Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team

"Where's Nancy Drew when you need her?"

Everyone in the world knows what Pokemon is. Two simple RPGs released for the original Game Boy created a worldwide phenomenon that now spans TV shows, movies, toys, books, and countless spin-offs and sequels. There have been some truly great Pokemon products put out there, and there have been some equally terrible ones. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team falls in the middle, bringing a somewhat interesting experience to the table, but it fails at way too many key points.

Right off the bat, the main difference between Blue Rescue Team and the other Pokemon games is that instead of taking control of a trainer, you take control of a Pokemon. That's all fine and dandy, but you don't get to choose which Pokemon you're going to be for the entirety of the game. Instead, the game goes the way of Animal Crossing, giving you questions that seem like they were lifted directly from a MySpace bulletin to determine which Pokemon you are. This is just ridiculous, and the developers should realize that it is going to be hard for gamers to enjoy the game when they have no control over what they are short of memorizing the right answers to the questions.

Now that we have that out of the way, the basic gameplay is pretty bland. You go through randomly generated dungeons with a partner Pokemon that follows you around, attacking enemies, gaining experience points, and either ascending or descending the floors of the dungeon. Since the dungeons are randomly generated, your experience with the dungeons varies greatly. You can either have a really hard time with a particular dungeon or a really easy time. This makes the game feel unbalanced throughout, and instead of providing a gradually growing difficulty, you have to deal with spiking levels of easiness and frustration.

Every time you move in a dungeon, all of the enemies in the dungeon get to move too, so the gameplay is very similar to a strategy game. You'd think since the game implements some strategy elements that you'd actually have to strategize to get through the dungeons. Well, the gameplay breaks down to simply taking on enemies head-on, picking up whatever you see, and walking around aimlessly until you find the stairs. When fighting an enemy, you can hit A to do a tackle, but you can also use special moves (that use points) and throw items at enemies.

When you come across an enemy that has moves super-effective to your type of Pokemon, it is usually smartest to have your partner take them on. This is all fine and good when the partner A.I. is working right, but sometimes you will find yourself cussing your partner out because they don't do the logical thing. For example, Squirtle might be taking on a Geodude and instead of using the obvious attack choice of bubble blast, he simply keeps using tail whip.

If you are low on health, poisoned, burned, or something else of the sort, you can heal yourself via berries and other healing items that you can find on the floor of dungeons or that you purchase at the local shops. There are some other items that you can collect, such as rocks that you can use to hit enemies that are far away.

There is somewhat of nonlinearity taking place in Blue Rescue Team as you have the choice to take some jobs or deny them. These jobs are usually just generic things like simply finding a Pokemon on a specific floor of a dungeon you've already cleared, but you can get some more money or items by completing the task.

Other shops are included in the town you're in, but most of them are useless. There is a bank where you can store your money, and then there is a place where you store your items, and I bet you'll be just like me and wonder why the hell did they waste the space instead of just combining the two? A somewhat useful shop is a place where you can link your attacks together so you can deal extra damage, but this shop isn't very helpful until later in the game when you have more powerful moves.

If you die in a dungeon, you have the choice of either starting the dungeon over or waiting for a friend to save you, either by multi-card play or online. While this could have amounted to an interesting mechanic, it ends up being nothing but a burden when no one's around to save your ass and you're forced to go through a large dungeon again. There are other multiplayer aspects as well, but they are very miniscule and involve having your DS on sleep mode and simply hoping that you pass someone else on the street who have their DS on sleep mode as well. All of the multiplayer is multi-card, so your friend who was smart enough not to purchase this game is out of luck.

The concept presented in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team is actually pretty interesting. You were just a regular person, but you wake up one day as none other than a Pokemon stuck in the world of Pokemon. After you awaken, you help out a Butterfree, and afterwards, team up with a partner to form a rescue team dedicated to rescuing the locals from the various dungeons spread across the land. The story evolves into something quite extensive and actually very good. It is unfortunate though that a lot of the plot is told through boring walls of text and that the beginning is so slow that most gamers won't even get to the high points of the plot.

Blue Rescue Team disappoints greatly with its graphics. The dungeons are horridly bland and look like they are a generation too late. The Pokemon sprites aren't anything to get excited over, and the overall presentation feels like a poorly done GBA game. On the plus side of the things, the animations are pretty slick and the game has virtually no bugs, but these things aren't enough to make up for the mediocrity staining the rest of the graphical presentation.

While the score from the other Pokemon games is usually pretty memorable, Blue Rescue Team scorns fans with an unmemorable track and pretty basic sounds spread throughout the game. The audio isn't necessarily terrible, but you won't remember a single note after you've turned the game off.

If you manage to put up with all of the game's problems and nuisances, you'll find that Blue Rescue Team is actually a pretty lengthy title. The plot is extensive, deep, and there is quite a bit of extra side quests to complete. While the multiplayer is pretty basic and not really worth even messing around with, Pokenuts will probably be able to like it. Still, just because there is a lot to do in the game, it means absolutely nothing if what there is to do isn't fun at all, and that's Blue Rescue Team's problem.

Blue Rescue Team is actually kind of fun at first. You will be a little interested in how the plot develops and taking on some of the jobs is a little entertaining, but as the game drags on, you'll be left wondering why you spent your money on such a travesty. The longevity is a plus even though what's there isn't all that fun and the plot is pretty good, but the rest of the game is in shambles. There are Pokemon games far better than this, and if you're looking for a quality Pokemon experience on the Nintendo DS, I would stick with Diamond and Pearl.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 10/13/08

Game Release: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team (US, 09/18/06)