Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Series (DS and 3DS) Review | Video Game Thoughts.

I decided to talk about these three games together mostly because I played them before I started taking notes on video games as I played them. I've done my best to freshen my memory but I haven't replayed them for this video. I do want to say that I never played this series when I was younger.

I remember seeing commercials on TV about the first or second game in the series, but I never really considered picking up the game. It just didn't interest me at the time. I prefered to play as a Pokemon trainer rather than play the spin-offs. I did buy the series much later, when I was in college.

If I remember correctly, I played Explorers of Sky first, then Blue Rescue Team, and then Gates to Infinity. One of my favorite things about the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games is the presentation. After years of playing through a Pokemon world where humans catch and train Pokemon, it's refreshing to see the world re-imagined as populated entirely by Pokemon.

From the building designs to how the Pokemon organize themselves into societies, it's a new way to experience a Pokemon world, and I really appreciate it for that. That said, there are aspects I dislike about each game in the series, there are mechanics I dislike in each, and characters I dislike in each game.

The story in each of these games is pretty simple. Like I've said, simple and complex stories are both difficult to write well. For me, Blue Rescue Team was a short story that tried a bit too much to appeal to children. All the other stories try to appeal to children, but from Explorers onward they were at least a bit more nuanced in the how the characters and their motivations were presented as well as how the plot unfolded.

Whereas Blue Rescue Team really didn't seem to want to confuse anyone: the antagonists are called Team Meanies, the partner Pokemon doesn't have much of a character arc, and so on. It was still an enjoyable experience, but only if you can accept that it's meant for children primarily.

And here's the thing. A game made with children in mind can still be enjoyable to adults. It is difficult to make a game that truly is for everyone, but it can be done, and subsequent Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games get closer. I never played Explorers of Darkness or Time, but I did play Explorers of Sky.

It is a huge improvement over Rescue Team. Characters like Dusknoir and Groyvle are more nuanced than the characters in Rescue Team and have a bit more depth to them, the story has some twists and turns, predictable at times but still enjoyable and still capable of surprising the players.

I know people dislike the partner Pokemon in Sky for being annoying and weak, but I saw that as creating a character with room to grow, and seeing a character having to confront personal demons made the story more interesting to me. I'm not really sure where to rate Gates to Infinity.

On the one hand, more characters get more development, even side characters like Gurdurr. And those characters that don't really get as much development still have more nuanced personalities, like Umbreon and Espeon. With regard to characterization of the cast, Gates really improved things from previous games, where characters could be a bit forgettable or one note .

On the other hand, about the story. While the partner in Gates had an admirable goal, it seemed to be so external: the partner didn't have to change to make a Pokemon paradise. Whereas the partner in Sky did need to do some personal growing, which then made the story surrounding the partner Pokemon more interesting and more memorable.

Gates is enjoyable and better written the Rescue Team, but Sky lets us see a future world that is in ruin and will come to be, thereby making the present conflict that much more urgent. We don't see the negative consequences quite so directly in Gates.

Some people are experiencing some problems in life, we are told, and people are bitter. But take Gurdurr for instance. He suffered an injury that resulted in him not being able to build things like he did before, and someone ordered a building from him just to mock him and then tear down the resulting building.

That is extraordinarily cruel, but is it cruelty on the level of a world catacylysm, which is what the game is implying? I didn't buy it was apocalytpic levels of cruelty. Sure the Bittercold is going to destroy the world, but in Sky we see the destroyed world.

And while Sky had a predictable plot twist with Dusknoir and Groyvle, the actual danger the main characters are trying to prevent is shown in full force when we see the distorted future. The bleak images we were shown of the future, I did buy that that future was an apocalypse and I did want to prevent that future from becoming reality.

So, while Gates did individual characterization better, Sky did a better job of showing the player the possible negative consequences, which has more impact, as opposed to telling, which informs the player but doesn't have nearly the impact. Unlike the story, which can be simple and not so well written in its simplicity, the gameplay is simple and fun.

You directly control the player Pokemon, with their attacks mapped to different buttons, and you have some limited control over the actions of the partner Pokemon. The changing dungeons floors give the game some variety. There are items that are helpful scattered in the dungeons and the possibility of losing everything if you are defeated gives the game a bit of urgency, even if the game is easy enough to where you won't be defeated often anyway.

In conclusion, the Pokemon Mystery Dungeons games are fun video games, and I really don't understand why these games are so overlooked. They have their flaws, but each subsequent entry had nice improvements. In my opinion, Explorers of Sky is a real treat even if you aren't a Pokemon fan, and we can't overlook the great job Gates to Infinity did with regards to making the transition from a 2D sprite based world to a fully 3D world.