Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon

Genre: Top-Down Dungeon Crawler

Players: 1

.

Review:

Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon is a Top-Down Dungeon Crawler released on Nintendo 3DS in 2015. This is the sixth title in the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series, and the second entry in the series released on Nintendo 3DS. And… I honestly have difficulty seeing anything “super” about it. In most ways, this just seems like more of the same for this series, even down to the same tired story of a human turned into a Pokemon and trying to find a way back to his own world.

Once again, this game’s design is pretty dull, tedious, and repetitive, with players going through randomized dungeon after randomized dungeon, fending off hostile Pokemon they encounter using one of their Pokemon’s four moves (with helpful partner Pokemon acting automatically). Yet again, having only four moves at a time may work in the mainline Pokemon games where you can build and organize your own custom team from literally hundreds of Pokemon, but it is absolutely dreadful when you’re stuck with the characters you choose at the game’s outset and whatever Pokemon become “recruited” by the player through the course of the game

I should note that this is probably the biggest departure Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon makes from the rest of the series. Where prior entries in the series had defeated enemies randomly joining you, Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon has them joining you after you complete quests for them. This is a step in the right direction, giving players some agency over forming their team. Unfortunately, you can only start doing so multiple hours into the game.

When it comes to the presentation, this game feels much like the prior one, making use of 3D to depict the Pokemon within the game, as well as the world they live in. It’s nothing fancy, but it works. And once again, the sound doesn’t help much here either – this game features the same sort of digitized-sounding Pokemon calls, no voice, and a forgettable energetic soundtrack.

In the end, despite the “Super” in this game’s title, it seems like just another Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game to me. Which, while not bad, is nothing especially good or interesting either. Unless you’re a major fan of the Pokemon franchise, this is a game you’re better off skipping.

tl;dr – Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon is a Dungeon Crawler that once again does little to move the series forward, resulting in a dull, repetitive, simple game that’s only worth bothering with if you’re the most diehard sort of Pokemon fan.

Grade: C

^{You can support eShopperReviews on Patreon! Please click HERE to become a Sponsor!}

^{This month’s sponsors are Andy Miller, Exlene, Johannes, Homer Simpin, Ilya Zverev, Eli Goodman, Kristoffer Wulff, Gabriel Coronado-Medina, Francis Obst, and Seth Christenfeld. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}