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This Game Itself is a Mystery

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 119 / 140
Date: September 21, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The truth is, I really wanted to like this game. I really did. It's all because the Pokemon RPGs of the past have been good. The craze for the Red and Blue versions, and then the far superior Gold and Silver versions (arguably the best of the lot). Then Ruby and Sapphire came along. All these RPGs were simple, yet for some reason delightful to play. Now Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red and Blue come out, and it seems I had my hopes up for this one. It's no where near as interesting, and it's even sadder that even on the Nintendo DS the game just didn't go above and beyond.

The basic premise of the story is, like every Pokemon game, rather simple. You're an aspiring trainer who one day falls asleep only to wake up as a pokemon. The pokemon you wake up as depends on how you answer the questions at the start of the new game. You'll also be able to choose a pokemon partner who will be the one that awakens you. You and your partner will find yourself in a world completely full of pokemon. Unfortunately all is not safe. You and your ally will soon discover that other pokemon are always in need of help in this new world. So it's up to you to answer ditress calls of other pokemon, go to the specified dungeon and save them. It's basic. It's simple. And throughout your journey you won't see one trainer. Ever.

Since there are no trainers, one has to wonder how to expand upon their party. Well, you still get new pokemon from the wild as you did before, but it's slightly different. When you defeat a wild pokemon they will offer to join your team. Learning moves however is almost exactly the same as previous games. By leveling and through TMs. You can also team up and perform moves as well.

All these things are really engrossing, and they've got some neat things going for it, but it doesn't separate from the things you begin to notice as you trek through the game. The first being that most of the game is just boring. The dungeon floors are randomly generated and sometimes the exit will be right next to the entrance. Although that's not such a bad thing when battling is a fairly uneventful task anyway. The AI of your allies is horrible, yet they can still hold their own in a battle against an enemy. Even bosses are easily taken down by your party.

The worst part may very well be that the true core of the gameplay doesn't come out until you've completed the main story. More abilities become available after. You're finally able to take control of other Pokemon after. Your Pokemon also won't evolve until you complete the main story.

What would a Pokemon game be without two versions? There's the Blue version which is on the Nintendo DS, and then the Red version which is on the GBA. Don't be fooled, however. They're basically the same game. Just like every other set of Pokemon games, though, each version has exclusive pokemon.

The saving grace of this set up, however, is all the connectivity features that can be done. If you insert both games into your DS at a time, you can import Pokemon from one game to another. This is an easy way to get all of them. It's also really neat that you can trade items, missions, and pokemon this way. In addition, if you get KO'd in a dungeon and your party gets wiped out, you could send out a message to your friend and he/she will have to come and rescue you. The connectivity features are very engrossing. And of course, you can hook up via wireless (for DS owners) or link cable (GBA owners) and battle with your friends.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon doesn't really look all that great. It's no surprise, Pokemon games never look fantastic graphically. If you want to know the truth, the DS version looks exactly like the GBA version. There's hardly any difference between them. The game is certainly colorful, but there's just not enough variety in the environments and there are hardly any 3D effects brought out. For the Nintendo DS, which has to compete with far better looking games it's really hard for it to hold it's own here.

Worse than the graphics is the sound, though. A lot of the sound effects and such come directly from the normal gameboy games that are almost ten years old. The music itself isn't so bad, but it is quite repetitive. Again, however, it's no surprise because as usual, Pokemon games don't usually push a system to its limits.

It's hard to suggest Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. It's a Pokemon game, but it's a rather bland Pokemon game. It's neat that you can finally play as a Pokemon, but the game as a whole could've been presented far better than it actually was. There's little variety to it, actually, which is really sad considering how big and expansive previous Pokemon games are. It's got plenty of rescue missions, but after a while they're much more repetitive than exciting. I can't suggest one buy this. Even the most die hard of Pokemon fans will have trouble getting into this game.

On the positive side
+You actually play as the Pokemon and not the trainer
+There's plenty of connectivity stuff to be done between both versions, mastering the game as a whole will take a really long time
+There's never an end to rescue missions, even long after you've completed the story mode

On the negative side
-Battles are too easy
-The AI for your enemies and allies are bad, yet the game is still easy, and your AI controlled characters are still competent enough to get through the battle without you
-Most of the more interesting tweaks of the game are available only AFTER story mode is complete
-Graphically the game doesn't hold up
-The sound effects are absolutely terrible

This review is for my nine-year-old son

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 51 / 62
Date: September 21, 2006
Author: Amazon User

My son can't get enough of this game and has gone on many missions. He was particularly pleased about being able to play as a Pokemon instead of a trainer and he has not complained about the dungeons or design. He has both the red and blue games, but has not stopped playing the DS version to try the other, but I would imagine that they are basically the same game.

So, his overall rating is a solid five stars. If he is a representative nine-year-old boy, all young kids should like this game. I don't know about older kids, but he certainly loves it.

Don't expect a traditional pokemon game, but this game is wonderful!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 18 / 20
Date: January 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

A wonderful collaboration of two series, with charming gameplay and 400+ hours of play if you really get into it.

I will never understand why this game has recieved some mediocre reviews. The only problem I see with this game is its graphics. Nobody is going to like this game just for its graphics. In my opinion the very first pokemon RPGs had better graphics than this game, for one simple reason: In those games the pokemon characters could be seen as large, cute images. In this game you will never see your stars any way other than as small (but well drawn and well animated) sprites.

Everything else about this game just seems wonderful to me. One very good thing is that this game can be played absolutely at any speed you want to. The game has features to run through dungeons very quickly, but it will always let you stop and think things out, and believe me, by the time you save the world you will have had some scenarios come up where you'll want to think out the best course of action.

By the time you save the world in this game you will have played 25 hours and will have witnessed one of the most charming stories in any video game. But the game hasn't even hit its stride yet. I only play extras after the story is finished in games if I really like the game and feel compelled to, and oh yeah I wanted to see what this game had to offer! Many of the game's features don't even appear until after the storyline is complete. Don't misunderstand, saying "the storyline is complete" in fact is not true, because really nice scenes long after the storyline resolve things that never really finish in the main storyline (the first 25 hours).

Once you've played 80 or 90 hours your heroes will be extremely strong, and none of the ordinary dungeons will be any challenge for you. BUT, this game includes two wonderful features (neither of them making any logical sense but that's alright) that will keep the challenge up even after that. The first is missions where you have to escort a weak pokemon deep into a dungeon. If your client gets beaten it is just as bad for your team as if your heroes are beaten. The bigger and better challenge-increasing feature is the three dungeons where your characters lose all their advantages (level and special abilities) every time they enter. Don't worry, they'll get all their levels back after they leave the dungeon. These "level 1 dungeons" are a really special challenge the likes of which I have only seen in Lufia games.

And I haven't even mentioned some of this game's coolest features. If you know someone else with the game, or have internet access, you can have your defeated team saved by someone else and have another chance at the dungeon. That feature's so neat I hope other games pick up on it and add it to their series. And hey, this is a Pokemon game, with - get this - 413 varieties of pokemon that can join your cause! Well, 28 of those are different Unowns so there are really only 386 recruitable species, but still it's impressive. After completing the story you can return to earlier dungeons with tough legendary-pokemon bosses like Zapdos and recruit them. And some of the non-legendary pokemon, like Chansey, are even harder to recruit than the legendaries. Another neat feature is that it IS possible to steal items from shops in the game, but you REALLY have to know what you're doing not to be beaten (without the chance to even be rescued). If you're dedicated and lucky enough to recruit the shopkeeper, you'll have a decided advantage in those level 1 dungeons I mentioned before.

If you only play till the end of the main story, this game has 25 hours of gameplay. But I think it's a safe bet you'll want to play more than that. If you play long enough to complete all the dungeons it'll take a little over 100 hours. That's pretty good for an RPG, BUT, if you really like this game and want to recruit every single pokemon, and want to get into the internet friend-rescuing scene, this game has 400 hours of play!!! That's amazing. I've logged 425 hours, and I still want to play more. And the graphics only bothered me about the first one-fourth of an hour.

A fresh and new style of Pokémon game sure to keep you busy!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 16 / 17
Date: September 25, 2006
Author: Amazon User

So, you're thinking about purchasing Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Force or Blue Rescue Force. Maybe this review will help you make up your mind. If you've been on the web, you may have noticed that Mystery Dungeon has been getting quite low scores for a Pokémon game. Well, I think those people are just afraid of change, underestimate the games, and expected something entirely different. Trust me; this is a very good game.

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon goes where no Pokémon game has gone before--you finally get to become a Pokémon and see life through their eyes. You first take a simple personality quiz to determine what kind of Pokémon you best represent. After being told which one of the 16 possible Pokémon starters you are, you pick an appropriate partner. Then the real story begins, and you as a human are transformed into a Pokémon, you go on rescue missions, set up a rescue force, recruit new Pokémon, and learn why you have undergone these drastic changes.

The story and cutscenes of the games really surprised me. Being a fourteen year old, I expected the meat of the game to be a little corny, especially since it's such an interesting story that they've chosen. Boy, was I wrong, because the intriguing story and surprising turn of events really make the game stand out.

Since the two games are nearly identical, the graphics don't really differ between them. They are very good for Game Boy, and are still pretty good for Nintendo DS considering how huge the games are. The music suits the game very well, and I especially love the boss Pokémon tunes. As far as the replay value goes, the game takes anywhere from 14-20 hours to complete the main story, and another 20 or so hours to do the extra missions. Since there are always going to be missions for you to do from the Post Office and Message Board, the games literally never end.

The games, for the most part, hold true to the Pokémon theme, but put it into a different perspective. There are actually levels, commonly called caves or dungeons, which you traverse through and battle wild Pokémon in them. The battles are actually quite similar, but you stay on the same screen during battle and each move (attacking or walking) in the dungeon is one "turn". There are tons of new items, as well as classic ones, that add a new twist to the games. You need apples to keep from going hungry; rocks and sticks to throw at enemies as attacks; gummies to eat and increase IQ; accessories to change stats or allow certain abilities; seeds to eat and gain abilities or change stats. You can't "catch" Pokémon, you must recruit them by being a high level and having the appropriate "friend area" for them to live in. It takes a little bit to get used to, but once you've got the basics down, they stick with you.

The games are actually pretty difficult in the later levels, and require patience and strategy. Each floor of a dungeon is different, and they change every time you enter them (adding extra replay value), requiring you to traverse the entire floor to find the stairs to the next floor in some instances, or just walking a few steps to the stairs in others. Because it is so random, you should always be prepared! I hate it when I see other reviews saying that the game only has around 16 or so dungeons, because that is ENTIRELY wrong. If my counting is correct, I believe there are 43 or 44 different dungeons in the game. Some of the early ones have 3 or 4 floors, but some of the late ones have 99 floors! The bosses are yes, legendary Pokémon, and they are pretty hard. The boss battles are epic, and once you complete certain circumstances, you can go back, rebottle them, and even recruit them on your team! Hooray! (Once you beat the main story, you have the option to evolve your Pokémon, and play as other Pokémon other than your starter).

The Mystery Dungeon games have nothing inappropriate in them, aren't very violent at all, and shouldn't cause anything bad to enter your household. (Parents, you should pay attention to what your kids are playing!)

If you are trying to decide which version to get, here are some tips. The Red version is for Game Boy Advance, and the Blue is for Nintendo DS. If you only have a Game Boy, buy Red. If you have a DS, which can play Red and Blue, buy Blue because you can use the top screen to keep track of your map.

Overall, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Red and Blue are very good games, and should keep you Pokémon fans busy while you await Diamond and Pearl.

A nice change from the usual Pokemon games

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 13 / 13
Date: November 24, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Pokemon Mystery is a nice change from the original Pokemon games (I, personally, was getting tired of always being the trainer and never the Pokemon). This game puts a whole new twist to the games. You go to sleep as a trainer, and wake up the next moring as a Pokemon, in a world ravaged by natural diasters. You and your partner Pokemon go on rescue missions to save Pokemon hurt by these diasters. You can be one of fifteen diferent Pokemon: Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle, Treeko, Cyndiquil, Totodile, Mudkip, Torchic, Chikorita, Skitty, Meawth, Machop. Psyduck, Pikachu, and Cubone. The main story of the game is engrossing; I find it fun to go on rescue missions and save Pokemon. However, towards the end, I was tired of being a Mudkip and not being able to evolve. After I finally defeated the Sky Tower (beware of the Shuppets-they use Spite and take away all your PP), I was able to evolve and choose defeat leaders, as well as recruit legendary Pokemon. Thankfully, this isn't one of the games where it's boring after you finish it. Actually, it's more fun after you finish the main story. Also, I created a new game, this time with a Skitty, and found that it was still fun and enjoyable, even though I had already done it before! Some people have complained about how the dungeons are plain, bland, and always look the same, and I have to agree; they aren't exactly the most realistic, eye-popping graphics ever seen. The only other bad thing about this game is that two people that have Blue Rescue Team can't battle each other. Only people that have Blue and Red can, which I think is pointless. However, the game's story makes up for that. I'd have to say this game is just as fun as Gold Version, and that's saying something! I reccomend this game to all that have finally tired of the original Pokemon gameplay and are ready for a new game!

Fun! But there are problems...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: October 03, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Gamespot gave this game a very low score. I seriously don't belive how that happened, For although this game has problems, It is extremly fun, and worth the money. You become a pokemon one morning, ok? You have no idea what's going on. Soon you set up a rescue team to help Pokemon in danger. The game's Strong points include recruiting Pokemon onto your team and a fantastic storyline. It also keeps things fresh by rebuilding the dungeon every time you go in it. However, despite this, the game can get repetitive. Also, the escorting missions can get really annoying, when you fail because your client faints. Also, once you get to a certain point in the game, It gets a little TOO easy. Like, Pokemon fainting in one hit. Despite these problems, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon offers an extremely good time and I would highly reccomend it to Pokemon fans.

This is an awesome game!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 11
Date: November 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is an awesome game. I love when you are able to recruit a whole bunch of pokemon, even legendaries. I have a Ho-Oh, Latios, Latias, and Kyogre, and I'm in the dungeon were Mewtwo is =D. Can't wait to recruit him. IF you defeat a legendary pokemon and didn't get him on your team, you can go again!! :D. Its a good thing because legendaries always have a low recruit rate. I recomend this game for all pokemon lovers, like me, but I already have it......

PS. I'm a girl, this is just for you sterotypes out there.

play as a pokemon and have fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: October 02, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I gave Pokemon Mystery Dungeon a good rating because the game is fun yet challenging. Although missions can be very easy, they expect you to go up against Pokemon like Zapdos, Moltrace, etc. The hard part is that they expect you to go up against those big Pokemon when you're at level, 22, 31, or any other level. I partly like it because you don't necessarily need a stylus, and that's good for me because I lost both of mine about a month after I got my DS. My favorite part is that you can have a partner who works with you.

-- Thor

Pokemon- Still Great!!!! :)

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 10 / 13
Date: November 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

OK... so you are thinking about buying this game, or you have it and just want to see how other people feel about it, like me.... Well I read someone entry that said this game was awfull, and I am all like NO WAY! The game is so totaly AWESOME!!! (And that is what I named my team base... Awesome team!!! So cool I know :) ) Anyway, first thing you take a personality quiz to see what pokemon you will be, and I was so happy when I was told I was a Pikachu... (I <3 Pika!!!) Anyway, off topic oops! So then you choose who your partner will be I picked Torchick who is also WAY AWESOME! Then.... Let the gaming begin!!! And about two weeks later if you are a serious pokemon fan, (under 18 so you still have to waste 7 hours of your day in school.) you will be done with the game!! Well at least I was. Basically this is the part where everyone says that they are so glad that the game is over and that now the real fun begins, the after the end part is fun, but it makes me sad that now the game is over... But there is still more story!!!! But if there is more story why on EARTH WOULD IT SAY THE END!?!?!? Ummm yeah. So right now I am working on the end of the end... (that reminds me of the 13 unfortunate events book...) and it is HARD... SO if you are stuck where I am or if you are just sick of the game. (hope not!) Good luck and if you don't have this game and are sort of mad that I haven't said what I think about this game this is 4 you:

This game is sooooo fun! I definetly wouldn't pick this game for first time Pokemoners (is that a word...?) But for old gamers this is great! If you haven't ever been into hte world of pokemon I recomend Firered or Leafgreen, those are awesome, but they tke a lot longer time to beat!!! :)

Over all this game is great... I can't wait for Pearl and whats the other one... Diamond? to come out.

Just don't forget, don't give up!!!!!!!!!

Pikachu + Torchick- Awesome Team: Gold Rank

The Best Pokemon Game Yet

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: March 30, 2007
Author: Amazon User

When I first saw the commercial for this game i was like, WOW. Once I actually got the game though, I was going," WOOOOOOHOOOOO!" It, like many of the past Pokemon games, has a deep, yet charming tale behind the game, that symbolizes the importance of trust, teamwork, and, of course, friendship. It is especially cool because instead of playing a trainer, you get to play a Pokemon in a world of ONLY Pokemon.This world in which you mysteriously awaken in as a Pokemon, is currently out of "balance". Natural disasters are constantly occurring, and many Pokemon are becoming angry and restless towards other Pokemon, blaming each other. So, certain Pokemon, (including you and your partner), are starting rescue tams to help everyone out. In order to add to your rescue team, sometimes when you defeat a wild Pokemon in a dungeon, it will request to join you on rescues. The more Pokemon you recruit, the more versatile, and powerful, your team becomes. In its own sense, the game is in a way realistic, for example, in the Magma Cavern, the Silver Trench, and the Buried Relic, I was feeling as if I was really there, my heart was pumping, and I had a strong feeling of excitement and adventure in me. When I was done with those dungeons, I felt strangely triumphant, not to mention shaky.

Some of the best things start happening once you finish story mode. You can evolve your Pokemon, make other Pokemon the leader, rather than the Pokemon you had to play in story mode, and start going on missions WAY more exciting and challenging than in story mode. You can even recruit legendary Pokemon like the legendary bird Pokemon when you couldn't before, in story mode. Sadly, after playing this game, I no longer feel as good about the other Pokemon games. Once I start playing one of them, it seems to lose its shine, so instead I pick this game up. (I wonder why?)

For anyone pondering on whether they should get this game or not, I would highly recommend it. :)

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