Pokémon Mystery Dungeon

[Michen_S]

Here's a thread for everything related to Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series in general.

Personally, I prefer Pokémon Mystery Dungeon over the normal game series. I found it very interesting that you get to play as a Pokémon instead of only catching them. It generally makes for an interesting storyline and an unique experience of the Pokémon world you wouldn't get otherwise. I especially like Explorers of Sky, which still is my favourite game up to this day.

[Albie]

I just started Super Mystery Dungeon.  It has been the only one I have played.  I'm not very far in it.  I am enjoying it.

The gameplay is okay.  Reminds me of Rouge, which is very nostalgic to me. 

I just want a friend as passionate as my Fennekin friend to my Riolu.    It makes me smile a lot.

[Michen_S]

Super Mystery Dungeon is pretty good, except that levelling up is a lot slower than in the previous games in the series. That is the biggest hurdle I stuggled with during the playthrough. The tutorial also seems to last longer, even continuing as your character is following school lessons. That were my biggest problems with that game.

How far are you with the storyline?

[Albie]

I am slow at beating games.  I usually don't get a ton of time on weekdays, when I have other things I want to do too.  But

Spoiler for Hidden:

I just got the adorable scarves.

[Ventus Fall]

I have two Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games laying around. I think the first two, in fact
Red Rescue Team and Blue Rescue Team.
I really liked the start with the personality test-based thing and getting a Pokémon based on your results.

[Michen_S]

Ah, okay. Good luck with the rest, Albie.

I actually like being able to choose my character, though the quiz has surprised me the first time I played. When I started playing Explorers of Sky I wanted to play as Piplup and I wanted Turtwig as partner, but then I got Turtwig out of the quiz and just chose Piplup as my partner. It worked out pretty well though, and I liked playing as Turtwig so much I just did it again in Super Mystery Dungeon.

[Cheza]

Got Blue rescue team by chance as it was bundled with my DS lite.
Instantly fell in love with it and still think it's one of the bestest games ever.
Also loving Explorers of Time and Explorers of Sky (With the latter being the peak of the series imo)
Gates to infinity ended up being quite the disappointment for me for a lot of reasons, and as such it's my least favorite game of the bunch.
I also have Super mystery dungeon, but I have yet to fully play it through, as it's kinda giving me the same feel as GtI.
I -should- give it a fair chance, but it's so hard not to wish it'd have been something that could've rivalled Sky.


I'm also one of those who liked the starting quiz (partially the reason I didn't like GtI. As well as how that one also reduced the number of "odd" starters)
I remember that during my very first playthrough of Blue, I wanted to be Squirtle, but I became Eevee. (Tho I was ok with that, as I could have Squirtle as my partner)


And in Time, I hoped to become Eevee again, but (to my horror) I became Meowth. I didn't quite like that at first as I thought Meowth's sprite looked so derpy in-game, but eventually it grew on me. Especially once I learned Fury Swipes! :D
(Meowth is my number one fav pokemon, so having a game tell me "You is a Meowth" was pretty cool too >-> )
In this case, my partner became Totodile.


In Sky, I was hoping for Meowth, but I became Vulpix. Which is kinda cool too.
I picked Eevee as my partner, which in hind-sight wasn't the brightest choice (because of Eevee's Run away ability), but seeing as I knew the game inside and out by then, it was a welcome challenge-up. It also kinda added to the immersion, as your partner keeps complaining about being a huge scaredy-cat in the beginning and earlier stages of the game. As the ability is a lot less likely to trigger as you progress and get stronger, it really feels as if your partner is growing more courageous and strong with you.


I remember being really hyped for GtI, as it looked like it'd be amazing.
Tho sadly, it's probably the biggest disappointment I've had in gaming.
The quiz was gone, the starter pool boring, the story meh and the whole thing just felt like it could've been so much better if they'd just stuck a tiny bit closer to the earlier style of the games. But at least it looks nice and it's got some really nice soundtracks too. Credit where credit is due.
In this, I just went "screw it", and picke Axew. With freaking Pikachu as my starter. I don't even like Pikachu. Should consider restarting the game and giving it a fairer chance, as I'm fairly certain I was all "This isn't Sky, so therefore it's bad" back in those days...


As for Super mystery dungeon, I was pretty much on the fence about getting that at all, but I remember reading somewhere that it kinda steered the series back in the right direction, so I decided I should give it a try.
Was really happy to see the quiz was back, as well as the option to chose your starter if that's what you  preferred. Honestly they should've done that in GtI too, but better late than never. Kinda makes me feel like they might be listening, which is nice.
I became Chikorita, but seeing as I have bad memories associated with that one, I decided on Piplup instead. With Treecko as my starter.
Still haven't played through this game, so can't really whine too much about the story, but I'll try to get that done at some point and then come back to this.


...And, while not fully related to the games themselves, when I was younger, I used to lead a fairly big PMD-roleplaying group on another site.
We had our own world thought out, with an explorer/rescue team school ran by an Arcanine, a mail office ran by an Ambipom, the dinner being served by a Grimer and tons and tons of other things like that.
I guess this was my first steps towards becoming a furry, as this is essentially "anthro" (or to be precise, intelligent ferals) related in some ways xP
It was inevitable and bound to happen sooner or later. (Had no idea about furries at the time, but I sure did love Pokémon)
Those were the days... *Rocks back and forth in a rocking chair while knitting socks with an itty bitty kitty in my lap*


Really hoping they manage to pull the series together again, so that the next game would be amazing. I love the new graphics style (I love the old one too. Pixels<3), but without the things that made the earlier games so good it's hardly more than pointless eye-candy.

[Albie]

I'm okay with the pointless eye candy.  But of course I never played the early entries.  I just always hope they keep Riolu in the game as the roster grows.  As I would always choose him. 

[Michen_S]

I didn't really like GtI either. Overall speaking it had the least content, and whereas you can do multiple misions in all entries you can only do one at a time in GtI. The most extra content seems to come from the 'Discover a Magnegate' mode you unlock fairly early.
Big credit on that the rooms are no longer are all rectangles though. For as much as I dislike the huge decrease of content, the graphics are a lot better. The moves are better accesible too, since you don't have to select moves through menus anymore. These were also present in SPMD.

SPMD is better than GtI in my opinion, but not as much as Blue Rescue Team.

[Rob_Silvermyst]

I have played all of the Mystery Dungeon games to date, beating main and post stories. I love the series as a whole, especially for the story elements. I'm thinking of restarting Super and doing another playthrough.

Explorers of sky is still my all-time favorite. The storyline and  the events affecting the main character seem to flow the best and make the most sense. Gates to Infinity is my least liked . It has the least amount of content, too much DLC that it feels like a cash grab, and a post-game that is barely existent. Super is certainly enjoyable, but it does pull a stupid move in the form of the main story final boss. Pretty much copying what Gates did.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Seriously, I liked it better when the villain was a Pokemon that had a reason for wanting to commit the atrocities they did, not some shapeless entity of emotions and crap.

Blue/Red was fun and about average for me on the scale.

Overall: Explorers>Super>Rescue>Gates

Team Alpha
Rescue: Torchic/Eevee
Explorers: Riolu/Vulpix
Gates: Oshawott/Snivy
Super: Riolu/Fennekin (Next playthrough, Chespin/Fennekin)

[Albie]

Um.....please no spoilers to the end boss.  I still got a long way to go.

[Rob_Silvermyst]

Apologies. Forgot to use spoiler tags. Edited.

[Albie]

Thank you.  Luckily when I saw you start to talk about it, I looked away. 

[Michen_S]

Spoiler for final boss:

Yeah, the final boss of the last two games were... odd. I thought it was interesting, but odd. Also, during the last two final bosses I noticed you don't restart them when you get defeated, but everytime you get back into the battle you keep going where you left off. In Super I managed to do it in one try (with luck, strategy and a bunch of reviver seeds), but it had so much HP. It felt ridiculous, it took so long to take the core down.

[Timmy Fox]

I've been catching up with these lately, I played the original rescue team ones way back and then kinda never bothered with the sequels. But recently I got curious and picked up pretty much everything since then and played them through in order..

Haven't done most of the post-game things but just the other day I finished up the main story of PSMD