Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon

Finally, a new Pokémon game for Nintendo 3DS, made by Spike Chunsoft. After a title that was much criticized as Gates of Infinity, Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon is taking back the value that the first Pokémon titles had.

Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon is a blast to play, thanks to it's intriguing story, immersive gameplay and gorgeous visuals. It is a pity that there is not a lot of new gameplay to be found, but still the whole package succeeds to deliver.

Overall, Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon is an excellent spin-off title for the Pokemon franchise, one that proves that “children’s” games do not always have to be incredibly easy, do not have to always contain a terrible story, and can have an excellent soundtrack (yes, the music is really, really good).

It's long, full of content and really fun to play. It's probably the best episode of the franchise, but if you didn't like the series before, this won't change your mind.

Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon is a quite demanding entry in the long lasting franchise which will appeal fans of any age thanks to its impressive depth, colorful visuals and an entertaining and surprisingly dark story.

The best chapter in the Mistery Dungeon Saga, this game is fun and full of content with its 720 Pokémon, its procedural dungeons and high-on-irony storyline. It gets a bit repetitive on the long run, but it’s still worth it for any Pokémon fan.

Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon maintains the peculiar neatness of the series, with a more than consolidated roguelike gameplay, and with enough fresh ideas to keep it fun and enjoyable, years after its debut on Game Boy Advance.

Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon is one of the best entries in this series.

If you're looking to try the series out for the first time, go ahead – you won't be disappointed. [Issue #19 – January/February 2016, p.68]

Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon offers a fun glimpse into the Pokemon world from the monsters’ perspective, all while providing a unique, turn-based tactical gameplay with light roguelike features. Featuring over 700 pokemon to encounter, fight and team up with, it’s a must-have for any dedicated fans of the series, and provides just enough tactical thinking to entertain a budding CRPG player.

While Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon can be considered a fair enough roguelike with some interesting feature, its quality is damaged by an unbalanced difficulty.

Think of Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon as a title where the endgame is the reward for enduring a plot where the dialogue is repetitive and lackluster, characters take way too long walking you through every little thing, and you have to spend about 20 hours earning your right to do whatever you want. Once you do get over that hurdle, Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon can be one of the best entries in this series, but you really have to earn your freedom.

A very decent Mystery Dungeon game and the best Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. [06/2016, p.66]

Great in sprints, but tedium might put off players looking for deeper experiences.

A turn towards a more young audience might alienate fans of the previous games, but that doesn't mean that Spike Chunsoft's newest addition to this spin-off franchise is not delivering the goods.

Despite a glacial start, Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon is a more challenging take on the popular sub-franchise. It may have some flaws, but the massive and ambitious online component makes for a fine introduction to a different side of Pokemon.

All of the pieces are in place for this to be the best Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game ever, and for plenty, it just might be. It’s ambitious, has a number of new mechanics, and tries to address the major criticisms of its predecessor while being as fun as ever. But when all of its parts come together, it feels weird and clumsy.

Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon is a fun game, but it still has its frustrating moments.

The biggest draw, however, has to be the ability to recruit all 720 Pokemon, even if doing so is a tall order. [Feb 2016, p.86]

Unfortunately, Pokemon SMD doesn’t have especially catchy tunes or good graphics. Still, it’s nice that instead of taking models from previous Super Mystery Dungeon game, developers made new ones. [Issue#206, p.71]

Super Mystery Dungeon isn’t a great celebration of 20 years of a legendary franchise, but there's some entertaining content here worth an occasional poke.

Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon is a lot more fun than Gates to Infinity. There is not much change, so the randomly generated dungeons are still unimpressive, but the story is nice, the soundtrack is good and those 720 Pokemon to collect are excellent.

Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon rewards players that look further than just the boring story and slow introduction. As soon as you have freedom, this game is one of the best ones in the franchise. There are more than 700 Pokemon to collect and that is exactly what we want.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon crawled back to its roots - a well written narrative and an unforgiving gameplay - while modernizing some core concepts such as the friendlier recruitment system to create a more cohesive adventure through a larger world. Thus it's really a "Super" episode, from a quantitative or a qualitative point of view.

A pleasant little entry that can provide hours of entertainment, but is weighed down by it’s unfair difficulty spikes and tedious formula of dungeon-crawling.

Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon uses the formula of the series that has been working from a decade. And it does it without any change.

Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon is a very welcomed addition to the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon world. Its marvelous visual portraying, a staggering set of 720 Pokémon available and its very long lifespan will be cherished by fans of the series, despite its dialogues and plot being perhaps too much to handle for less committed followers.

Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon is an entertaining spin-off which can't stand the mighty success of the original Pokémon saries. It's fun to learn something more about every single Pokémon reading their dialogues, and the gameplay is fresh enough, but this series still lack something to become a must have.

Pokémon Super Mystery is a game so simple with an excessive amount of content that could easily turn into a monotonous and tedious adventure. Don’t misunderstand; the game is great if you love titles from genres like dungeon crawlers and simple RPG. However because of its basic gameplay mechanics and slow paced progress, many gamers could feel that this adventure could take ages to take us to the really good part of the game. If you can tolerate this, then you will find a really charming game full of fantastic Pokémon to befriend.

Vibrant and full of personality, but has also tightened up the series gameplay so you’ll actually need to pay attention, strategize, and conserve your resources to defeat its challenges.

A better, more focused sense of humor and combat tweaks help move the action along at a better pace, but Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon still pales in comparison to the core RPG installments.

Fans of the Mystery Dungeon series will know what to expect from this latest offering: its new additions aren’t radical enough to ruin what makes it fun or, crucially, fix what makes it monotonous.

Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon has good lessons to learn, but chief among them might be persistence: dungeon crawling is tiresome.

While the true fans can’t wait for the recently announced Pokemon Sun and Moon , Nintendo tries to get the most out of the 20th anniversary of Pikachu & Co as possible. But in this case this is not for the better. While the idea is as good as it always was, the random element brings a lot of redundance, while the story is targeted at a very young audience.

Mystery Dungeon fans will see a few familiar aspects, but constant safety nets and easy combat will not hold the attention of the challenge-seeking for long.

Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon is a decent entry in the franchise but after playing through five or six of these games it starts getting a bit too repetitive to hold our interest.

It tries to set itself up for a grand adventure, but comes across as plodding and aggravating for the first several hours. While not an absolute deal breaker, it does make for a hard sell for those who aren't totally committed to the series.

The elements of the past games are in the latest iteration, from the popular personality quiz to the familiar tactics of movement and team attacks, and if one can survive the almost criminally-awful first third of the game, Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon does improve significantly and reveals a decent little game while waiting for the next core release.

We'd recommend this to those of you who don't mind a lot of grinding in RPGs, as there's plenty to enjoy here if you can push on through the copious amounts of padding. If that doesn't sound up your alley it may be best to pass and wait for the next Pokémon game.

Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon makes attempts to evolve this Pokemon spinoff to a new level, but for the most part feels very much the same.

Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon carries on with the same problems, spite of some new features that don't really make the game's core change. Too slow, too repetitive: all right, it's a game meant for the kids, but it doesn't have to be boring.

The cute graphics and the entertaining story can’t save this repetitive and shallow game.