Pokemon Diamond and Pearl have been out now for over a year in Europe. So it’s about time we got a new Pokemon game on the DS yes? Well The Pokemon Company and Chunsoft have answered your prayers. Sort of. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness and Explorers of Time are the sequels to the 2006 Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team and Red Rescue Team on the DS and Game Boy Advance which weren’t the usual RPG style ‘gotta catch em all’ gameplay, instead they were 2D, top down, dungeon crawler.

Dungeon crawlers usually see the main character go through floors of a randomly generated cave or dungeon (odd that), to kill enemies, level and face bosses using a turn base battle system. Some dungeon crawlers such as Izuna and Shiren can be extremely challenging later on in the game. Explorers of Time keeps with this tradition most of the way through the game and is tough to beat without some careful thought.

Following a similar tale to the original game, Explorers of Darkness follows the story of a child who wakes up on a beach after a storm by a passing pokemon. The child finds that they have transformed somehow into a pokemon with no memory of their name, who they are or where they come from. After talking your new pokemon buddy gets mugged by 2 other pokemon and he asks for your help. This is where the tutorial dungeon kicks in, but don’t expect much in the way of an actual tutorial. The game dumps you at the start of the dungeon with no explanation of what does what, the game doesn’t seem very newbie friendly and is very veteran player orientated.

After you recover the stolen goods the 2 main characters make a exploration team and the game follows on from there where your team will take on missions and jobs for other pokemon who have requests all while finding out problems in the world of pokemon and why you are no longer human. The story doesn’t really pull the player in, but as most of the players will be a few years south of 18 I doubt the story will affect the majority of those who are interested.

One of the best aspects of the game is the way it starts. When a new game is made, the player answers several questions about their life, and how they think they could handle situations which lead on to your ‘aura’ being read (by putting your finger on the touch screen). All of these things are then put together to choose the pokemon you will be controlling. This worked really well and I think it got my personality perfectly and even gave me one of the pokemon I like the most. After getting the main character you can then choose the computer controlled partner pokemon out of a list of 10 or so.

It’s disappointing that Chunsoft haven’t altered or improved the graphics since the last outing on the DS. In Blue Rescue Team the reason for the engine was that it mirrored the Game Boy Advance version, this time a GBA version isn’t released so why the graphics? Most people who play dungeon crawlers will expect the top down 2D look; that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved since the previous version though. A similar theme has been used with the music in the game, using various bleeps and bloops familiar to any Pokemon game fan. The background music is repetitive and annoying with various noises for attacks and items. Overall the presentation is disappointing for the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon’s first real DS outing.

Closing Comments
It’s unfair to judge a new game on the previous one, but when the two games in question are so similar its very hard not to. At a basic level, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon 1 and 2 are almost identical in looks, play style (controls haven’t changed), sound and storyline with minor tweaks separating them. This is brilliant news for anyone who bought and enjoyed the original but bad for anyone who didn’t like it. For new-comers it makes more sense to buy the, now cheaper, original game which has all the features of the latest instalment bar Nintendo Wifi support which allows friends to rescue each other when dead in a dungeon. Personally I’ll save my money for Pokemon Electric Pink and Violent Purple or whatever concoction of colours them decide on.

Score - 6.1

+ Inventive character selection system
+ Randomly generated dungeons
+ 20+ single player missions

- Random dungeons can have pointless tunnels
- Story is uninspired
- New elements are underwhelming