[NDS] Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorer's of Darkness/Time - anandjones

Well, just like the first Mystery Dungeon games, you play as a human having been turned into a kind of pokemon, which all depends by a "personality" test. You also get a partner as well at the start of the game. Explorers of Time is just another version of this game with different pokemon I believe.

Now, the game is almost exactly the same as the first games, you're a human who gets turned into a pokemon in some way, you wake up in a unknown world, you meet someone, you get together and make yourselfs a rescue team, you do missions, and you beat the bad guys or save the world and then happily ever after. However, this game was still quite addicting, even though it was the same style of play.



Same features such as IQ, linking moves, buying, selling, banking money and storing items as well as the dojo where you could train if need be. There was a couple of extra things they added, such as the ton of dungeons, more items, secret boxes etc. As well as being able to evolve your other recruitment pokemon at a forest and various mini-games including identifying pokemon's footprints. And this time you didn't get a house of any sort, you stayed in a little room at the guild, while they ripped 90% of your earnings. After you beat the game however, you get to stay in your partner's old home, which inside the cliff on the edge of Treasure Town. You still do rescue missions, escorts, and deliveries of items, but they added "Outlaw" missions, Outlaws being pokemon who are wanted by the "police" in some way. They are the hardest of all the sorts of missions, but they are also the most rewarding, rarer items as well as a lot of Rescue points which increase your rank just like the first. Battling is just like the first, you encounter enemies in Mystery Dungeons which change completely everytime you visit and fight them using your normal attack or your selection of moves you've learned.
Your partner and other recruits attack or move randomly, so you have no control over them. Very easy to begin with, but later in the game, you have to worry about Monster Houses. When in a open area in a dungeon, sometimes a Monster House occurs, which brings about 8 to 20 enemies from the ceiling all ready to kill you.


Pokemon types occur as normal, leaf effective against water, water effective against fire etc. Your normal attack however can hurt a Ghost type more than a Normal type attack though as it has no type so no advantages or disadvantages. There are a couple of legendary pokemon featured in this game, including Uxie, Mesprit, Azelf and Dialga which are all from the D/P series Pokemon games. After the main story, you encounter 3 more legendaries in the follow up storyline, Cresselia, Palkia and Darkrai.

Presentation: 9/10 - Everything is good, you know what to do immediately without any help, a bit too much info though sometimes.

Graphics: 7/10 - The normal, average graphics you would expect for a DS game, 2d, RPG maker quality, other than the animations which are quite good. Could have made better text boxes also.

Sound: 5/10 - Quite boring, not really catchy, reminds you the old "beep beep" music of Final Fantasy I.

Gameplay: 8/10 - Quick and fun to play, IQ and Gummis and Tactics make for some interesting gameplay. Only flaw is that sometimes your partner or recruits don't actually follow the tactic they're set on, such as "Let's stick together" and they go off wondering somewhere.

Lasting Appeal: 5/10 - Very fun first time around and after the main storyline, but not that fun or interesting to play again or to start over or even to play Explorer's of Time. Only real reasons would be to level up and gain a rank or two.

Total: 34/50 - A pretty decent game even though it's the old game with a different slightly storyline and extra features. Only good enough to play it once and once only.

-anandjones

 

NOOOOooooOOOOes~!! You got a review done first T_T ... I haven't gotten around to beating it yet because other things/games keep on coming up >,<

But, anywho; very nice review. It seems to be a pretty average game unless you are already a Pokemon fan, as the gameplay can oftentimes be a bit slow, the graphics are a bit bad in the dungeons, and only a few of the songs that show up in the story are any real good. And; NO CUBONE STARTER! Lamesause...

 

Ah, thanks, I'm not that good at game reviews. You can still write one up if you want, it'll probably beat mine judging from your awesome SSBB review.

 

Whats the difference between time and darkness. Would you be able to get all pokemon without tradig with the other version?

 

Nope; as always, there are a few Pokemans that you can't get in each version - the only real important ones, or the ones that I can at least remember, are:

Mewtwo is EXCLUSIVE to Darkness.

Lucario is EXCLUSIVE to Time.

Other than that, there are no other real differences, except a change in item rarity for only a select few seeds and orbs. And, judging by the board traffic the last time I checked (which was a long while ago, so please correct me if I'm wrong), Darkness, being the "red" version, seems to be more popular, as all "red" games are XD

 

Look like a very good game.

 

I'll get around to writing my reviews sometime, but this game doesn't deserve to be played once....okay yeah it does, it's little to repetative from Blue, not enough new stuff...

 

hey anandjones the game is kind of the same thing as the one before.

 

He has said that. And i won't probably bother with this, it really seems a copy from the GBA ones, just made a bit better.

Other than that, cool review.

 

Is the story in both versions exactly the same?

 

Yes, as far as I know.

 

The problem with Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is that it's Mysterious Dungeon. It's a very specific type of gameplay that only appeals to a very specific type of person. Therefore most people write it off as boring and repetitive and/or hard. But for us fans of the genre, it doesn't get any better, especially if you like Pokemon and collecting things.

Doesn't beat Shiiren though...

 

Moltres just beat the crap out of me in the previous game.

I'll see if I can finish this one.

 

primal dialga is difficult to defeat.

 

hey jones, great review! I didnt find these games to be as fun as Blue/red rescue team, but they were pretty amusing.. the only bad thing about it is its replay value is pretty low

 

Very good Anand!
Keep up the good work, maybe someday you'll be as good as Vincent ;p

 

I'd like you to also do the review on Explorers of the Sky soon