Format Nintendo DS • Price £29.99

Publisher Nintendo • Game type Adventure

Release 10 November 2006 • Info The twin game for the final GBA Pokémon!

So, have you ever been playing Pokémon and thought how great it would be to actually BE a Pokémon?

Up until now we’ve always played the human role in the games, ‘catching ’em all’ as we explored the various cities and routes. Well now all that is turned on its head because in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon you ARE the Pokémon – and best of all you can talk to all your pocket monster friends and find out what makes them tick!

The land the Pokémon live in is sadly being ravaged by natural disasters and they’re really worried for their safety. On finding yourself as one of 16 of the little monsters, including Pikachu, Charmander, Squirtle and Bulbasaur, you decide to do something about the state of things, and form a rescue team – a bit like Thunderbirds but with better puppets! Interacting with the many Pokémon you encounter on the missions, you will uncover a story of wild adventure, redemption and friendship amoung creatures.

So the game is all about helping those around you and going on special rescue missions. It kicks off by asking you a bunch of questions about yourself. Answer carefully as the way you reply will affect which Pokémon you become! You then get to choose a partner Pokémon to join your rescue team and the two of you are all set to explore dungeons…

Unsurprisingly, dungeons play a major part in the Mystery Dungeon games. You receive reports of Pokémon in trouble, and they’re often stuck down a dungeon, how careless! These places randomly generate too, meaning that you will never be faced with exactly the same challenge twice. You’ll get to battle it out with other Pokémon you encounter, adding an element of strategy and you can link up the GBA and DS games wirelessly to swap items you’ve found, or link two GBAs with a link-up cable.

If you’re not a brilliant gamesplayer, don’t worry. The game starts off quite easy and the difficulty level slowly advances as you learn new powers, find new weapons and explore the games features. For the first time ever Pokémon moves can also be linked together too giving you the change to try out special combo moves never possible in any other game!

Mystery Dungeon Blue and Mystery Dungeon Red are very similar in many ways, with the graphics even being based on the Game Boy for both consoles. Of course the Nintendo DS does have some extra gameplay elements to it making use of the second screen to display a map and using the touch screen for certain functions. Linking up the DS and the GBA allows players from both camps to come together in a caring, sharing way!

With more than 380 Pokémon in the two games, including Legendary ones, it’s going to take you quite a while to unlock them all. If you fail in a mission fortunately you don’t have to go back to your last save point, you can use the Rescue Mode. This gives you a special password that can be given to a friend who can then enter the dungeon you’ve fainted in and help you out!

These games are a welcome Pokémon release and make a great complimentary series to the main adventures like Diamond & Pearl, but they’re no replacement for the real Pokémon RPG deal. The gameplay is much more simplistic that you will be used to in Pokémon RPGs, and although the dungeons do randomly generate, the things you’ve got to find will always be on the same levels of the dungeon, so it’s just the journey to get there that changes.