Hatred stems from disagreement. And disagreement, in turn, most often seems to stem from misunderstanding. Its the absolute rawest form of negativity, meant to communicate said disagreement as loud and clear as possible.
You cannot hold proper discussion on this game without first acknowledging just how deep in its predecessors shadow it lies. Pokèmon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time&Darkness – and later Sky – was such a perfect followup and incredible game in general, both refining everything Rescue Team had established whilst also holding heaps of content to dig into that gave the game its own identity. Aside from a wonderful, charming story of growth and self-confidence, it features an absolutely massive world that's just begging to be explored, with difficult optional missions galore and oh so many Pokèmon to find. It was a brilliantly rewarding gameplay loop paired with a well-paced, meaningful story, that resulted in a damn near perfect game, beloved by 2000s kids the world over.
So when the expectations thus became higher than ever for the series, not just to keep raising the bar of quality but also to debut the series into a new era entirely on the 3DS, it seems obvious in hindsight that the results would never live up to those high standards set. Yet it was worse than that - as the game released, with every review that came out that I read as a teen, it seemed more and more like the game had fumbled the ball entirely, missing every crucial point that had made Explorers so perfect. "Only 140 Pokèmon?!" "No hunger bar?" "Next to no postgame?" “No personality test?” The issues just seemed like they mounted on and on, for a series I had come to believe was infallible. Sure enough, Pokèmon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity had been released – and I Hated it.
But looking back, there’s a lot there that doesn’t really seem to add up. I and many people my age loved Explorers, sure, but…critics never really did, with most official reviews of the time giving the game middling scores. So back then the critics were wrong, but…now they were right? Or were the critics always right, was Explorers always a mediocre game? The answer is less black and white than it would first seem.
When I described Explorers earlier, I noted that it didn’t just have a good story, but a meaningful story. My word choice was deliberate: my reading of Explorers is that it’s very specifically a story about individual’s self-worth and their quests for validation. Your partner is weak and cowardly, and wants to prove themselves to the world by being a successful explorer, achieve their dream through essentially climbing a corporate ladder. Together you end up working at the Wigglytuff’s Guild, and whilst you do end up on speaking terms with all of your colleagues, they’re still just that, colleagues. Doing missions day by day, challenging yourself to take on harder ones in dungeons you’ve already been to, really does convey a sense that you’re getting better at this job: The reason stacking missions together to fell them all in one swoop feels so good is the same reason it feels good to turn in multiple assignments in a single day, or why it can feel so good to get paid extra for your labor at a 9-to-5 job – What I’m getting at is that Explorers is a game very much about finding self-worth in a capitalist system. It’s not a scathing critique of the system, but it nonetheless shows the flaws within it: Your life becomes that of routine under your bosses, you’re forced to put up with obviously manipulative and toxic co-workers, and even with your nice co-workers your relationship with them never goes beyond solidarity for doing a good job. Most of the game’s pathos and many of its mechanics feed into this theme, in a way that makes the entire game come together extremely well. Even as the story turns to an adventure to save the world, the focus remains strictly on half a dozen key characters and their trials within that conflict.
But did you notice what I did in that paragraph? With the game’s theme established, I was able to turn what would otherwise be interpreted as issues in the game, into things heightening its thematic throughline. You need to revisit Dungeons a lot, many prominent characters are shallow and one-note, a lot of the game is spent doing the same things over and over, and crucially: The easy dungeon-crawling gameplay honestly isn’t all that fun. What critics may have found fault in, fans clicked with. It's akin to how those who grew up with the survival horror games of the 90s understand the value tank controls added to those games, whereas new players often feel more like they're an issue to work around. When a game's goals are understood, its issues can turn to strengths, and disagreement slowly dissipates.
I don’t want to frame this review as if everyone who’s critical of Gates to Infinity are just plebians who don’t understand it. Hell, there’s a lot about the game that makes me enjoy it less than Explorers at the end of the day. My point with all of this is that it’s been a very important playthrough for me specifically in terms of reflecting on how I evaluate media. Because now that we’ve established how perceived faults can work to strengthen a game’s thematic core and overall narrative, I’m going to put the cards on the table and make my case.
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity is a game made in direct response to its predecessor, that turns all of that game’s ideas inside-out and shows the benefits of veering in a completely opposite direction. That’s right - since Explorers was a game about capitalism, Gates to Infinity is thus a game about communism. Buckle up.
We’ll start the same place we did with Explorers: Your partner. Though its easy to perceive the Partners in the Mystery Dungeon games to all be copy-pasted stand-ins, its immediately noticeable in comparison to Explorers just how much more lively and energetic Gates to Infinity’s partner is. They have a genuine dream not of self-success or becoming stronger, but to bring other people together, for the sole purpose of helping each other live happier. In Explorers, “enemy Pokémon” were framed as a necessary obstacle to work around to succeed in missions, an unfortunate side effect of the world’s collapse but one the Guild would only help solve by punishing those branded as outlaws. Gates to Infinity’s focus on community meanwhile reframes them as being angry, lost souls, that you help give a new home in your Pokémon paradise. The main plot at the start of the game even centers on you and your partner helping hurt people like Gurdurr and Scraggy overcome their faults, whilst also befriending those willing to help build this community like Emolga and Dunsparce. Suddenly these people around you aren’t tools or passerbys, but genuine friends, characters with arcs and dynamics and reactions to the world. You don’t have a job demanding you do as many missions as possible, so the requests you do one-by-one in this game are framed as your team having a genuine desire to help others, with the thanks gained mainly being materials that feed into town building. By just changing the reward so subtly from money to materials, the loop of doing missions has gone from being self-fulfilling to being toward the betterment of a community, a group of people all helping each other to form a better world. It's not a game about exploring new frontiers so much as it's a game about bettering the home you've built.
Do you see what I mean? Once it clicks that Gates is deliberately trying to show the other side of the coin that Explorers gave us, it lets you appreciate most every decision made in Gates to some extent. View cynically, the townbuilding gameplay is just a gimmicky distraction from the core gameplay loop - but viewed within what the game is trying to do, the townbuilding flat out becomes part of that loop, as you’re now doing missions to help build it rather than to better yourself. Dungeons aren’t so massive in size in this game just for padding, but because you’re gonna need every scrap of money you can find from them to buy what material resources cannot. You’re unemployed, after all! And since they want you to cover so much ground in dungeons, hunger would become a hugely annoying issue. Arguably, its existence before was mainly just to encourage you to keep moving through dungeons to get work done, which would again clash with the game’s direction. Take any controversial change made from Explorers to Gates to Infinity, and I would gladly argue there’s a thematic reason there that helps the story and overall gameplay experience click together better.
But I’ll drop the deep-goggles for a bit and just say, simply: Playing the game is still pretty fun. It starts out a bit slow, but overtime you get to appreciate a lot of the quality of life done to evolve the gameplay of the series forward. Moves can level up, meaning if you have a niche-use move with low damage or accuracy, you can keep using it and eventually be rewarded for your efforts. While there’s less Pokémon to choose from, in return all the Pokémon you do encounter are allowed to evolve whenever rather than having to wait for the postgame, and that leads to you forming a greater connection to them. Explorers made the teammates a bit disposable given that they would inevitably lag behind, but in Gates they’re both allowed to evolve and gain EXP even without participating in battles, which is both a great boon for building your own teams and also feeds into the game’s themes of community - Okay, I’ll stop! You can now access any of your four moves without opening a menu, which is the kind of streamlining this menu-reliant series absolutely needed. You absolutely CAN still deep dive into menus and item descriptions if you so choose, but it’s a lot more avoidable now compared to in the prior two games and the menus themselves have a much more beginner-friendly UI. Combine that with the aforementioned shared EXP with all your recruited members and lack of hunger, and I felt a stronger drive to be experimental in this game compared to Explorers, where I’d usually rely on one Set move and a bunch of Max Elixirs to make battles go by as menu-less as possible. Going further with this I think some of the controversial changes discussed prior actually do have benefits for the gameplay, with the limited Starter selection sticking out to me as the most interesting one. There’s now less choice, and the lack of a personality test makes the story’s shift from focusing on individuality clearer than it’s ever been, but in return the five available Starters feel like they’ve had the game balanced specifically around them. For instance, in the dungeon Forest of Shadows, taking place at a point where the player and partner go off solo on a dangerous mission that’s about to make things turn for the far worse in the story, every single Pokémon there exists to “counter” one of the available starters, making it a difficult Dungeon to traverse no matter who you play as. Plus, each of the starters are now a lot more distinct from one another to play as: Oshawott gets moves like Encore and Fury Cutter for a slow-burn massacre, which gives it a wholly unique playstyle from Tepig, who relies on Flame Charge and Rollout to quickly overwhelm.
To keep things spoiler-free, I’ll just say that the story does evolve in a very interesting and enjoyable way. The evil presented in Explorers stemmed from two people’s individual feelings of insecurity and self-doubt spiraled into chaos, whereas in this game we’re shown the results of what a poor, unhealthy community can result in. People who stick together because they feel rejected from the rest of the world, and using that negativity to push hatred toward others…it’s a bit corny, maybe, but I really do think it works, and it was an easy way to make the villains sympathetic despite their actions. Though the story works well, I can’t act as if it’s all perfectly executed: its pacing really is the main thing holding the game back for me. The start of the game is a lovely slow-trickle where the plot and the townbuilding feel like they're of equal importance, yet by the second half the story starts taking so much prominence that it becomes overwhelming. When you're taken away from Paradise for about eight dungeons in a row, sure you could argue that the game is intentionally trying to make you miss home and long to return to your community, but…it kinda takes that a bit too far. I love all the characters you meet though, Munna, Hydreigon, Virizion, they’ve earned their places in my heart right alongside Grovyle, Dusknoir and Wigglytuff from Explorers. I also love how every Mystery Dungeon game makes the origins of your human-turned-Pokémon player-insert character a key point of intrigue and that they tie it into the overall theming of the story. You’d think there would only be so many ways to tell the story of a human being sucked into the Pokémon world, yet the small variations in how its executed really do go a long way and made this game’s ending hit all the harder.
Small variations in how a similar idea is executed…it’s wild that for a series so often derided in its main series for being stagnant, that this one spinoff spawned so much discourse for the complete opposite reason. But I can’t really defend it all the way through: As a sequel to Explorers, it really is woefully lacking in content. While the lack of connection you hold to the outside world works wonders for the tight-knit homey feel of the story, it leads to you not really caring about exploring the rest of the game once that story is beat: There’s no real drive to become better, and without an evolving narrative townbuilding becomes more of a chore. Even for how much I’m willing to forgive Gates to Infinity, it was just never going to be able to live up to Explorers’ high bar. But I’m happy that the developers seemingly knew that going into development, and chose to make an excellent opposite-approach rather than try to one-up themselves. Even then, they really did succeed greatly in some areas - I think the jump to 3D is absolutely breathtaking for instance, adapting the environmental design of the old games’ pixelart to 3D ludicrously well and the soundtrack is enchantingly good. With the unbelievable workload already placed upon them to basically recreate the series’ fundamentals onto a 3D framework, I’m amazed they still decided to make such a boldly unique-feeling entry in the series.
Though my few issues remain, the disagreement between me and ChunSoft has dissipated, and my understanding of the game has improved. And I’ve never been happier to have been proven wrong.
[Playtime: 51 Hours]
[Key word: Misjudged]
You cannot hold proper discussion on this game without first acknowledging just how deep in its predecessors shadow it lies. Pokèmon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time&Darkness – and later Sky – was such a perfect followup and incredible game in general, both refining everything Rescue Team had established whilst also holding heaps of content to dig into that gave the game its own identity. Aside from a wonderful, charming story of growth and self-confidence, it features an absolutely massive world that's just begging to be explored, with difficult optional missions galore and oh so many Pokèmon to find. It was a brilliantly rewarding gameplay loop paired with a well-paced, meaningful story, that resulted in a damn near perfect game, beloved by 2000s kids the world over.
So when the expectations thus became higher than ever for the series, not just to keep raising the bar of quality but also to debut the series into a new era entirely on the 3DS, it seems obvious in hindsight that the results would never live up to those high standards set. Yet it was worse than that - as the game released, with every review that came out that I read as a teen, it seemed more and more like the game had fumbled the ball entirely, missing every crucial point that had made Explorers so perfect. "Only 140 Pokèmon?!" "No hunger bar?" "Next to no postgame?" “No personality test?” The issues just seemed like they mounted on and on, for a series I had come to believe was infallible. Sure enough, Pokèmon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity had been released – and I Hated it.
But looking back, there’s a lot there that doesn’t really seem to add up. I and many people my age loved Explorers, sure, but…critics never really did, with most official reviews of the time giving the game middling scores. So back then the critics were wrong, but…now they were right? Or were the critics always right, was Explorers always a mediocre game? The answer is less black and white than it would first seem.
When I described Explorers earlier, I noted that it didn’t just have a good story, but a meaningful story. My word choice was deliberate: my reading of Explorers is that it’s very specifically a story about individual’s self-worth and their quests for validation. Your partner is weak and cowardly, and wants to prove themselves to the world by being a successful explorer, achieve their dream through essentially climbing a corporate ladder. Together you end up working at the Wigglytuff’s Guild, and whilst you do end up on speaking terms with all of your colleagues, they’re still just that, colleagues. Doing missions day by day, challenging yourself to take on harder ones in dungeons you’ve already been to, really does convey a sense that you’re getting better at this job: The reason stacking missions together to fell them all in one swoop feels so good is the same reason it feels good to turn in multiple assignments in a single day, or why it can feel so good to get paid extra for your labor at a 9-to-5 job – What I’m getting at is that Explorers is a game very much about finding self-worth in a capitalist system. It’s not a scathing critique of the system, but it nonetheless shows the flaws within it: Your life becomes that of routine under your bosses, you’re forced to put up with obviously manipulative and toxic co-workers, and even with your nice co-workers your relationship with them never goes beyond solidarity for doing a good job. Most of the game’s pathos and many of its mechanics feed into this theme, in a way that makes the entire game come together extremely well. Even as the story turns to an adventure to save the world, the focus remains strictly on half a dozen key characters and their trials within that conflict.
But did you notice what I did in that paragraph? With the game’s theme established, I was able to turn what would otherwise be interpreted as issues in the game, into things heightening its thematic throughline. You need to revisit Dungeons a lot, many prominent characters are shallow and one-note, a lot of the game is spent doing the same things over and over, and crucially: The easy dungeon-crawling gameplay honestly isn’t all that fun. What critics may have found fault in, fans clicked with. It's akin to how those who grew up with the survival horror games of the 90s understand the value tank controls added to those games, whereas new players often feel more like they're an issue to work around. When a game's goals are understood, its issues can turn to strengths, and disagreement slowly dissipates.
I don’t want to frame this review as if everyone who’s critical of Gates to Infinity are just plebians who don’t understand it. Hell, there’s a lot about the game that makes me enjoy it less than Explorers at the end of the day. My point with all of this is that it’s been a very important playthrough for me specifically in terms of reflecting on how I evaluate media. Because now that we’ve established how perceived faults can work to strengthen a game’s thematic core and overall narrative, I’m going to put the cards on the table and make my case.
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity is a game made in direct response to its predecessor, that turns all of that game’s ideas inside-out and shows the benefits of veering in a completely opposite direction. That’s right - since Explorers was a game about capitalism, Gates to Infinity is thus a game about communism. Buckle up.
We’ll start the same place we did with Explorers: Your partner. Though its easy to perceive the Partners in the Mystery Dungeon games to all be copy-pasted stand-ins, its immediately noticeable in comparison to Explorers just how much more lively and energetic Gates to Infinity’s partner is. They have a genuine dream not of self-success or becoming stronger, but to bring other people together, for the sole purpose of helping each other live happier. In Explorers, “enemy Pokémon” were framed as a necessary obstacle to work around to succeed in missions, an unfortunate side effect of the world’s collapse but one the Guild would only help solve by punishing those branded as outlaws. Gates to Infinity’s focus on community meanwhile reframes them as being angry, lost souls, that you help give a new home in your Pokémon paradise. The main plot at the start of the game even centers on you and your partner helping hurt people like Gurdurr and Scraggy overcome their faults, whilst also befriending those willing to help build this community like Emolga and Dunsparce. Suddenly these people around you aren’t tools or passerbys, but genuine friends, characters with arcs and dynamics and reactions to the world. You don’t have a job demanding you do as many missions as possible, so the requests you do one-by-one in this game are framed as your team having a genuine desire to help others, with the thanks gained mainly being materials that feed into town building. By just changing the reward so subtly from money to materials, the loop of doing missions has gone from being self-fulfilling to being toward the betterment of a community, a group of people all helping each other to form a better world. It's not a game about exploring new frontiers so much as it's a game about bettering the home you've built.
Do you see what I mean? Once it clicks that Gates is deliberately trying to show the other side of the coin that Explorers gave us, it lets you appreciate most every decision made in Gates to some extent. View cynically, the townbuilding gameplay is just a gimmicky distraction from the core gameplay loop - but viewed within what the game is trying to do, the townbuilding flat out becomes part of that loop, as you’re now doing missions to help build it rather than to better yourself. Dungeons aren’t so massive in size in this game just for padding, but because you’re gonna need every scrap of money you can find from them to buy what material resources cannot. You’re unemployed, after all! And since they want you to cover so much ground in dungeons, hunger would become a hugely annoying issue. Arguably, its existence before was mainly just to encourage you to keep moving through dungeons to get work done, which would again clash with the game’s direction. Take any controversial change made from Explorers to Gates to Infinity, and I would gladly argue there’s a thematic reason there that helps the story and overall gameplay experience click together better.
But I’ll drop the deep-goggles for a bit and just say, simply: Playing the game is still pretty fun. It starts out a bit slow, but overtime you get to appreciate a lot of the quality of life done to evolve the gameplay of the series forward. Moves can level up, meaning if you have a niche-use move with low damage or accuracy, you can keep using it and eventually be rewarded for your efforts. While there’s less Pokémon to choose from, in return all the Pokémon you do encounter are allowed to evolve whenever rather than having to wait for the postgame, and that leads to you forming a greater connection to them. Explorers made the teammates a bit disposable given that they would inevitably lag behind, but in Gates they’re both allowed to evolve and gain EXP even without participating in battles, which is both a great boon for building your own teams and also feeds into the game’s themes of community - Okay, I’ll stop! You can now access any of your four moves without opening a menu, which is the kind of streamlining this menu-reliant series absolutely needed. You absolutely CAN still deep dive into menus and item descriptions if you so choose, but it’s a lot more avoidable now compared to in the prior two games and the menus themselves have a much more beginner-friendly UI. Combine that with the aforementioned shared EXP with all your recruited members and lack of hunger, and I felt a stronger drive to be experimental in this game compared to Explorers, where I’d usually rely on one Set move and a bunch of Max Elixirs to make battles go by as menu-less as possible. Going further with this I think some of the controversial changes discussed prior actually do have benefits for the gameplay, with the limited Starter selection sticking out to me as the most interesting one. There’s now less choice, and the lack of a personality test makes the story’s shift from focusing on individuality clearer than it’s ever been, but in return the five available Starters feel like they’ve had the game balanced specifically around them. For instance, in the dungeon Forest of Shadows, taking place at a point where the player and partner go off solo on a dangerous mission that’s about to make things turn for the far worse in the story, every single Pokémon there exists to “counter” one of the available starters, making it a difficult Dungeon to traverse no matter who you play as. Plus, each of the starters are now a lot more distinct from one another to play as: Oshawott gets moves like Encore and Fury Cutter for a slow-burn massacre, which gives it a wholly unique playstyle from Tepig, who relies on Flame Charge and Rollout to quickly overwhelm.
To keep things spoiler-free, I’ll just say that the story does evolve in a very interesting and enjoyable way. The evil presented in Explorers stemmed from two people’s individual feelings of insecurity and self-doubt spiraled into chaos, whereas in this game we’re shown the results of what a poor, unhealthy community can result in. People who stick together because they feel rejected from the rest of the world, and using that negativity to push hatred toward others…it’s a bit corny, maybe, but I really do think it works, and it was an easy way to make the villains sympathetic despite their actions. Though the story works well, I can’t act as if it’s all perfectly executed: its pacing really is the main thing holding the game back for me. The start of the game is a lovely slow-trickle where the plot and the townbuilding feel like they're of equal importance, yet by the second half the story starts taking so much prominence that it becomes overwhelming. When you're taken away from Paradise for about eight dungeons in a row, sure you could argue that the game is intentionally trying to make you miss home and long to return to your community, but…it kinda takes that a bit too far. I love all the characters you meet though, Munna, Hydreigon, Virizion, they’ve earned their places in my heart right alongside Grovyle, Dusknoir and Wigglytuff from Explorers. I also love how every Mystery Dungeon game makes the origins of your human-turned-Pokémon player-insert character a key point of intrigue and that they tie it into the overall theming of the story. You’d think there would only be so many ways to tell the story of a human being sucked into the Pokémon world, yet the small variations in how its executed really do go a long way and made this game’s ending hit all the harder.
Small variations in how a similar idea is executed…it’s wild that for a series so often derided in its main series for being stagnant, that this one spinoff spawned so much discourse for the complete opposite reason. But I can’t really defend it all the way through: As a sequel to Explorers, it really is woefully lacking in content. While the lack of connection you hold to the outside world works wonders for the tight-knit homey feel of the story, it leads to you not really caring about exploring the rest of the game once that story is beat: There’s no real drive to become better, and without an evolving narrative townbuilding becomes more of a chore. Even for how much I’m willing to forgive Gates to Infinity, it was just never going to be able to live up to Explorers’ high bar. But I’m happy that the developers seemingly knew that going into development, and chose to make an excellent opposite-approach rather than try to one-up themselves. Even then, they really did succeed greatly in some areas - I think the jump to 3D is absolutely breathtaking for instance, adapting the environmental design of the old games’ pixelart to 3D ludicrously well and the soundtrack is enchantingly good. With the unbelievable workload already placed upon them to basically recreate the series’ fundamentals onto a 3D framework, I’m amazed they still decided to make such a boldly unique-feeling entry in the series.
Though my few issues remain, the disagreement between me and ChunSoft has dissipated, and my understanding of the game has improved. And I’ve never been happier to have been proven wrong.
[Playtime: 51 Hours]
[Key word: Misjudged]
People seem to hate so much on Gates to Infinity -- and trust me I can see the obvious hurdles -- but it's a good 20-hour-ish game.
The story is great and definitely is on par with everything that Explorers put down. Side characters have semi fleshed-out personalities and backstories. There is an option to make sleep/totter/whatever seed farms which adds to the overall goal of your partner. It's very cute.
It's the extremely slow text speed, limited character roster and unwavering dungeon designs that make this game hard to get through. The first couple of dungeons and the final dungeons have the same layout and are all hallway spaghetti.
It's not as replayable as EoT/D/S but I had fun playing it nonetheless!
Definitely watch a playthrough if you are not as invested in the Mystery Dungeon saga but want to experience the story.
The story is great and definitely is on par with everything that Explorers put down. Side characters have semi fleshed-out personalities and backstories. There is an option to make sleep/totter/whatever seed farms which adds to the overall goal of your partner. It's very cute.
It's the extremely slow text speed, limited character roster and unwavering dungeon designs that make this game hard to get through. The first couple of dungeons and the final dungeons have the same layout and are all hallway spaghetti.
It's not as replayable as EoT/D/S but I had fun playing it nonetheless!
Definitely watch a playthrough if you are not as invested in the Mystery Dungeon saga but want to experience the story.
Hoo boy. Last year I played the beloved cult classic Explorer's of Sky and came out of it thinking it was good, but not really the peak Pokémon experience everyone says it is. So before I went in to this game, all I knew about it was that there's only 144 recruitable Pokémon, and 5 starters to choose from. If I thought the shining diamond in the series was more like a decent gold, what will I think about the participation trophy game?
When I started playing it, I actually loved it. As you go through the opening hours and unlock more stuff there's just so many features that I feel really compliment the series well. The V-Waves give a fantastic motivation for changing up teammates regularly, something I never did in Sky because I never cared who I brought into a dungeon other than me and my partner. Having exp given between everyone even those not in the dungeon also helps Pokémon not fall behind until you need them. Though the fact they don't GET the exp until you bring them into a dungeon is very annoying as it often leads to a lot of slow move learning dialogue at once.
They didn't really change dungeons much other than the general 3D visual transition. But a small handful now feature outside areas every other floor, which have very tiny, very simple puzzles, which is kinda cool? It's a baby step in the right direction for making dungeons feel less repetitive and blending together, but it needed to be expanded way more. So dungeons aren't really worse than before, but they're not really better either.
Building up paradise was one of the biggest things I loved while playing the game. The joys of unlocking a new facility and making decisions of which to prioritise. It does somewhat go against the new story direction which forces you into huge stretches of taking you away from the hub area to large dungeon marathons. I'm pretty sure in the entire second half of the game you only return to the games town area once. But they thought of that too and added "companion mode". This lets you take a break from the story and take control of any Pokémon in your team except you and your partner. While doing this you can do as many missions as you want in a row, and build up your paradise, with zero story breaking your stride. It comes with the weird limitation of not being allowed in the town area though, so you do lose out on some features, like the ability to open treasure boxes and spend gold bars. It's a very arbitrary restriction and unfortunately does mean you can never truly get the full game while taking a break from story beats until you've already cleared the story. To contrast, the last game basically had a ton of times that were "the game will only continue if you go to this dungeon", allowing you to ignore that and go to any other dungeon as many times as you wanted. In this game the story is always pushed forward automatically after you clear a mission or two.
I do like how the game compensated what appeared to be a huge downgrade in missions. You're now limited to only taking one at a time. Seems awful right? No more stacking up 8 missions for one dungeon and getting tons of rewards at once. Well, it kind of is annoying, but the rewards from missions actually matter now, since they're materials for expanding your paradise. In the past game even though I could do 8 missions at once, I never cared what the missions gave me, it was always just something I could basically buy or farm elsewhere. In this game I actually chose my missions carefully based on what material I needed at that specific time. It'd still have been nice to be able to do even just 2-4 at a time, but I'd still rather have the mission choices actually matter over being able to pick 8 random ones for the sake of a bigger payout of less important items.
The story is pretty much on par with Explorer's too. Very similar plot twists and an emotional ending even. Not much to say about it other than it follows the expectations already set. Including some unnecessarily long-winded dialogue (seriously if you try to take on a mission when you need to go somewhere else for a story event, your partner will basically say you need to go do the story thing like 5 times in a row, worded slightly differently).
It was all going so well. And then while I was taking a break from the main story, grinding missions in companion mode, I levelled up my team rank and noticed the next rank was a very large number of points away. Like obviously not intended for completion with the level of missions available. So I finish the game to get the post-game missions and rank up again only to realise the game is no longer rewarding me with extra facilities I can build (one of the biggest benefits to ranking up, along with extra inventory space which also stopped increasing only about 3 ranks in). Long story short, I looked it up and yeah, there's no meaningful unlocks once you've reached platinum rank (other than a single facility where you can plant this games 'rare candies' to grow more at a much higher level). Platinum is rank 4 out of 10. And requires 700 points out of 99,9999. It really felt like the paradise progression stopped dead in its tracks just as it was picking up steam. Obviously there's still loads to build and upgrade, but it still feels like a bummer to know there's no more surprises. No more mini-games to unlock (there's exactly 2, which were cool as hell to unlock, but now feel weirdly out of place).
I might have been able to get past that if there was really anything else to do post-game. PMD have always had basically an entire second story after the credits, but Gates to Infinity has maybe about 2 hours and then you're done with basically all scripted story. Now you can just...recruit every Pokémon and fill up your paradise, I guess? I might have even done that if recruiting Pokémon wasn't some true RNG bullshit. Obviously actually getting them to join you upon defeat is random, but now a lot of them are locked behind these secret areas you only have a chance to visit while going through specific dungeons. So it's RNG on top of RNG. I'm not about to do that, even for a small roster of 144 Pokémon.
Some things that I didn't really like from before are still here, most notably multi-hit moves and AOE moves are still over powered.
Some things are similar but improved (in my opinion), like levelling up moves for increased power, pp and accuracy is still here but no longer require special items (that's definitely how it worked before right?) and just happen with repeated use of that move. This means it's especially good to take Pokémon with the same moves into dungeons to level it up much faster. But you also still can't level up status moves, even just for the pp increases.
Some things are improved, even if they were only minorly annoying before, like no more cutscenes after waking up and before going to bed.
So low expectations going in because the starters and recruitable Pokémon gave off a lazy kind of feel, followed by being humbled by the amount of additions and well thought out features, and back to being let down by the lack of content in the post-game. In many ways I like this more than Explorer's of Sky, and if it just had that games level of stuff to do after beating the story, I'd absolutely put this as the shining diamond everyone says Sky is.
When I started playing it, I actually loved it. As you go through the opening hours and unlock more stuff there's just so many features that I feel really compliment the series well. The V-Waves give a fantastic motivation for changing up teammates regularly, something I never did in Sky because I never cared who I brought into a dungeon other than me and my partner. Having exp given between everyone even those not in the dungeon also helps Pokémon not fall behind until you need them. Though the fact they don't GET the exp until you bring them into a dungeon is very annoying as it often leads to a lot of slow move learning dialogue at once.
They didn't really change dungeons much other than the general 3D visual transition. But a small handful now feature outside areas every other floor, which have very tiny, very simple puzzles, which is kinda cool? It's a baby step in the right direction for making dungeons feel less repetitive and blending together, but it needed to be expanded way more. So dungeons aren't really worse than before, but they're not really better either.
Building up paradise was one of the biggest things I loved while playing the game. The joys of unlocking a new facility and making decisions of which to prioritise. It does somewhat go against the new story direction which forces you into huge stretches of taking you away from the hub area to large dungeon marathons. I'm pretty sure in the entire second half of the game you only return to the games town area once. But they thought of that too and added "companion mode". This lets you take a break from the story and take control of any Pokémon in your team except you and your partner. While doing this you can do as many missions as you want in a row, and build up your paradise, with zero story breaking your stride. It comes with the weird limitation of not being allowed in the town area though, so you do lose out on some features, like the ability to open treasure boxes and spend gold bars. It's a very arbitrary restriction and unfortunately does mean you can never truly get the full game while taking a break from story beats until you've already cleared the story. To contrast, the last game basically had a ton of times that were "the game will only continue if you go to this dungeon", allowing you to ignore that and go to any other dungeon as many times as you wanted. In this game the story is always pushed forward automatically after you clear a mission or two.
I do like how the game compensated what appeared to be a huge downgrade in missions. You're now limited to only taking one at a time. Seems awful right? No more stacking up 8 missions for one dungeon and getting tons of rewards at once. Well, it kind of is annoying, but the rewards from missions actually matter now, since they're materials for expanding your paradise. In the past game even though I could do 8 missions at once, I never cared what the missions gave me, it was always just something I could basically buy or farm elsewhere. In this game I actually chose my missions carefully based on what material I needed at that specific time. It'd still have been nice to be able to do even just 2-4 at a time, but I'd still rather have the mission choices actually matter over being able to pick 8 random ones for the sake of a bigger payout of less important items.
The story is pretty much on par with Explorer's too. Very similar plot twists and an emotional ending even. Not much to say about it other than it follows the expectations already set. Including some unnecessarily long-winded dialogue (seriously if you try to take on a mission when you need to go somewhere else for a story event, your partner will basically say you need to go do the story thing like 5 times in a row, worded slightly differently).
It was all going so well. And then while I was taking a break from the main story, grinding missions in companion mode, I levelled up my team rank and noticed the next rank was a very large number of points away. Like obviously not intended for completion with the level of missions available. So I finish the game to get the post-game missions and rank up again only to realise the game is no longer rewarding me with extra facilities I can build (one of the biggest benefits to ranking up, along with extra inventory space which also stopped increasing only about 3 ranks in). Long story short, I looked it up and yeah, there's no meaningful unlocks once you've reached platinum rank (other than a single facility where you can plant this games 'rare candies' to grow more at a much higher level). Platinum is rank 4 out of 10. And requires 700 points out of 99,9999. It really felt like the paradise progression stopped dead in its tracks just as it was picking up steam. Obviously there's still loads to build and upgrade, but it still feels like a bummer to know there's no more surprises. No more mini-games to unlock (there's exactly 2, which were cool as hell to unlock, but now feel weirdly out of place).
I might have been able to get past that if there was really anything else to do post-game. PMD have always had basically an entire second story after the credits, but Gates to Infinity has maybe about 2 hours and then you're done with basically all scripted story. Now you can just...recruit every Pokémon and fill up your paradise, I guess? I might have even done that if recruiting Pokémon wasn't some true RNG bullshit. Obviously actually getting them to join you upon defeat is random, but now a lot of them are locked behind these secret areas you only have a chance to visit while going through specific dungeons. So it's RNG on top of RNG. I'm not about to do that, even for a small roster of 144 Pokémon.
Some things that I didn't really like from before are still here, most notably multi-hit moves and AOE moves are still over powered.
Some things are similar but improved (in my opinion), like levelling up moves for increased power, pp and accuracy is still here but no longer require special items (that's definitely how it worked before right?) and just happen with repeated use of that move. This means it's especially good to take Pokémon with the same moves into dungeons to level it up much faster. But you also still can't level up status moves, even just for the pp increases.
Some things are improved, even if they were only minorly annoying before, like no more cutscenes after waking up and before going to bed.
So low expectations going in because the starters and recruitable Pokémon gave off a lazy kind of feel, followed by being humbled by the amount of additions and well thought out features, and back to being let down by the lack of content in the post-game. In many ways I like this more than Explorer's of Sky, and if it just had that games level of stuff to do after beating the story, I'd absolutely put this as the shining diamond everyone says Sky is.
I remember these characters tend to burst into tears quite a lot. Still, it's a fine instalment and my first introduction to my favourite Pokémon sub-series.
I will never understand why this game is regarded as one of the worst Pokémon games, it's perfectly fine
Gates to stupidness this game is not very good
HOLY SHIT, THE MUSIC AND THE ENDGAME AND THE STORY IS THIS POKEMON OR PERSONA
me getting up in the middle of church sermon to scan a clock (it is a circle and i want a free dungeon)
honestly, the only issue i really had with this game was how easy it is, even though previous PMD games were kinda tough i think Gates just makes it way too easy with it's changes. Aside from that, it's mystery dungeon, you know, if you don't enjoy this kind of gameplay you should be playing other stuff. A good point in this entry was the huuuuge improvement on the cast compared to the DS titles, man Explorers' characters were annoying sometimes, but on Gates the characters are really nice overall. Also there are less pokemon to choose from and less to fight with, which surprisingly didn't bother me too much, even though having more variety is always nice. This game like many other entries on the PMD series don't deserve all the hate they get, they're fairly enjoyable if you like this kind of gameplay.
By the end of the day Gates just need some rebalancing to it's gameplay to be a more enjoyable entry, and i hope it may get via romhacking in the future (and of course faster text messages too)
By the end of the day Gates just need some rebalancing to it's gameplay to be a more enjoyable entry, and i hope it may get via romhacking in the future (and of course faster text messages too)
If you can get past how repugnantly slow text scrolls, since there’s no speed option when playing natively, and even holding B to auto scroll it is still slow, which bogs the unusually tutorial infested earlygame down (seriously, there is a tutorial for getting sand tombed in this game), or how the game’s mechanics are simplified a lot, what with no IQ skills or hunger, as well as its reduced roster of Pokemon, which repeats quite often early on, there is a beautifully heartfelt story here. I think in spite of it being my least favorite PMD to play through, it has one of my favorite casts. The dialogue is extremely charming, and the cast on the whole feels like a large family who are consistently active in the story. There isn’t a single one who’s shafted narratively, and I really appreciate that. And though this plays the weakest, I think the PMD gameplay loop is fundamentally so solid that there’s no way I could dislike the game. It’s just. Terribly tough to sell someone on the earlygame, which is everything people accuse Gen 7 of being, and then some. And yet, once you overcome that hurdle, you’re rewarded with such a brilliant cast. I’m just not sure how to sell someone like that. “Keep playing bro, it picks up 1/3 in” is a tough thing to say, especially when the gameplay remains fundamentally simpler to other entries, and you will notice enemy repetition. But beneath that, you do have a beautiful story and cast elevated by a leitmotif-imbued soundtrack that pulls at your heartstrings. The replay made me like this game more. I understand its status as the “worst” PMD, and am generally inclined to agree outside of the original Rescue Team’s jank, but I’ll also call this game worth your time, just probably if you mod a text scroll fix.
I really can't understand how people think this way about Gates to Infinity. Even though there are caveats it's better than the first game and very close to second in story and character department. They were also actually bold with the ending this time, it's sad and feels stronger compared to other two.
[Dammit Larry, You're Hard to Love, But You're Harder to Hate]
Gates to Infinity is definitely the weakest game in the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon franchise due to its inconsistency in quality save for one notable aspect. Does this make it a bad game? Well, yes and no. For every good thing I can say about Gates to Infinity, I can point to an equally opposite bad thing.
- "Oh cool, the graphics are in 3D!"
- "But this makes the dungeons feel far less distinct, and characters far less expressive".
- "I love the fact that I don't have to worry about hunger in this game!"
- "But I hate having to navigate the dungeons in this game because the hallways and floors are much less interesting to explore."
- "I love that my party members get experience and eventually level up even if I don't bring them along on missions!"
- "But combat in dungeons is so awful because of the zoomed in camera that I can never even try to generate strategy when I approach a given room in this game."
Every time I think I can award points to Gates, it finds a way to immediately earn a demerit, but every time I think the game does something really really bad, I'm surprised at a cool decision the designers made. The plot is overly simple and reductive in its simplifications of tropes about friendship and trust that we've come to expect from the first two Mystery Dungeon games, but then it uses those predictable tropes to create a plot twits that genuinely surprised me. The dungeons presented a really interesting way to break up the pace of the mystery dungeon layout with the overworld floors, but then these same floors provided little to no challenge and were more or less abandoned beyond one or two dungeons late in the game (not that I particularly enjoyed these breaks in the gameplay, they really didn't fit with the gameplay loo I came to expect from mystery dungeon). The Paradise was ultimately an overcomplicated hub zone that I didn't find myself developing whatsoever just because the game made it nearly impossible to efficiently complete missions, but Post Town, despite being nearly pointless beyond flavor reasons, won me over as a genuinely comfy spot in a video game. And speaking of missions, I found myself really frustrated that I couldn't select many missions at once in the same dungeon (a clear attempt by the game to not allow you to grind), but then at the same time, I found myself feeling relieved that I was finally done with a single mission after 4-6 floors because I really really didn't enjoy the dungeon crawl with more than two party members (but also the game was definitely balanced around you having four party members at once which is cool UNTIL THEY START RUNNING OFF AGAIN). So between all these positives and negatives I sit here struggling to consider how I really feel about this game.
At this point in time, the only part of the game I can unequivocally vouch for is its soundtrack. Almost every piece of music in this game after the first few dungeons is simply perfect for its respective application. Dungeon themes are filled to the brim with explorative passion and capture the exact feelings of excitement, anxiety, determination, and dread one might feel when exploring places named "Forest of Shadows" or "Great Glacier". I am particularly fond of the musical leitmotif that carries through each Magnagate dungeon (Telluric Path, Kilionea Road and Tyrian Maze) as the same musical notes carry through each piece representing the mysterious ability to travel through the ley lines of the planet. Keisuke Ito absolutely knocks this soundtrack out of the park and makes even the most grueling, unpleasant dungeon crawls slightly more manageable. I had heard the soundtrack long before playing the game, and I found myself struck at just how much I could still enjoy the game having listened to the official soundtrack in a vacuum. There was nothing quite like being ejected from the mysterious Kilionea Road and finding myself potentially without a single reference point in the forest of Shadows, having only my instincts and the music of "Forest of Shadows" playing. What a great feeling.
I struggle to outright recommend this game to anyone beyond those who would care to play every mainline Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game. It has the weakest gameplay loop by far, and its story takes a lot of effort to really take seriously. While it might be the case that I am just too old for what is essentially a YA-literature piece, I just couldn't make myself care about the plights of Emolga and Dunsparce. But then again, I found Virizion's arc to be pretty interesting and I really enjoyed Espeon and Umbreon as characters, as simple as they were. Once again, the duality of Gates rears its two-faced visage. For every good there is a bad, and for every bad, there is a good. This is the Gates to Infinity experience.
Gates to Infinity is definitely the weakest game in the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon franchise due to its inconsistency in quality save for one notable aspect. Does this make it a bad game? Well, yes and no. For every good thing I can say about Gates to Infinity, I can point to an equally opposite bad thing.
- "Oh cool, the graphics are in 3D!"
- "But this makes the dungeons feel far less distinct, and characters far less expressive".
- "I love the fact that I don't have to worry about hunger in this game!"
- "But I hate having to navigate the dungeons in this game because the hallways and floors are much less interesting to explore."
- "I love that my party members get experience and eventually level up even if I don't bring them along on missions!"
- "But combat in dungeons is so awful because of the zoomed in camera that I can never even try to generate strategy when I approach a given room in this game."
Every time I think I can award points to Gates, it finds a way to immediately earn a demerit, but every time I think the game does something really really bad, I'm surprised at a cool decision the designers made. The plot is overly simple and reductive in its simplifications of tropes about friendship and trust that we've come to expect from the first two Mystery Dungeon games, but then it uses those predictable tropes to create a plot twits that genuinely surprised me. The dungeons presented a really interesting way to break up the pace of the mystery dungeon layout with the overworld floors, but then these same floors provided little to no challenge and were more or less abandoned beyond one or two dungeons late in the game (not that I particularly enjoyed these breaks in the gameplay, they really didn't fit with the gameplay loo I came to expect from mystery dungeon). The Paradise was ultimately an overcomplicated hub zone that I didn't find myself developing whatsoever just because the game made it nearly impossible to efficiently complete missions, but Post Town, despite being nearly pointless beyond flavor reasons, won me over as a genuinely comfy spot in a video game. And speaking of missions, I found myself really frustrated that I couldn't select many missions at once in the same dungeon (a clear attempt by the game to not allow you to grind), but then at the same time, I found myself feeling relieved that I was finally done with a single mission after 4-6 floors because I really really didn't enjoy the dungeon crawl with more than two party members (but also the game was definitely balanced around you having four party members at once which is cool UNTIL THEY START RUNNING OFF AGAIN). So between all these positives and negatives I sit here struggling to consider how I really feel about this game.
At this point in time, the only part of the game I can unequivocally vouch for is its soundtrack. Almost every piece of music in this game after the first few dungeons is simply perfect for its respective application. Dungeon themes are filled to the brim with explorative passion and capture the exact feelings of excitement, anxiety, determination, and dread one might feel when exploring places named "Forest of Shadows" or "Great Glacier". I am particularly fond of the musical leitmotif that carries through each Magnagate dungeon (Telluric Path, Kilionea Road and Tyrian Maze) as the same musical notes carry through each piece representing the mysterious ability to travel through the ley lines of the planet. Keisuke Ito absolutely knocks this soundtrack out of the park and makes even the most grueling, unpleasant dungeon crawls slightly more manageable. I had heard the soundtrack long before playing the game, and I found myself struck at just how much I could still enjoy the game having listened to the official soundtrack in a vacuum. There was nothing quite like being ejected from the mysterious Kilionea Road and finding myself potentially without a single reference point in the forest of Shadows, having only my instincts and the music of "Forest of Shadows" playing. What a great feeling.
I struggle to outright recommend this game to anyone beyond those who would care to play every mainline Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game. It has the weakest gameplay loop by far, and its story takes a lot of effort to really take seriously. While it might be the case that I am just too old for what is essentially a YA-literature piece, I just couldn't make myself care about the plights of Emolga and Dunsparce. But then again, I found Virizion's arc to be pretty interesting and I really enjoyed Espeon and Umbreon as characters, as simple as they were. Once again, the duality of Gates rears its two-faced visage. For every good there is a bad, and for every bad, there is a good. This is the Gates to Infinity experience.
i haven't played this since it came out but this shit went so hard at age 11
One of the oldest Qwumbo classics. But fuck those lilligant seriously.
I don't get the hate. It's a step down from Sky, sure, but so is everything else the franchise has ever produced. I have a great time with this, even if the starter roster and postgame are a bit underwhelming, The core of PMD, a great story with a fun cast of characters and a wide variety of dungeons to explore, still stands.
Also, the Gilded Hall is my favourite dungeon in all of PMD. It feels other-worldly in all the best ways, as if it's hidden between dimensions or something.
Also, the Gilded Hall is my favourite dungeon in all of PMD. It feels other-worldly in all the best ways, as if it's hidden between dimensions or something.
This review contains spoilers
"Explorers of Sky was the last good one", "The story is too childish", and "The good gameplay from previous PMDs is gone" are all points I used to agree with... as someone who joined the hivemind and never played the game for themselves all those years back.
But now I know better: You have to look into not just this game, but all games beyond surface level to review them properly. Contrary to popular belief, there's a lot to discuss here, including the plot twists PMD fans tend to enjoy, but I'll have to keep it easy to understand by only mentioning the most important points the masses came here to learn about. Fair warning, some spoilers for Explorers of Sky too.
If you can tolerate the god-awfully slow text speed, the story is right up there with Explorers of Sky, if not better, while the gameplay still works for what it is. Why? Well, imagine what it'd be like if you and your Partner led Wigglytuff's Guild, but with a better sense of morals and closer emotional connections between your "main teammates" (Think guild members if going off Explorers comparisons), all with their own personalities and character arcs. The very 1st major story arc of Gates to Infinity demonstrates this greatly with Gurdurr, who isn't even part of the aforementioned main teammates, but goes through similar motions, being a criminal who tries to deceive you and your Partner into endless labor, before deciding to work with you for real after reminding him of his days of honest work as a carpenter, once broken apart from injuries followed by a malicious client who wanted to badmouth his line of work before destroying his labor of love. Despite this change of heart, Gurdurr here is still a flawed individual, with tendencies of suspicion and violence still remaining, because no one changes their morals entirely on the flip of a dime; it takes time. I could just go "LOL HOPE VS DESPAIR IT'S DISCOUNT DANGANRONPA!", but in truth, the main theme here ends up being the impact of relations between Pokemon, as well as how individuals perceive themselves based off how they make said relations. Positivity and negativity are also themes in the story on their own, but you can view plenty of videos regarding that topic; I’m here to highlight what I find even more important than that. Gurdurr's relations go towards his 2 Timburr co-workers, who admit to being compliant in his criminal activities, but only because their attachment to Gurdurr made them want to find ways to both gain his favor and change his heart back to the way it used to be; relations cause people to do great or horrible deeds depending on the context.
Something this emotional just happened IN THE 1ST ARC, and it was here when I started questioning what the bandwagon told me; was I even playing the same game they were? Yes, the gameplay wasn't as polished as earlier titles, but it had refreshing new ideas to help alleviate that along the way, such as gridless floors (Which work like the overworld maps located outside of dungeons) integrated into small parts of the dungeons, quality of life changes for balance (Bye-bye full-screen Powder Snow!), and now the new Paradise unlocked to start the "your own guild" aspect I mentioned earlier. Besides housing your recruits, Paradise doubles down on the resource-management aspect the series is either loved or hated for, giving you more choices such as investments in crops, dojos to help with the newly introduced move level-up mechanic, extra shops, and bonus dungeons, all to feel like the leader in charge here; this seems like a logical followup to Explorers thematically speaking, which in theory at least, should give fans a lot to look forward to. There's also many miscellaneous changes that fans are split on, such as the typeless attack dealing a fixed 5 damage, Weather effects not allowing natural healing or the removal of the Hunger meter, but I personally view these as different rather than good or bad, given how these smaller aspects had little to no bearing on the difficulty of most dungeons to begin with, unless relevant abilities are involved.
What about your Partner then? Well, like most things in Gates to Infinity, doing a repeat of Explorers would be exceptionally dull and shallow, so instead, your Partner feels more like the Rescue Team Partner in terms of optimism, but with more depth than you may think with that label I just threw: They might be charismatic and outgoing now, but their circumstances, as revealed in the 3rd Arc, were anything but that, never meeting their parents and never being able to make friends until they met you by mere coincidence. Your partner’s exterior may look like a perfect goody two paws who can do no wrong, but deep down, is a troubled friend who's just as flawed as the others. Why does someone like them tell you all this? Because after seeing Leavanny and Herdier help their children, they figured that you, being a human, must've had family members or friends of some kind in your own world; family has now weaved itself into the aforementioned relations aspect.
And yes, this story acknowledges you as a human more closely than previous entries did, by also having your memories intact, able to more easily project yourself onto your player character at this very moment. Because of circumstances like these, as well as interesting scenarios you're later faced with, you turn out to be just as interesting of a character as the Partner. Even without much of a character arc behind you and the Partner, the backstory, upbringings, and actions taken as a result of what you 2 are as individuals; good people who happen to be in a pessimistic society that refuses to get along well, help create a fascinating story that manages to stand out from both Rescue Team and Explorers. Despite all this, Gates to Infinity is also the most humorous PMD, not afraid to crack in-universe jokes based off how characters behave in the current situation, but even these are mostly well-written to the point of simply adding more to the experience as well as giving your main teammates more lines between key moments. Speaking of the main teammates, they're also pessimists at first, although more subtle, and will go through endearing character arcs tied to the theme of relations on the same level of emotion as Gurdurr's, turning out just as strong of characters as you and your Partner, able to make decisions on their own that impact the story greatly.
Gameplay-wise, all main teammates are mixed attackers as indicated by their equal Attack and Special Attack stats while being different in Defense, Special Defense, Type Matchup, Movepool variety, Abilities, etc., making them versatile enough to encourage multiple playthroughs especially if you have TMs ready, because they're also available in more main story dungeons than the recruits of any other PMD to date! Combined with all recruits not in dungeons gaining EXP as well, the main teammates and their different playstyles all help make up for the meager 5 choices of Pokemon for you and your Partner at the beginning. On top of that, certain story dungeons such as the Forest of Shadows with its list of Wild Pokemon having 1 with a type advantage for each starter, are balanced around this limitation, same for the often disliked "1 job per day" aspect, although I do think the latter should've been removed as soon as the Post-Game began. Still, with gameplay aspects like these complimenting what people liked about previous entries damn well, "the good gameplay from previous PMDs is gone", an idea I once thought as true, simply isn't the case here. Sure, it's not as fully featured as previous entries, but the core still lives on, able to satisfy those willing to give it a fair try from time to time. Heck, it's more accessible than ever, thanks to its easier difficulty and a "Companion Mode" that allows you to grind levels and items if the main story has you stuck. If a remake were to improve the gameplay such as zooming out the field of view like Super Mystery Dungeon's to make battling more comfortable, or expanding the Pokemon roster to all from Gen 1-5 and beyond, it'd easily become the best Pokemon Mystery Dungeon by all accounts in my book.
As you make it through said gameplay, thanks to you and your friends in Paradise, you'll help those in Post Town and defeat the antagonists, who destroy "the story is too childish" by simple association of being part of an extreme death cult. With no relations to call their own besides each other, their character motive is surprisingly strong among Pokemon antagonists. Although this death cult consists of nihilistic Pokemon united together for a common cause, they want to start the entire world over using one of nature's hidden entities (This entry released almost a whole year before X & Y by the way), knowing this means their own deaths too, because that's what they perceive to be the greater good, not for self-gain or anything bigger than life.
WAIT A MINUTE... doesn't that sound familiar? It should, because although the goal itself is messed up, the methodology to reach it is what happened in Explorers of Sky between you and Grovyle; a suicide mission done for a greater goal than one's own life. Not just that, but the lack of positive relations sounds quite similar to what your Partner went through; although both sides have charismatic leaders who brought everyone together, the differing courses of action in response to similar scenarios is what makes your Partner a better individual than these cult members. So not only has this entry managed to be different enough to prevent series stagnation, but it also uses familiar series tropes in new, interesting ways some might not expect. Well-crafted story aspects like these are what's essentially reflected in the non-spoiler Iwata Asks interview for this entry: A respectable desire to try different things while also making the simple PMD story premise of saving the world together just as engaging as before.
PMD fans also tend to value the end parts of the story more than anything, but as much as I love the end parts of this story even more than other entries, let me tell you a little secret: The journey tends to be more meaningful than the destination sometimes. Not everyone will agree with such a mentality, but the story sure as heck feels that way, slowly building up to the oh-so engaging lategame story beats that fans have come to expect. You'll be able to appreciate both the journey and destination that much more if you pay enough attention to what happens across the journey. That's all I'll say, because although I've spoiled quite a bit of the story, what I've said so far should give you a good idea of what I like about the story of Gates to Infinity for the parts I haven't gone into detail about.
Now back to the very 1st thought the bandwagon gave me: "Explorers of Sky was the last good one". While I can confidently answer no to that, I can't guarantee the same for your answer. But instead of dismissing the game entirely, maybe these observations will make you consider giving it another look, whether by watching a Let's Play, or playing it for yourself by any means possible. You might still regret it for all I know, but at least you'll have more to think about, right? Even if this ends up being your 1st PMD, you’ll get through just fine with the in-game dictionary each PMD provides. If you've read this whole review in a single sitting, you just mentally prepared yourself for the whole slow text speed issue by reading exactly 2,000 words total! Funny how that works, huh?
But now I know better: You have to look into not just this game, but all games beyond surface level to review them properly. Contrary to popular belief, there's a lot to discuss here, including the plot twists PMD fans tend to enjoy, but I'll have to keep it easy to understand by only mentioning the most important points the masses came here to learn about. Fair warning, some spoilers for Explorers of Sky too.
If you can tolerate the god-awfully slow text speed, the story is right up there with Explorers of Sky, if not better, while the gameplay still works for what it is. Why? Well, imagine what it'd be like if you and your Partner led Wigglytuff's Guild, but with a better sense of morals and closer emotional connections between your "main teammates" (Think guild members if going off Explorers comparisons), all with their own personalities and character arcs. The very 1st major story arc of Gates to Infinity demonstrates this greatly with Gurdurr, who isn't even part of the aforementioned main teammates, but goes through similar motions, being a criminal who tries to deceive you and your Partner into endless labor, before deciding to work with you for real after reminding him of his days of honest work as a carpenter, once broken apart from injuries followed by a malicious client who wanted to badmouth his line of work before destroying his labor of love. Despite this change of heart, Gurdurr here is still a flawed individual, with tendencies of suspicion and violence still remaining, because no one changes their morals entirely on the flip of a dime; it takes time. I could just go "LOL HOPE VS DESPAIR IT'S DISCOUNT DANGANRONPA!", but in truth, the main theme here ends up being the impact of relations between Pokemon, as well as how individuals perceive themselves based off how they make said relations. Positivity and negativity are also themes in the story on their own, but you can view plenty of videos regarding that topic; I’m here to highlight what I find even more important than that. Gurdurr's relations go towards his 2 Timburr co-workers, who admit to being compliant in his criminal activities, but only because their attachment to Gurdurr made them want to find ways to both gain his favor and change his heart back to the way it used to be; relations cause people to do great or horrible deeds depending on the context.
Something this emotional just happened IN THE 1ST ARC, and it was here when I started questioning what the bandwagon told me; was I even playing the same game they were? Yes, the gameplay wasn't as polished as earlier titles, but it had refreshing new ideas to help alleviate that along the way, such as gridless floors (Which work like the overworld maps located outside of dungeons) integrated into small parts of the dungeons, quality of life changes for balance (Bye-bye full-screen Powder Snow!), and now the new Paradise unlocked to start the "your own guild" aspect I mentioned earlier. Besides housing your recruits, Paradise doubles down on the resource-management aspect the series is either loved or hated for, giving you more choices such as investments in crops, dojos to help with the newly introduced move level-up mechanic, extra shops, and bonus dungeons, all to feel like the leader in charge here; this seems like a logical followup to Explorers thematically speaking, which in theory at least, should give fans a lot to look forward to. There's also many miscellaneous changes that fans are split on, such as the typeless attack dealing a fixed 5 damage, Weather effects not allowing natural healing or the removal of the Hunger meter, but I personally view these as different rather than good or bad, given how these smaller aspects had little to no bearing on the difficulty of most dungeons to begin with, unless relevant abilities are involved.
What about your Partner then? Well, like most things in Gates to Infinity, doing a repeat of Explorers would be exceptionally dull and shallow, so instead, your Partner feels more like the Rescue Team Partner in terms of optimism, but with more depth than you may think with that label I just threw: They might be charismatic and outgoing now, but their circumstances, as revealed in the 3rd Arc, were anything but that, never meeting their parents and never being able to make friends until they met you by mere coincidence. Your partner’s exterior may look like a perfect goody two paws who can do no wrong, but deep down, is a troubled friend who's just as flawed as the others. Why does someone like them tell you all this? Because after seeing Leavanny and Herdier help their children, they figured that you, being a human, must've had family members or friends of some kind in your own world; family has now weaved itself into the aforementioned relations aspect.
And yes, this story acknowledges you as a human more closely than previous entries did, by also having your memories intact, able to more easily project yourself onto your player character at this very moment. Because of circumstances like these, as well as interesting scenarios you're later faced with, you turn out to be just as interesting of a character as the Partner. Even without much of a character arc behind you and the Partner, the backstory, upbringings, and actions taken as a result of what you 2 are as individuals; good people who happen to be in a pessimistic society that refuses to get along well, help create a fascinating story that manages to stand out from both Rescue Team and Explorers. Despite all this, Gates to Infinity is also the most humorous PMD, not afraid to crack in-universe jokes based off how characters behave in the current situation, but even these are mostly well-written to the point of simply adding more to the experience as well as giving your main teammates more lines between key moments. Speaking of the main teammates, they're also pessimists at first, although more subtle, and will go through endearing character arcs tied to the theme of relations on the same level of emotion as Gurdurr's, turning out just as strong of characters as you and your Partner, able to make decisions on their own that impact the story greatly.
Gameplay-wise, all main teammates are mixed attackers as indicated by their equal Attack and Special Attack stats while being different in Defense, Special Defense, Type Matchup, Movepool variety, Abilities, etc., making them versatile enough to encourage multiple playthroughs especially if you have TMs ready, because they're also available in more main story dungeons than the recruits of any other PMD to date! Combined with all recruits not in dungeons gaining EXP as well, the main teammates and their different playstyles all help make up for the meager 5 choices of Pokemon for you and your Partner at the beginning. On top of that, certain story dungeons such as the Forest of Shadows with its list of Wild Pokemon having 1 with a type advantage for each starter, are balanced around this limitation, same for the often disliked "1 job per day" aspect, although I do think the latter should've been removed as soon as the Post-Game began. Still, with gameplay aspects like these complimenting what people liked about previous entries damn well, "the good gameplay from previous PMDs is gone", an idea I once thought as true, simply isn't the case here. Sure, it's not as fully featured as previous entries, but the core still lives on, able to satisfy those willing to give it a fair try from time to time. Heck, it's more accessible than ever, thanks to its easier difficulty and a "Companion Mode" that allows you to grind levels and items if the main story has you stuck. If a remake were to improve the gameplay such as zooming out the field of view like Super Mystery Dungeon's to make battling more comfortable, or expanding the Pokemon roster to all from Gen 1-5 and beyond, it'd easily become the best Pokemon Mystery Dungeon by all accounts in my book.
As you make it through said gameplay, thanks to you and your friends in Paradise, you'll help those in Post Town and defeat the antagonists, who destroy "the story is too childish" by simple association of being part of an extreme death cult. With no relations to call their own besides each other, their character motive is surprisingly strong among Pokemon antagonists. Although this death cult consists of nihilistic Pokemon united together for a common cause, they want to start the entire world over using one of nature's hidden entities (This entry released almost a whole year before X & Y by the way), knowing this means their own deaths too, because that's what they perceive to be the greater good, not for self-gain or anything bigger than life.
WAIT A MINUTE... doesn't that sound familiar? It should, because although the goal itself is messed up, the methodology to reach it is what happened in Explorers of Sky between you and Grovyle; a suicide mission done for a greater goal than one's own life. Not just that, but the lack of positive relations sounds quite similar to what your Partner went through; although both sides have charismatic leaders who brought everyone together, the differing courses of action in response to similar scenarios is what makes your Partner a better individual than these cult members. So not only has this entry managed to be different enough to prevent series stagnation, but it also uses familiar series tropes in new, interesting ways some might not expect. Well-crafted story aspects like these are what's essentially reflected in the non-spoiler Iwata Asks interview for this entry: A respectable desire to try different things while also making the simple PMD story premise of saving the world together just as engaging as before.
PMD fans also tend to value the end parts of the story more than anything, but as much as I love the end parts of this story even more than other entries, let me tell you a little secret: The journey tends to be more meaningful than the destination sometimes. Not everyone will agree with such a mentality, but the story sure as heck feels that way, slowly building up to the oh-so engaging lategame story beats that fans have come to expect. You'll be able to appreciate both the journey and destination that much more if you pay enough attention to what happens across the journey. That's all I'll say, because although I've spoiled quite a bit of the story, what I've said so far should give you a good idea of what I like about the story of Gates to Infinity for the parts I haven't gone into detail about.
Now back to the very 1st thought the bandwagon gave me: "Explorers of Sky was the last good one". While I can confidently answer no to that, I can't guarantee the same for your answer. But instead of dismissing the game entirely, maybe these observations will make you consider giving it another look, whether by watching a Let's Play, or playing it for yourself by any means possible. You might still regret it for all I know, but at least you'll have more to think about, right? Even if this ends up being your 1st PMD, you’ll get through just fine with the in-game dictionary each PMD provides. If you've read this whole review in a single sitting, you just mentally prepared yourself for the whole slow text speed issue by reading exactly 2,000 words total! Funny how that works, huh?
As much as I see the flaws and ways it’s worse than explorers, the story, side characters, and music filled me with joy. The gameplay is fun and I actually cared about the world that was building before my eyes in my paradise.
god, where do I even start with Gates to Infinity. this was a game that I associate a lot with my late sophomore year of high school, and probably the only reason I made it out of there alive. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this game despite liking it, and it's kind of sad that this game came out in the height of Pokemon Black and White hate that really didn't help its standing
so let's start off with the big elephant in the room - most of the gameplay mechanic changes from Explorers are kind of ass outside of, say stuff like the Team Attack. it's very stripped down, and for seasoned players, you'd expect the game to be easier, right? wrong! this game is more than happy to throw you Pokemon with Incinerate/Bug Bite/Pluck, and with the game being as short and story-focused as it is, you hardly get much breathing room to stock up on items without resorting to Companion Mode for item farming. which means it's not unheard of to run out of Oran Berries and Reviver Seeds without hitting the final boss because of how many Crustle ate through your inventory. it was always going to be tough to beat Explorers in terms of postgame, but it's depressing that they didn't really try to outside of hoping that you'll expand Paradise and maybe buy a dungeon DLC for $3 each (seriously, whose idea was this??)
this game's story and characters are great, though. maybe not enough to get through the middling 30 hour gameplay, but characters like Hydreigon, Emolga, and Virizion will stick out in my headspace for a very long time. the themes of hope and despair are great, and this game does a good job of beating you down with some surprisingly nihilist thinking in the game before building you back up with hope. on some occasions it can be as good if not better than Explorers in terms of storytelling (and imo, its more minor characters are far more memorable here than they were in Explorers). the music was pretty great too
that being said, I suggest watching a playthrough of this game if you're really interested in it. if this game ever gets a remake that puts it more up to speed, I'd suggest playing that. but I can't recommend playing through this game in good conscience when games like Explorers, Super, and Rescue Team DX are more mechanically sound
so let's start off with the big elephant in the room - most of the gameplay mechanic changes from Explorers are kind of ass outside of, say stuff like the Team Attack. it's very stripped down, and for seasoned players, you'd expect the game to be easier, right? wrong! this game is more than happy to throw you Pokemon with Incinerate/Bug Bite/Pluck, and with the game being as short and story-focused as it is, you hardly get much breathing room to stock up on items without resorting to Companion Mode for item farming. which means it's not unheard of to run out of Oran Berries and Reviver Seeds without hitting the final boss because of how many Crustle ate through your inventory. it was always going to be tough to beat Explorers in terms of postgame, but it's depressing that they didn't really try to outside of hoping that you'll expand Paradise and maybe buy a dungeon DLC for $3 each (seriously, whose idea was this??)
this game's story and characters are great, though. maybe not enough to get through the middling 30 hour gameplay, but characters like Hydreigon, Emolga, and Virizion will stick out in my headspace for a very long time. the themes of hope and despair are great, and this game does a good job of beating you down with some surprisingly nihilist thinking in the game before building you back up with hope. on some occasions it can be as good if not better than Explorers in terms of storytelling (and imo, its more minor characters are far more memorable here than they were in Explorers). the music was pretty great too
that being said, I suggest watching a playthrough of this game if you're really interested in it. if this game ever gets a remake that puts it more up to speed, I'd suggest playing that. but I can't recommend playing through this game in good conscience when games like Explorers, Super, and Rescue Team DX are more mechanically sound
One of my friends kept bugging me to play it and i decided to humour him on it since he pushed through to the end of dark souls. I turned it off after 10 minutes of the most painfully medium text speed I've ever been the victim of and now I'm convinced that everyone who likes this game reads every letter of a sentence individually
how the hell are you going to have a name as cool as that and turn out to be a boring slog
This was my first exposure to the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series and I adored it. Imagine my surprise then, when I found out that it was hated online (at least within some corners of the fandom). I've read most of the common complaints against the game: small dex size, small post game, the inability to complete more than one mission at once, lack of a hunger mechanic, etc; but what has always confused me about the hate is that it seems sort of disproportionate to the amount that these flaws actually detract from the gameplay experience. For sure, the game is mechanically regressive (I know it sounds bad but bear with me here) from the previous entries, and I will admit to being a tad biased, but having gone back to this game after playing Explorers of Sky, these missing features have never amounted to more than minor gripes for me. Honestly, when viewed in isolation from the rest of the series, the only one of these criticisms that still really stands is the inability to take on multiple missions at a time.
Gates to Infinity, when taken on its own merits, gets a ton right in my book. The story and characters are great, with pretty much all the major side characters having their own arcs along with you and your partner, and the story having a good handful of fun twists (though I will concede that I'm not a lover of how the final boss was handled); the dungeon crawling is a ton of fun, and of course the soundtrack is excellent. I'm also a fan of how you can customize your Paradise area with various stat-boosting facilities and minigames to earn items; it's just a little touch of personalization that I appreciate.
All in all though, come on guys, the quality-of-life improvements alone are enough to put this over the original Rescue Team games.
Gates to Infinity, when taken on its own merits, gets a ton right in my book. The story and characters are great, with pretty much all the major side characters having their own arcs along with you and your partner, and the story having a good handful of fun twists (though I will concede that I'm not a lover of how the final boss was handled); the dungeon crawling is a ton of fun, and of course the soundtrack is excellent. I'm also a fan of how you can customize your Paradise area with various stat-boosting facilities and minigames to earn items; it's just a little touch of personalization that I appreciate.
All in all though, come on guys, the quality-of-life improvements alone are enough to put this over the original Rescue Team games.
i get that this is a stupid dumb kids game for stupid dumb kids but this is one of the worst written things i have ever seen
TLDR: It's kino and you're all wrong
I'm not a big review guy, but I feel like I must speak up about this game
I will start by saying that I won't excuse the lazy game design, but not because it's bad, but because it's not innovative enough to be a sequel
The game hitting you with something so hard like the Gurdurr arc in the first two hours was the best red carpet for what was going to happen next. You building Paradise with your friends, and then just getting to know everyone important to you and seeing their lows and downs, like Virizion's insecurity and self-sheltering and Dunsparce gaining heart after spending more time with your party, Emolga purposefully sending Dunsparce to the Great Glacier when he also wanted to go to that adventure, Espeon breaking up in front of the square because of the guilt of leaving something as dangerous as the Entercards with Swadloon, the plot twist with Munna and Hydreigon, everything was so soulful and so human, I was immersed completely that I didn't even care about mashing A (even though I got around using the cheat later) to see more of the dialogue
The themes of hope, despair, the world going to shit and whatever were so powerful, there are like a million scenes where your partner stands up against all of this because everyone being bad doesn't mean you have to be, and the build up until the last chapter where everyone loses hope but gains it when they see the Rainbows, thinks of the future and how they want to change for the better was MASTERFUL, when even the team was considering just letting it all to Kyurem and die in hopes the new world was better than this one. The game handles getting people out of their insecurities and getting to trust people again so well, even I was inspired by all of this. It just hits different when every character is a thinking and emotional being that learns from their mistakes and betters themselves into a better person, like Virizion and Dunsparce
The ending is just another thing that made this game an easy 5 for me. I don't really think I have to say anything as an argument other than that Frism message, which was a powerful testament of how you built your relationships with everyone, even that one Patrat from Post Town, how you saved everyone and how everyone feels about your friendship, even saying they won't ever forget you even if the world makes them.
Sky was the last good one? I don't think this one is bad. I'm not saying I like this one over Sky which is a masterpiece all of its own, but whenever people say this flopped or whatever, it's sad to think they never played it, or that they left it halfway, or that they simply didn't read the text, because this game's story is powerful, is inspiring, is endearing, with colorful and fleshed out characters that just trascend beyond the bad inclusion of Paradise or that they didn't add anything new other than the Team Attack
I absolutely love this game, I encourage everyone to play it again and pay attention to how it builds up every moment, how it presents its characters and world and more importantly, how it all ends with you having a successful and strong bond with everyone in your party. It's disappointing how people don't see this beyond the gameplay aspect.
I'm not a big review guy, but I feel like I must speak up about this game
I will start by saying that I won't excuse the lazy game design, but not because it's bad, but because it's not innovative enough to be a sequel
The game hitting you with something so hard like the Gurdurr arc in the first two hours was the best red carpet for what was going to happen next. You building Paradise with your friends, and then just getting to know everyone important to you and seeing their lows and downs, like Virizion's insecurity and self-sheltering and Dunsparce gaining heart after spending more time with your party, Emolga purposefully sending Dunsparce to the Great Glacier when he also wanted to go to that adventure, Espeon breaking up in front of the square because of the guilt of leaving something as dangerous as the Entercards with Swadloon, the plot twist with Munna and Hydreigon, everything was so soulful and so human, I was immersed completely that I didn't even care about mashing A (even though I got around using the cheat later) to see more of the dialogue
The themes of hope, despair, the world going to shit and whatever were so powerful, there are like a million scenes where your partner stands up against all of this because everyone being bad doesn't mean you have to be, and the build up until the last chapter where everyone loses hope but gains it when they see the Rainbows, thinks of the future and how they want to change for the better was MASTERFUL, when even the team was considering just letting it all to Kyurem and die in hopes the new world was better than this one. The game handles getting people out of their insecurities and getting to trust people again so well, even I was inspired by all of this. It just hits different when every character is a thinking and emotional being that learns from their mistakes and betters themselves into a better person, like Virizion and Dunsparce
The ending is just another thing that made this game an easy 5 for me. I don't really think I have to say anything as an argument other than that Frism message, which was a powerful testament of how you built your relationships with everyone, even that one Patrat from Post Town, how you saved everyone and how everyone feels about your friendship, even saying they won't ever forget you even if the world makes them.
Sky was the last good one? I don't think this one is bad. I'm not saying I like this one over Sky which is a masterpiece all of its own, but whenever people say this flopped or whatever, it's sad to think they never played it, or that they left it halfway, or that they simply didn't read the text, because this game's story is powerful, is inspiring, is endearing, with colorful and fleshed out characters that just trascend beyond the bad inclusion of Paradise or that they didn't add anything new other than the Team Attack
I absolutely love this game, I encourage everyone to play it again and pay attention to how it builds up every moment, how it presents its characters and world and more importantly, how it all ends with you having a successful and strong bond with everyone in your party. It's disappointing how people don't see this beyond the gameplay aspect.
I don't have the willpower to finish sadly D':
i could say more but i'd just get rambley xD
i could say more but i'd just get rambley xD
Overhated to hell and back. Seriously do not understand some of what people have said about it. Is GTI the best PMD? No. Is it bad? No. Seems to just be another result of the gen 5 hate craze’s legacy. If this is the “worst” one, I think that shows how much quality this lil side series produced.
las 16 primeras horas de juego son insufribles pero han servido para ignorar el acoso y derribo de mi novio para que me lea una visual novel de 130 h así que le doy un aprobao
Disappointing successor
edit: ok this review sucks now but im not changing it, tldr story is cool but it sucks ass to play, if they remake it with the new engine it's probably like an 8 or 9/10 but as it stands don't bother
Buckle up, this is gonna be a long one.
This game makes me sad. The story can reach narrative peaks as high as the Explorers games (and arguably does some things even better than them), but I don't think I can recommend this one due to how terrible the actual experience of playing it is. Nearly every aspect of gameplay was made worse from previous games in the series, and it just kind of makes me upset how so great a story is blocked behind a game that is unfathomably painful to get through. I know a lot of want an Explorers DX, but I think this game could benefit from a remake far more. So many of the issues in this game could honestly be fixed with a damn rom hack, and a remake could easily skyrocket this game up to one of my favorites of all time.
If these things were remedied, this game would be a 9/10:
- Text speed is WAY too low. You think it's not a problem until you have to sit through 5 seconds of spamming A anytime a single person in your party levels up, and navigating shop menus quickly becomes a sluggish hell.
- Constructing shops and stuff in Paradise? Get rid of it, or make it so that the buildings can actually do something useful. Literally the only one I used consistently was the Oran Berry field, and even then, 2 in game days to get 2-3 Oran Berries???
- Let me take more than one job request at a time. Why was this even changed?
- Expand the starter selection. I'm not usually one to care too much about this kind of thing, but really? You have to pick 2 choices out of 5, and one of the 5 is Pikachu?
- Some of the music choices are... bizarre, to say the least. I'm not saying that none of the music in this game is good, all I'm saying is that some of the ost really falters in comparison to its predecessors. I recall there being a part in the game where an area that, tonally, was supposed to be very tense was accompanied by something that sounded exactly like circus music.
- Ditch gold bars as a concept. They drop way too rarely and are not nearly useful enough.
- Fix dungeon generation. This game generates a lot of long, windy, corridors that lead to a LOT of dead ends that make using the run button pretty terrible since you have to retrigger it every time you turn a corner or enter a room. Also, get rid of the random rocks in the middle of rooms that just get in the way.
I think if you're ok with suffering though 30+ hours of pain for a pretty good story then go ahead and play this, but I know I probably won't ever be picking this up again. And if you're new to the series, just play Explorers. It's a much more palatable game that still has the "Epic Good Story Moments."
Story - 9/10
Gameplay - 2/10
Buckle up, this is gonna be a long one.
This game makes me sad. The story can reach narrative peaks as high as the Explorers games (and arguably does some things even better than them), but I don't think I can recommend this one due to how terrible the actual experience of playing it is. Nearly every aspect of gameplay was made worse from previous games in the series, and it just kind of makes me upset how so great a story is blocked behind a game that is unfathomably painful to get through. I know a lot of want an Explorers DX, but I think this game could benefit from a remake far more. So many of the issues in this game could honestly be fixed with a damn rom hack, and a remake could easily skyrocket this game up to one of my favorites of all time.
If these things were remedied, this game would be a 9/10:
- Text speed is WAY too low. You think it's not a problem until you have to sit through 5 seconds of spamming A anytime a single person in your party levels up, and navigating shop menus quickly becomes a sluggish hell.
- Constructing shops and stuff in Paradise? Get rid of it, or make it so that the buildings can actually do something useful. Literally the only one I used consistently was the Oran Berry field, and even then, 2 in game days to get 2-3 Oran Berries???
- Let me take more than one job request at a time. Why was this even changed?
- Expand the starter selection. I'm not usually one to care too much about this kind of thing, but really? You have to pick 2 choices out of 5, and one of the 5 is Pikachu?
- Some of the music choices are... bizarre, to say the least. I'm not saying that none of the music in this game is good, all I'm saying is that some of the ost really falters in comparison to its predecessors. I recall there being a part in the game where an area that, tonally, was supposed to be very tense was accompanied by something that sounded exactly like circus music.
- Ditch gold bars as a concept. They drop way too rarely and are not nearly useful enough.
- Fix dungeon generation. This game generates a lot of long, windy, corridors that lead to a LOT of dead ends that make using the run button pretty terrible since you have to retrigger it every time you turn a corner or enter a room. Also, get rid of the random rocks in the middle of rooms that just get in the way.
I think if you're ok with suffering though 30+ hours of pain for a pretty good story then go ahead and play this, but I know I probably won't ever be picking this up again. And if you're new to the series, just play Explorers. It's a much more palatable game that still has the "Epic Good Story Moments."
Story - 9/10
Gameplay - 2/10
it was fine, the story was a downgrade compared to the other mystery dungeon games unfortunately. the switch to 3d also made it much harder to control, i always found myself getting stuck on walls and having to run back and forth a lot. the pokemon were very cute during cutscenes and stuff though!
everyone really hates this game but it holds a special place in my heart, while it may be the weakest mystery dungeon, it is still by far my favorite, though that mostly comes from sentimental value.