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.