Time/Darkness/Sky>Red/Blue Rescue Team>Super Mystery Dungeon>Gates To Infinity
Pretty much this. The first Pok?mon Mystery Dungeon game I got to play was explorers of Time, so that's probably why I have a preference towards PMD2. I had never played any Pok?mon Mystery Dungeon game before it, but one afternoon when I was walking in Best Buy, I saw the box art.
I was immediately drawn in by how the focus was on the Pok?mon and not the humans, how it seemed like the game would be full of fun adventures and I begged my mom so much to buy it for me. I had never wanted another Pok?mon spinoff as much as I wanted this one for the artwork.
I did not regret my purchase.
That day I played it non stop. (My main was Piplup and my partner was Charmander)
Each chapter of the story was so amazingly immersing, I just had to know what happened next. Once I finished the game, I found myself still playing it for the wonderful music and challenge it offered. I played dungeon exploring games before, but never had I played such a wonderful one as I did with Pokemon. Naturally I bought explorers of Sky next and while I like the extra stories, I thought Grovyle sacrificing himself and not coming back made for a stronger, emotional plot. I'm not a huge fan of bringing back characters once they're gone, but I still like PMD2 the best out of all the other ones.
I wasn't able to play Red/Blue Rescue, so I downloaded a rom and played it through an emulator. And I liked it a lot, just not as much I I liked PMD2. (I played as Eevee and chose Chikorita as my partener.) And I wasn't feeling the game as much that is until the part where the whole town was trying to witch hunt you down. That's when I really got invested in the plot and I could feel the tension. I felt so sorry for my character and partner that I had to know if they were going to be ok, so I couldn't put the game down and kept going. After that, I liked everything that followed and how you can have different bases for your team memebers, only PMD2 was more convenient to set up your teams, so I still prefer that. I drew a picture of PMD1 because of how much I liked each character, but as always, I didn't complete it. :c
I played Gates to Infinity (demo), expecting the same level of immersion, but...........
It was awful IMO. I played the demo once and erased it. The music wasn't as good, the 3d made the dungeons feel too compressed? and I just wasn't liking the game.
After a while, I heard about Super Mystery dungeon and how it was the definitive version of Gates to Infinity and even included Mega Evolutions, so I bought it.
Now, Super wasn't necessarily a bad game, I just hated a lot things about it, like how you're treated worse than a child, how you have to go to school to learn really basic stuff, how they hold your hand and bottle feed you till you can actually freely explore a dungeon and take any Pok?mon that joined your team.
Which brings me to my second rant: how you can't recruite any Pok?mon you find in the dungeons. I get there's a lot players who don't have the time for the hassle, especially how there's close to 1,000 Pok?mon, but I still think they should've left the option to recruit dungeon Pok?mon for those who want to use that method or teach pre-evolved moves to Pok?mon and then evolve them without permanently losing the chance to get another preevo again.
The music is also really bland (most of it), I muted most dungeons and played PMD2 themes over them, to keep me going.
The difficulty can range from easy to suddenly cheap, especially since you don't have time to train on the side, but this isn't that big of deal for me, since I like some higher difficulty, it's pretty odd, though, how they baby you through most of game, yet have really cheap random moments like that. Thankfully you can cheat back using equally cheap tactics like slow wand, ect.
The final boss is so uninspired. It's just a ball of darkness... ._.
With so many Pok?mon to choise from, they went with that.
Now for the positives, I really liked the Nuzleaf plot twist, that really threw me off the first time, since he was like your father figure. I still like the character interactions and Ampharos became a fav Pok?mon for me. While I don't really like the plot twist for your partner, I do appreciate that they tried a new angle and it did break my heart to see them disappear. And seeing them acceot all if the darkness made me sad too. The story focuses more on them this time than it does on you, but it's something new at least.
Mega evolutions are ok, just that they go beserk, so a lot of times, you're better off NOT using them.
Imo super doesn'thave much replay value once you've finished it, and get your partner back. They go back to being npcs that repeat the same dialogue.
While I don't equally like all the Pok?mon Mystery Dungeon games, they do all hold a special place in my memories.
