User Score
8.2

Generally favorable reviews- based on 339 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Negative: 37 out of 339
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  1. Feb 17, 2016
    4
    They lock you into story mode about halfway through the game. You can't do anything other than story mode, and the couple of side quests in between.

    They removed the recruitment aspect and instead made pokemon so happy for being helped by you that they make you their masters forevermore. They shortened parties down to three (???) Random missions are replaced with a list of
    They lock you into story mode about halfway through the game. You can't do anything other than story mode, and the couple of side quests in between.

    They removed the recruitment aspect and instead made pokemon so happy for being helped by you that they make you their masters forevermore.

    They shortened parties down to three (???)

    Random missions are replaced with a list of sidequests, all of which vary far too much in difficulty.

    The difficulty is not the fun kind of difficulty, given that you can be one-shot by 'miniboss' pokemon, even if you just spam items like nobody's business.

    They pretty much recycle content and personalities from previous games.

    The story tries too hard to deviate from their original formulas and it ends up being a bunch of nonsense.

    The allies you recruit are sometimes over 50, and legendaries, AT THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME.

    This game accomplished something, which is making me want to play Explorers of Sky again, which I did, and still had a blast, even years later.

    This game, on the other hand, is awful.

    It's not as bad as Gates to Infinity, but it's still terrible. There's just far too many elements that were changed in order to make the game "difficult" and too many good things removed in a forced attempt to keep the series fresh.

    Ironically, this is probably the game that kills the series for me. But hey, the first and second games are still, like, 10/10 amazing, some of the best games of all time, and underrated as hell.

    I'd say please don't waste your money, but this game gets a large amount of praise from users, so maybe I'm just bitter as hell.

    (also I was level 24 when I beat the game, in what I assume to be a game that has 99 levels. 10/10 best exp balancing, best game, best game, BEST. GAME.)

    But in all seriousness, I really hate this game. Like, a lot. Oftentimes, I can give games a higher score that I personally didn't like because they are still objectively good, But in this case, I refuse to honor this game with any objectiveness other than "m-muh 3D pocket man" and "m-muh childhood". This is not a good game.
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  2. Jan 12, 2016
    4
    I gotta admit I was kind of dissapointed with this one, and unlike many others, I did not think the story was that great. No point in comparison to Darkness or Sky, that one had one great story. This game focuses too much on you being a kid to the point that it gets extremely annoying. Many times in the story you can pretty much predict what is going to happen, this was not the case onI gotta admit I was kind of dissapointed with this one, and unlike many others, I did not think the story was that great. No point in comparison to Darkness or Sky, that one had one great story. This game focuses too much on you being a kid to the point that it gets extremely annoying. Many times in the story you can pretty much predict what is going to happen, this was not the case on Darkness and Sky. The connection orb thing is super annoying because there's no difficulty in recruiting Pokemon anymore, no luck, no nothing. The bulleting board was just fine I do not know why they got rid of it.

    At times the game got rally interesting, but also the fact that you can't level up quick, you pretty much never get above 100 exp from killing a pokemon during story mode, like it just does not work like that. What is true is that you can find a lot of extremely helpful seeds and those diamonds on ground are super helpful and OP at times, but something had to make up for how weak you and your partner are. I was a big fan of the PMD series (I did not play Gates of the Infinity), and I still am, but if another game is made, I think they need to step it up and be more creative. Everything about dungeons and gameplay was great, just not the story nor getting super little experience most of the time, hence you are really weak throughout the game. I do not recommend.
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  3. Mar 16, 2019
    4
    This review is brought to you by someone who grew up with the first Pokémon Mystery Dungeon on GBA/NDS, so take everything I have to say about this game with a grain of salt.

    You'll notice that I wasn't willing to give it a score higher than 4. Now why is that? First, let me list the positives: 1) looks pretty decent 2) text speed is no longer **** 3) narrative seems aight 4)
    This review is brought to you by someone who grew up with the first Pokémon Mystery Dungeon on GBA/NDS, so take everything I have to say about this game with a grain of salt.

    You'll notice that I wasn't willing to give it a score higher than 4. Now why is that? First, let me list the positives:

    1) looks pretty decent
    2) text speed is no longer ****
    3) narrative seems aight
    4) sidequests have a little bit more character now, I guess?

    You'll also notice that these merits do not include any actual gameplay elements.
    That's because this game is absolutely terribly balanced. To the point, even, where I have to ask myself if it was playtested at all; sometimes, it's way easy (when you can just bring **** Salamence to slay everything for you, for example), other times, it's unreasonably unforgiving – I lost any interest I may have had in this game when multi-hitting attacks became abundant, completely recking my team even when I had taken counter-measures. I hear that this doesn't happen to everyone, which is only logical as not everyone's going to encounter the same enemies due to RNG being a huge factor, but for those of us who did have to deal with it, it's just disheartening. You'd think that after ofter 8 years after the first games' release, people would have understood that multi-hitting attacks are bull**** – just look at lv 19 skitty go all ORA ORA ORA ORA on **** rayquaza, ****'s insane.

    And what the **** is up with PSMD completely abandoning the previous games' mission system? I used to love the crap out of it, and now it's gone in favor of these sidequests that'll get you unique party members – I don't disagree with the latter being a part of the game, I just prefer the previous system. The random missions system added a metric ****tonne of replayability to the original games, and even allowed for some interaction between players through the ability to share mission codes, OR through code generators.

    In short, the vast majority of what made me fall in love with the first entries of this series is largely gone. It's still very much a Mystery Dungeon game alright, but it's no longer for me.
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  4. Apr 4, 2019
    4
    This game to me isn't the best Pokémon game and far from it. As soon as I started playing this game I got lost. This game has some ups, like the way you pick your Pokémon and how the graphics are done but to me there are more cons than pros.
  5. Mar 2, 2020
    2
    A game that doesnt reward 'normal' rpg work that you put in.
    In previous pokemon mystery dungeon games, it was about strategy.
    You grind. You save the right items for the right time. You spend a little more time grinding now, so you dont get wiped, later. PSMD dropped that idea and now spams you to death with items. As where before an item was to be used at the right moment, now ..
    A game that doesnt reward 'normal' rpg work that you put in.
    In previous pokemon mystery dungeon games, it was about strategy.
    You grind. You save the right items for the right time. You spend a little more time grinding now,
    so you dont get wiped, later.

    PSMD dropped that idea and now spams you to death with items. As where before an item was to be used at the right moment, now .. ugh, this game sucks. While exploring one floor, you can pick up a dozen staves, a few foods, a lot of berries and cure3-seeds.
    And to get through this game, you are expected to basically use those items IMMEDIATELY.
    It isnt about your level, or who you brought with you, the strategy you chose... its about items.
    Which would be fine if it wasnt so obnoxious to ALWAYS be using something from the item menu.
    It doesnt feel like anything is orderly, youre just picking up random items and using them ASAP.

    Before you click that downvote button, answer me this: Does the game require anything other than filling your inventory with revive seeds and spamming the enemy to death?
    No, not really.
    That doesnt make the game easy, it makes it unbalanced and awful. Play any previous games to have better strategy. (as far as a pokemon game has, at least. So .. like usual, the bar is pretty low.)
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  6. Jun 3, 2023
    0
    Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games have awful gameplay in general but to my surprise, this one fails to have a remotely good plot. It's one of the most appalling I have ever seen in my life and the beginning never felt more unwelcoming for a video game. Sure, Pokémon is primarily targeted towards kids, but holy dang does this game SHOVE that in your face like people past the age of 12 arePokémon Mystery Dungeon games have awful gameplay in general but to my surprise, this one fails to have a remotely good plot. It's one of the most appalling I have ever seen in my life and the beginning never felt more unwelcoming for a video game. Sure, Pokémon is primarily targeted towards kids, but holy dang does this game SHOVE that in your face like people past the age of 12 are unwelcomed. I wish this was it but the entire lategame is filled with extreme-levels of plot-induced stupidity all to promote a cheap copypasta of the final boss of Gates to Infinity. I really don't like when a bunch of legendaries and mythicals are shoved into a story only for all of them to be mishandled and their lore ignored for the sake of the plot. If they were just randomly there and uninvolved, sure, but if for example, Arceus turns into stone, something is terribly wrong. Ignoring canon lore and feats given to characters for the sake of the plot is disrespectful to the characters and something I would immediately write off as a bad plot by itself. It shows they did not care to handle their characters properly. With the gameplay being garbage and the plot being abysmal, this is the only game so far I have bought and still regret ever buying. I would have refunded it if it were possible but I bought the digital version. I'm quite adamant on giving this game a 0. Expand
  7. Nov 20, 2022
    4
    Super Mystery Dungeon = 4/10
    ..............................................
Metascore
69

Mixed or average reviews - based on 44 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 44
  2. Negative: 2 out of 44
  1. CD-Action
    Jun 29, 2016
    75
    A very decent Mystery Dungeon game and the best Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. [06/2016, p.66]
  2. Mar 21, 2016
    75
    Great in sprints, but tedium might put off players looking for deeper experiences.
  3. Mar 16, 2016
    60
    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.