Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team

"Well.... Yeah, it's not that great."

Well, where to begin... Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team is like it's brother on the GBA, but, like any other Pokemon game, it has different Pokemon in each one. That's all I really could say about differences besides the fact that the DS has touch screen controls. I was actually excited when I got this game, I though it was going to be good, but man I was wrong.

Story: 3/10

It's like any other RPG out there. You wake up with no memory of being a human (we'll get into that in the Gameplay section later) and you also wake up in the middle of the woods. Then you run into the partner you chose in the Pokemon Personality Test portion of the game, and you plunge into your first dungeon. Now, I like this, considering the fact that you don't have to do a bunch of random walking around and talking to the townsfolk, you just get into the dungeon. But after the dungeon part, it starts to lose it's luster. After the first dungeon, you keep going along in the story line, but soon afterwards, you soon realize that you have to go through these dungeons, fulfilling random fetch quests, escorting a certain Pokemon to another, or rescuing another Pokemon trapped in a dungeon just to move along in the game. Overall, the story is about getting your human memories back, and saving the Pokemon world from natural disasters by doing random missions.

Gameplay: 3/10

As you all know, the typical Pokemon game has what we call "the Turn Based Attack System", where it's like the you-attack-I-attack routine and then you just keep doing it over again until you win. Basically what you have to do is basically run around in semi-realtime (emphasis on SEMI) and fight other Pokemon, so the turn based you-attack-I-attack routine is still here, but it gives the illusion of actually running around and fighting without having to wait for your opponent to attack back, but you actually have to. You can also tell that if you run around and a random Oddish or some other Pokemon uses Sweet Scent, then the entire game stops, and you have to wait to get your stats penatilized before you can actually move again. The AI isn't great, when you have to rely on your partners to help you fight, they'll end up using a stat reduction move instead of a damaging move, unless you set the moves in the Moves menu. Which brings us to the menus, here's where you set your partners attack strategy, moves, and IQ capabilities. The attack strategy starts out as either "Attack at first sight" or "Run like a friggin' coward", but after gaining levels you can get more variety like "Stay here". IQ is just like what it is in the real world. It's your Pokemon's intellect and it also determines what IQ Skills it has at it's disposal. You eat certain colored Gummies (like Orange Gummies will work good with Fighting Pokemon like Machop) in order to gain IQ Skills. Certain IQ Skills will only be for your partners, but besides that, you can have on as many IQ Skills you can possible have equipped.If you just so happen to die, your partner dies, or a client on a escort mission dies, you will lose almost all of your items, and ALL OF YOUR GOLD (Poke). That is a big pile of bullcrap, so after a mess up, you have to start ALL OVER AGAIN in getting items. Fortunately, if your one of the lucky ones to get Reviver Seeds, once someone dies, they come back to life. Unfortunately, most clients in escort mission are Level 1, and have low HP, so once they die, you start losing Reviver Seeds thanks to this dumbarse of a client. You can recruit Pokemon on your team, but you have to be at least Level 30 to get a good chance of recruiting better Pokemon than Level 4's. Then there are the conditions in order to recruit other Pokemon to your rag tag team of rescuers. You have to have the team leader finish off the Pokemon, there has to be less that 4 Pokemon in the current traveling team, and that you have to have less than 6 stars of size in the traveling team. Recruiting is still a beotch.

Replay Value: 1/10

OK NO! There's no friggin replay valuse except for doing the freakin' missions all over again, which isn't fun at all. Next category please!

Multiplayer: 1/10

Well, there's none of that either, but if you're unfortunate enough to have both Red Rescue Team and Blue Rescue Team, then you can transfer teams, though that isn't multiplayer. Sure, there is the capability to travel in Random Dungeons, but I tried that with a friend and trust me, it wasn't fun the least bit. Most, no, ALL of the game will be soloing with crappy AI partners.

Overall: 2/10

Augh, I'd rather wait for Diamond and Pearl then have to play this again. Try to avoid at all costs, and save up for Diamond and Pearl.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 03/26/07