Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team

"Rescued by a Strong Story line and all new Interactive Features!"

Poke'Mon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team is on one hand like a lot of Poke'Mon games you have played and on the other hand nothing like them at all. The story is that you used to be a human and were transformed or reborn as a Poke'Mon to interact with the other Poke'Mon of the world and maybe even be a hero or be punished for sins committed as a Human. You will eventually find out why you were transformed but in the meantime it becomes your job to save your fellow Poke'Mon from the unnatural amount of natural disasters causing the locals great distress.

Graphics: 5/10

This being a GBA game does not help the amount of graphical potential it could have but it does not really take the utmost advantage of the GBA either. The graphics look far superior to the likes of Poke'Mon Crystal and the portraits of the Main Characters that pop up during cut scenes are nothing if not adorably cute and nicely drawn. All the Poke'Mon are rather animated and look like you would expect them to, making impressive size differences really apparent with things like Steelix. The dungeons are somewhat ho-hum in their appearance, nothing too spectacular about the scenery here. The over world map likewise is not that amazing. The graphics of various cut-scenes throughout the game however are quite nice and some can be a bit awe-inspiring. The graphics for moves tend to get reused a bit too much which is a little sad, especially considering that many moves do not look THAT great to begin with. So the graphics could have been bumped a notch but really they're not horrible either.

Sound: 8/10

You will never hear the Poke'Mon talk in this game but at least you will also never hear them make those weird noises that are supposed to be their battle cries either. The sounds for the various moves are good, nothing too spectacular but about as good as you might expect out of a game like this. However the Music in this game is quite good. It is not the same almost lame music you have come to expect of most Poke'Mon games. Instead the music seems to bring the story line, dungeons, and friend spaces to life in a beautiful way. The background music in this game has to be some of the best that has ever graced a Poke'Mon game thus far and will likely make traveling through your favorite dungeons a bit easier to bear.

Gameplay: 8/10

The gameplay for this game can be a bit simple sometimes. It is, as you have heard, repetitive, as you do have to crawl through dungeon maps that are randomly generated. However, you do get taken through a very good story line and even after the main plot is over with there is a LOT more that can be done and even more side plots to deal with than in any Poke'Mon game I have played thus far. You will need to collect friend areas to get other Poke'Mon to join your team in this version as there are no Poke' Balls in this Humanless world. You still essentially capture the Poke'Mon by defeating them in battle though but this time you do not have to wear them down and load them up with status ailments you just have to give them a thorough smack down.

If you are a fan of Poke'Mon then you either desire to “Catch Them All” or you have a wish list of Poke'Mon you always want to get your hands on. Great news for you then, because in this game you CAN catch them all, save a very slight few that are in Blue Rescue Team. You can even get Scizor and Steelix without trading but here is the better part, you can BE your favorite Poke'Mon. No longer are you a mysterious usually unseen human trainer. You are the leader of a rescue team of Poke'Mon and you too are one of the Poke'Mon. Your IQ (as a Poke'Mon which is a listed stat in this case) will determine how well you can lead your party through peril and you will have to be rather strategic in your decisions if you want to prevail. You can still use all the classic items and a fair slew of new ones as a Poke'Mon and with yourself right in the fray of battle this time its personal! Best of all is that even if you do not start as your favorite Poke'Mon you can switch over to them later when they join your team.

Perhaps the greatest thing about Gameplay though is not getting every Poke'Mon or even the greater level of difficulty leading your team through dangerous dungeons but is the fact that you can rescue other players or have your team rescued through Passwords called Wonder Mail. You can also trade missions this way, which can help you acquire certain items and friend spaces. In this way you can interact with other players even if they are in another country and impossible to link your cable to. I think this feature of sending a distress mail then receiving a rescue letter and finally sending a thank-you including an item if you wish is one of the most thrilling aspects of the game. It can give you a real good feeling when you actually save another person whom got walked on in a dungeon and help them to continue to strive towards their goals. This feature really makes this game worth having and adds heavily to the addiction factor as it inspires you to become a powerful team to save all those in need.

However, there is a dark side to the gameplay besides the repetitive dungeons. Firstly is the personality test at the beginning to determine which Poke'Mon you are. This is cute and some really liked it but I think it would have been nice to have the option to just choose considering that some personality types are actually harder to get than others with the way the questions are stacked so getting Eevee for instance will require a bit of work. Another very annoying factor is that for some Poke'Mon to evolve you will have to go through all sorts of peril and hardship. For instance, while some Poke'Mon reach a certain level and just evolve things like Umbreon require you to go through 3 VERY hard dungeons and fight the Legendary Dogs JUST to get the item required for your Evolution. Hardly seems fair in my opinion to make some work so much harder than others. Lastly the moves have been drastically altered. Some of the old moves are much stronger than they used to be like Powdered Snow and Faint Attack, while others are much weaker like Toxic, and still others are quite different like Surf which now only hits one target. Thankfully you can now Link together moves to be performed as one attack which really makes disabling moves like Confuse Ray and Power Up Moves like Swords Dance much more useful. Overall the moves tend to balance themselves out a bit but you will have to relearn how they work and how powerful they are.

Story: 10/10

This game has the best story of any Poke'Mon game to date. Not only does it go on a bit even after it is supposedly over but it is just a very compelling story line with nice dialogue from the main characters and more depth into their personalities than you usually see in a game like this, especially because you get some in-depth insight into what your own character is thinking. Some of the scenes are so touching they actually made me shed a few tears which is definitely not easy and I would NEVER have expected the writing to be good enough to do that in a Poke'Mon game. I do not want to spoil the story for anyone so I am not going to go into too much detail but I will say that it is well worth checking out and that it is about time a game had some good writing.

Replay: 2/10

There is not much reason to replay the entire game unless you want to see the portrait of a different Poke'Mon as your main character or friend. As previously mentioned you can already be any Poke'Mon you want the first time through but you will probably be spending a LOT of time the first time through so there is relatively no need for replaying this game at all.

Should I buy this game?

If you are a Poke'Mon fan or a Furry who likes Poke'Mon then this game is addictive and definitely a fine choice to absorb hours of your life in. If you are neither of these and not a fan of dungeon crawling then I would say that you may as well skip over this title and look for other games to play.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/03/06