Games in the Pokemon franchise have typically followed a pattern of release. First two game are released simultaneously that have similar story lines with a few differences between them. Then a few months to a year later another game is released in that line that enhances both of those stories and combines the two games together with a few more additional things thrown in.
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky is that third type of title. It follows closely behind
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness.
The game follows the same storyline of those first two titles and adds a few things to make it a little different from them. The first is the addition of some playable characters. When you first boot up the game you fill out a quick survey and your answers to the questions determine which Pokemon you’ll play the game as. You can then choose from the remaining Pokemon, not of the same type as you, to play as your partner. You then are thrust into the story where you wake up on a beach unaware that you’ve turned into a Pokemon. You are awakened by your partner, whom you can understand, despite them being a Pokemon. You don’t remember anything that happened before you woke up and the game centers around that point to weave an interesting story.
You are asked to help recover an item that your partner Pokemon has lost and you’ll meet a team of Pokemon that will be a thorn in your side for a long time. After that the two of you decide to team up and join an explorers guild, led by Wigglytuff. That is where you’ll get daily assignments and duties that you are required to complete and after many of them the story will advance. Most of your time will be spent between the town surrounding your guild and the mystery dungeons that are located at different places throughout the world, and there is no traveling between the two. Sometimes, though, to break up the dungeon exploring you’ll be put on guard duty where you play a mini game that asks you to identify Pokemon based on their footprint. If you know a lot about the Pokemon universe that knowledge will come in handy during that time, but it’s not at all necessary. You also find out during your travels that the time gears responsible for keeping time in the world flowing properly are being stolen by a mysterious pokemon. It's up to you to find out what's going on and set things right. You'll meet a lot of familiar faces, as well as some lesser know, such as Shaymin.
The Pokemon mystery dungeon games, for anyone that doesn’t know, are commonly referred to as rogue-like games, meaning they are based off of the game play elements from an RPG known as
Rogue. All of the dungeons are randomly generated every time you enter them and travel to another floor. Chances are you will never see the same floor pattern twice, which can be both a blessing and a curse. If you should die while you are in one of these dungeons you will lose up to half your money that you had acquired up to that point as well as a number of the items that you were carrying. Luckily if you survive the dungeon you can deposit these items in banks that will keep them safe for you, and you should do this often, only taking items that you think you’ll need, and never take gold into a dungeon with you. There are very few times you’ll need money while you’re in a dungeon.
The randomness of the game will, as said, be both a blessing and a curse. There is nothing more frustrating than spawning in a dungeon where you’re surrounded by three enemies and you’re almost depleted of all your health. On the flip side, there will be a number of times you thank the developers for having a staircase to the next floor spawn in the tile next to you. As you move through the dungeons every step you take is an action and enemies only act after you’ve taken an action. The entire game is turn based and you can use this to determine the best course through battles. Just remember you act, your partner acts, then enemies act, usually in that order. Many times during your exploration of a dungeon Pokemon that you’ve beaten in battle will ask to join your team. You can have up to two additional Pokemon with you at any time, and the game gets a bit easier when you’ve got the bigger team. Having those extra Pokemon around will be a big benefit and choosing the right Pokemon for the environment could be key to easy victory. The most frustrating aspect of this game is that you can’t prepare for a dungeon and you must guess as what you’ll need when you enter a new area. Be prepared for a lot of deaths and returns to the same dungeons. The plus is that even if you die your progress is still save, any experience gained is kept and levels will not be lost, so you will be stronger each time you enter a dungeon. That keeps the number of replays to a minimum.
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky does have a feature that will allow you to call for help over Wi-Fi, or through email and a friend can come rescue you if you die. This will cause all the items and gold you had to be retained and you can continue where you left off. You can set this up to send you messages through email and is a neat feature, but not one you’ll probably use very often. It’s just easier to restart the dungeon, but if you have a rare or powerful item you want to keep it might be nice to receive a rescue.
The game is not quite as nice to look at as the main Pokemon game, but the developers have done a nice job creating a world where you really feel like a Pokemon. All of the characters are easily distinguished and you can tell instantly what types of Pokemon are in the areas that you are. The dungeons reuse the same tiles and after a while you will begin to feel like you’ve seen that same room before, even though everything is randomly created. The in game story scenes have a lot of emotion and despite the small size of the characters it was always really easy to see how they felt. The animated portions of the stories all felt like later GBA titles and maybe could have been done to take more advantage of the DS capabilities. The music, on the other hand was done quite well. Each dungeon has its own unique sound. Party areas all have appropriately cheery music and the moody sections of game had the appropriate emotional feel to them. It’s very well done and fits the tone of the game perfectly.
Once you’ve completed the main story of the game there are bonus episodes that you will unlock as you play through. These episodes can be accessed from the main menu and allow you to play through stories told from the perspective of some of the other members of the guild. They provide some interesting insight to those characters and are more interactive stories than additional game levels, but they’re entertaining none the less.
If you’re a fan of
Shiren the Wanderer, or dungeon crawl games in general there will easily be something to find in this game that you’ll like. It’s designed for the younger audience, so it might be a little easier than you’re looking for, but younger players will find the game a nice difference to the standard Pokemon RPG. There’s no denying there is something enjoyable about filling out the survey and the game choosing exactly the right Pokemon for you, though if you know how you can answer so that you’ll get the Pokemon of your choice. The dungeons can get a bit repetitive and irritating at times, but the story is good enough to keep you wanting to know what happens next. If you played
Explorers of Time or
Explorers of Darkness, there might not be enough to justify this game, but if you’ve never played the series before or you just really like Pokemon you should look into this game.
Final Score: 3/5 Average
Review copy of the game provided by Nintendo.
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