I never thought I would ever end up playing Pokemon again. The last time I ever played one of them was when Red/Blue first came out, and after I had finished that one, I was never really interested in the others that came out after. Well, I ended up getting this one partly because my favorite part of this whole series has always been the Pokemon themselves, and I liked the idea of a game where they would take center stage in the story; and partly because I had heard that this one had a plot that went beyond "become a master and foil a criminal organization".

I have to say, I've been really impressed. The mechanics in Pokemon fit surprisingly well with a dungeon crawler like this, and I found myself enjoying the story a lot more than I was expecting. It was a little slow to start out, but the Fogbound Lake expedition was pretty well done, and everything picked up a lot more after Grovyle was introduced. I really enjoyed everything from onwards. I also thought
Also, the Special Episodes where you get to play side stories as various supporting characters are a really cool idea, and I wish they were in more games. It was neat seeing Wigglytuff's origin story, and I loved .

Random things that bugged me while I was playing:

• Seriously, has no one in this world heard of names? I only bring this up because I've found at least two scenes of multiple characters of the same species talking about how they have trouble telling each other apart because they're all called the same thing.
• Is Wigglytuff a mob boss or something? He takes 90% of cash rewards. Even if you don't get a job through the guild.
  Spoiler

  Even after you graduate. Because of this, I can only assume that every explorer who passes though also gives up 90%. And Treasure Town seems to be the only bastion of civilization in the entire world...

All in all, I'm really glad I decided to check this game out. I know there's more story after the credits roll, so I'm sure I'll still be following the adventures of Ari the Charmander and Rakasa the Bulbasaur for quite a while longer.

I played the GBA game, and thought it was good too. I remember playing it every night for about a month.

I too liked the connection you develop with the assistant.

I think the pokemon mystery dungeon games are great, pretty much my favorite non-pc roguelikes. The amount of content that they've squeezed into the game is incredible imo. I don't know why they've got such a bad reception. I think the problem is that the hardcore roguelike crowd write them off as too easy (which may be true for the main storyline but there are optional dungeons that open up afterwards that are plenty challenging) and a lot of the regular pokemon players get put off by the difficulty and tend to get stuck and frustrated at certain points.

My only complaint is that they've milked it a bit with the DS iterations and haven't really added a lot since the first versions came out. I still like the interface of the GBA red version best and liked that feature that if you owned the DS blue version as well you could do your own rescues on a DS with a GBA slot.

Amazing games, I never really liked roguelikes until I gave PKMD a go.

The Pokemon gameplay blends perfectly with the Mystery Dungeon gameplay and makes a gloriously delicious and addictive cocktail!

The stories of the two games (especially Darkness/Time/Sky) are fantastic as well. Why can't we get stories this good in the main series?! Hell I'd say that these games have the best stories and character development of any JRPG released this generation! (at least in English) And the music is wonderful too

Criminally underrated little gems they are! And I'm still angry at the fact that we haven't gotten PKMD 3 on Wii Ware yet in English. Bloody ridiculous (especially when this is the best selling Pokemon spinoff series of all time. Unbelievable!)



YOOMTAH!