Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time

 DS
User Score
8.5

Generally favorable reviews- based on 172 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 137 out of 172
  2. Mixed: 23 out of 172
  3. Negative: 12 out of 172
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  1. Chammy
    Feb 2, 2013
    7
    It's better than the first because the story is more fascinating and emotional. However the problems are the same: repetitive, interminable dungeons that you have to restart if you die. You could have to go through a 99 floor dungeon (argh!) twice (ARGH!) to recruit a legendary pokemon. Anyway, the atmosphere of some dungeons and the setting and scenery in general is charming and inspired.
  2. Tuco713
    Oct 4, 2019
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. What seems to be a fairly unassuming game has much more discourse than anticipated. I didn’t expect the divide between critic and public reception to be as stark, but it highlights two of the core aspects that make or break this game: gameplay and story.

    To start positively, the strongest element here is the story. Improved conceptually from it’s predecessor, there’s more interesting context for why you fight in this game. I enjoy the fact that even though you, the player, are the hero, your partner is the chosen one of legend. Yet it’s not just about destiny, but more so your bond that created destiny together. It’s a refreshing spin on Red and Blue Rescue Team and one that’s appreciated. The side characters are loveable and the atmosphere in town and in general feels much more open and eager. At the same time, this story has more villains this time around, which I feel helps drive the plot along better. The various partners you can recruit have more lines and when you talk to them, their unique character portrait pops up as well. Red and Blue focused on creating a story that in itself is like a legend, which worked for the first foray as a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon franchise. Explorers however focused on being a full fledged story, containing more interesting and fully-fledged main and side characters, which ultimately worked better to service the game as a sequel. A natural evolution, if you will. This would be a nice place to leave things...but sadly we haven’t gotten to the gameplay.

    What we have in terms of gameplay is a very mixed bag. On one hand, there’s been a lot of slight improvements. More customization options, a new outlaw feature to change up the pace of jobs for a quick “mini-boss”, removal of friend areas and streamlined partner selection, far more moves to learn through leveling up your starters, and rebalanced Poke (currency) and item system. These are all well and good. However, there are a few things that were changed that, I feel, make the game much more tedious overall. For one, your bag and storage limit has been increased dramatically. So much in fact, that halfway through the game, I was already sporting 5 treasure bag menus to go through, which became cluttered with both helpful tools and crap. While it’s great to have so much storage, you quickly start becoming more and more overpowered with items as you go along. On top of that, it’s not wise to just ditch items altogether because enemies are not as big a pushover as they were previously. They do more damage and you mostly only have geo pebbles to begin, which only deal ten damage as opposed to graveler rocks in the previous installment. Essentially, since monster houses and other tougher enemies are more of a concern, you end up needing a big inventory so you don’t die stupidly. Keep in mind that money is also harder to come by; Poke has been significantly scaled back and items that previously sold for high prices and were easy to find, like Special Bands, are a fraction of their sale price. Starting the game, you act very miserly, hoarding money and items to stay afloat for later. Once your stock is filled though, the difficulty challenge goes down fast. This would still be an improvement over the original games, since things only became a challenge in those games arguably around magma cavern and beyond, but there’s a separate issue...

    The dungeon design: A somewhat common complaint, i’d venture to say the overall dungeon layout got worse. Red and Blue rescue has the same format of a top down grid layout in a 3-D, randomized room generator. The difference here is many more dungeons than before have crappy layouts. Obviously random generators mean occasionally wonky dungeon floors, but it’s not uncommon to have dungeons that are essentially going either right and immediately finding the staircase or going left and going all the way around the floor, only to find out that the entrance is blocked from that side and you have to walk back, fighting even more enemies on the way. Some might say to use a warp seed or pure seed, but that’s only a band-aid to a frustrating problem. The way the game is played becomes inherently tedious when the layout is a coin flip about twenty percent of the time halfway through the game. On top of that, since monster houses spring up earlier (which should be a plus), you now have to carry more orbs to pacify them or more elixirs to regain move slots, more reviver seeds in case a partner gets cornered despite your careful planning, the list goes on. This is a tough game to review objectively. Despite what I’ve said, there’s a lot to love about this game. I personally like exploring the dungeons, I love trawling for items and racking up big rewards by taking down multiple jobs in dungeon. And despite the target demographic, the story still holds up. Give it a shot and you might find a treasure trove of potential    … Expand
  3. ND-Bringer
    May 21, 2021
    7
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Well, well...if isn't one of my old favorite games. Starting out in PKMN Generation 4, I was in for a treat with a line of titles that boasted colorful graphics, entertainment mechanics, & the introduction of the PKMN gods. This game sums up the spirit of Sinnoh, with some nice ruins to explore. By building onto the PMD universe with some history lessons here and there, this game and its alternate versions help flesh out this mysterious world. The story...well its nice & all, but its hard to take seriously while concerning the game's difficulty. The dungeons are fine, but many give the ability to head back to the hub area around the time the final battle starts. Even if reached the near top of Temporal Tower, you can still walk all back to Treasure Town & even clear job requests for eternity and the story wouldn't change in the slightest. Like in Trap Team, even when the big villain has the ultimate power, nothing seems to happen in the world around us. Even the sky is still blue, it hard to get motivated with the lack of an exhilarating theme. Not every chapter needs that, but what makes levels like Steam Cave and the Dead Future World grand, is that you can't go back to the hub area and restock on items or go train at the dojo. The Fogbound Lake Expedition has you prepare to leave your comfort zone, go on a special mission to explore a hidden area, great music that remixes the higher you climb, making your heart beat with excitement wondering what's at the top, & it ends with a creative battle against a level 30...Groudon!? I love it how your partner encourages you to be brave while Chatot claims that challenging Groudon is like throwing your life away elsewhere. This really tests younger players courage with a frightening opponent like that in the background. And seeing the sight of Fogbound Lake at night is truly beautiful. The DS cutscenes may be brief, but they really enhance the experience. And the dead future levels are the best. Thrilling music, dungeons riddled with treasure, and all sorts of mighty PKMN. It's interesting learning about the Pokemon that somehow survived the planets paralysis. Like, I bet Ghost and Ground types escaped underground. I'll have to find out more in Sky's special episode. You team up with the accused villain Grovyle, trying to learn about the true threat that concerns the entire Pokemon world. And I know the plot should be more obvious at times, like seeing Dusknoir kidnap you & your partner, you can immediately tell who the real villain is and yet your partner still has a little faith with Dusknoir despite that. Even when it appears that Dusknoir's Sableye team is clearly trying to end you, a ton of dialogue is focused on explaining the meaning of trust. I guess it helps any little kids playing this game, but it's hard to take this story seriously despite having dark elements like death and absolute priorities. And even with these great levels and unique music themes, the longer a dungeon is, the quicker the player's motivation fades. So these days I plan a good team and speed through the dungeons while paying close attention the story. Experienced players may enjoy the story more, but that's only because revisiting the story is such a wonderful experience. Something about the Mystery Dungeon just gets me all teary-eyed. While every game gets about the same score from my perspective, I can't deny how wonderful these games are! These games are meant to be replayed. The game even encourages you to choose a different set of partner Pokemon every time you reset the game. Making each game replay feel fresh with a new team to train and the option to choose what you want to say in certain parts of story. It creates a sense of freedom. What can I say? It's easy to get inspired to play through this hidden gem, with PKMN movies like "The Rise of Darkrai" that could possibly connect to this game, since Darkrai loses his memory. Heck, the trailer for this game came with my DVD. It's easy to get excited. And their were even 40 minutes of anime made to go with the games! Exploring quiet forests where time passes so slowly, you wonder if peace appears with the will to explore deeper within the Mystery Dungeon. And there's a nice mix of colorful dungeons, dark terrain, and ancient ruins full of class, thanks to lovely game design. And like Black & White the sprites feel alive with PKMN constantly moving & having hilarious costumes when they faint. Adding a nice anime charm to the title is what gives it that nice Saturday morning cartoon theme. With each adventure comes a chapter, you gain a sense of progress with every step to get the better at one of PKMN's greatest spinoff series. Despite the multiplayer being lacking, it's still a great challenge, especially with the 99 floor dungeons and legendary PKMN to take on. These games will inspire generations of people! Underrated near masterpieces with a lot of character. Thank you Spike Chunsoft, can't wait for the next adventure.… Expand

Awards & Rankings

11
#11 Most Discussed DS Game of 2008
20
#20 Most Shared DS Game of 2008

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
60

Mixed or average reviews - based on 29 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 29
  2. Mixed: 18 out of 29
  3. Negative: 5 out of 29
  1. PTGamers
    55
    Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers is more of the same, and that won't disturb those who appreciate the franchise.
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  2. Cheat Code Central
    76
    A complex and challenging dungeon crawler that has a lot to offer. Even though the dungeon crawling aspect is very repetitive, the connectivity features, the vast number and variety of Pokemon, Wonder Mail, hours of gameplay, difficulty, etc. makes this pure kiddy-crack!
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  3. IGN
    65
    The game's menu system is incredibly clunky and feels like an unfixed relic from the Game Boy Advance version.
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