<< Previous LP: Earthbound – Next LP: Electronic Super Joy (Blind) >>
When you play Pokémon for a while and become a fan of the series, the desire of being a Pokemon starts to grow in your heart. And then Nintendo decided to create a game in which you could access a parallel universe in which there are Pokémon everywhere. They’re not more friends of the humans, the humans don’t even exist, there are only Pokémons.
“Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team” is the first of the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series released along with “Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team” in which the Pokémon you can find around are a little bit different.
As you start a new game, you’re asked some questions to determine your personality. From your personality, the game chooses with Pokémon you will become (I personally got a Pikachu the first time which is a really good pick) and then it asks you to choose your partner Pokémon from a list. You need to be really careful about your choise, since the partner cannot be changed for a very long time.
Then you’re thrown into the world of Pokémon, You’re a human who has been turned into a Pokémon for unknown reasons. And while you search for answers, you and your partner team up to create a “Rescue Team”, a team of Pokémon who help other Pokémons in danger. I won’t say anything else on the plot progression to avoid spoilers but trust me when I say that the story is very well thought out.
The gameplay is basically divided into 2 big parts, the town and the dungeons. The town is the place where most of the Pokémons live and conduct their business. You’ve got your partner’s house (which acts as your HeadQuarters), the item shop, the bank, the storage, the post office and many more. During the story you will receive missions. Some missions are mandatory to make the story progress (marked by a “!” in the area select) and some aren’t mandatory but if completed will give you rewards like rare items. These mission will either be received in your HQ’s mailbox, or can be accepted by picking them up in a wall near the post office.
When you are in a dungeon, the game gets real. Hostile Pokémons are everywhere in the dungeons and won’t leave you alone. Despite the Pokémon games are all really simple turn-based RPG, this game introduced new mechanics. The battles aren’t 1v1 or 2v2 anymore. The floor of the dungeon is like a big chessboard divided into squares. Every turn, a Pokémon might take an action such as move a square, attack, use an item and so on. Pokémons still have their movesets and elemental strenghts/weaknesses but here there’s way more. Most moves hit just in front of you, but some hit targets all around the user or in a straight line from them, or the entire room. Pokémons also have different IQ abilities which grant them special abilities or (if they are active) certain actions such as attacking the enemy with least HP or the weakest one in term of elemental strengths. Pokémon also have certain behaviors that you can set to make them act in more different ways; the most used (and the default one) is “Let’s go together” which makes so that the team members stick along with you as much as they can. But sometimes your team members might get lost in another location on the floor and you might want them to behave differently.
If you love Pokémon, then you need to try a Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game. It brings Pokémon to another level of gameplay.
Let’s Play’s stats:
-First episode aired on: Nov 11, 2013
-Last episode aired on: Jun 26, 2014
-Number of episodes: 73
-Total time of Let’s Play: 19 hours