Pokemon Mystery Dungeon was, arguably, one of the worst games ever on the DS.
And I loved it.
And now there's a sequal! Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness!
Here's some changes from the first which, if you're not aware from the title, was a Mystery Dungeon game with pokemon collecting all thrown in and mixed up.
The main gameplay mechanic is the Rescue Team. It initially consists of the main character and his or her partner. After a successful battle, other Pokémon have a chance of joining the rescue team. During a mission, the most a player can bring is three Pokémon; the fourth slot is reserved for an escort Pokémon or a fourth Pokémon that wants to join the team. Another factor is team size. Every Pokémon has a body size of one, two, or four. The maximum team size is six, including new recruits, so if the player has a size six team to begin with he or she cannot recruit any more members.
The game is mission-based with jobs. Jobs can be found on the bulletin board, requested by mail, or initiated through story events, and include rescuing Pokémon, delivering items, or escorting clients. If the player successfully completes a job, they are given a reward. They also earn Rescue Points, which can increase a team's rank. Each mission also comes with a Wonder Mail password. In the main menu, players can input passwords for other Wonder Mail missions, so players can trade Wonder Mail passwords online.
Obviously, there's much more; you have the pokemon move set mechanics and type balance brought over as well as held items, IQ (which affects AI as you only have control over one pokeman in your team) and terrain and status affects.
Now, the known changes:
There is a guild for beginners. It includes multiple rooms with new Pokémon on every floor. The town remains the same from the original Mystery Dungeon with some changes to the shop owners. Two examples of owner changes are Duskull replacing Persian at the Poké Bank, and Marowak replacing Makuhita with the Poké Gym.
All 491 officially revealed Pokémon will be included to be obtainable although some will require special Nintendo Wondermail to unlock the event. This game will also have more exploring in dungeons rather than rescuing. Most starting Pokémon from the first game will be reappearing in this game, though a few of them will be replaced by the current fourth generation starters (Piplup, Turtwig, and Chimchar). Most legendary Pokémon can be recruited like the first game but for some, a special item which is known as the Enigma Part or the ancient Stone Plate is required, or a wonder mail code will be required. Also each version will have its own exclusives which are Pokémon that are only available in that specific version, for example Celebi will only be in Explorers of Time and Mewtwo will only be in Explorers of Darkness. All exclusive Pokémon from both version can be unlocked in only one version by using Wonder Mail codes. However, both Celebi and Mewtwo can only be unlocked in only one version by using the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.
The story is promised to be even more developed than its predecessor, and the issue of the thinning of the relationship between the player and his or her partner will be taken into consideration. There are also species related items which only affect certain Pokémon.
They've also changed the recruitment procedure; while it still helps to use a highly effective attack on a much lower level Pokemon than you to increase the chances of them joining you, in PMD2 you can't lose the new member if they get killed. In PMD1, a new team member would join you if you had space in the party and then you had to make it out of the dungeon with them in one piece, a tricky thing to do as you'll know if you've ever played a Mystery Dungeon game. In the sequal, once they join, you're done. Even if they get beat, they'll just teleport back to your home base. And no more Friend Areas! Every Pokemon is recruitable right from the get go. Personally, I liked the system in 1.
As in the first game, this game starts with a human (you) waking up after turning into a pokemon. You take a deliciously goofy little personality test to determine which pokemon you turn into and then pick a partner that will stick with you through the entire game. After the main story is finished, you can change out all the pokemon and start evolving them.
Available pokemon to "turn into" are:
Bulbasaur
Charmander
Squirtle
Pikachu
Meowth
Chikorita
Cyndaquil
Totodile
Treecko
Torchic
Mudkip
Skitty
Turtwig
Chimchar
Piplup
Munchlax
One of those annoying "picture" movies from youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvHIVHNIG7Q
A translated movie of the opening of the game:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4gkGPFWf64
The very goofy Japanese TV commercial:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6dyGWnjYfA
Lots of fun info over at Seribii.net and Bulbapedia as well.
SO!
I was a Meowth with a Treecko on 1 because I kept getting high scores in quirky and sassy in the personality test. I'm hoping for a Totodile and Pikachu in number 2.
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definitely have to pick up the sequel
The basic dungeon crawliong and Poke recruiting was good fun but the extra dungeons (99 floors, with no checkpoints and limited food) got a bit ridiculous and then leveling recruited Pokes took too long for my patience to last long enough to Catch 'Em All.
Makes me long for a proper random seeding nethack alike for the DS with equippable items, the one thing sorely missing from Pokemon Mystery Dungeon.
You wear the unidentified amulet.
It was an amulet of Death!
You are dead. Display score? [y/n]
The DS could definitely use a nice looking roguelike with tons of weapons and armour and stuff.
Now that's what I'm talking about!
Turned out pretty awesome, actually... except for that sky area near the end where I could literally do nothing to any of the enemies. Yeah...
Never did figure out how to evolve into Machamp, and the Machoke sprite was ugly enough that I didn't want to be stuck in that form for any amount of time, so I just gave up on trying to evolve him. Then I set the game aside when other DS games came out.
I might pick up a sequel, but yeah, it's going to need a much more compelling story.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
They should just make it more of a console roguelike. Like that gamegear game where you had the dragon egg following you. Or Azure Dreams.
You had to finish the game to get evolution.
I kind of want to hijack the thread though, by mentioning that SEGA is bringing over Shiren the Wanderer DS to the US in early March (various websites seem to claim March 4). It's a port of the great Super Famicom roguelike made by Chunsoft, the same company that developed the Pokemon Mysterious Dungeon games, but with a few extra features. If you're any kind of fan of roguelike games, I urge you to look into the game.
I wonder if Protect is still broken in this one.
I mean, Skitty, Munchlax, and Meowth.
That's it now.
The game is a bit closer to a traditional roguelike in that, each time you die or start the game anew, you always start at level 1 and without any equipment. However, each time you try to make it up Table Mountain (which is the main dungeon of the game), your actions and interactions with other NPCs in the game will affect how future journeys may go to a minor extent. It is possible to save up items in warehouses in the towns that you pass by during the journey to increase your chances of success as well, but for the most part it's a harder roguelike closer to traditional roguelikes than Atlus' Izuna game or the Pokemon Mysterious Dungeon games.
There are a few articles in Game Set Watch's @ play column about the game: Part 1 and Part 2 detail a particular run through the game, so there are some spoilers for those planning on playing through. A third article was also written about Shiren that contains post-game spoilers for one of the extra dungeons.
Something about it just didn't feel right. I can't explain what it was.
The Mystery Dungeon games are a love it or hate it phenomena, it's true.
No Cubone.
NO EEVEE
I liked the first one, looking forward to this one, too.
And by odd I mean stupid. And why can't I be gastly? Or misdreavus?
Uh... yeah, I know. I had beaten the game. But I didn't know how to get the Machamp evolution, as you could walk in as a Machop and get evolved to Machoke, but then it said you couldn't just evolve to Machamp.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
You needed a Link Cable. :rotate:
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
No, you see. There's an actual Link Cable item in the game that you offer to the evolution stone thing when evolving Pokemon that required trading in the "real" Pokemon games. I'm not kidding. It's why you're given the option of offering two items, for those Pokemon that required trading with an item attached.
You can find one by going to any dungeon you already got an HM from, one'll be there instead of the HM you already have.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
It's been quite some time since I played, so I might be 100% right, 100% wrong, or somewhere in between.
Hey Gang,
Please excuse my idiocy if this thread already exists but I didn't see it. So who got sucked into giving this another try? I feel a bit like a hypocrite myself for getting this game. I'm a HUGE fan of the Mystery Dungeon games but have gone on record stating, while technically clever in combining the Pokemon and Mystery Dungeon mechanics, I found PMD1 fairly weak. I'm appreciating the improvements I see in this one so far (much more challenging while streamlining some awkward bits of the last incarnation), but MAN is it talky (way to many, "release control of your characters as we have them walk through some silly unskippable story dialogs".
I got weak myself but unless a big Pokemon fan or a big fan of the last one I really can't recommend it I'm afraid. I think it's an improvement for the most part from the first one but mainly more the same and the story stuff is getting a little overpowering for me right now (it seems like after almost every game day you have to sit through a few minutes of little unskippable cutscenes). Even more painful is if a cutscene refers to a previous cutscene they aren't content to just state in text, "Oh look, it's the bad guys we saw in the cave the other day!", Ohhh no, we need to replay parts of THAT VERY CUTSCENE once again in black and white (so you can tell it's a flashback, of course).
Gamespy actually had a decently written review of the game from someone who understands Roguelikes, as opposed to IGN's ignorant bitch fest.
I'll ask for this for my far-off birthday.
Good call. It may get better by then! :P