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.