Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky

A Wild Pokemon game appears!  But this one does things just a little differently.  Time to go dungeon-crawling in arguably the most hardcore Pokegame yet…

Nearly 14 years on, and the Pokemon juggernaut shows no signs of slowing down.  We’re not too far away from the latest two games in the series, Heart Gold and Soul Silver, and more than a few of you are no doubt shivering with anticipation at the thought of playing them.  Well, to keep the edge off your addiction, may we present the latest in the Mystery Dungeon series: Explorers of Sky.

The game starts with a personality test.  If you’ve ever done one of those ‘What Pokemon am I’ tests online or ‘How long will my villanous rampage last when my robot death suit is finally built’-type quizzes, you’ll know what to expect.  These questions determine what Pokemon you’ll be playing as during the game.  After that, you’ll choose a partner to take with you.  There’s 19 different ‘Mons to play as and another 20 to have as your partner, each loaded with the same attacks and weaknesses you’d expect to find in the regular game.

Once you do that, the game starts.  Your character wakes up on a beach with no memory of who they are, save that they used to be a human and now they’re a Pokemon.  That’s right, there are no humans (technically) in this one, just lots and lots of Pokemon, living in joy and harmony.  Except something’s amiss.  More and more Pokemon are turning bad for some reason and attacking others.  After a brief training dungeon, you and your new partner join Wigglytuff’s guild, a group dedicated to helping Pokemon in need.  You and your partner join, partly because they don’t really have anything else to do, but also because you seem to have some kind of foresight, being able to picture innocent Pokemon in danger before it happens.  Is it related to your sudden appearance and lack of memory?  Well, what the hell do you think?

Gameplay is pretty simple really.  As you play, you unlock new dungeons.  On each floor of the dungeon, there is a staircase you need to find to get to the next floor.  Get to the final floor, fight a boss, beat the dungeon.  Like I said, simple.  Each dungeon is randomly generated as you enter.  Items, rooms and the layout of the dungeon itself are entirely different every time you play, with the occasional story-based floor, which is always the same.  While this does give the game endless replayability, it does come with a price: depending on how generous the game is feeling, each and every trip can either be reasonably easy or hellish.  There is no in-between.

Anyone thinking they can just jump into each dungeon one after another, think again.  This is a game where it’s very easy to screw up and get the crap kicked out of you, resulting in a trip back to town.  Of course, when that happens, you don’t just lose your progress, but also any money, items or equipment you happened to have on you at the time.  You keep your experience, so with enough perseverance, you will eventually brute-force your way through, but be warned, you will fail repeatedly throughout the game.  Personally, I found it more difficult than anything I’d found in the regular games, so consider yourselves warned: finding yourself surrounded by three or four Starlies, each hammering you senseless with Quick Attacks, while you’re poisoned and suffering from lowered defence and attack isn’t entirely out of the question.  Anyone who has played games like Nethack on the PC, or Izuna on the DS will be right at home here, both in terms of what to expect and difficulty.

The multiplayer aspect is extensive here, and goes beyond what you might expect.  For example, you can trade items and so forth, but there’s some more interesting things you can do.  For example if you have a friend with the game, and they fall in the middle of a dungeon, they can send a rescue mail.  You can then go into their dungeon and save them, meaning they don’t encur the usual penalties, and can continue from where they fell.  It’s definitely helpful if you have friends with the game, as it can be done over Wi-Fi and goes some way to lowering the frustration factor.  Don’t fear if you have no one local to help, or you don’t have a Wi-Fi connection however, as you can also create a password which will let you do the exact same thing.  So if, say, you happen to visit a forum, you can post it up and await rescue that way!

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky is a huge game.  Even the stuff that I’ve covered here is barely scraping the tip of the iceberg.  There’s dozens of dungeons to explore, Special Episodes, which focus on one of the characters specifically, minigames… the list goes on.  This isn’t a game you’ll finish in a weekend.  It’s a bit harder to recommend this if you’ve played the earlier games in the series, Explorers of Time/Darkness, as this is basically the same thing with extras – think of it as Pokemon Platinum to their Diamond and Pearl.

If you haven’t played either of those, however, or you’ve played the main games to death and still need another fix of sweet, sweet Poke-goodness, definitely pick this up.  And if you don’t like Pokemon?  I’d still get it anyway.  Despite its kiddy nature, this is easily one of the more difficult RPGs on the DS, and without wanting to spoil anything, the storyline takes some surprisingly dark twists before the end.  Heck, the fact that it has a story at all is probably a mark in its favour.  Definitely recommended.

+ An overwhelming amount of things to do in the game
+ Surprisingly in-depth storyline for a Pokemon game
+ Graphics are cute and well animated

- Can be very frustrating and difficult at times
- Music is lackluster
- Probably not worth it if you own one of the earlier games

Score – 8/10