On the surface, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX appears to be a pretty faithful remake of the original Blue and Red Rescue Team. It’s the same turn-based dungeon-crawler roguelike Pokemon battling translation that I had grew up with almost two decades ago, coupled with the same storyline and a rearranged orchestral version of the original’s DS soundtrack. Minus the lack of walkable Friend Areas, DX’s atmosphere and core gameplay mechanics seemed accurate to my previous experience of the original games at first, and thus it seemed like a forgone conclusion that I’d naturally enjoy the remake. However, the more I played through the game, the more things felt off.
Further investigation into DX’s inner workings revealed that while DX preserves the core formula of Blue Rescue Team’s structure and basic combat mechanics, much of the surrounding survival mechanics have actually been pulled from the latest iteration of PMD via Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon on the 3DS to “modernize” the mechanics as opposed to adapting mechanics from the original games in Red/Blue Rescue Team or the DS successors in Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky. I started noticing that in DX, the hunger mechanic felt much more prevalent; my Pokemon’s belly appeared to empty much more quickly than in the originals, and I found myself consuming an Apple every few minutes or so. There’s a variety of changes that contribute to this: the belly decreases by 1/7 of a point every action (instead of 1/10 for Blue and EoS), Max Ethers/Elixirs no longer restore BP, consuming berries & seeds only restore 2 BP as opposed to 5 in the originals, and so on. Similarly, Power Point (PP) management regarding move usage limits became far more grating in DX as opposed to the original. The obvious culprit is removing the standard attack that could be used at any time for a weaker strike that preserved PP (meaning players now have to utilize moves far more often), but to compensate for this, Spike Chunsoft had to supply the player with far more PP restoration items. However, instead of supplying them with Max Elixirs that fully restore PP for all moves used, the most common PP restoration item is now the Max Ether, which only restores PP for a single move. The optimal strategy then, is to spam the same move over and over again so you get the most bang for your buck out of using Max Ethers. Finally, weather feels much more intrusive in the remake as opposed to the originals, because DX removes the ability to naturally heal HP over time during sandstorms/hail if you’re not of a resistant type, meaning that you have to either pack a lot more Oran Berries or waste more time outside of damaging weather to heal up.
None of these changes would feel too problematic in isolation, but together, this results in DX overemphasizing its resource management in comparison to Blue Rescue Team or Explorers of Sky, meaning that overloading your toolbox with the necessary buffers or grinding in easier dungeons to stock up on said buffers is pretty much a given to succeed (especially when Apple/Sticky Traps in dungeons can further spoil your resources). I unfortunately find this shift in focus somewhat ill-fitting to a remake of Blue Rescue Team; while the structure and core gameplay remained the same, the circumstances dictating how the player had to interact with the structure changed, and thus it feels to me like the remake struggled to serve its intended purpose. Needless to say, I’m far more interested in the turn-based combat than the resource management of PMD, and DX felt far more imbalanced to where I felt like I was spending most of my time watching my health/PP/belly and menuing rather than focusing on the play-by-play.
In a broader sense, I’ve said before that Pokemon’s greatest weakness is the presence of excessive RNG and grinding. That’s not to say that these weaknesses were absent from PMD, but rather, PMD often prevailed in the face of bullshit RNG and grinding because of how the game’s structure and gameplay mechanics leaned into them. Once again though, for a remake that seemed faithful on the outside, DX regrettably makes changes that worsen the RNG and grinding to extents that were not necessarily present in the originals.
I’ll come right out and say that I’m not a fan of DX’s changes regarding team size and recruitment. Blue Rescue Team and EoS kept the max party size to four Pokemon at a time (with Blue only letting you bring in three Pokemon at a time while EoS let you bring four; if you wanted a fourth in Blue, it had to be recruited in the dungeon), but DX has a max party size of up to eight Pokemon despite only letting you bring in three recruited members. The short and thick of it is that these recruits are a necessary liability for successful runs. They’re a liability because you have to bring them back through the end of the dungeon run to permanently recruit them on your team (unlike the originals, which let you send them back immediately to base), but keeping them alive will naturally eat into your resources, and letting them faint once they’ve been temporarily recruited as a guest will cause enemy Pokemon to become “awakened” and pose an immediate threat via significant stat increases. It’s also extremely unwieldy to try and micromanage five guests at the same time, especially when you can’t give guest Pokemon exact move commands or control their tactics, and you’ll often find them getting attacked at the end of a single-file line in corridors, unable to lend a helping hand to fend off enemy ambushes. At the same time, these guests can be absolute godsends to runs: they often come with Rare Qualities that affect the entire team, such as Small Stomach (which lets you consume any seed/berry/apple and immediately fills the belly to max capacity) or Strike Back (which lowers the Attack and Special Attack stats of an enemy Pokemon, including bosses, that deals damage to your team). You can’t see what rare qualities an enemy Pokemon may have while fighting them, so it’s in your best interest to recruit as many guests as possible in hopes of getting more Rare Qualities to bolster your team. Essentially, this is yet another resource grind that’s present only in the remake. At best, getting the Rare Quality recruits you need is extremely time-consuming and luck-based, but at least lets you steamroll boss fights. At worst, not getting the Rare Quality recruits you need feels like an active detriment when you’re running low on supplies and the dungeon isn’t giving you the item drops you need to survive.
Perhaps this resource grind would be more forgivable if the level scaling were up to par, but as it stands, I find enemy XP drops during the main game to be rather lacking. You’ll have to stick around and roam entire floors to sufficiently scale up with the enemy Pokemon level increases as the story progresses, and that’s often not the best idea when you’ve only got limited resources in your toolbox to manage HP/PP/BP and you’ll likely end up spotting the stairs before mapping out the entire floor. The best way then, is to train in Makuhita Dojo. This too, has been drastically altered from the original. Instead of challenge-room type and boss mazes, the dojo has been repurposed into a straight XP grindfest. You now have to spend limited tickets to defeat as many enemy Pokemon as you can in a real-time limit (i.e. a Bronze Dojo Ticket gives you 50 seconds of real time), and because experience is significantly multiplied both by the ticket itself (3x for Bronze, 5x for Silver, 7x for Gold) and by using super effective attacks, it’s simply too good to pass up considering the meager XP earnings from story dungeons. Unfortunately, this is also extremely tedious due to the time limits, as excess animations from randomly doubling attacks or outright missing attacks/failing to OHKO from random enemy buffs feels particularly punishing when Dojo tickets are a limited commodity that have to be scored as job rewards or randomly from dungeon treasure chests/mail. It also doesn’t help that the ticket allocation itself is not scaled: you’ll still be receiving Bronze tickets far into the post-game when you’ll likely need to use up 3 or more tickets to level-up, and you can only use one ticket at a time instead of stacking time limits. The result then, is that Makuhita’s dojo outright breaks the difficulty curve of the game: I found myself significantly overleveled during the main story using it, but after the significant difficulty spike during the post-game, it failed to provide much benefit for my main team since I was inundated with Bronze/Silver tickets and thus led to even more time spent grinding both in and outside of dungeons.
Gummis have also been reworked in DX, and are a slight improvement over the original, yet aren't completely rectified. Gummi grinding was likely the weakest aspect of the original games: you needed them to level up the IQ of each individual Pokemon for basic skills such as not stepping on visible traps and not using status moves on Pokemon that have already been statused. Fortunately, these IQ skills have been entirely removed and as a result the AI has been improved significantly: you no longer have to micromanage every single member of your team to avoid making silly mistakes, and in fact teammates can aid you subtly like positioning themselves to target ranged enemies or deviating slightly from the path to pick up floor objects so the leader doesn’t have to pick up every object themselves. That said, gummies still serve a purpose, because they provide random permanent stat boosts (invaluable when level-ups are often just a simple +1 to all stats) and they’re the only way to add/change Rare Qualities attached to your team members. Obtaining gummis is actually more obnoxious than even the original games, because just like Dojo Tickets, they can only be obtained via job rewards or found randomly in treasure chests, and you’ll often need to run through a few just to get the right Rare Quality for a specific team member (or a Rare Quality at all, because Rainbow Gummis are not guaranteed to give a Rare Quality). At least in the original games, you could obtain Gummis as random item drops on dungeon floors.
The above three changes basically represent a trend of changing aspects from the original in a way that left something to be desired, and lead me to believe that the remake is somewhat misguided. It’s quite confusing: sometimes there are obvious improvements, like expanding the toolbox capacity from 20 to 48 (carrying this from Explorers of Time/Darkness forward) and adding in all evolution lines for Pokemon from Generations 1-3 + bringing in new moves that have been added since Gen 8, but then sometimes the game feels far more punishing than difficult in a way that the original never did, like how fainting in dungeons now makes you lose all of your money and items (whereas you’d only lose half of your items in the DS originals and at least in EoS, only lose half of your money), so you really better hope you’ve got the resources to rescue yourself with a second team or someone online spots your request promptly.
What is more damning though, is that for as many things as they did change, there’s a lot of not great things about the original that I’d argue they should have changed/improved upon but didn’t (or at the very least, didn't improve upon enough), such as the aforementioned issue of gummi grinding Ironically, the qualities left in from the original are what led me to realize that Blue/Red Rescue Team are more flawed than I had originally remembered. For example, the original wasn’t great at pacing either (I found myself equally bored in the main-game at times, forced to grind during one particular story-heavy section where I was limited to my protagonist + partner), but I think it was more forgivable at the time given that it was the debut of the series and was greatly improved upon in Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky. DX feels far more egregious in context now that I have several points of comparison, for not fixing a lot of the grinding/RNG issues of the original (and in fact exacerbating a few of them) and transitioning the at-least involved main-story into an underwhelming post-game narrative, of which 80% can be summed up as “fight this powerful Pokemon because you can.” Take this with a grain of salt since my point of view is colored from extensively playing the original (albeit, almost a decade and a half ago), but I unfortunately found my time spent during the main story to be quite forgettable (as I breezed through the dungeons with little difficulty) and a good chunk of the post-game to be aggravatingly tedious while I scaled up my team to better deal with the far more competent foes and spongier bosses.
I suppose I did eventually come around on the post-game nevertheless, considering that at the time of writing I’ve now logged just over sixty hours on my save file. It’s a pity that it took hours of forgettable missions and grinding (instead of the game adequately scaling my gains throughout the story’s runtime) to get to that point and that my satisfaction was in spite of rather than as a result of the altered resource management (since these elements become minimal once you have the right Rare Qualities and a stockpile of Perfect Apples/Max Elixirs to throw at the problem), but a few of the game’s climatic dungeons really do bring out the best qualities of PMD’s gameplay. One dungeon that stands out is Meteor Cave: in it, you are constantly assaulted by infinite waves of different Deoxys forms that force you to consider the totality of your actions, considering each form has significantly stratified stats/moves that must be dealt with promptly before you run out of resources due to Pressure doubling your PP usage. In just twenty floors, this dungeon where you cannot be rescued challenged me in ways that Silver Trench couldn’t do in ninety-nine. This isn’t even my favorite dungeon in the game though: surprisingly, that title goes to Purity Forest. Considered by many to be the toughest dungeon in the game, Purity Forest drops you in with no items, no Poke, and only one team member, resetting your level to five and forcing you to fight and earn your way out to even hope to survive against fully evolved Pokemon by the end of your run. The caveat to my final hours savored in the game was that I had to slog through multiple other ninety-nine floor dungeons around the same time as tackling Purity Forest (and it doesn’t help that two of them, Wish Cave and Joyous Tower, are basically Purity Forest Jr since the only differences are that Wish Cave lets you bring items + teammates and Joyous Tower only lets you bring teammates), but ultimately, I can at least say I finished my run on a high note, even if I felt like my run was diluted somewhat by the lackluster pacing and never quite hit the perfect difficulty until the very end.
So the big question remains: do I recommend Rescue Team DX? While I ultimately got some enjoyment out of the game, I'm conflicted regarding its overall quality and lean towards no. All things considered, I don’t really know what audience this game appeals to or if it even excels in any particular category. Newbies will likely find this game too hard and too grindy during the main story, while veterans will likely find this game initially too easy and too grindy during the post-game. DX introduces enough quality-of-life changes, but it also doesn’t change certain exasperating elements from the original (or in some cases, outright fumbles the bag) and makes me question if the remake was necessary in the first place. The climactic gameplay, once the player gets past any resource and leveling barriers, is fantastic, but as I’ve mentioned earlier, is dragged down by a layer of RNG and grinding that often feels more tedious than challenging. Finally, I'd say that the story’s adequate given its time, but it can’t hold a candle to the emotional peaks reached by Explorers of Sky (due in part to Sky’s side stories).
If anything, my time with DX has confirmed that I see modern Pokemon games far differently than I once did as a kid. Obvious statements aside, I find that I tend to view the newer Pokemon games (of the ones I’ve played anyways, as I only have a few hours in Sword/Shield and haven’t touched Scarlet/Violet) more as sandboxes than well-rounded experiences. Granted, it might be a little unfair to assign this to a remake of a 2005 DS/GBA game, and it doesn’t even sound like a significant issue at first given that I’m usually able to dig deep and find the player motivation to thoroughly approach games on their own terms. That said, I would also say that there was once a time where Pokemon games excelled in both world-building/atmosphere and gameplay (Explorers of Sky being the obvious candidate), and as such it’s hard to see DX as anything but a personal disappointment at best. Even so, it might not be my ideal experience, but I’m still glad that others were able to fully savor what DX brings to the table even if I’m stuck in the past reminiscing about the glory days of PMD, and that’s okay too.
Further investigation into DX’s inner workings revealed that while DX preserves the core formula of Blue Rescue Team’s structure and basic combat mechanics, much of the surrounding survival mechanics have actually been pulled from the latest iteration of PMD via Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon on the 3DS to “modernize” the mechanics as opposed to adapting mechanics from the original games in Red/Blue Rescue Team or the DS successors in Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky. I started noticing that in DX, the hunger mechanic felt much more prevalent; my Pokemon’s belly appeared to empty much more quickly than in the originals, and I found myself consuming an Apple every few minutes or so. There’s a variety of changes that contribute to this: the belly decreases by 1/7 of a point every action (instead of 1/10 for Blue and EoS), Max Ethers/Elixirs no longer restore BP, consuming berries & seeds only restore 2 BP as opposed to 5 in the originals, and so on. Similarly, Power Point (PP) management regarding move usage limits became far more grating in DX as opposed to the original. The obvious culprit is removing the standard attack that could be used at any time for a weaker strike that preserved PP (meaning players now have to utilize moves far more often), but to compensate for this, Spike Chunsoft had to supply the player with far more PP restoration items. However, instead of supplying them with Max Elixirs that fully restore PP for all moves used, the most common PP restoration item is now the Max Ether, which only restores PP for a single move. The optimal strategy then, is to spam the same move over and over again so you get the most bang for your buck out of using Max Ethers. Finally, weather feels much more intrusive in the remake as opposed to the originals, because DX removes the ability to naturally heal HP over time during sandstorms/hail if you’re not of a resistant type, meaning that you have to either pack a lot more Oran Berries or waste more time outside of damaging weather to heal up.
None of these changes would feel too problematic in isolation, but together, this results in DX overemphasizing its resource management in comparison to Blue Rescue Team or Explorers of Sky, meaning that overloading your toolbox with the necessary buffers or grinding in easier dungeons to stock up on said buffers is pretty much a given to succeed (especially when Apple/Sticky Traps in dungeons can further spoil your resources). I unfortunately find this shift in focus somewhat ill-fitting to a remake of Blue Rescue Team; while the structure and core gameplay remained the same, the circumstances dictating how the player had to interact with the structure changed, and thus it feels to me like the remake struggled to serve its intended purpose. Needless to say, I’m far more interested in the turn-based combat than the resource management of PMD, and DX felt far more imbalanced to where I felt like I was spending most of my time watching my health/PP/belly and menuing rather than focusing on the play-by-play.
In a broader sense, I’ve said before that Pokemon’s greatest weakness is the presence of excessive RNG and grinding. That’s not to say that these weaknesses were absent from PMD, but rather, PMD often prevailed in the face of bullshit RNG and grinding because of how the game’s structure and gameplay mechanics leaned into them. Once again though, for a remake that seemed faithful on the outside, DX regrettably makes changes that worsen the RNG and grinding to extents that were not necessarily present in the originals.
I’ll come right out and say that I’m not a fan of DX’s changes regarding team size and recruitment. Blue Rescue Team and EoS kept the max party size to four Pokemon at a time (with Blue only letting you bring in three Pokemon at a time while EoS let you bring four; if you wanted a fourth in Blue, it had to be recruited in the dungeon), but DX has a max party size of up to eight Pokemon despite only letting you bring in three recruited members. The short and thick of it is that these recruits are a necessary liability for successful runs. They’re a liability because you have to bring them back through the end of the dungeon run to permanently recruit them on your team (unlike the originals, which let you send them back immediately to base), but keeping them alive will naturally eat into your resources, and letting them faint once they’ve been temporarily recruited as a guest will cause enemy Pokemon to become “awakened” and pose an immediate threat via significant stat increases. It’s also extremely unwieldy to try and micromanage five guests at the same time, especially when you can’t give guest Pokemon exact move commands or control their tactics, and you’ll often find them getting attacked at the end of a single-file line in corridors, unable to lend a helping hand to fend off enemy ambushes. At the same time, these guests can be absolute godsends to runs: they often come with Rare Qualities that affect the entire team, such as Small Stomach (which lets you consume any seed/berry/apple and immediately fills the belly to max capacity) or Strike Back (which lowers the Attack and Special Attack stats of an enemy Pokemon, including bosses, that deals damage to your team). You can’t see what rare qualities an enemy Pokemon may have while fighting them, so it’s in your best interest to recruit as many guests as possible in hopes of getting more Rare Qualities to bolster your team. Essentially, this is yet another resource grind that’s present only in the remake. At best, getting the Rare Quality recruits you need is extremely time-consuming and luck-based, but at least lets you steamroll boss fights. At worst, not getting the Rare Quality recruits you need feels like an active detriment when you’re running low on supplies and the dungeon isn’t giving you the item drops you need to survive.
Perhaps this resource grind would be more forgivable if the level scaling were up to par, but as it stands, I find enemy XP drops during the main game to be rather lacking. You’ll have to stick around and roam entire floors to sufficiently scale up with the enemy Pokemon level increases as the story progresses, and that’s often not the best idea when you’ve only got limited resources in your toolbox to manage HP/PP/BP and you’ll likely end up spotting the stairs before mapping out the entire floor. The best way then, is to train in Makuhita Dojo. This too, has been drastically altered from the original. Instead of challenge-room type and boss mazes, the dojo has been repurposed into a straight XP grindfest. You now have to spend limited tickets to defeat as many enemy Pokemon as you can in a real-time limit (i.e. a Bronze Dojo Ticket gives you 50 seconds of real time), and because experience is significantly multiplied both by the ticket itself (3x for Bronze, 5x for Silver, 7x for Gold) and by using super effective attacks, it’s simply too good to pass up considering the meager XP earnings from story dungeons. Unfortunately, this is also extremely tedious due to the time limits, as excess animations from randomly doubling attacks or outright missing attacks/failing to OHKO from random enemy buffs feels particularly punishing when Dojo tickets are a limited commodity that have to be scored as job rewards or randomly from dungeon treasure chests/mail. It also doesn’t help that the ticket allocation itself is not scaled: you’ll still be receiving Bronze tickets far into the post-game when you’ll likely need to use up 3 or more tickets to level-up, and you can only use one ticket at a time instead of stacking time limits. The result then, is that Makuhita’s dojo outright breaks the difficulty curve of the game: I found myself significantly overleveled during the main story using it, but after the significant difficulty spike during the post-game, it failed to provide much benefit for my main team since I was inundated with Bronze/Silver tickets and thus led to even more time spent grinding both in and outside of dungeons.
Gummis have also been reworked in DX, and are a slight improvement over the original, yet aren't completely rectified. Gummi grinding was likely the weakest aspect of the original games: you needed them to level up the IQ of each individual Pokemon for basic skills such as not stepping on visible traps and not using status moves on Pokemon that have already been statused. Fortunately, these IQ skills have been entirely removed and as a result the AI has been improved significantly: you no longer have to micromanage every single member of your team to avoid making silly mistakes, and in fact teammates can aid you subtly like positioning themselves to target ranged enemies or deviating slightly from the path to pick up floor objects so the leader doesn’t have to pick up every object themselves. That said, gummies still serve a purpose, because they provide random permanent stat boosts (invaluable when level-ups are often just a simple +1 to all stats) and they’re the only way to add/change Rare Qualities attached to your team members. Obtaining gummis is actually more obnoxious than even the original games, because just like Dojo Tickets, they can only be obtained via job rewards or found randomly in treasure chests, and you’ll often need to run through a few just to get the right Rare Quality for a specific team member (or a Rare Quality at all, because Rainbow Gummis are not guaranteed to give a Rare Quality). At least in the original games, you could obtain Gummis as random item drops on dungeon floors.
The above three changes basically represent a trend of changing aspects from the original in a way that left something to be desired, and lead me to believe that the remake is somewhat misguided. It’s quite confusing: sometimes there are obvious improvements, like expanding the toolbox capacity from 20 to 48 (carrying this from Explorers of Time/Darkness forward) and adding in all evolution lines for Pokemon from Generations 1-3 + bringing in new moves that have been added since Gen 8, but then sometimes the game feels far more punishing than difficult in a way that the original never did, like how fainting in dungeons now makes you lose all of your money and items (whereas you’d only lose half of your items in the DS originals and at least in EoS, only lose half of your money), so you really better hope you’ve got the resources to rescue yourself with a second team or someone online spots your request promptly.
What is more damning though, is that for as many things as they did change, there’s a lot of not great things about the original that I’d argue they should have changed/improved upon but didn’t (or at the very least, didn't improve upon enough), such as the aforementioned issue of gummi grinding Ironically, the qualities left in from the original are what led me to realize that Blue/Red Rescue Team are more flawed than I had originally remembered. For example, the original wasn’t great at pacing either (I found myself equally bored in the main-game at times, forced to grind during one particular story-heavy section where I was limited to my protagonist + partner), but I think it was more forgivable at the time given that it was the debut of the series and was greatly improved upon in Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky. DX feels far more egregious in context now that I have several points of comparison, for not fixing a lot of the grinding/RNG issues of the original (and in fact exacerbating a few of them) and transitioning the at-least involved main-story into an underwhelming post-game narrative, of which 80% can be summed up as “fight this powerful Pokemon because you can.” Take this with a grain of salt since my point of view is colored from extensively playing the original (albeit, almost a decade and a half ago), but I unfortunately found my time spent during the main story to be quite forgettable (as I breezed through the dungeons with little difficulty) and a good chunk of the post-game to be aggravatingly tedious while I scaled up my team to better deal with the far more competent foes and spongier bosses.
I suppose I did eventually come around on the post-game nevertheless, considering that at the time of writing I’ve now logged just over sixty hours on my save file. It’s a pity that it took hours of forgettable missions and grinding (instead of the game adequately scaling my gains throughout the story’s runtime) to get to that point and that my satisfaction was in spite of rather than as a result of the altered resource management (since these elements become minimal once you have the right Rare Qualities and a stockpile of Perfect Apples/Max Elixirs to throw at the problem), but a few of the game’s climatic dungeons really do bring out the best qualities of PMD’s gameplay. One dungeon that stands out is Meteor Cave: in it, you are constantly assaulted by infinite waves of different Deoxys forms that force you to consider the totality of your actions, considering each form has significantly stratified stats/moves that must be dealt with promptly before you run out of resources due to Pressure doubling your PP usage. In just twenty floors, this dungeon where you cannot be rescued challenged me in ways that Silver Trench couldn’t do in ninety-nine. This isn’t even my favorite dungeon in the game though: surprisingly, that title goes to Purity Forest. Considered by many to be the toughest dungeon in the game, Purity Forest drops you in with no items, no Poke, and only one team member, resetting your level to five and forcing you to fight and earn your way out to even hope to survive against fully evolved Pokemon by the end of your run. The caveat to my final hours savored in the game was that I had to slog through multiple other ninety-nine floor dungeons around the same time as tackling Purity Forest (and it doesn’t help that two of them, Wish Cave and Joyous Tower, are basically Purity Forest Jr since the only differences are that Wish Cave lets you bring items + teammates and Joyous Tower only lets you bring teammates), but ultimately, I can at least say I finished my run on a high note, even if I felt like my run was diluted somewhat by the lackluster pacing and never quite hit the perfect difficulty until the very end.
So the big question remains: do I recommend Rescue Team DX? While I ultimately got some enjoyment out of the game, I'm conflicted regarding its overall quality and lean towards no. All things considered, I don’t really know what audience this game appeals to or if it even excels in any particular category. Newbies will likely find this game too hard and too grindy during the main story, while veterans will likely find this game initially too easy and too grindy during the post-game. DX introduces enough quality-of-life changes, but it also doesn’t change certain exasperating elements from the original (or in some cases, outright fumbles the bag) and makes me question if the remake was necessary in the first place. The climactic gameplay, once the player gets past any resource and leveling barriers, is fantastic, but as I’ve mentioned earlier, is dragged down by a layer of RNG and grinding that often feels more tedious than challenging. Finally, I'd say that the story’s adequate given its time, but it can’t hold a candle to the emotional peaks reached by Explorers of Sky (due in part to Sky’s side stories).
If anything, my time with DX has confirmed that I see modern Pokemon games far differently than I once did as a kid. Obvious statements aside, I find that I tend to view the newer Pokemon games (of the ones I’ve played anyways, as I only have a few hours in Sword/Shield and haven’t touched Scarlet/Violet) more as sandboxes than well-rounded experiences. Granted, it might be a little unfair to assign this to a remake of a 2005 DS/GBA game, and it doesn’t even sound like a significant issue at first given that I’m usually able to dig deep and find the player motivation to thoroughly approach games on their own terms. That said, I would also say that there was once a time where Pokemon games excelled in both world-building/atmosphere and gameplay (Explorers of Sky being the obvious candidate), and as such it’s hard to see DX as anything but a personal disappointment at best. Even so, it might not be my ideal experience, but I’m still glad that others were able to fully savor what DX brings to the table even if I’m stuck in the past reminiscing about the glory days of PMD, and that’s okay too.
sky tower soundtrack goes insanely hard
currently gaslighting myself that they will announce explorers remakes in tomorrow's pokemon direct
currently gaslighting myself that they will announce explorers remakes in tomorrow's pokemon direct
When you pick up Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, you get two entirely different packages. The first is a relatively short, ~20 hour story that will make you bawl your eyes out. The second is an absolutely mammoth 60-to-80 hour postgame that serves as a relaxing backdrop to that thing you're binge watching this month.
Rescue Team DX sets itself apart from other PMD games with a thoughtfully constructed ecosystem of quality-of-life updates. It would have been simple to update Rescue Team's mechanics to the newest game's standards and call it a day; instead, they took the opportunity to rethink some of the series' oldest mechanics, and even introduce entire systems of features that completely change the way you approach gameplay.
This entry was designed from the ground-up to be accessible to newcomers. That said, the series can still be a little intimidating for people used to normal Pokémon mechanics. This is no fault of the game itself; it's more about the preconceptions people have from the main series, and once you just get playing, it all clicks.
Here's the main piece of advice I'd give to newcomers: focus less on type variety, and more on move utility. Multi-hit moves and ranged moves are really good; the game itself provides great info blocks to tell you the range and mechanics of each move. Moves that can hit from 4 tiles away, moves that hit nearby Pokémon, and moves that hit every enemy in a room are really strong. Type matchups don't matter too much, and can be mitigated even further by rare qualities.
Rare qualities are an excellent system. When you get a really synergistic quality on a main team member, it's genuinely exciting! It makes me go out of my way for high-reward dungeons so I can find all the DX Gummis I can. And it helps make individual playthroughs feel distinct & personal, which is a quality I absolutely love in a gameplay mechanic.
There is a very small mechanic that I think perfectly captures what I love about this game & series. Whenever there is a piece of hand-drawn art on screen, you can press + to view it in full. They didn't have to do it, but the art is all gorgeous—I particularly love the world map! It feels like it could be the setting for a custom D&D campaign.
When I see a mechanic like that in a game, it makes me think the developers know the emotional impact their game can have on the player. Not everyone is going to notice the little text at the bottom of the screen that says you can do this. But those who do notice get to appreciate that hard work just a little more! There's a lot of love in DX's art, and visual art is an important medium games use to carry their emotional ideas to the player.
The storybook art style can be slightly off-putting at first—the environments in the first cutscene don't do a good job of selling it—but almost immediately upon leaving the tutorial, I fell in love with it. And by the main story's final sequence, the game absolutely nails the presentation. Every cutscene surrounding the final dungeon is gorgeous & communicates the gravity of the situation in an absolutely awe-inspiring manner.
Rescue Team DX has many interesting ideas to communicate to its player—about death, about trust, and about our duties to each other. Under the cutesy surface, the game imparts genuine moral wisdom. A cynic could certainly parse through every story beat and tell you how it's all silly & childish—but an optimist willing to listen will find genuinely beautiful things. It makes me want to be more gentle & understanding with others, to help my friends find identity & purpose in their surroundings. That's an emotion I feel every piece of art should strive for.
This is a series that has a very dear place in my heart. It's definitely an acquired taste, but it's a taste I am deeply glad I acquired. The thoughtful design of DX makes me optimistic about future entries. I really hope they do an Explorers of Sky DX someday—but I want a new entry before then! I think with the elements they introduced in Rescue Team DX, they could forge something even more special next time.
Rescue Team DX sets itself apart from other PMD games with a thoughtfully constructed ecosystem of quality-of-life updates. It would have been simple to update Rescue Team's mechanics to the newest game's standards and call it a day; instead, they took the opportunity to rethink some of the series' oldest mechanics, and even introduce entire systems of features that completely change the way you approach gameplay.
This entry was designed from the ground-up to be accessible to newcomers. That said, the series can still be a little intimidating for people used to normal Pokémon mechanics. This is no fault of the game itself; it's more about the preconceptions people have from the main series, and once you just get playing, it all clicks.
Here's the main piece of advice I'd give to newcomers: focus less on type variety, and more on move utility. Multi-hit moves and ranged moves are really good; the game itself provides great info blocks to tell you the range and mechanics of each move. Moves that can hit from 4 tiles away, moves that hit nearby Pokémon, and moves that hit every enemy in a room are really strong. Type matchups don't matter too much, and can be mitigated even further by rare qualities.
Rare qualities are an excellent system. When you get a really synergistic quality on a main team member, it's genuinely exciting! It makes me go out of my way for high-reward dungeons so I can find all the DX Gummis I can. And it helps make individual playthroughs feel distinct & personal, which is a quality I absolutely love in a gameplay mechanic.
There is a very small mechanic that I think perfectly captures what I love about this game & series. Whenever there is a piece of hand-drawn art on screen, you can press + to view it in full. They didn't have to do it, but the art is all gorgeous—I particularly love the world map! It feels like it could be the setting for a custom D&D campaign.
When I see a mechanic like that in a game, it makes me think the developers know the emotional impact their game can have on the player. Not everyone is going to notice the little text at the bottom of the screen that says you can do this. But those who do notice get to appreciate that hard work just a little more! There's a lot of love in DX's art, and visual art is an important medium games use to carry their emotional ideas to the player.
The storybook art style can be slightly off-putting at first—the environments in the first cutscene don't do a good job of selling it—but almost immediately upon leaving the tutorial, I fell in love with it. And by the main story's final sequence, the game absolutely nails the presentation. Every cutscene surrounding the final dungeon is gorgeous & communicates the gravity of the situation in an absolutely awe-inspiring manner.
Rescue Team DX has many interesting ideas to communicate to its player—about death, about trust, and about our duties to each other. Under the cutesy surface, the game imparts genuine moral wisdom. A cynic could certainly parse through every story beat and tell you how it's all silly & childish—but an optimist willing to listen will find genuinely beautiful things. It makes me want to be more gentle & understanding with others, to help my friends find identity & purpose in their surroundings. That's an emotion I feel every piece of art should strive for.
This is a series that has a very dear place in my heart. It's definitely an acquired taste, but it's a taste I am deeply glad I acquired. The thoughtful design of DX makes me optimistic about future entries. I really hope they do an Explorers of Sky DX someday—but I want a new entry before then! I think with the elements they introduced in Rescue Team DX, they could forge something even more special next time.
its touching story, beautiful music, fun characters and cute art style just barely made the unbelievably boring gameplay worth it haha. i do not regret playing this, but i think i may have liked it better as a youtube video :p
Pros:
+The story is pretty good, albeit short.
+Each move has its own level, meaning that if you level up flamethrower on one mon, every other mon who gets flamethrower will have the powered up version. It's a great quality of life thing.
+The post game is huge. It's almost like the main story is just a tutorial for the larger, but less narrative-driven post-game.
+Having Pokémon as actual characters is fun.
+The constant rewards you get from completing missions makes it so easy for that "just one more dungeon" feeling.
+The water colour aesthetic is pretty nice.
Cons:
-The power of moves and accuracy only shows up as a bar instead of as numbers in the main game, making it kind of hard to compare.
-You can’t filter Pokémon by rare quality, so if you want to find a specific one, good luck searching through the entire list.
-Shiny Pokémon are locked to “Strong” Pokémon, meaning about 20 in total. It's a pretty weird decision that ruins the surprise of finding random shinies.
-Since you can only control the three main teammates, if any of your recruits gets attacked at the back of the group, you have literally no way to get to them to save them. There's not even a tactics option where you can send a main teammate to stay at the rear of a group for such situations. It's incredibly frustrating to constantly get interrupted every step because your Pidgey at the back is being attacked every turn and you can't do anything about it.
-Moves are unbalanced as fuck. Multi-hit moves and room-wide moves are basically the only viable ones in the endgame. Moves with only one tile are borderline useless, making a large section of the mons useless.
-You can only recruit wild Pokémon if the player kills enemy. So you can deal 199/200 damage, but if your teammate Weedle does that last 1hp you won't get a chance to recruit.
-The item inventory stops expanding after a certain rank (until the very last rank, which is a huge grind). Considering it's the most important rank-up reward, having it be stagnant for like 70% of ranks is annoying.
-If your current party is full, you can't just send recruited mons to camp. You have to choose between letting them go or switching another party member and letting THEM go. This means you can recruit at max 5 mons per dungeon (or 7 if you wanna get rid of 2 of your main teammates). It's basically just forcing extra playtime by making you re-run dungeons multiple times.
-99 floor dungeons. Screw them.
-Dungeons that reset your level to 5. If this was a single dungeon as a one-off challenge it might not be so bad, but there are THREE dungeons like this.
-Can’t feed multiple stat boosting items at once. Have a bunch of gummis or vitamins to give your mon? Gotta do it one by one.
-Dungeons are all basically the same. The themes (of which are limited and reused) never really add any actual gimmicks outside of weather.
Mixed/Not important enough to be a pro or con:
~It's really repetitive, but kind of addicting at the same time.
~Most of the power-up orbs in the game only last for a single room or floor. Keep in mind that some dungeons have up to 99 floors. Trying to use them as any kind of strategy doesn't really work.
~Controls in a dungeon feel stiff and clunky. But it also has an automode which negates this. The fact that letting the game play itself is a SOLUTION feels like a con to me, but if it makes the game more fun to play then that can't be a bad thing.
Note:
•Alakazam’s team is presented as the best team in the game for the story, but it's only gold rank. For reference that's the 5th rank in the game, out of a total of 12. It's kind of embarrassing to see them get so much praise for being a rank that I managed to get to in the main story alone, let alone the 6 (apparently unattainable by anyone) ranks I reached after that.
•Being Pokémon saved this game. Like without the Pokémon coat of paint I think this would be a below-average game.
•I wanted to fully complete this, but gave up on Purity Forest because it's an RNG-filled mess.
+The story is pretty good, albeit short.
+Each move has its own level, meaning that if you level up flamethrower on one mon, every other mon who gets flamethrower will have the powered up version. It's a great quality of life thing.
+The post game is huge. It's almost like the main story is just a tutorial for the larger, but less narrative-driven post-game.
+Having Pokémon as actual characters is fun.
+The constant rewards you get from completing missions makes it so easy for that "just one more dungeon" feeling.
+The water colour aesthetic is pretty nice.
Cons:
-The power of moves and accuracy only shows up as a bar instead of as numbers in the main game, making it kind of hard to compare.
-You can’t filter Pokémon by rare quality, so if you want to find a specific one, good luck searching through the entire list.
-Shiny Pokémon are locked to “Strong” Pokémon, meaning about 20 in total. It's a pretty weird decision that ruins the surprise of finding random shinies.
-Since you can only control the three main teammates, if any of your recruits gets attacked at the back of the group, you have literally no way to get to them to save them. There's not even a tactics option where you can send a main teammate to stay at the rear of a group for such situations. It's incredibly frustrating to constantly get interrupted every step because your Pidgey at the back is being attacked every turn and you can't do anything about it.
-Moves are unbalanced as fuck. Multi-hit moves and room-wide moves are basically the only viable ones in the endgame. Moves with only one tile are borderline useless, making a large section of the mons useless.
-You can only recruit wild Pokémon if the player kills enemy. So you can deal 199/200 damage, but if your teammate Weedle does that last 1hp you won't get a chance to recruit.
-The item inventory stops expanding after a certain rank (until the very last rank, which is a huge grind). Considering it's the most important rank-up reward, having it be stagnant for like 70% of ranks is annoying.
-If your current party is full, you can't just send recruited mons to camp. You have to choose between letting them go or switching another party member and letting THEM go. This means you can recruit at max 5 mons per dungeon (or 7 if you wanna get rid of 2 of your main teammates). It's basically just forcing extra playtime by making you re-run dungeons multiple times.
-99 floor dungeons. Screw them.
-Dungeons that reset your level to 5. If this was a single dungeon as a one-off challenge it might not be so bad, but there are THREE dungeons like this.
-Can’t feed multiple stat boosting items at once. Have a bunch of gummis or vitamins to give your mon? Gotta do it one by one.
-Dungeons are all basically the same. The themes (of which are limited and reused) never really add any actual gimmicks outside of weather.
Mixed/Not important enough to be a pro or con:
~It's really repetitive, but kind of addicting at the same time.
~Most of the power-up orbs in the game only last for a single room or floor. Keep in mind that some dungeons have up to 99 floors. Trying to use them as any kind of strategy doesn't really work.
~Controls in a dungeon feel stiff and clunky. But it also has an automode which negates this. The fact that letting the game play itself is a SOLUTION feels like a con to me, but if it makes the game more fun to play then that can't be a bad thing.
Note:
•Alakazam’s team is presented as the best team in the game for the story, but it's only gold rank. For reference that's the 5th rank in the game, out of a total of 12. It's kind of embarrassing to see them get so much praise for being a rank that I managed to get to in the main story alone, let alone the 6 (apparently unattainable by anyone) ranks I reached after that.
•Being Pokémon saved this game. Like without the Pokémon coat of paint I think this would be a below-average game.
•I wanted to fully complete this, but gave up on Purity Forest because it's an RNG-filled mess.
really more of a 3.5 than a 4, but the sheer glow-up this game got and all the love put into it push it up for me. it's high-effort shit for what seems like a low-budget title, and i really hope we get a remake of pmd2 seeing as it's better in just about every way than the first game. this game is definitely overpriced, but fun and accessible compared to all the previous games.
an insane glowup from the original games, and probably the only pokemon game to come out in the past few years to actually be worth the $60. it's no explorers of sky, but it comes very close
This review contains spoilers
Great remake! But dropped after the first post game boss fight ): didn't really wanna train up an entirely new team just for the Kyogre fight
:(
:(
Didn't remember much about the original game even though I played it, but this remake is absolutely amazing.
The plot in this is pretty simple and straightforward, unlike its sequel, but this game really shines in its gameplay. They added so much QoL stuff from the laters entries plus some extra additions (like a dojo for Exp farming or the fact you can now see all of the entities onn the map) which, tho some may consider them to be ruining the experience, I thought they were great features in a genre that can easily become extremely infuriating for the dumbest reasons.
I initially thought the artstyle was ugly at first, but as time went on it grew on me and I now think it's on par with the great pixel art of the original games. Unfortunately, I know it's not a high budget game on the Switch, but there was some instances had HUGE lagging issues which extremely weird knowing what type of game this is. I also noticed huge input delays during the whole game so beware if you're allergic to that, and I know some people are.
The music is great too.
So overall I'd highly recommend this game, but still wait for a drop in price. Even though I loved it, $60 is way too much for this game. You can try out the demo version if you want but it didn't capture at all what the game was good at imo.
The plot in this is pretty simple and straightforward, unlike its sequel, but this game really shines in its gameplay. They added so much QoL stuff from the laters entries plus some extra additions (like a dojo for Exp farming or the fact you can now see all of the entities onn the map) which, tho some may consider them to be ruining the experience, I thought they were great features in a genre that can easily become extremely infuriating for the dumbest reasons.
I initially thought the artstyle was ugly at first, but as time went on it grew on me and I now think it's on par with the great pixel art of the original games. Unfortunately, I know it's not a high budget game on the Switch, but there was some instances had HUGE lagging issues which extremely weird knowing what type of game this is. I also noticed huge input delays during the whole game so beware if you're allergic to that, and I know some people are.
The music is great too.
So overall I'd highly recommend this game, but still wait for a drop in price. Even though I loved it, $60 is way too much for this game. You can try out the demo version if you want but it didn't capture at all what the game was good at imo.
it's definitely an alright mystery dungeon game but it doesn't do anything all that interesting in its like, what, 12 hour runtime? there's like one interesting bit near the middle, and then things start picking up near the end and credits roll like 45 minutes later. gameplay-wise it's totally serviceable and probably technically some of the best the series has offered yet, but it doesn't have much more to offer beyond that. it's definitely an interesting enough play for a few days, but i don't know that i'd call it $60 interesting
It's ridiculous how much a few small quality-of-life changes improve this game. I actually get to see what people like about the story because I'm not fighting against the clunky UI and awkward quirks of the combat.
why the FUCK did they remove friend areas?? my favorite thing in games are weird little niche areas that are pretty and have no purpose other than to wander around and interact with things. i want my goofy little places back! please!
Fun remake with a lot of good changes from the original. The post game is cool but it feels really grindy to gain levels and gummis so I gave up.
This game was a shot of nostalgia straight into my veins.
It's a really cute game with a neat idea, and love answering the questions to see what Pokemon you are, but this is a very boring game for me.
I'm sure it's for certain people but it's definitely not for me.
I'm sure it's for certain people but it's definitely not for me.
PMD DX might be one of the best remakes of a game I've ever played. Even though I've never experienced the original, from what I can tell DX absolutely realizes the gba titles to its truest potential. Every aspect of this game has a ton of love and care put into it and to my knowledge the only thing that ended up being cut was the Friend Zones you could walk around in, which is understandable at the very least. The rest is near flawlessly recreated, particularly the artstyle and music which both manage to capture the feeling of the older pmd games and yet be elevated to what their native home consoles couldn't preform.
DX seriously may be one of the best looking games on the switch. Even the basic dungeons are so pleasing to look at, the watercolor art really lends itself well to the kind and emotional spirit of pmd. I frequently had to stop just to gawk at the environments. It's so obvious that a lot of love went into this entry, and this isn't even mentioning the music, which I think was brilliantly remastered. Mixing the original gba soundfont with a new orchestrated version of the soundtrack was a really smart move; the music alone is enough to make me cry and it really elevates the more emotional scenes. On my second playthrough, I also noticed how well the cutscenes were animated which felt weird for a pokemon game. Rayquaza, the star falling, and all the other legendary intros just looked so gorgeous. DX is made of many good things, and I can tell that it's very much a loveletter to the series as a whole.
The gameplay itself though, I think this game is probably as good as its gonna get. Naturally, it can get pretty repetitive and it's not really something you can play nonstop, but that's alright. For some reason I had a huge issue with Sky Tower though; I was severely underleveled and kept getting wiped out. I'm not sure how this even happened but I've learned that pmd really, really, really sucks when you have to grind. It is so frustrating and I honestly contemplated knocking the game down a star because of it, but in the end I couldn't really bring myself to since the rest of the game went off without any interruptions. Just... make sure you're at least level 35 before the final dungeon or flygon will knock your teeth in.
DX is definitely one of the higher quality pokemon games that have come out recently along with the new Pokémon Snap, so I would recommend this to anyone who feels like they've lost their love for the series, since this game is what rekindled my own feelings for it back in 2020 when it released. As good as this game is, I can only hope that we'll live to see a remake of Explorers in this style... one can dream ):
DX seriously may be one of the best looking games on the switch. Even the basic dungeons are so pleasing to look at, the watercolor art really lends itself well to the kind and emotional spirit of pmd. I frequently had to stop just to gawk at the environments. It's so obvious that a lot of love went into this entry, and this isn't even mentioning the music, which I think was brilliantly remastered. Mixing the original gba soundfont with a new orchestrated version of the soundtrack was a really smart move; the music alone is enough to make me cry and it really elevates the more emotional scenes. On my second playthrough, I also noticed how well the cutscenes were animated which felt weird for a pokemon game. Rayquaza, the star falling, and all the other legendary intros just looked so gorgeous. DX is made of many good things, and I can tell that it's very much a loveletter to the series as a whole.
The gameplay itself though, I think this game is probably as good as its gonna get. Naturally, it can get pretty repetitive and it's not really something you can play nonstop, but that's alright. For some reason I had a huge issue with Sky Tower though; I was severely underleveled and kept getting wiped out. I'm not sure how this even happened but I've learned that pmd really, really, really sucks when you have to grind. It is so frustrating and I honestly contemplated knocking the game down a star because of it, but in the end I couldn't really bring myself to since the rest of the game went off without any interruptions. Just... make sure you're at least level 35 before the final dungeon or flygon will knock your teeth in.
DX is definitely one of the higher quality pokemon games that have come out recently along with the new Pokémon Snap, so I would recommend this to anyone who feels like they've lost their love for the series, since this game is what rekindled my own feelings for it back in 2020 when it released. As good as this game is, I can only hope that we'll live to see a remake of Explorers in this style... one can dream ):
Would be higher if the basic attack was never removed.
It's a good remake but it takes away from the original at some points, the additions are good but the things they took away, like neutral attacks with the A button, really annoyed me. Still a good PMD game and worth a play
I think a harbinger of the pandemic was me accidentally doing all 99 floors of Buried Relic on the first day of lockdown.
I'm still weirded out by the fact that you live in a house built specifically to look like your own head.
I think I was a little too nostalgic in remembering why I liked this game series as a kid. It wasn’t because it was good, it was because I could autistically pretend I was a Mudkip. Unfortunately my autism manifests in other ways now lol
I popped off in computers class when they revealed this it was awesome
Ver como saben hacer un juego con una historia bonita, con buenos gráficos y gameplay de calidad. Pero que sigan haciendo mierdas como espada/escudo o escarlata/púrpura es lo que me da rabia, porque saben como hacerlo bien pero solo se rigen por la ley del mínimo esfuerzo
Would've considered it the better game if it kept the friend areas.
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon is probably my favorite of the Pokémon spin-off franchises, but that’s much more for the Pokémon end of things than the Mystery Dungeon end of things. I love the concept of a world populated entirely by Pokémon who go on adventures and have their own society of adorable cartoon creatures, and I absolutely love how hard the stories tend to go. Obviously, the first entry’s story doesn’t go quite as hard as future entries like the Explorers games, but it’s still charming and surprisingly emotional in places. That’s ultimately what I play the games for, and it was great to revisit Rescue Team in a brand new package.
I have to admit, I mourn the loss of spritework, especially given how good the originals looked. However, I actually really love how this game looks! The backgrounds and textures give the game a storybook feel, and I think the effort put into giving this game a unique stylized look really puts this above a lot of games that are technically more impressive. Admittedly, I don’t think some of the smaller models look that great, but the bigger models like the legendary Pokémon look fantastic and the cutscenes accompanying their appearances really do sell their majesty.
So now we get to the Mystery Dungeon part, which is where… I am not as thrilled. Don’t get me wrong, I think the game had a lot of interesting work done to it. Things like rare qualities and strong enemies add a lot of variety to the game, although… perhaps not enough for my own tastes. I always find myself falling off of these games pretty hard once the credits start rolling, because the difficulty curve ramps up and I don’t enjoy the actual dungeon diving enough to commit to the postgame.
I tried to get into the postgame, I really did. If you’re into the Mystery Dungeon formula there are some pretty interesting twists brought to familiar fights based on the inclusion of mechanics from more recent generations. Personally, though… I got super frustrated and quit. Ultimately, I wish the stories of these games were attached to a genre I liked more than procedurally generated dungeon diving roguelites, but I’ll also be the first to admit that I would absolutely eat up an Explorers remake in the same style.
I have to admit, I mourn the loss of spritework, especially given how good the originals looked. However, I actually really love how this game looks! The backgrounds and textures give the game a storybook feel, and I think the effort put into giving this game a unique stylized look really puts this above a lot of games that are technically more impressive. Admittedly, I don’t think some of the smaller models look that great, but the bigger models like the legendary Pokémon look fantastic and the cutscenes accompanying their appearances really do sell their majesty.
So now we get to the Mystery Dungeon part, which is where… I am not as thrilled. Don’t get me wrong, I think the game had a lot of interesting work done to it. Things like rare qualities and strong enemies add a lot of variety to the game, although… perhaps not enough for my own tastes. I always find myself falling off of these games pretty hard once the credits start rolling, because the difficulty curve ramps up and I don’t enjoy the actual dungeon diving enough to commit to the postgame.
I tried to get into the postgame, I really did. If you’re into the Mystery Dungeon formula there are some pretty interesting twists brought to familiar fights based on the inclusion of mechanics from more recent generations. Personally, though… I got super frustrated and quit. Ultimately, I wish the stories of these games were attached to a genre I liked more than procedurally generated dungeon diving roguelites, but I’ll also be the first to admit that I would absolutely eat up an Explorers remake in the same style.
Improved boss battles
Love the art style and the visuals of the game
good music
decent gameplay loop
horrendous balancing
decent story and mediocre cast
Love the art style and the visuals of the game
good music
decent gameplay loop
horrendous balancing
decent story and mediocre cast
Very faithful remake that still has the charm of the original with GREAT QoL changes. Thank you for allowing legendary Pokemon in the postgame to join you after defeating them instead of grinding for them. The literal best change possible. If you've never played PMD before, this is the best way to get into the series. Then play the Explorers DS games. We don't talk about the 3DS PMD games.
I really tried playing this, but without the charming sprites of the original game, the removal of friend zones, and the fact that you can recruit like... 7 Pokemon AT THE SAME TIME? I gave up on it, I'd rather play the original 100 times over this shit.
This review contains spoilers
I absolutely loved this game's story and I got really invested in it. I would love to see more games like this where all of the characters are talking Pokémon. I love the characters, the art style, and the music. I've also always liked games where you get to rescue people and/or animals.
The gameplay is addictive, but I wouldn't really call it fun. The combat is repetitive and annoying, especially when you have a big team of Pokémon going through a corridor and the ones at the back keep getting into fights. The moments I enjoyed most were the dopamine hits of finding a bunch of items and spawning right next to the stairs.
My favorite thing to do in Pokémon games is collect Pokémon, but you don't have many opportunities to utilize the Pokémon you recruit in this game. Your team can only have three Pokémon, and if you want to always keep the protagonist and deuteragonist around, you're only left with one more spot for another Pokémon. This turns to none if you want to include the Absol who joins you during the story. I wish you could send additional teams out on their own rescue missions, like how you can send additional teams of monsters to find treasure in Dragon Quest Treasures.
As much as I enjoyed my time with this game, I lost interest once I reached the post-game. The story is what carried the experience for me, and the post-game has less story and much more dungeon crawling. I'm not interested in grinding, fighting a bunch of legendaries, and doing 99 floor dungeons. I also evolved my main character (Charmander) into a Charizard so I would be stronger, but I really regret it and I miss her cute little face and bandanna.
The gameplay is addictive, but I wouldn't really call it fun. The combat is repetitive and annoying, especially when you have a big team of Pokémon going through a corridor and the ones at the back keep getting into fights. The moments I enjoyed most were the dopamine hits of finding a bunch of items and spawning right next to the stairs.
My favorite thing to do in Pokémon games is collect Pokémon, but you don't have many opportunities to utilize the Pokémon you recruit in this game. Your team can only have three Pokémon, and if you want to always keep the protagonist and deuteragonist around, you're only left with one more spot for another Pokémon. This turns to none if you want to include the Absol who joins you during the story. I wish you could send additional teams out on their own rescue missions, like how you can send additional teams of monsters to find treasure in Dragon Quest Treasures.
As much as I enjoyed my time with this game, I lost interest once I reached the post-game. The story is what carried the experience for me, and the post-game has less story and much more dungeon crawling. I'm not interested in grinding, fighting a bunch of legendaries, and doing 99 floor dungeons. I also evolved my main character (Charmander) into a Charizard so I would be stronger, but I really regret it and I miss her cute little face and bandanna.
I remember playing the original as a little kid and playing this was a lot of fun and took me back. I love the story and the designs of the Pokémon, the combat feels more unique than typical Pokémon games and it added some cool mechanics to it that made it feel improved. It’s a simple but great game, the entire Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series is a lot of fun