Reviews from

in the past


Extremely underrated. Plays amazingly and gives you so many mechanics to juggle and fight the steep challenges it throws you. I don’t think the plot is quite on the level of Explorers, but it’s enjoyable and the world building is a love letter to the series as a whole. 9 years since the last truly new PMD story. That upsets me. Imo, this is how you do legacy content. Build your own story, but sprinkle references in as a bonus. They don’t inhibit it or take control of the plot ever. That’s why this is good.

i was fucking sobbing for months when i was a child, screw you spike chunsoft.

Biggest gripe with this game is how the recruitment worked. Unlike before where you recruit Pokemon by defeating them in your dungeon run, you recruit Pokemon in this game through "Connections". Connections are made through a multitude of ways (completing missions, talking to them in the overworld, finding them in a dungeon), but the method is set per Pokemon. That also means you can only obtain one per species. It also kinda invalidates the need for evolution since their evolved forms are sure to be recruitable anyway as well.

Fuck the ending to this game


this series has consumed me they should make a new one

This review contains spoilers

Both better and worse than expected. The general quality of life updates, challenge, and snappiness of the gameplay have certainly improved things on that front, but the writing and graphics have taken some hits in return compared to Explorers. With all that said, I do still think it's worth a try for anyone who enjoys Mystery Dungeon gameplay or is fine with a PMD game where the game parts take precedence over the narrative, or even someone who just wants to feel like a bright-eyed kid for a while. It's still a fun game and delivers PMD goodness as it was one of the very last games released in the overall Pokémon franchise that didn't feel like a soulless husk or a huge disappointment (or both).

To give a tiny bit of background in relation to graphics, I skipped Gates to Infinity besides its original demo and played Rescue Team DX before this game, so the jump to Super's graphical style was interesting as it felt like a twofold downgrade both from Explorers and from DX. I didn't mind the way the game looked much but I thought it was a bit less stylized than I'd hope for. Still, the environments look pretty nice, bright and colorful and lush and soft, and it brought back a lot of how I felt with the earlier entries even in a style I didn't like all that much. Some of the dungeons in the older games looked like crap, too, while I can safely say the ones in this game all look solid. That's probably the biggest praise I can give this entry when it comes to graphics; sadly the lack of unique animations and the way the pokémon models look really do still bring it down quite a lot.

Even with the graphics being a mixed bag, the way the game sounded and played was as good as I'd expect. I'm one of those people who actually likes the way Mystery Dungeon games play for the most part, so having a streamlined (thank Arceus for Progress Devices) yet still crunchy version of it was a treat. The difficulty was a liiiittle bit off, but I think it was far more consistently tough than any of the other Mystery Dungeon games I've played. The Emera system also led to me feeling that things were a wee bit more luck-based than they could have been when it came to finding good ones for tougher dungeons, but it generally worked well to give an extra layer of character building and on-the-fly strategy. I was happy to feel legitimately challenged by an official Pokémon game of some kind, though I do question why they decided to make most enemies 2-4 shot either main party member in a game one would assume is aimed toward children. The older games are already not exactly walks in the park, so I have to wonder just how many kids got stuck in this game. Hope it was a good experience for them at least.

The music is just about always a plus in these games, and Super was no exception. I don't think the music was quite as memorable as stuff from Explorers, but it was all pleasant and made every dungeon crawl more enjoyable. There's not much to say about it besides that. It's definitely not low enough to be called just 'serviceable', as it does tend to add to the experience, but it isn't quite what I'd call top tier stuff for Pokémon as a franchise. Still, I think I'll go back and listen to some of my favorite tunes from it while I draw or something sometime. I think it gives a particularly soft and pleasant energy that the other games didn't really, as they opted for more of a scrappy adventurous feeling that remained fairly consistent (again, can't really speak for Gates though).

Unfortunately the game's writing wasn't quite there and I was generally disappointed with the direction the story went, particularly in regards to the pacing and lategame. The pace of the story goes from incredibly slow to breakneck but not until seemingly the very very end of the game, which also happens to be the worst part of said story. So much is thrown at you all in the last couple chapters that it's almost overwhelming, and little of it is very interesting because so much of what happens is heavily dependent on the internal lore of this entry, not on common sense or even general Pokémon logic.

I'm not really a fan of when these games try to make the player character extra special for virtue of being a human, though thankfully that was more of just a footnote in the grand scheme of things. While a lot of the twists and turns were pretty well thought-out and cool, the actual overall plot they were a part of was a tad too melodramatic and generically shonen feeling for me. The long, slow, and sometimes needlessly animated cutscenes don't help, especially since they're not skippable. I hate to compare everything to Explorers in particular, but the more intimate and personal narrative that those games spun was significantly more captivating to me than the rush-paced "save the world from the representation of evil that cannot truly be defeated" one we got in Super. The fact that the final boss isn't even an actual pokémon is a good illustration for just how detached it all feels. You're fighting a blob of chaos to save the world and it has none of the deep emotional attachment or buildup Explorers and (even to a degree) Rescue Team had. It's just such... nothing, which is a shame because a lot of the smaller ideas the game had were pretty cool and the world they've created is colorful and feels full of life despite the rather lifeless story.

I still have yet to play through the postgame so I'm not sure how the thread with the partner's departure will resolve itself, but I'm pretty hopeful. Maybe I'll update this review when I get there, cause I thought it was a pretty interesting idea when combined with the way the character had been handled up until that point. Having both the player character and partner be significantly older than their appearances would suggest is an interesting take on this formula even if it doesn't become fully apparent for the partner until the end of the game. During the kinda lame school segments the player character comes across as out of place, which I find has one of the few truly great payoffs the game gives when their past is revealed.

Even without that payoff, I still find it interesting as it's almost like a tip of the hat toward the older playerbase who had grown up on Rescue Team and Explorers, and I really felt it. It feels kinda weird to say this but part of why I find myself so easily immersed in these games is because of how unapologetically simple and childish the presentation all is, including a colorful, saccharine, and innocent yet genuine-feeling world filled with lots of friendly faces. There's always a touch of darkness to it all, as it's not a perfect world, but there's always a sense of childlike brightness and hope to it that comes across as sincere with how mature it is at the edges. Being acknowledged as a genuine outsider - not because of most players being human but because they're simply older and come from a much less bright and sunny world - is fascinating to me and I'd honestly applaud whoever decided to take that direction. It was subtle enough that I don't think everyone would notice it, but if you do catch it and you're an older fan it feels... comforting. Nice, even, that it's acknowledging your need to let yourself be a kid and enjoy the ride. I do wish the ride was just a little more interesting, but it was fun nevertheless.

i liked it! not as much as dark/time/sky, but it was fun

This review contains spoilers

Explorers of Sky has always been my favourite Pokemon game and I had hope for this game, but it's kind of a letdown.
The plot is short and very simple (save the world with the power of friendship) and doesn't extend into the postgame apart from a quest. Also, half of the game is just doing secondary quests until you have to do something important.
I liked some of the new mechanics though, like the moves level or the new recruitment system, but that's really everything there's to it. Really sad to see such wasted potential.

Decent game. Can’t nickname recruited Pokémon. Powersaves aren’t as extensive as Sky. Very stiff animations. Could’ve went with a different final boss.

when this game first came out, it was such a departure from the standard of the other games that it really turned me off. i really need to give it another shot. also it feels ever so slightly slower which wasn't an issue in Gates, dunno what that's about.

I kept getting confused as to what was happening. I want to give it a second chance, but I have other games I'd much rather give second chances to.

Decent, and i'd like to go back and try it again sometime, but the gameplay wasn't really my thing

i hated this game so much i tried to dispose of the cartridge but sadly it is still with me

Often overlooked, but Super Mystery Dungeon is a nice step in the right direction in many ways. It has a lot of quality of life improvements, not to mention the dungeons are shorter and often have halfway checkpoints to make them easier to digest in comparison to some of the 20 floor dungeons in previous entries. Story is as touching as always despite some hit and miss twists. It's still a mystery dungeon game so it's prone to get repetitive (let's be honest, most of you only like Explorers because you grew up with it and the story is good), and this game isn't old enough to have the nostalgic edge Explorers will always have, but I still greatly appreciate what they were trying to accomplish with this entry. It's a shame it gets completely overshadowed by its predecessors in the eyes of many.

a fun experience! the characters were very charming and i liked the setting. i have nothing to back this up but i feel like they made the movement easier since gti which i was very thankful for! ♡

softlocked the fuck out of myself

On a narrative standpoint, I think this game is perfect in every single aspect it aims for. It is an absolutely incredible story that utilizes the core elements of the PMD structure to its fullest, setting up everything on an (admittedly slow) opening part of a game.

Gameplay wise, the game can be tough as hell whenever you can't cheese, which can be both frustrating or a fresh breath of air from the older PMD's too simplistic gameplay which basically had you barely do much outside of the bare minimum.

My favorite game of all time, but definitely not one for everyone.

far weaker start than pmd2 that goes on for a bit too long but eventually gets up to proper levels of quality after 7ish hours. there are a few moments in this game story-wise i think i like even more than similar moments in sky and it (mostly) plays better than sky but i still prefer sky because i haven't been that impressed with the music and visual direction of the series post-ds

also yeah, it's really difficult to ignore how weak this one starts whereas with sky it's not as hard to shrug off like 2-ish hours that isn't even at the very beginning

also also sky's postgame runs laps around this one's

Sadly didn't do it for me, went into it fueled by Sky nostalgia but the game didnt grab me at all despite being very cute

Compared to the older games, the story for this one felt pretty lackluster. Also I don't like the friend system for this game, on some days the pokémon you want will just be unavailable and you're forced to choose someone else


So far this mystery dungeon seems really promising and a step up grom gates of infinity.

Maybe it's because I'm bad but the difficulty even in the earlier sections seems a bit ridiculous? Like fighting a Salamence that does more than my HP in one hit.
Even ignoring that this just isn't a very fun game to play. I'll have to finish it at one point but it's way waaaayyy down my list.

literally one of my favorite pokemon games. shoutout to this FOREVER. i loved espeon and umbreon a lot in this :)