The most underrated game of all time - Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Sky

30/01/2021

Pokemon is one of the most beloved franchises in gaming, whether its the games, films or just the music. The games portion comes in two main packages, the mainline series such as the red and blue games or the more controversial sword and shield. And then there are the spinoffs. Pokemon Snap is one of the most famous and popular ones, but one of the more unfavoured ones are the mystey dungeon series. This series is a dungeon crawler where you take the role of a human who has been transformed into a pokemon, with no memories of your past. You are then found by your soon-to-be partner pokemon and after a tutorial rescue mission, you decide to team up an embark on many adventures. The original entries were the red and blue rescue team games released on the gamboy advance and ds respectively. They also recieved a remake on the switch which were recieved even worse then the originals, despite bringing multiple quality of life improvements. Now while I could write a whole review on why these are actually great games, I am going to focus on the second entries, Explorers of time, darkness ans sky. (Explorers of sky is the same as darkness and time but with quality of life improvements and extra features/content. Think Platinum compared to diamond and pearl.)

The Beginning

As mentioned before you wake up on a beach knocked out cold, and your selected partner finds you and helps you up. You explain to him that you were once a human, but couldnt remember anything else. Perplexed, he tells you that you look like a perfectly normal (insert pokemon you became) to him. As you ponder over how you became this way, Zubat and Koffing stroll over and steal your aquantinces relic fragment. They believe it might be worth some money and so they take it and flee to the beach cave. Your partner, while timid, begs you to help despite just finding out that you have no memory. You agree to help however and run off to your first mystey dungeon. This is the first example of a mystery dungeon. Mystery dungeons are randomly generated levels that have a preset number of floors, with a random number of rooms per floor. On these floors, the main goal is to find the staircase and progress to the next floor, all the while battling enemies and collecting items. You can also find treasure chests which can be eventually opened by Xatu, to get rare items. Despite being a dungeon crawler, the turn based system of the mainline series remains, where enemies won’t attack or move until you do. So if you have the right moves you can take out every enemy in one hit, but if you cant the same could be done to you (however it is very rare to be OHKO’d by any enemy this early on). These dungeons are where you will be doing all your grinding, and where you progress the story. Once you reach the end of beach cave you are greeted by the smug looking pair of thieves as they begin to taunt your clearly frightened friend. He starts to doubt whether he can defeat these two thugs, however with you by his side you make short work of them. After retrieving the stolen treasure your partner begins to talk about how thankful he was that you were there with him. He then asks you to join the local adventurers guild, as he believes that you would make a great team. You accpet, not really knowing what you’re getting yourself into.

The guild

From here on out I am going to refer to your partner as Turtwig, and your character as Piplup in order to not repeat the same names (partner, friend, you, etc.). Just know that it would be whatever pokemon you and your partner are. It turns out Turtwig tried to get into the guild before but chickened out before he was let in. When getting into the guild, you stand on top of the grate so your footprint can be identified. Then if the Diglett (the Pokemon on sentry duty) deems you safe to come in, the gate will open. Turtwig goes first, shaking, and is identified then allowed to go in. Relieved, he tells you to stand on the grate, so you do. To your surprise, Diglett doesnt recognise your footprint. He says ‘it could be a... Piplup?”. It turns out that Piplup are rare around these parts, and arent immeadietely recogniseable. Nevertheless, you are let in and greeted by the strern and somewhat annoying Chatot. Chatot is Wigglytuffs right hand man, and takes care of most things in and around the guild. He mistakes you for salesmen however, and tells you to leave. You quickly explain to him that you are here to become a rescue team, and so he (kind of) apologises. He then takes you to wigglytuffs office where you are to create a name for your team, and greet the founder and leader of the guild. Wigglytuff is an overly-friendly, loveable and kind pokemon. Now while he may seem completly harmless and a push over of a leader, you soon find out that he is extremely powerful and will defeat anyone who tries to cause harm to the guild members. Once you have chosen a name, you are shown to your sleeping quarters, and your first day at the guild is complete.
Im going to spend this next section of this review talking about the guild characters, and the guild itself.
First of all are the guilds staff: Loudred and diglett work on sentry duty, with Diglett burrowing undergroud and looking up at the grate to identify the pokemon. Then Loudred decides whether this pokemon is allowed to enter the guild, and then opens the gate if they are. Loudred also is responsible for waking up all the guild, by shouting into their bedrooms, blasting everyones eardrums at the same time. Despite working for the guild, it is revealed that Loudred failed his graduation exam, and so is still technically a regular guild member. Then there is Chimecho, who helps organise your team when going out on adventures. You can choose what Pokemon to bring on your adventure (i’ll get to recruiting pokemon later on) and eventually what pokemon will lead said adventures. Croagunk is a shady looking character who only become available after a few story events, and trades items you get from treasure chests, for better quality items that either boost the stat of a specific pokemon or gives a chance for a secondary effect to happen (for exaple the Chim-hair, is an item that increases the attack stat of the chimchar line only).