GUYS THIRD CRYING FIT OF THE DAY LETS GOOOOOOOO
so umh this game absolutely ruined me as much or probably even more than it did when i was 10 years old and i cannot stress you enough to play this game because this storyline is absolutely crazy something out of a cartoon and yet something that crushed my heart and yeeted it in a bin im a grown man and still bawled my eyes out i genuinely cannot
i do think the storyline is one of the most beautiful aspect of the game but it needs some time to actually get good but when you start OOOOOOOOF youre in for a hell of an emotional trainwreck i kid you not its absolutely fucking insane and even though i knew what was gonna happen i still ended up crying like a fucking bitch
so yeah this game is absolutely incredible everybody should play it it should be illegal to not play it at least one time in the entirety of your life thank you everybody
to this day i still think this is one of the greatest games ive ever played and even though it is not a perfect game in itself it IS a perfect game for me vibes unmatched gorgeous art and sensational OST emotional storyline and interesting characters to boot this sits right up there as one of the most powerful releases in the series and one that really stays with you for the entirety of your life every time people say pmd i either begin to overflow with informations about my personal experience or cry in front of everybody at the family reunion and if youre lucky maybe even both at the same time thank you nintendo and thank you great empire of japan
POST GAME WOWOWOWOWOWOW
when i first played this game i probably dipped at the credits because i was NOT prepared for the amount of post game content this game has to offer theres so much stuff its honestly humbling you could play this game forever for the amount of side content and events there are its just such an amazing experience altogether i cannot stress this enough
shaymin village quest is so soothing theres a lot of somber motifs and chill dungeons here and there and i just love him hes such a fucking cutie
the manaphy storyline is so simple yet so fucking effective that I was left bawling AGAIN this game is fucking unreal yall I can't do this shit anymore please also it confirmed that the protagonist and his partner are married and in love I didnt make it canon nintendo did
the regi cave is a nice addition and the whole progression is pretty interesting sure it gets repetitive after a while but its still intriguing and the fact that you see team charm again is a blast girls supporting girls
the cresselia darkrai quest is probably the culmination of what explorers of sky was doing in its post game content and its such a fucking joy to experience the storyline is tight as shit the new characters are intriguing and the twists are jawdropping dungeons are great even if a little on the harder side of things and it just has the cherry on top of making you cry one last time I fucking hate this game I cannot do this shi anymore
so since the post game is actually kind of beefy you should play it teehee
SIDE STORIES WOWOWOWOWOWOW
i never played the extra stories and i dont remember shit about the post game so my thoughts and considerations go after this beep BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP
BIDOOFs episode is pretty interesting and i really enjoy the character already so this was a nice surprise and then you have jirachi which is one of the pokemon with the best designs ever so yknow its gonna be good also here theres some crying to do but its pretty surface level and really ties this story well with the main story of pmd and i was NOT expecting the gameplay elements i thought it was gonna be different but anyway this is great lets see what the others are
also what the fuck is up with the star cave having SUCH a cool fucking dungeon theme the HELL this is incredible turutututuutiturutututu
WIGGLYTUFFs episode is another one for a good crying fit like i finished it and i was going to k1ll myself honestly this ones tells the story of how wigglytuff became wigglytuff with some focus on his early life and relationship with a mysterious explorer i swear to fucking god i was NOT expecting that finale not now and not even in a 100 years that absolutely ruined my day and left me dehydrated again i genuinely cannot believe this game anymore anyway wigglytuff is goofy as fuck of course this is good
SUNFLORAs one is pretty cute doesnt really reach the highs of the other stories but friendship stories are always a hit for me in any way shape or form so of course i would love this even though traversing the dungeons with ONLY sunflora was actually a chore but whatever it did pay off in the end i like gay people sunflora is a male idc if they use she/her pronouns in the game
LOPUNNY and co side story is probably my least favorite of the bunch not because its bad but because it feels kind of out there compared to the other ones since those were about members of the guild and this one is another new team entirely but yknow not so bad all in all the 3 main gals are fun as hell and lopunny is genuinely so charming now i get why shes so popular on rule34
GROVYLE and his bf make a new appearance in this side story that explains more of what happens after the time travel to the future and its honestly pretty gripping and heartwarming i wasnt a huge fan of the endless dungeons this part throws at you but the payoff is absolutely timeless and ending made me bawl dear lord
all in all this game has lifelong and valuable messages incredible themes and lessons things that will stick with your FOREVER this is such a great piece of art and to the people that say videogames cannot be art please play this and think again because theres no other piece of media that thought me so much that had such a huge impact on my life till now and im so glad every single day for the fact that i could play and finish this game in a moment of my life that really needed lessons like these yknow games CAN be just games its not like I'm gonna pretend that something like fortnite is a piece of art lets not confuse art with garbage but sometimes shit like this can change lives can change the way your head works the way you go through your day to day life and make you FEEL things and that what art is all about this game has so many lessons about life about friendship about work about how we live life and how we should live our life and there's nothing more precious than this I might not be the biggest pokemon fan and I might not even be the best person to tell you this but this game is a masterpiece a true universal unprecedented masterpiece and I will never forget it till the day that I die theres really nothing else I could say about it apart from thank you nintendo for making one of the most important works of art of my life and thank you for being dumb as fuck so I could pirate this at 10 year old BYEREEEEEE
"But things we take for granted... They're really the most essential things. And they're precious."
Decided to finally replay this game again after a handful of years
Even if there should've been more variety in the dungeon design and enemy encounters, if you ask me I still think the gameplay here is a notch more engaging than most other turn-based games. You do have to try and conserve PP, numerous items are genuinely useful, and most enemies can kill you quick so you have to be a bit careful (and a bit is a lot more than most turn-based games). I do think the bosses should be much harder though. I destroyed them this time around; I really don't remember them having this few HP/defenses. Some of the outlaws from sidequests tend to be more tricky to take down than the main story bosses.
This is also another game where I'd glad the main story isn't too long. I think the pacing is near perfect. There weren't as much sidequest days you need to go through as I remember. For both sidequests and main story you can get away with not exploring most rooms of most dungeons. Which may mean exploration in this game isn't that encouraged but I'll take it if it means a less tedious, boring experience of going through the shallow dungeons I find in most turn based games. Something about the fast paced dungeon crawling of the Mystery Dungeon franchise is honestly appealing to me.
I just wanted to throw some of my thoughts on the gameplay out there. I still of course love the story and presentation as much as ever (blush + smile with closed eyes emoji)
Even if there should've been more variety in the dungeon design and enemy encounters, if you ask me I still think the gameplay here is a notch more engaging than most other turn-based games. You do have to try and conserve PP, numerous items are genuinely useful, and most enemies can kill you quick so you have to be a bit careful (and a bit is a lot more than most turn-based games). I do think the bosses should be much harder though. I destroyed them this time around; I really don't remember them having this few HP/defenses. Some of the outlaws from sidequests tend to be more tricky to take down than the main story bosses.
This is also another game where I'd glad the main story isn't too long. I think the pacing is near perfect. There weren't as much sidequest days you need to go through as I remember. For both sidequests and main story you can get away with not exploring most rooms of most dungeons. Which may mean exploration in this game isn't that encouraged but I'll take it if it means a less tedious, boring experience of going through the shallow dungeons I find in most turn based games. Something about the fast paced dungeon crawling of the Mystery Dungeon franchise is honestly appealing to me.
I just wanted to throw some of my thoughts on the gameplay out there. I still of course love the story and presentation as much as ever (blush + smile with closed eyes emoji)
You're just straight up fucking lying if you played this and didn't cry by the end.
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon certainly has a dedicated fanbase. They always put this game on a pedestal as one of the all-time greats, so as a Pokemon fan, I chose this as my first PMD game.
And I don't get it.
After 5-6 hours of gameplay, I was completely bewildered by the love this game gets (and I understood why it has a 54 on Metacritic), so I read through some "Explorers of Sky is the GOAT" posts. I noticed that people raved about the game's story, characters, and how it made them cry. I saw zero praise for the gameplay. It seems to me that those who love this series love the narrative, and those who dislike this series dislike actually playing it.
I reached out to some fans of EOS and asked if my assumption was correct. The consensus seemed to be pretty close to my initial idea. This setting, world, and story mean a lot to people. And when they're that enamored with the storytelling, they learn to love the gameplay.
During my time with the game, the story didn't pull me in, so the gameplay just came across as repetitive and uninteresting.
It's legitimately interesting to me how this game has attracted such a following. Every once in a while, I'll see a "Top 10 DS/Pokemon/Nintendo" YouTube video, and practically every time, there will be comments demanding to know where Explorers of Sky is, as if it's universally accepted that it's some sort of masterpiece. Even as a die-hard Pokemaniac since '98, I don't get the appeal at all.
There's no denying that EOS means a lot to a lot of people, but MAN. The game just isn't fun.
And I don't get it.
After 5-6 hours of gameplay, I was completely bewildered by the love this game gets (and I understood why it has a 54 on Metacritic), so I read through some "Explorers of Sky is the GOAT" posts. I noticed that people raved about the game's story, characters, and how it made them cry. I saw zero praise for the gameplay. It seems to me that those who love this series love the narrative, and those who dislike this series dislike actually playing it.
I reached out to some fans of EOS and asked if my assumption was correct. The consensus seemed to be pretty close to my initial idea. This setting, world, and story mean a lot to people. And when they're that enamored with the storytelling, they learn to love the gameplay.
During my time with the game, the story didn't pull me in, so the gameplay just came across as repetitive and uninteresting.
It's legitimately interesting to me how this game has attracted such a following. Every once in a while, I'll see a "Top 10 DS/Pokemon/Nintendo" YouTube video, and practically every time, there will be comments demanding to know where Explorers of Sky is, as if it's universally accepted that it's some sort of masterpiece. Even as a die-hard Pokemaniac since '98, I don't get the appeal at all.
There's no denying that EOS means a lot to a lot of people, but MAN. The game just isn't fun.
Pokemon think replacing the v in Reviver Seed with an s is such peak comedy that they literally die oser it
why.
why.
This is my favorite video game. I love this game to death and pretty much everything about it. This game has issues like any game does, but my personal bias steamroller paves over those minor complaints in favor of everything else this game does.
Let's talk about the gameplay first. This game is a dungeon crawler and like most does not pull punches. You can tip the scales in your favor, break the system, or simply keep getting lucky but you will have to adapt to the punishment the game deals out but thankfully not too quickly. The game is pretty fair with its difficulty curve with only a few things being blatantly "unfair" (looking at you, final dungeon Porygon-Z Discharge and extra dungeon Earth Power Nidoqueen). But the unfairness and adapting to it is also part of the charm to me: You're an explorer braving the unknown, even being prepared as possible sometimes isn't enough and you'll get the rug swept from under you.
This game also operates under standard Pokemon rules being slightly adjusted for the top-down perspective (namely weather effects lasting constantly although this is a Gen 4 Moment, some moves having wider and farther range, and some moves being changed to have different uses). You'll be playing as a Pokemon as selected by the Personality Quiz at the start. There's not really any bad options aside from maybe Phanpy so feel free to adapt to your new form...or savescum until you get Riolu, Pikachu, or Skitty and break the game over your knee.
This game's presentation is immaculate. It captures the vibe of Pokemon perfectly while making its own unique aesthetic where you really feel like this is a world lived in by Pokemon rather than people. There's different Pokemon using their natural abilities to offer services such as a Pelliper Delivery Service, a Kangaskhan Storage, and a police force comprised of all Magnemites/Magnetons/Magnezones; some fun gags like a Wurmple and Swellow team being called "Team Tasty;" and vibe that feels very rustic and almost primitive compared to the sprawling towns of the mainline games.
The music is also top notch with no bad tracks, some of them bringing me to tears sometimes through sheer force of nostalgia. Some highlights include "Welcome to the Pokemon World" when you take the personality quiz, "On the Beach at Dusk" when you're on the beach...at dusk, and the final dungeon theme "Temporal Tower." I put this soundtrack on all the time as background noise.
As for the story? Immaculate. This game has a fantastic story with amazing characters and witty dialogue and it's just a blast all the way through. Even the more mundane sections are deliberate and intentional with you slowly settled into the setting and the next story event breaking the usual trends. I wish I could gush about the story without spoiling anything but I will say one of the characters in particular was genuinely my idol as a kid. His heroism and ceaseless drive to create a better tomorrow really inspired me, and I hold one of his lines dear to my heart to this day:
"The important thing is not how long you live... It's what you accomplish with your life. While I live, I want to shine. I want to prove that I exist. If I could do something really important... That would definitely carry on into the future."
Not the full quote because that has spoilers, but I feel like this philosophy shaped my own outlook on life. It doesn't matter if I live to 40 or 100, as long as I do something with myself I can feel satisfied. And that "something" can be as small as making a lasting impact on others that will carry to the future; even if I'm forgotten, my touch on them won't and, in essence, I continue to live on.
Nostalgia bias definitely plays a part in how much I enjoy this game. This was one of my first games beaten, one of my first games beaten multiple times, and has always been my favorite game. I try to play through this game once per year or so because it really is that enjoyable to come back to time and time again. Even if you didn't grow up with this game, give this one a chance. I sincerely hope you can come to appreciate it similarly as I do. Perhaps it too will carry on into your future.
Let's talk about the gameplay first. This game is a dungeon crawler and like most does not pull punches. You can tip the scales in your favor, break the system, or simply keep getting lucky but you will have to adapt to the punishment the game deals out but thankfully not too quickly. The game is pretty fair with its difficulty curve with only a few things being blatantly "unfair" (looking at you, final dungeon Porygon-Z Discharge and extra dungeon Earth Power Nidoqueen). But the unfairness and adapting to it is also part of the charm to me: You're an explorer braving the unknown, even being prepared as possible sometimes isn't enough and you'll get the rug swept from under you.
This game also operates under standard Pokemon rules being slightly adjusted for the top-down perspective (namely weather effects lasting constantly although this is a Gen 4 Moment, some moves having wider and farther range, and some moves being changed to have different uses). You'll be playing as a Pokemon as selected by the Personality Quiz at the start. There's not really any bad options aside from maybe Phanpy so feel free to adapt to your new form...or savescum until you get Riolu, Pikachu, or Skitty and break the game over your knee.
This game's presentation is immaculate. It captures the vibe of Pokemon perfectly while making its own unique aesthetic where you really feel like this is a world lived in by Pokemon rather than people. There's different Pokemon using their natural abilities to offer services such as a Pelliper Delivery Service, a Kangaskhan Storage, and a police force comprised of all Magnemites/Magnetons/Magnezones; some fun gags like a Wurmple and Swellow team being called "Team Tasty;" and vibe that feels very rustic and almost primitive compared to the sprawling towns of the mainline games.
The music is also top notch with no bad tracks, some of them bringing me to tears sometimes through sheer force of nostalgia. Some highlights include "Welcome to the Pokemon World" when you take the personality quiz, "On the Beach at Dusk" when you're on the beach...at dusk, and the final dungeon theme "Temporal Tower." I put this soundtrack on all the time as background noise.
As for the story? Immaculate. This game has a fantastic story with amazing characters and witty dialogue and it's just a blast all the way through. Even the more mundane sections are deliberate and intentional with you slowly settled into the setting and the next story event breaking the usual trends. I wish I could gush about the story without spoiling anything but I will say one of the characters in particular was genuinely my idol as a kid. His heroism and ceaseless drive to create a better tomorrow really inspired me, and I hold one of his lines dear to my heart to this day:
"The important thing is not how long you live... It's what you accomplish with your life. While I live, I want to shine. I want to prove that I exist. If I could do something really important... That would definitely carry on into the future."
Not the full quote because that has spoilers, but I feel like this philosophy shaped my own outlook on life. It doesn't matter if I live to 40 or 100, as long as I do something with myself I can feel satisfied. And that "something" can be as small as making a lasting impact on others that will carry to the future; even if I'm forgotten, my touch on them won't and, in essence, I continue to live on.
Nostalgia bias definitely plays a part in how much I enjoy this game. This was one of my first games beaten, one of my first games beaten multiple times, and has always been my favorite game. I try to play through this game once per year or so because it really is that enjoyable to come back to time and time again. Even if you didn't grow up with this game, give this one a chance. I sincerely hope you can come to appreciate it similarly as I do. Perhaps it too will carry on into your future.
Greatest of all time. Zenith of the medium. Hallmark of media. Gold standard of storytelling. Apogee of creativity. Vertex of invention. Crest of ingenuity. Acme of imagination. Pinnacle of innovation Epic of epics. Legend among legends. Peak fiction.
i have a heart shaped locket with a photo of grovyle from pmd: explorers of sky (2009) inside of it and i carry it with me wherever i go
This review contains spoilers
I finally got a chance to play this legendary spin-off. What makes it so good? Honestly, not sure. The only other PMD I've played (and only MD I've played period) is Rescue Team DX. That's a much newer remake of an older game than this, so it's hard to say how much this game improved and whatnot since my baseline is essentially 2020 game design put onto a 2005 game. But generally speaking the gameplay in both feels extremely similar. Which, yeah, I guess it makes sense, it's the same series, but this one is a cult classic which I hear about none of the others, including Rescue Team DX.
I think it's the story that everyone loves here. It's definitely higher standard than you might expect from Pokémon, with some great characters, emotional moments and straight up suicide being suggested in the post-game story (toned down to "should we really disappear?"). My only real issue with the story is, because it is Pokémon, things are over explained to hell, so much dialogue is drawn out way beyond the point of necessity. Things are repeated, objectives are reiterated, two cents are thrown in when not needed. Every side character needs a catch phrase to pad out an extra dialogue box with the annoying beeping sound every time you progress through them. It's a good story, and I like many of the characters, but the cutscenes just started getting on my nerves with how redundant most of it is. I don't need a flashback to something that happened 5 minutes ago, c'moooon.
That is a relatively minor issue I have though, since at least it's just "this thing that is great is made less great". Most of my issues revolve around gameplay stuff.
What made me put this game down for months is the absolute monotony that is thrown at you after every day. When you complete a mission (optional or story), you'll be brought back to the base so you can watch a pointless cutscene of everyone eating, followed by a cutscene of your character falling to sleep, then being woken up. It's only like 2 minutes total, but it adds up. However it's the preparation stage that truly made this drag. Every time you wake up there's likely to be the following things you want to do:
-Check Croagunk's shop for exclusive Pokémon-specific items that fit you or your partner.
-Check mission board for good missions.
-Go to Xatu's place to open up any boxes you picked up.
-Go to Wigglytuff's place to deposit the excess shit you picked up in the last mission, while restocking your essentials such as apples and reviver seeds.
-Check Kecleon's shop (usually for gummis).
-Deposit leftover money so you don't lose it if you die.
-Go to Spinda's Cafe and eat all your gummis. It's better to do it here because you're guaranteed a stat boost, and have a chance to get extra IQ points/more stat boosts just based on RNG. But every single time you pick an item to drink, you get a cutscene of Spinda preparing it. And you can't just drink multiple at once.
-Avoid playing Wobbufet's lottery because you might accidently win and be forced to watch another unskippable Ludicolo dance.
And now after 10 minutes of micromanaging you're finally ready to play a dungeon.
Why subject us to that EVERY TIME? Give me a damn way to set my dungeon items so that when I go to one it automatically deposits everything else, and withdraws my list, then I only have to manage the inventory when I want something specific that isn't part of the exact same thing I take into every single mission.
This is the kind of game that should make you feel addicted to play the next mission, it shouldn't give you that feeling of getting ready for work every morning. Between this AND the long-winded dialogue it makes the game feel way longer than it should.
At least the actual gameplay is fun enough. If you can annoy all the dumb issues that come up there... You can only recruit a defeated Pokémon if both you are exactly 1 space away from it, and if you yourself deliver the final blow. So no using ranged attacks, and definitely no letting your allies fight if you're set on recruiting a specific thing (which is a very rare chance until post-game when you can get items to boost it).
Traps in post-game dungeons are all over the damn place. I think there's IQ skills to see traps(?) but my dumbass starter didn't have that skill in his IQ group, so I never got to use it.
Speaking of traps, you just activated one? Well walk out of the way of it and watch your partner literally walk right in to it. The worst part is this isn't even some programming thing - there's an IQ skill that lets allies avoid visible traps. But it's only available to like 2 IQ groups out of more than 10, and it takes a fair amount of investment to even learn that skill. Why is not having actual braindead AI not only something that requires a lot of investment, but something you can only get from less than 20% of the Pokémon in the game? This applies to many things really, like want a partner that won't try to use sleep powder on an already sleeping enemy? That's literally a skill. Granted that one is something all Pokémon can learn, and relatively early. In fact trying to get your teammates to do anything not-stupid requires giving them gummis to raise their IQ, but at least some of them (like letting them realise using Sleep Powder on a sleeping enemy is a dipshit move) are learnable by everyone and fairly early.
This actively made me want to not use anyone but myself, and begrudgingly my partner who I couldn't remove until the post-game. Even having them as bodies and extra fire-power until they inevitably die doesn't work, because any death from your team will automatically use your precious revival seeds, with no option to set them to only be used on you/your partner (aka the only 2 deaths that would actually matter). Your best bet is to pick one or two specific teammates and buff them up, but even that feels inferior to just using all those gummis on yourself.
Thank God they're optional. Unless they're forced onto you for mission requests (which to be fair I guess is also technically optional). I stopped taking those ones when the game tried to make me drag a level 15 Metapod through at least 15 floors (I never got to where he wanted to go) while keeping him alive through rooms of enemies that can use moves that hit everything in the room, giving you no way to protect him, most of the time before you even realise there's an enemy IN this room let alone what it is, because it's on the other side way out of view. I'm not wasting all my reviver seeds to keep this Metapod alive for like 500 Pokédollars.
At least once you get past THAT the game is fun-oh wait no I remembered another thing that makes partners annoying. If one ever gets split up from you for any reason, or if you have a bigger party and one at the back gets attacked, be prepared for the worst few seconds of your life. Every single step you take is a "turn" and so in that turn both your ally and their enemy get to move. You'll be forced to painfully slowly watch them fight their stupid little heart out after every step you make, cutting the camera back and forth.
OK once you ignore that the game is pretty fun.
I do like the idea of each Pokémon having its own IQ skill path, I just don't want things that are made specifically to un-dumb the AI to be part of these. Getting to see how certain moves translate into this new style is pretty neat, even though there's a huge imbalance. The fact the post-game story is basically just an entire second part of the story is a huge bonus, and that's not even counting the massive amount of optional stuff in the post-game. This game has so much to do.
In short? Great game, but annoys the fuck out of me with every decision it makes. Like why can you set only one move to a shortcut? The shortcut is L+A. But there's 4 moves, and 4 face buttons, and L+Anything else does nothing. Let me put each move as a shortcut to each face button?
I think it's the story that everyone loves here. It's definitely higher standard than you might expect from Pokémon, with some great characters, emotional moments and straight up suicide being suggested in the post-game story (toned down to "should we really disappear?"). My only real issue with the story is, because it is Pokémon, things are over explained to hell, so much dialogue is drawn out way beyond the point of necessity. Things are repeated, objectives are reiterated, two cents are thrown in when not needed. Every side character needs a catch phrase to pad out an extra dialogue box with the annoying beeping sound every time you progress through them. It's a good story, and I like many of the characters, but the cutscenes just started getting on my nerves with how redundant most of it is. I don't need a flashback to something that happened 5 minutes ago, c'moooon.
That is a relatively minor issue I have though, since at least it's just "this thing that is great is made less great". Most of my issues revolve around gameplay stuff.
What made me put this game down for months is the absolute monotony that is thrown at you after every day. When you complete a mission (optional or story), you'll be brought back to the base so you can watch a pointless cutscene of everyone eating, followed by a cutscene of your character falling to sleep, then being woken up. It's only like 2 minutes total, but it adds up. However it's the preparation stage that truly made this drag. Every time you wake up there's likely to be the following things you want to do:
-Check Croagunk's shop for exclusive Pokémon-specific items that fit you or your partner.
-Check mission board for good missions.
-Go to Xatu's place to open up any boxes you picked up.
-Go to Wigglytuff's place to deposit the excess shit you picked up in the last mission, while restocking your essentials such as apples and reviver seeds.
-Check Kecleon's shop (usually for gummis).
-Deposit leftover money so you don't lose it if you die.
-Go to Spinda's Cafe and eat all your gummis. It's better to do it here because you're guaranteed a stat boost, and have a chance to get extra IQ points/more stat boosts just based on RNG. But every single time you pick an item to drink, you get a cutscene of Spinda preparing it. And you can't just drink multiple at once.
-Avoid playing Wobbufet's lottery because you might accidently win and be forced to watch another unskippable Ludicolo dance.
And now after 10 minutes of micromanaging you're finally ready to play a dungeon.
Why subject us to that EVERY TIME? Give me a damn way to set my dungeon items so that when I go to one it automatically deposits everything else, and withdraws my list, then I only have to manage the inventory when I want something specific that isn't part of the exact same thing I take into every single mission.
This is the kind of game that should make you feel addicted to play the next mission, it shouldn't give you that feeling of getting ready for work every morning. Between this AND the long-winded dialogue it makes the game feel way longer than it should.
At least the actual gameplay is fun enough. If you can annoy all the dumb issues that come up there... You can only recruit a defeated Pokémon if both you are exactly 1 space away from it, and if you yourself deliver the final blow. So no using ranged attacks, and definitely no letting your allies fight if you're set on recruiting a specific thing (which is a very rare chance until post-game when you can get items to boost it).
Traps in post-game dungeons are all over the damn place. I think there's IQ skills to see traps(?) but my dumbass starter didn't have that skill in his IQ group, so I never got to use it.
Speaking of traps, you just activated one? Well walk out of the way of it and watch your partner literally walk right in to it. The worst part is this isn't even some programming thing - there's an IQ skill that lets allies avoid visible traps. But it's only available to like 2 IQ groups out of more than 10, and it takes a fair amount of investment to even learn that skill. Why is not having actual braindead AI not only something that requires a lot of investment, but something you can only get from less than 20% of the Pokémon in the game? This applies to many things really, like want a partner that won't try to use sleep powder on an already sleeping enemy? That's literally a skill. Granted that one is something all Pokémon can learn, and relatively early. In fact trying to get your teammates to do anything not-stupid requires giving them gummis to raise their IQ, but at least some of them (like letting them realise using Sleep Powder on a sleeping enemy is a dipshit move) are learnable by everyone and fairly early.
This actively made me want to not use anyone but myself, and begrudgingly my partner who I couldn't remove until the post-game. Even having them as bodies and extra fire-power until they inevitably die doesn't work, because any death from your team will automatically use your precious revival seeds, with no option to set them to only be used on you/your partner (aka the only 2 deaths that would actually matter). Your best bet is to pick one or two specific teammates and buff them up, but even that feels inferior to just using all those gummis on yourself.
Thank God they're optional. Unless they're forced onto you for mission requests (which to be fair I guess is also technically optional). I stopped taking those ones when the game tried to make me drag a level 15 Metapod through at least 15 floors (I never got to where he wanted to go) while keeping him alive through rooms of enemies that can use moves that hit everything in the room, giving you no way to protect him, most of the time before you even realise there's an enemy IN this room let alone what it is, because it's on the other side way out of view. I'm not wasting all my reviver seeds to keep this Metapod alive for like 500 Pokédollars.
At least once you get past THAT the game is fun-oh wait no I remembered another thing that makes partners annoying. If one ever gets split up from you for any reason, or if you have a bigger party and one at the back gets attacked, be prepared for the worst few seconds of your life. Every single step you take is a "turn" and so in that turn both your ally and their enemy get to move. You'll be forced to painfully slowly watch them fight their stupid little heart out after every step you make, cutting the camera back and forth.
OK once you ignore that the game is pretty fun.
I do like the idea of each Pokémon having its own IQ skill path, I just don't want things that are made specifically to un-dumb the AI to be part of these. Getting to see how certain moves translate into this new style is pretty neat, even though there's a huge imbalance. The fact the post-game story is basically just an entire second part of the story is a huge bonus, and that's not even counting the massive amount of optional stuff in the post-game. This game has so much to do.
In short? Great game, but annoys the fuck out of me with every decision it makes. Like why can you set only one move to a shortcut? The shortcut is L+A. But there's 4 moves, and 4 face buttons, and L+Anything else does nothing. Let me put each move as a shortcut to each face button?
fuck it we small
Um pouco esperado, mas saio um pouco desapontado diante do furor enorme ao redor desse jogo. A tão aclamada história falhou em me capturar, uma série de linhas narrativas desnecessariamente complicadas e resolvidas por conveniência de forma muitas vezes barata, ainda que com uma linha temática (dependência, entrega) e emocional muito bem executada, em pontos - se o final lindo não fosse descartado em questão de minutos, isso já seria o suficiente para que eu superasse todas as limitações da história. Apesar dos apesares, consigo ver porque ela é tão amada, especialmente através de lentes nostálgicas - é o tipo de história simples que sabe tocar no coração. Não vejo muita utilidade na comparação, mas a entrada é minha e faço o que quiser: em todo aspecto - diálogo, estética, ludonarrativa, etc e por aí vai - espanca qualquer história que a GameFreak já tentou contar na vida.
Vi muitas críticas em relação à jogabilidade, e todos amigos que entraram na jornada de dar uma chance pra esse jogo desistiram em questão de minutos por causa da mesma. Já eu, salvo algumas frustrações, a achei bem gostosinha: a dificuldade é bem balanceada, e aprecio o caos que vem de não ter controle sobre seus parceiros, que parecem mais próprios indivíduos ao invés de bonecos, por mais que estes indivíduos sejam dolorosamente burros se você não engajar com o pessimamente calibrado sistema de IQ. Algumas soluções para itemização e coordenação de inventário são surpreendentemente elegantes, e sinto que o jogo sai com um balanço positivo de sistemas bem calibrados ao redor da experiência casual. Em suma, me diverti e joguei sem esforços, o jogo mantendo uma parte decente de todas as explorações como ao menos minimamente interessante.
PMD Explorers of Sky claramente tem muita alma™ e o famigerado “algo a dizer”. Soube cobrir, com a franquia mais acessível e marketável do planeta, um gênero tão inacessível como dungeon crawlers - toda vez que o jogo estava entediante, irritante ou arcano ao ponto do incômodo, os sprites lindíssimos dos bichinhos que me acompanham desde que nasci eram o suficiente para apaziguar a má vontade de continuar. Só de minimamente me investirem numa história de isekai furry já lhes dou os parabéns.
adendo: bonito e trilha sonora mto boa!!
Vi muitas críticas em relação à jogabilidade, e todos amigos que entraram na jornada de dar uma chance pra esse jogo desistiram em questão de minutos por causa da mesma. Já eu, salvo algumas frustrações, a achei bem gostosinha: a dificuldade é bem balanceada, e aprecio o caos que vem de não ter controle sobre seus parceiros, que parecem mais próprios indivíduos ao invés de bonecos, por mais que estes indivíduos sejam dolorosamente burros se você não engajar com o pessimamente calibrado sistema de IQ. Algumas soluções para itemização e coordenação de inventário são surpreendentemente elegantes, e sinto que o jogo sai com um balanço positivo de sistemas bem calibrados ao redor da experiência casual. Em suma, me diverti e joguei sem esforços, o jogo mantendo uma parte decente de todas as explorações como ao menos minimamente interessante.
PMD Explorers of Sky claramente tem muita alma™ e o famigerado “algo a dizer”. Soube cobrir, com a franquia mais acessível e marketável do planeta, um gênero tão inacessível como dungeon crawlers - toda vez que o jogo estava entediante, irritante ou arcano ao ponto do incômodo, os sprites lindíssimos dos bichinhos que me acompanham desde que nasci eram o suficiente para apaziguar a má vontade de continuar. Só de minimamente me investirem numa história de isekai furry já lhes dou os parabéns.
adendo: bonito e trilha sonora mto boa!!
I want to replay this game because the first time I played through it I couldn't stop crying violently every time I heard at least 5 songs from the OST while listening to it on my own time