Current Events > Are those Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games any good

(+) Yeah! (+)

I need a new handheld game and I've never played a single Mystery Dungeon game.
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Ignore Gates to Infinity since it's rushed and bad, but all of the others (especially Explorers of Sky on DS) are fantastic. They all have great gameplay and an amazing story that blows away what you'd see in the main series Pokemon games. Very few games can actually make me cry with a story scene, but PMD is one of them.
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Rescue Team probably has the best structure and feels the most ambitious
Explorers is the most solid overall, only bother with Sky
Gates has the best story, if you care about that in Pokemon, but the gameplay is dumbed down and the content is really sparse
Super has the best actual dungeon crawling by lightyears but everything about the game structure and story is absolute garbage

I like them better than the main Pokemon games. It's a sentimentality thing.
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They're really good if you're into the Mystery Dungeon roguelike subgenre. Kind of an acquired taste.
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I'd recommend playing super first, playing the other ones first makes one make mistakes by trying to play it like them (super requires one to item spam a LOT more than the other ones instead of just reviver seed stacking, though that's also needed to a lesser degree, at least during the main story)
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Better than the normal Pokmon games imo
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They're literally all really good with surprisingly emotional stories, probably just because they're very personal and trust/betrayal/sacrifice is always the central themes.

People hate on the Infinity Gate game and it has issues and simplification but it's not unplayable.

And play them in order
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I tried to like the genre but...

I didn't. It's boring.
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The Rescue Team games are very bad mechanically and suffer from a very bloated interface. The Explorers games fix all the cripplingly bad mechanical issues with the Rescue Team games and are much more streamlined; they also have the best story in the series. Gates to Infinity has a lot of cool features that aren't really expanded upon and Gates is basically the meaning of lost potential. The story is good and while most issues from the Explorers are addressed, the difficulty can become crushing later on. Visuals are a huge step up from the Explorers games. Super Mystery Dungeon blows Gates out of the water mechanically and has the second-best story in the series. While Super Mystery Dungeon is also difficult, it doesn't rely on swarming you with enemies. It's simply the best mechanically; however, if you want to play them all, play from the start. Going back after playing any of the others will be painful.
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Garioshi posted...

The Rescue Team games are very bad mechanically and suffer from a very bloated interface. The Explorers games fix all the cripplingly bad mechanical issues with the Rescue Team games and are much more streamlined; they also have the best story in the series. Gates to Infinity has a lot of cool features that aren't really expanded upon and Gates is basically the meaning of lost potential. The story is good and while most issues from the Explorers are addressed, the difficulty can become crushing later on. Visuals are a huge step up from the Explorers games. Super Mystery Dungeon blows Gates out of the water mechanically and has the second-best story in the series. While Super Mystery Dungeon is also difficult, it doesn't rely on swarming you with enemies. It's simply the best mechanically; however, if you want to play them all, play from the start. Going back after playing any of the others will be painful.

yeah, but playing supr after the others is also painful due to the different playstyle required
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mehmeh1 posted...

Garioshi posted...

The Rescue Team games are very bad mechanically and suffer from a very bloated interface. The Explorers games fix all the cripplingly bad mechanical issues with the Rescue Team games and are much more streamlined; they also have the best story in the series. Gates to Infinity has a lot of cool features that aren't really expanded upon and Gates is basically the meaning of lost potential. The story is good and while most issues from the Explorers are addressed, the difficulty can become crushing later on. Visuals are a huge step up from the Explorers games. Super Mystery Dungeon blows Gates out of the water mechanically and has the second-best story in the series. While Super Mystery Dungeon is also difficult, it doesn't rely on swarming you with enemies. It's simply the best mechanically; however, if you want to play them all, play from the start. Going back after playing any of the others will be painful.

yeah, but playing supr after the others is also painful due to the different playstyle required

Not really.
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