Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team

"I think I've seen this somewhere else, no?"

In fact, I did. This game is almost direct conversion of "Red Rescue Team" for the GBA, with some minor tweaks. Here, the adventure itself is quite different from the ones usually found in the games of this series with everything seeming unusual, except for the appearance of the characters.

Oddly, the graphics haven't been improved from the GBA version, and while you can clearly see the faces of the characters (seen when they are chatting to each other) and some static images seen across the adventure, the animations in older titles are way better than the ones seen in here. The map, usually seen in the upper screen, is quite detailed but mostly unimportant, and that seems to be one of the minor changes for the DS version of the game.

As for the sound, it isn't a life changing experience but it isn't bad, either. It usually sounds just like the GBA version (again!) and each dungeon even seems to feature its very own music, and with the game containing a lot of them, I doubt you'll be disappointed in that point.

Now, you could be wondering what the dungeon thing is all about. Well, this title is part of the "Mysterious Dungeon" series, which makes dungeon RPGs out of some series, like a previously released Chocobo title. For those of you who don't know what that is, I can sum it up as a RPG in which most of your time is spent inside the many levels of a dungeon. In this title, dungeons may have up to 99 levels, and fortunately you are allowed to save your game after particular points. Later on, it may take you a lot more than 1 hour to complete a dungeon, and such saving function is surely welcome.

Most of the times you will be hanging in them with the two members of your party (your main character and its ally), but depending on how you play you may, at a certain point, have up to 4 characters on your party. Those may include ANY Pokemon ever created, but your main character and its ally can only be picked from a set of 13 monsters available in the beginning of the game. The main character is randomly picked based on your answers to a certain amount of questions, but you can then pick your partner from among the obvious Pikachu, Meowth the usual game's starters, among some other surprises. Unlike what happens in other titles, your monster may evolve into a new form after a certain point but you will need to finish some quests before being able to do so.

Exactly as in the normal games, here your Pokemon will get new moves by gaining levels or learning them from TM items, but the amazing HM items also make their appearance here, and you will need them to be equipped on one of your monsters to access some of the later dungeons.

Battles are held in almost real time, with each character being able to attack once before the next one being given an opportunity to attack. Such interface is kinda easy to master but slightly boring.

In short, your adventure can be split into 2 sections: missions and story. The number of missions seems to be infinite (both them and the levels of each dungeon are randomly generated), and they can be awarded by reading the messages on an in-game board or in your mail box (you receive new ones every day), and apart from giving you many items, new Pokemon and new "Friend's Areas" they also reward you some points. Then, depending on your current points, at the end of each dungeon you may (or may no) get new Story events, which basically advance you in the story of this game and may even grant you some new Pokemon.

Those new Pokemon can't really be caught, but if you defeat one of them in a dungeon (or if he joins you as part of the story) and you already unlocked the proper "Friend's Area" he will join you in there at the end of that dungeon, provided he is alive. So, another interesting thing about this game is that you can get every possible Pokemon (even the legendary ones) to join your party, and you can later ask them to join you, as partners in a dungeon, by talking to them before entering it.

Usually the game doesn't need much understanding of the Japanese language, but in a very missions and in order to get some story events to happen (probably only 3 or 4 times during the entire game) you will need to talk to a specific character, maybe even performing a small task for him, and that may turn out being hard if you don't know the language.

Seeing this game as featuring more than 300 different Pokemon (even all Unown forms) which you can actually get and having a random mission (and dungeon) generator as well, it would probably take the player a long time to fully complete the game. However, most missions turn out being quite boring or way too hard, and when you are finally going to attempt a mission for the 20th time, in which you have to take a Pokemon that dies in 1 hit to level number 20 of a dungeon you will probably become fed up of it. Don't get the wrong, the game is full of interesting things, but the lack of variety in missions may disappoint the ones who want to fully try to complete it.

The game has trading compatibility with "Pokemon: Fushigi no Dungeon Red" for GBA, and perhaps having both will carry some bonus to the player, but I can't be sure since I couldn't try it.

So, who should get this game? Fans of Pokemon who want a different adventure with all the monsters will surely enjoy this product, but so will people who like Dungeon RPGs. In case you're wondering if you should get the Red or Blue version, I strongly suggest you think of the prices: both games are almost the same, except that this one also features a map on the upper screen.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/14/06