On the subject of "is pokemon scifi", remember that even in Gen 1 and 2 they have aliens, teleportation, time travel, and can convert animals into data and vice versa, but are also only just putting up radio towers for the first time xD
Yeah, the technological divide is kind of strange, even in the Mystery Dungeon series. Like, on the one hand, the connection orb seems to be this wireless device that can instantly connect with people across the globe, but then the most sophisticated technology in Serene Village seems to be houses made out of wood planks. I think it works, though, I like the aesthetic of the world overall. I also think the franchise has become increasingly more sci-fi since around Gen 6 as well, what with Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire introducing alternative universes and Gen 7 having the Ultra Beasts. It's funny, because I don't think most people see Pokémon as a sci-fi franchise, but I would say it absolutely is.
@AurumAlex64 I've always had the headcanon that PMD world basically has magic and the Pokemon just uses item like orbs and wands as magiteck devices (what witht the Connection Orb like you said, plus looplets that use emera in dungeons, etc).
I think the pokemon human world is like that cuz of pokemon legends. Objects like rotom appliances get sent back in time with space time distortions + they have electric pokemon, so people end up reverse engineering technology rather than building it from scratch
Pokemon is definitely sci-fi. Maybe not in the vein that people tend to think of sci-fi, certainly leaning more towards the science fantasy angle, but I would definitely class it as sci-fi.
That's actually one of my major criticisms with newer Pokemon games and latter Mystery Dungeon games, the beginning areas feel far too hand-holding. Sometimes it's better to drop oneself into the world unadvised. But I do find this take very unique and it was a great argument in the video essay.
@@Axecon1 I occasionally do video addendums to my essays, basically shorter videos where I talk about a topic tangentially related to the essay at hand, and the one next week is exactly about why I love these kinds of long, hand-holdy intros. Maybe I'll convince you :)
@@AurumAlex64 I'm sorry, I'm really enjoying the video, but this is the worst take possible. These intros can exist, and they have merit in existing, but being unskippable and mandatory are objectively awful design decisions and are things that every mod/rom hack and quality of life update makes away with on their first opportunity, and they do so for a reason.
@@AzureTheSky Oh, to be clear, when I talk about hand-holdy intros, I'm not talking about unskippable cutscenes or forced tutorials. I'm moreso talking about games which hold back central mechanics or have an extremely heavy story-focused intro. One of the examples I don't directly bring up but show in the video is Dragon Quest VII, where it takes about 3 hours to get to any real combat (and it takes 20 hours to unlock the main mechanic of jobs). The focus of those first 3 hours isn't overlong tutorials, it's setting up the world and story, at the almost complete expense of the gameplay. And I think that choice is ultimately a net positive for the game. I should also mention that my perspective is mostly from the story angle. I think when these intros are done well, they have a tremendous impact on the narrative of the game that games which rush through the beginning often lack. So I like when games give that extra time, even if they aren't that much "fun" to play in the moment.
While Dark Matter is similar to Bittercold, I think the key difference between them is the kind of negativity that formed them, Bittercold's was more malicious (like when the Pawniard tricked Dunsparce or when Gurdurr deceived you and your partner) while Dark Matter's was more mundane (literally anytime someone got angry or jealous for any reason ever, THAT mundane). This affected how they needed to be defeated: Bittercold was done by spreading positivity, trust and hope, while Dark Matter was by accepting those emotions as part of you, when it's defeated it even says "thank you" for accepting it, the game is basically telling you that the best way to deal with these emotions and thoughts is to accept them as part of you, not hating them or even yourself because it'll just make things worse, it's why Dark Matter has a voice, to make it feel like a person (just destroying Dark Matter with force makes it come back in the future but much more powerful) and I appreciate this message, I like how the power of friendship and hope isn't enough this time. Can you tell I adore this game? But just in case it's not clear, I absolutely ADORE this game
I like this reading between the two games. I think my issue is that I don't feel Super does a great job getting across why Dark Matter has risen again until the literal last second. The Partner claims that we weren't able to beat Dark Matter the first time because they didn't understand they needed to accept it rather than just beat it up. That makes sense, but I think this should be reflected throughout the game. Like, we never see a character who tries to ignore all their negative emotions so they don't have to deal with it, only for that plan to end up backfiring on them because, well... you can't just bottle up your problems like that. They get sort of close with Krookodile, but he's shuffled off right at the final third. If there were an ongoing storyline of this sort throughout the game, it would build a clear thematic parallel to what Super is trying to do, and the difference is I think Gates does do this. I would also argue Gates does kind of get at the sort of "mundane" negativity as well. Kyurem has his great speech where he says: "The shadow of hopelessness and despair that darkens their view of the future.... The negativity of each and every one of those Pokémon stagnated and spiraled.... While no one paid any heed, it swelled greater and greater until at last.... The Bittercold was born." Kyurem makes clear that the Bittercold didn't come about because of nefarious intentions, but because people simply didn't care. They didn't care about their friends, they didn't care about their neighbors, they didn't care about making the world a better place. I feel like Gates is suggesting the Bittercold was born from apathy rather than malice.
@@AurumAlex64 I'd say Super deliberately didn't want to show the "evil" building up because it really was bit by bit over a long time (likely thousands of years as they refer to Mew's era as ancient), extremely minor things adding up but as in Dark Matter forming, not pokémon's relationships growing worse over time like in Gates. All of this because, in my interpretation, Dark Matter was about our INNER struggles with our own flaws (which most of us deal with alone and tend to hide, maybe could be a reason why the story doesn't show it), while the Bittercold was about the distrust BETWEEN Pokémon and loss of hope caused by acts like the deceiving done by Gurdurr and Pawniard. It's a bit tough writing down all my thoughts here, specially with english not being my 1st language and me having way too many thoughts on these two silly games lol And to clarify, most of what I said really is just my interpretation on what we were given and not some sort of canon I created in my head, I'm kinda just trying to fill in some gaps as both games fail to state things 100% clear, more so Super but Gates also fails a bit, which might be good, it lets you fill the holes it leaves, could be why I enjoy these two stories more than Sky's
@@lucasferro6050 Ah, that difference of "inner" vs. "between" makes a lot more sense! I think that sums up the differences between the two games pretty well.
I was going to say that Dark Matter formed out of the negativity of ancient Pokémon, while Bittercold is more recent and thus represents current negative feelings more, but your point is actually much better. Well thought out!
As someone who has thought more about the difference between the Bittercold and Dark Matter than they probably should, I really like this interpretation. Dark Matter being much more sentient than the Bittercold always threw me off when trying to think of them as sharing a universe (which was probably not the way they thought when making Super). I ended up coming to the explaination that Bittercold is much more composed of feelings like apathy and the lack of empathy, with the need for change not being acknowledged causing its physical form to be solid and cold. Meanwhile Dark Matter was built from so many different societies and situations that its form ended up being less clear, only having a solid form when in the world it pulls you into to fight. Dark Matter creating a hard shell could also be symbolic for how it was segragated and locked away from everything else. Their cores are also very simmilar, so I think that them being formed from a simmilar process is plausible. So basically the Bittercold was formed from who and what we see in Gates, while Dark Matter was formed from millenia of emotional racism.
Super I think manages to do something special with it's post game story too. It really makes you feel alone. Your one loyal friend is gone, and with that comes a big difficulty spike, and if you go to train up, your met with a mechanic that many have shown their distaste for... Other pokemon have their own lives. Helping that sad Riolu that helped them once get their Fennekin friend back isn't always their first priority, While you're connected, you're still little more than kind strangers to them. And so as you deal with the loss of your best friend, the world keeps moving not caring in the slightest about how alone you feel or the struggles you're going through.
Also unlike other Mystery Dungeon games. Your partner doesn’t exactly follow you but instead, they walk alongside you. Usually they just walk behind you in towns. But Super has them walk to the side of you in town. This is because they’re more important than ever. It’s such a cute detail that didn’t need to be there, but it’s there nonetheless.
i find it fascinating that you’ve played through all the mystery dungeon games but haven’t even cracked the surface of Explorers. that one truly is so rich and genuinely awe-inspiring at some moments. i hope you’re planning on experiencing it soon, it’s so so worth it
@@king_eziel This was one of the few times I was so glad I came down to the comments in the middle of the video. I'm leaning towards that sentiment. Having played Super myself, it was ok, definitely not bad, but Explorers is still peak.
To be fair, hearing that he dropped the game 2h in, he might have gotten stuck at Mt. Bristle and I wouldn't blame him. No chance to train before it so you are at quite a low level, huge chance of losing your starting items which are fairly powerful and useful (scarfs), stab quick attacks everywhere from 2 spaces far and you faint in 2 hits at that level meaning if you approach them you might die... It can feel rng-heavy for such an early point in the game.
@@VilasNil It's difficult, but not drop-the-game difficult; children with minimal strategic skill have beaten the game. If you can't get past that, then idk how you can review a series you cannot keep up with.
@@awastedcow Okay so I rarely comment on.....really anything online and I definitely don't make long comments like this, but I cannot count the number of times I've booted up my DS Lite Explorers and played the Explorers games from beginning to end over the years. I'm in my late 20's and Generation 4 was my childhood. Explorers of Time, Darkness, and Sky are all I need in regards to the PMD series (and yes, I've got all 3 games). Never really sat down and got through the 1st PMD (idk why though, I've tried in the past a couple of times but I just couldn't get into it, despite knowing how great of a game it is). Gates to Infinity I heard was okay, but as for Super Mystery Dungeon, I've heard horror stories about it (and witnessed them too). Both my best mate from Highschool and my Fiancé have SMD and it infuriated my Fiancé and just flat out made my best mate rage quit multiple times. Their biggest complaints were how unnecessarily difficult it was. You can only recruit ONE of each Pokémon in the game, Everyone's HP Stat was cut in half (Ex: in PMD Explorers of Time, Darkness, and Sky. My partner is Empoleon who's Above level 70 and has over 200HP. Meanwhile my Fiancé's Empoleon had barely above 100 HP, maybe 110 or so, and her Empoleon was almost the same level as mine, maybe 5 levels off or so.), while you explore a dungeon, wild Pokémon can KO each other and EVOLVE, and some other things that have faded from my memory. The only good/cool thing I can think of from this game was the twist ending where you don't dissapear, but your PARTNER dissapears and you have to now go on a quest to bring him back. The worst part of it all, the story just wasn't good. By itself it's......alright, but compared to Gen 2 PMD, it's just........bad..............like REALLY BAD. The final boss was a complete let down too (It was just some weird shadowy sphere thing that was obnoxious to beat, just flat out forgettable). When I first beat Explorers of Time nearly 20 years ago, I literally cried. PMD2 as a whole is one of the very few games to exist that come close to pure perfection. The characters, gameplay, story, visuals, and that AMAZING SOUNDTRACK, ALL OF IT I LOVE!!! The only other game that I hold in such high regard is Terraria. Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon came out right as Game Freak and the Pokémon Company as a whole started putting less effort into the games. Heck, you could see the signs as early as Generation 6. Gen 6 was fine, until you got to the end of the game and found out that the Elite Four AND the League Champion's entire Pokémon teams were 10 Levels lower than your team or more, even if you didn't do any grinding or go out of your way to fight every single trainer. Mega Evolutions were an awesome idea and I, like many others, were excited to see what new Mega Evolutions would come from Gen 7. Instead we got "Alolan Forms" and Z moves. Then when the train which is properly known as Sword and Shied came out, you had Dynamax and Gigantamax which were just a half baked fusion of Mega Evolutions and Z moves. The overall difficulty of the games have dropped significantly over the years as well. I seriously don't understand why Game Freak doesn't give us a Difficulty Toggle like nearly every other game does, or even let us make multiple save fines instead of just ONE!!! Like I said, I'm in my late 20's and I started out with Generation 4 (both the main line games along with the side games and spin offs) and I went backward and played the earlier generations and loved them. Generation 1 - 5 is peak Pokémon. Gen 6 is alright, but after that, it all started going down hill very fast and I hate to see that happen to a franchise I held near and dear to my heart. Last year I got Cassette Beasts on Steam close to the holidays and for almost 2 months I could not put the game down. It reminded me of what I loved about the Monster Taming genre so much and added new things that made it fresh, fun, but fairly challenging. Hell, it's one of the extremely few games that I went out of my way to do a 100% run, including all of the Steam Achievements. I'm not gonna judge this dude or talk smack about him for making a video of his favorite game. If the dude enjoys it, then at the end of the day, that's all that matters. I grew up with Mega Man X Command Mission and replayed the living heck out of it over the years, and that game is not even close to being the best RPG ever (the game sold roughly 0.3 millions copies world wide, that's how much of a flop it was). But despite all of it's flaws, I still love the characters, music, and gameplay to death. So if this guy loves Super Mystery Dungeon then that's A-OK. Also if AurumAlex, if ya happen to read this, PLEASE go back and play PMD2 from the very beginning all the was to the end of post game (preferably Explorers of Sky since it has all the content from Time and Darkness plus a lot of extras) if you haven't already. I guarantee that you will love it dude.
That's the point of the twist, and I love it I'd gotten so used to leaving at the end that I was in absolute denial. The fact that the partner didn't come back until after a few dungeons too was brutal (though I think it was a bit empty in terms of plot, as I got through that part of the postgame in only an hour of a few solo dungeons. The random memory loss plus timeskip at the end of it was jarring too, took me a while to understand what was happening.)
The school premise is so underrated. It made me more attached to my “classmates” and my town, its more simple and chill and it made the stakes so much emotional. Plus the fact that this is the last game with mega evolution made it the perfect mystery dungeon game for me. I also loved the characterization of my partner.
some people complain about the pacing being slow in that portion, but I'd have been happy if the entire game was that pace, I never felt I cared as much for the expedition guild (even ampharos who shows up a bit earlier) because by that point it's like a railroad into chaos real fast. It'd have been better if there were more episodic adventures with the world getting increasingly empty and desolate before the abyssal badlands arc.
The school aspect was one of my favourite parts of Pokemon Ranger Shadows of Almia. I actually cared about my classmates and who they were as people. Guardian signs quickly lost me.
I think it should be noted from the beginning your character is perceived to be a child by other Pokemon and your character is somewhat surprised by this revelation. This implies that they think themselves as being older and honestly they do act more mature.
That's something that I really liked in Super versus the other Mystery Dungeon games because as someone who played the previous ones as a kid, it felt like this one grew with it's audience (something that I wish the Pokémon mainline series would try out more often).
Honestly, I hope you give Explorers of Sky a spin. As a kid it was my first Mystery Dungeon game and it's story quite literally changed my life. To this day I can hear one specific song from the ost and just feel the exact emotions they wanted out of it from remembering the story segment it plays in. I'm only being vague to simply not spoil anything.
8 месяцев назад+19
Don't Ever Forget? Memories Returned? In the Morning Sun?
EoS is so _good._ I thought it might've been a little overrated since some people can get a little obnoxious over liking it. I've seen people praise it while trashing PSMD. I started playing it a while ago and it became my favorite game, beating out Xenoblade X.
My first MD was explorers of darkness when i was a kid. I finished it in the span of a year just cause I didn't want to end. I still had to finish it but man was it a Rollercoaster. It's now in my top 5 among persona and xenoblade
The fact that several songs come into my head with the scenes/emotions attached to them truly shows how wonderful this game and its soundtrack really is. The beach scene with the bubbles, crossing the ocean on lapras, seeing your first time gear, let alone some of the more spoilery scenes, these are all ingrained in me
You know it's refreshing to hear someone actually liking Super AND Gates despite what most of PMD fandom have to say about them. Anyways, you are spot on with your analysis and pretty much convey what I most find endearing about this silly little spin-off of one of the most successful media franchises on Earth lol. Keep on the good work, mate, and consider me one of your new subscribers! I hope there will be more from you, especially in regards to PMD. P.S. Would love for you to share some love for Gates as well. Despite its flaws, that game deserves better. P.P.S. Also, I hope you will play Explorers of Sky soon and make a video on it. It's the fandom's darling for many reasons.
I really, really like Gates as well. When I was collecting footage of Gates for this video, I just started sitting there and watching the scenes play out longer than I needed to, and I said to myself, "Wow. The character work in this game was pretty great." It also doesn't get enough credit for being a 3D Pokémon game on a handheld before X and Y (though I'm pretty sure Rumble Blast also came out before Gates).
There was a stylistic choice from gates onwards that I just couldn’t reconcile. I mean this is a world in which all pokemon are fully sapient, and capable of speaking perfect English, forming diverse communities and constructing towns and even cities…. So why do they say their own species name every other sentence?
I think Gates has a very strong story, but the gameplay is probably the least interesting in the series, IMO, and that makes me hesitant to revisit it.
I've legit used Regigigas in PSMD because of how insane it is. Unless you get criminally bad luck and spawn in a monster house, you can just take like 5 steps or go to a wonder tile, and even if you spawn in a monster house, more likely than not, you'll have other party members to take care of it for the first few turns.
@wikiuser92 It's not hard. Get a Loopet that allows you to avoid traps. And get Good Emeras that boost powers and stats. Only bring one teammate. And make sure to hoard at least 80 stairway wands. Regigigas is great.
The part of Super that really got me was that it makes you feel like you've lived a full life by the end. The school is childhood, the guild is early adulthood, the end of the game is middle-aged, and post-game is retirement.
I cannot tell you how much it means to me that you were able put into words what's so good about this game, that I have not been able to in uh... (looks at calendar) 4 whole years. All that stuff about mundanity and single mindedness and such is so incredibly spot-on
I hadn't replayed the game since it released, and it held up so well. It's got such a good sense of humor too. I think I've convinced myself this in my top 10 games of all time.
@@AurumAlex64honestly psmd is one of three games tied for all-time favorite for me One of the biggest things that makes me like a game is its soundtrack, so I’m only slightly disappointed that you didn’t mention how incredible psmd’s is
It's so refreshing to hear someone praise this game and put words to the reasons why this game resonated with me so much as a teenager. This game was my introduction to the mystery dungeon universe, and despite all the praise for explorers I still can't help but just care about this game so much more, and all I ever hear about the game is complaints about it being after gates. The world really does go above and beyond, but it feels like it gets the short end of the stick solely because it came out after gates. It feels so unfair to the game that people write it off thanks to its predecessor's reputation, especially when it does so much to build on almost everything the previous games had to offer. In short, thank you for putting words to the feelings I've had issues explaining for 8 years. It's so nice to hear someone vocally praise this game besides myself for the what I think is the first time I've heard.
Glad you like the video! I've always had a soft spot for this game. It's too bad it gets criticism for being after Gates, especially because Gates... isn't bad? I've really never understood the dislike for either entry, to be honest.
While I never played Mystery Dungeon beyond the Rescue Team demo, I know well that “Fire Island Volcano” from Super MD serves as an excellent example of the kind of music that video games may incubate “Yeah, didgeridoo intro then pound those drums to set the tone that this is a tropical volcano, now travel to the opposite side of the globe in Ireland! Yes, the Australian Aboriginals and Irish Celts, what do they share? Hatred of the British!”
@@AurumAlex64This game has so many good songs. Fire Island Volcano like you both say, Lush Forest, Noe Town (best town theme out of the extra continents for me), both of the Tree of Life theme, Final Boss - Phase 1 and 2; especially 2, etc. I could go on and on, btw, I always loved the jukebox in this game and Explorers, it's so cute. Wish we can get them back someday. Bonus: throw in the Partnet's Theme as well because of course you do that.
I am stunned that you bounced off of Sky, because Sky was absolutely the one that sucked me in BIG time. It's been a long time, though - it may have a much slower start than I remember - but where the story goes is immensely memorable and honestly I didn't find myself resonating with a Mystery Dungeon game as well UNTIL Super Mystery Dungeon. I do remember the context of your character being human not coming up until later in the game in Sky and Red/Blue, so the contrast of the school in Super DOES make sense for why it's a stronger initial hook.
I played the Rescue Team DX and still don't get the appeal. I didn't have the nostalgia factor either but felt the gameplay was still a too bit clunky.
I feel like it gets hit by what i like to call “sticker star syndrom” where people who have never played the game just lump it in with gates to infinity (I dont hate gates as much as most people do mind you but i do think its the worst entry in the series)
Completely agree, I loved the game from start to finish, and thought the school section was a super wholesome intro. The soundtrack is absolutely amazing too (looking at you Fire Island Volcano and Echoes of the Mystical Forest).
Yeah. It felt so rewarding conquering so many dungeons, but some were still beyond me. To this day, I've yet to even attempt to reach Arceus to complete my Connection Orb.
I always saw the school section as more of a prologue, to get you attached to your partner and flesh them out a little before the stakes rise to real levels, unlike something like rescue team where your partner just randomly has an entire house he can give to you.
I had recently finished the main story and epilouge of this game and it's become one of my favorite games. One thing I felt you could have put more emphasis on in the video is your partner compared to previous games. The partner has more depth then any other game, and it really pays off by the end.
Yes, I really love the Partner in this game. I also really like their relationship with Carracosta too. Like the scene where the Partner can't bear to see their dad turned to stone was great, and it's the kind of scene only Super could do.
This game essentially turns the partner into the main character with a destiny they must fulfill, while you are the partner. And I like that. Nothing really encapsulates this better than the climax with the Dark Matter battle and them trying to reach a flying tree with hardcore parkour.
I still love the living shit out of Super Mystery Dungeon to this day, and am sad my 3DS has bit the dust so I can't really go back to it easily (At least, without going down the piracy route for something I already own). It does a damn good job at making the world feel alive - and it did something that I hated at first but grew to love. It forced me out of my comfort zone in regards to progressing with the game and forced the story to keep moving. I despise the hell out of time limits and going at someone else's set pace usually, but something about how this game did it made me enjoy the story all the more. It wasn't a case of the story only moves on when you're ready - you're thrown into the thick of it whether you like it or not, and whether you're prepared or not. It forces you to think on your feet a lot more, and use all the resources at your disposal while also making the threat of Dark Matter all the more real. It's actively trying to destroy the planet, and no - you don't have time for sidequests. I still long for a new Mystery Dungeon - not another rehash, but an actual proper entry into the series bringing in the new mons. You could do so much with 3 more generations of Pokemon and all the new mechanics - Eternamax a Whalord that has a town living on its back and a mystery dungeon in its belly. Have a region where Pokemon are naturally Terrastialized - but fall sick when they venture too far out, so you have to find a cure or workaround when you and your partner suddenly Terrastialize as well. Bring in Z-Rings and have there be a chain of missions where you're trying to figure out how Z-Moves work and how to do the dances. Make a government that is trying to use Mega Evolution to start a war and seize control - causing the other major regions to fight back with their own gimmicks. There's so many possibilities on mechanics alone - let alone the hundreds of new Pokemon to throw in. It's such a shame that such a great series is sitting and collecting dust at this point - I hope that Nintendo gets their ducks in a row and makes a new Mystery Dungeon for Gen 10, since I doubt it would happen for 9 at this point.
Yeah, there are so many possibilities for a new PMD. I'm sure we'll get another one eventually, but I don't think it'll be any time soon, unfortunately.
[28:42] HOLY CRAP, this brought back memories! Extremely vivid memories of me using this EXACT strategy, in this EXACT dungeon! For those who don't know, "Sand Dune of Spirits" is a postgame/epilogue dungeon where you're only allowed to bring the protagonist on your first playthrough. However, unless you do a lot of grinding beforehand, you'll most likely run into the issue that the player character is _too weak_ to reliably fight through all of this dungeon's enemies all on their lonesome, especially if you picked a Pokémon that has a type disadvantage here. However, there's another solution: _avoiding fights at all costs._ If you've stockpiled enough Stayway/Warp Wands and other tools, you can potentially just spam those to force any nearby enemies to a random part of the floor and/or prevent them from chasing you, allowing you to focus exclusively on finding the stairs. Even though it's only 10 floors, I recall my first run through this dungeon being very tense as I was constantly weighing risk/reward and managing both my HP and my resources. This was the most memorable PMD dungeon I EVER played, because it made me fundamentally overhaul my strategy to get through it!
if i had to choose something that represents my childhood, it's this exact game. The music, the characters, the amount of times i struggled in the dungeons cause ive never playes these types before and my 12 year old self screaming in victory when i reached Arceus at the very end. I could replay it for the rest of my life and be happy with it, there was always something new to see. (Also, the plottwists were INSANE for little me, kept me hooked all times)
I love Super, but one thing I'm absolutely bummed over is that... with them bringing back all the regions, and the perfecting of the gameplay, and the callbacks and fanservice, I fear it means that the game is essentially a love letter and goodbye to the series. Especially with no new game (DX hardly counts) for such a long time... Though the addition of a continent previously unseen other than the main one may mean that if they were to make another game, it would be on the Sand continent.
This is a great video! You really hit the nail on the head for why Super in particularly drew me in, even as a fan of the main series. As much as I like Explorers of Sky, Super just was always more enjoyable to me by a pretty large margin, and I’m glad to see other people understand where I’m coming from.
Nintendo cooks when they emphasize story. >I much prefer the average Xenoblade story to the average Final Fantasy story, it’s not even close. Xenoblade’s emotional narrative, enriched characters, and consistent storyline with only a single retcon (and it was on a character design losing a key in DE). >Fire Emblem doesn’t always hit on the story, but when they do, it is absolutely 🔥. Though in Three Houses, it’s mainly 2 out of the routes that are excellent (not Black Eagles) >Zelda when there’s good story is high art. Majora’s Mask is so layered. >Mother 3’s social commentary deserves its place with core literature. >Super Paper Mario made me cry, and has actually inspired a certain western animated series I wish the interview was still up for. Let Nintendo writers cook!
I think Nintendo also cooks with their comedy too. Bowser's Inside Story is genuinely hilarious, and (maybe controversially), I think Color Splash is almost just as good in that regard
I still remember my first time picking up and playing PSMD. I first started with Gates and completed it, thoroughly enjoying it the whole way through. After that, I picked up Explorers of Sky and enjoyed it even more. These games just clicked with me. To this day, Explorers of Sky is still my number 1 favorite game of all time. So, when PSMD came around, I jumped on it, ready to sink my teeth into another PMD experience. But, I never got past the school section of the game. I lost motivation and put the game down for several years. At the time, I blamed the intro for being absurdly slow, and not giving me what I wanted, which was, to create an exploration team and go on missions, just like Explorers. I eventually did get back to the game a couple years later and reach the credits, and thank goodness I did, because the second half was right up my alley. Finally, I made it to Lively Town and the game can actually start. It was awesome. I'm not exactly a completionist, so I just stopped there once I beat it and moved on to the next game. Thinking back about the reasons why I stopped playing on my first playthrough, I really think if I had just gone in with the right mindset of what this game was going to be like, I would've completed it for sure. All I cared about was just getting to the exciting part. I didn't want to go to school in game, I played games to avoid thinking about school. I didn't want to play a kid. Now that a lot of time has passed and my gaming tastes have changed, I feel I've started to enjoy the little things that games like PSMD provide, and more importantly, what games like Pokemon SV lack. I'd always check in on Doduo running around Lively Town, along with the other NPCs, meanwhile SV doesn't even give us houses to enter anymore. I totally agree that if this game came out in 2024, the reception would be a lot different. However, that doesn't change the fact that 15 year-old me couldn't stand the glacially slow intro section and just went back to playing Explorers of Sky in protest. You truly never know what you have until you've lost it...
PSMD clicked with me immediately. I played it when I was about the same age as you, so it's interesting in the difference in our reactions. I think there was something just kooky enough about the idea of Pokémon going to health class every morning that made me want to see it through. It helps that the dialogue is also pretty witty for a Pokémon game. I think there's just something deeply adorable about this game that I can't quite put my finger on, but it makes PSMD very inviting to revisit.
This was such a great take! Honestly, I still prefer the Explorers games as I found the plot to be the most engaging. But PSMD was still incredible! I loved the characters, the environments, the story, etc! And while many dislike the elementary school part, I loved how it got me invested in the other characters. I wish that we got even more of that in Explorers with the guild members. I wanted to go on missions with Sunflora, Loudred, Corphish, etc. And while EoS developed that more with the extra stories, it still didn’t quite satiate me. Getting to traverse the Ancient Barrow with Goomy, Deerling, and Espurr was so much fun! And then the dark matter world with the entire exploration society? Those experiences wouldn’t have been an option in the first two installments of the series! Overall, this was such an amazing game and I really hope Spike Chunsoft gives us another original game in the future. It’d be insane if they some how managed to naturally incorporate all 1,000+ mons into it. Idk how they would, but hey, it’s not the craziest thing they’ve done! Point is, the PMD series is my favorite part of Pokemon and I really wish more people understood what makes it great. Thanks for such an awesome video!
I loved this video. I was genuinely shocked when I saw how small your channel was for the quality you've put into this. I hope you grow, my friend. +1 Sub.
The release date in my country for Super was exactly on my birthday, i had school that day but I'd play it whenever could and finished the main story in just 4 days, probably thanks to my neordivergent hyper focus. My school days were rough and confusing as i wasn't very happy, my neurodivergent brain didn't help with school work unfortunately, but being able to know almost every time how much of every item i needed to safely finish the dungeon made me feel not so incompetent. Explorers will always be my favorite as that game helped me realize i wanted to be a writer so that I'd be able to make others feel the same way i did playing it, but Super helped me through a rough time and I'll always be thankful for it.
I still have my copy and my 3DS, and I go back to it regularly. Hard to believe there hasn't been a new PMD game since, aside from the Rescue Team remakes
It has been a disgustingly long time, I'd be really interested in seeing what they could do with a new game. We have 3 entire generations worth of new material to work with!
12:50 What I like about things like this is that it doesn't assume you to be an all powerful hero, even ignoring being a kid, this scene shows just a standard level of competence once should get from a leader, Everyone else is much more experienced, Archen and Bunnelby have moves with good type matchups, and the only pokemon on the expedition society that has a weakness is Mawile who is second in command, it only makes sense that Buizel who has super effective moves and resistances would be tasked with ensuring the safety of new recruits.
Agreed with everything here. For some reason, I find Pokémon being very competent and considerate at their jobs to be adorable, it's difficult to explain.
Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon is, without a bunch, my favourite Pokémon game of all time! The story is so surprisingly incredible and interesting, and the characters are so compelling. I adore all of the MC and Partners schoolmates, and the entire Expedition Society.
With Super Mystery Dungeon as a Mystery Dungeon Fan, I started it but ended up dropping it early on, only starting over and playing through the main story only a few years ago. I think my overall opinion is I enjoy the gameplay loop, especially with Emeras adding something fun to collect, and the story was good, but could have been a lot better. I think my biggest problem is not that the opening act with school was too long (at it was enjoyable), but that it took up half the storytime of Super, when I feel like it should have been something like the first third/quarter of the game, allowing both the guild and main story sections to have time to build up. I felt it a bit difficult to get attached to the guild side of the story due to how fast it goes into the main story of the stone Pokemon, fighting Entei and then going up Revelation Mountain only to be stuck in the shadow realm and losing nearly the entire guild. Like the shadow realm plotline would have worked really well, if we had a more slow build up throughout the guild section getting to know the characters and the tasks of the guild helping out in more small scale rescue missions, like rescuing a Pokemon or defeating a Criminal. It goes too fast into main story, which that doesn't have time to breathe either, with the villain group not being well defined in motives due to mind control and the stakes ramp up way too quickly with involving nearly every legendary Pokemon available (that wasn't turned to stone) to defeat a non-pokemon entity, which was much better executed in Gates to Infinity. If the story had more time to develop and dungeons to explore during the second half, I would probably have this game's main story a lot more, but overall I think it just ends up being the weakest story of the Mystery Dungeon series for me. at least the ending gave me laugh when I named my partner Pokemon Fennekin "Light", causing one of the lines to be "The Light" "Light!" when the partner Pokemon was going away.
I think an expanded Expedition Society would be better as well. I do like the school stuff, so I'd probably prefer to just make the main story a little longer (maybe take some time away from the postgame) to give the Society that extra stuff.
As someone who's played and loved Rescue Team and Explorers, I love this video. It really encapsulates everything I love about Mystery Dungeon and offers some fresh perspective on the discourse surrounding newer generations without doing the two things every Pokémon video essay - retreading old ground and over-summarizing. There's actual, tangible analysis, breakdown, and defensible conclusions, along with a healthy amount of review and personal experience. But there is one small, glaring issue - in a video about an overlooked game that loves plot twists and reveals, you neglect to put a spoiler warning on revealing the Mystery Dungeon's mysteries. I really feel like you could have gotten the points you wanted to across and had a good foundation for your arguments, even if you just glossed over those elements. Like I said at the beginning, as someone who had only played the first two generations of PMD, I was really looking forward to hearing about someone's passion for what they believe is a game that deserves more and is the pinnacle of a massive series. Yet now I feel like that critical element of a playthrough of a (somewhat "underground" or "niche") game has been taken. I want to make one thing clear - I think this video and the argument it presents is very well-crafted, digestible, and appealing, and it's changed my view on PSMD. Because of this video, I have a genuine interest in seeking out PSMD (and GtI) to see if they really are the masterpieces the rest of the Mystery Dungeon community neglects. Still, I think you could've done so without prematurely peeling back the curtain. I apologize if this comment comes across as confrontational or aggressive, that was not my intention in the slightest. I'm just someone who adores Pokémon, the Mystery Dungeon series, and well-made video essays, and this piece of work has given me a lot to think about. I only wanted to express that, along with my frustration over what I believe is the sole flaw on an otherwise excellent, convincing argument. Note: this entire comment is rendered null and void if it turns out you only scratched the surface of PSMD's twists/reveals LMAO
i played this game as my first mystery dungeon and i found painful explorers, the reason this game is so good in my opinion is because the gameplay is fluid, other games are so slow and unbalanced, if you ever play explorers again, don't do the last dungeons, you'll find a monster room and get discharg'd by every porygon ever all at once and die, also super can be 100%, for other games because of the different recruiting method you will never have every mon recruited, heck, arceus is just not in explorers for some reason (even if having keckleon as a near impossible catch that recquires the maximum recruiting odds just to have a 0.1% chance of recruiting is genius) also super being the last original mystery dungeon game is painful, it was in 2015, 10 years ago please spike chunsoft do somethingggggg (also the only point nobody criticizes and for a reason is the ost, god damn dark mater 2's ost hits harder than 252+spatk chi yu with overheat specs under sun
Yep, though I liked all the mystery dungeons I've played, I suspect Super will be the only one I 100% exactly because of the recruitment method. And the OST does indeed slap.
29:14 I have been personally attacked! I sunk so many hours into this game to optimize my efficiency and accomplish ludicrous feats of precise execution! Fine with your opinions otherwise but Age of Calamity did NOT deserve that stray.
Ha, while I will admit to not personally loving Age of Calamity, I was moreso trying to point out that the critical reception seems inconsistent; if you're gonna dock points for mystery dungeon being repetitive, I think there's a lot of games that should also have much lower critic scores. It could've been a lot of games really, Age of Calamity is for some reason the first one that came into my head
@@AurumAlex64To add my 2 cents on this point as well, I'd argue that it's not the repetitiveness that is the problem, plenty of games are really repetitive with the gameplay loop afterall. It's what you do with it during the gameplay loop that decides whether it's the fun kind of the repetitive, or the boring kind. Afterall, Left 4 Dead 1/2 are incredibly repetitive when you look at it. You start in a group 4 going from point A to point B, and you shoot zombies along the way, rinse and repeat until the finale where usually you have to hold down the fort for a bit 'til rescue comes. Yet, that game gets praised to hell and back because of the what happens in the journey from A and B. We can derive that from Super too. What sets Super gameplay apart from the other games in the PMD series to me is how they implemented more gameplay to the traditional dungeom crawl all its predecessors did. Super changes a lot what didn't work in the previous games while also adding lots of little things that just makes dungeoneering fun and engaging (i.e. the looplet and emera system is a great way to keep you engaged, the fact that you can assume direct control of your party, albeit limited compared to DX, is a godsend. Plus you can push Pokemon around, great for dealing with Monster Houses).
Thank you for this video!! Finally some Super Mystery Dungeon positivity! Fun fact, in Japanese and other localisations, it is called… Mega Mystery Dungeon, eh. Resource management is probably the best way to describe the gameplay, yeah! It’s why I’ve always loved the games. I am very close to 100% Super, I just find the system very encouraging. I really appreciated the difficulty in the game too. I vastly prefer short but difficult dungeons to dungeons that are just… 40-99 floors for the sake of it.
Explorers of Sky was my first and only game in the series. I have so much to say about it now after like 12 years, but I wont rant. It was one of the first games I owned that made me cry for the characters loss and turmoil to save their future. It's very melancholic to know that the best time to enjoy these deep stories has already passed for me, rhe emotion just isnt as strong now as an adult.
As someone who played explorers as a kid and it stuck with them, I can say you should really experience super for yourself. Or should have. I played super for the first time 15 years after explorers and it hit the same notes. If anything the perspective of leaving childhood and innocence makes super hit harder as an adult.
YES!!!! I haven't even watched this video yet, but I already love it. This is my favourite game in the series, and people are SO critical of it, but it's SO good! Yes it's got some problems, but it delivers on some incredible moments. I can't wait to hear what you have to say about it!
My only gripe with Super Mystery Dungeon is the story pacing. The gameplay and overall plot are great, but personally I find the original games to be better pacing wise
Freaking FINALLY some Super Mystery Dungeon love! Honestly so tired of seeing people call it bad. It's EXTREMELY underrated, and I'm glad you've put some words on why it's so good. ❤
Play explorers of sky, its my favorite, it has spindas cafe and other extra content compared to the other explorers games. The ost and Treasure town specifically always comfort me
I loved this game when l got it. The way l got my copy of super was ironically from my school as in, my school asked what we wanted for Christmas. (40 dollar limit) my teacher given it to me, l will treasure this game forever.
It was so nice to see someone praise a game I hold so dear to me. I remember I only watched one trailer to this game before it came out and bought it about a couple years after it had launched (Sun and Moon had launched by that point) I had previously played Gates back then, but it was my only mystery dungeon game. I had such a wonderful time with the story and the gameplay and I grew immensely attached to these characters. I also think the connection orb is the best implementation of the recruitment system in all franchise. Anyways, your video was amazing. It reminded me why I love this game and it's world building so much. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this game. It's my favorite Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game :)
What I don't like is that you are basically unable to play as other pokemons like it was possible in the first Mystery Dungeon, you are also unable to truly create a full team because all the pokemon you recruit will have long set of days where they are unavailable after using them; I understand that maybe it's realistic, but that doesn't make it fun, it makes having a full team thats not just you and your companion impossible. I also miss the mechanic of the first Mystery Dungeon where you could after the story fully ditch your starter pokemon for another one fully, it made it so you could play as whatever pokemon you wanted, even legendaries.
My biggest memory of this game is the moment that you get one of those "Yes or No, but we all know the plot won't change" prompts about running away from your home town... And I genuinely am thinking "Running away is the right choice, because the villains know I live here, and I cannot put it past this game to set my hometown on fire." Not many JRPGs have the audacity to get you in that mindset, especially not when you do know that the choices don't actually matter. I also appreciate that the protagonist in this game has some *really* sassy dialogue options. You get to really lay into people sometimes, and it's great.
Im a 100 pokemon away from getting the 720 on the game with almost 70 hours played, this definetly became my favorite Pokemon game (and DAMN I loved the story of the game, all of it)
The only two times a video game has made me cry, is the end of Explorers of Sky, and the school cast seeing me off in Super Mystery Dungeon. These games were the greatest~
You brought up something I never considered about why I like this game, the slice of life side of things. I run a pokemon tabletop united game, I really focus on trying to give things a slice of life aspect the gym leaders have lives outside the gym, the pokemon league is regulated and most trainers have people to check in with and they have there own lives, the evil team don't wait for the party to show up if they are in one city and you guys go the other way they damn well are going to keep going and finish what they re doing while you are elsewhere.
The older I get, the more important the smaller stuff is to me. I ran into a subreddit once that was a bunch of people recounting stories as if they were staff working in a Pokémon Center. So one story would be like, "a trainer yelled at me after I suggested they polish their steel type," or something like that. I just thought that was a really neat idea, and it's the kind of low-view perspective the series seems totally bereft of on occasion.
Wow! I totally agree with a lot of this video, and I think this definitely changed my mind a little on Super. I'm definitely more of a casual gamer, so Infinity is definitely still my favorite due to the easiness. But the atmosphere and mundane parts of Super are some of my favorite. Even though it was a slog, then I enjoyed the slower parts of Super when I played it. The slow pace, and general story kinda reminds me of Persona 3 or 4 to be honest. Persona definitely has more happen in it's first seven hours in comparison. But sometimes instead of crawling in Tartarus and grinding my party. I like learning about Persona's World and doing the social links, and not even because of the stat benefits. It's because I like exploring the map, and learning more about my friends that I make. Persona 3's social links are definitely my favorite. And there's less slow moments like that in Persona 5, which sometimes makes the story feel really rushed. I'm glad the Mystery Dungeons I've played haven't had that problem so far. I do wish the characters of Super were as fleshed out as Gates, since I didn't grow a super close connection to a lot of the school children, or even the Rescue Expedition. But otherwise, other than the bone crushing difficulty, I still really enjoyed my time with Super. And even though the story again, I think still wasn't as great as Gates when it comes to plot themes. But I still love the appreciation for life and stuff. Those two games remind me of Persona three yet again. As you can tell, I really like that game. XD I still have to play more games, I'm currently stuck on Rescue Team DX, but I think I'm just bad. I'd really like to see another game like Super or Gates atmosphere wise though. The maps don't need to be huge, and the story doesn't even need to be as big or grand as most of the Mystery Dungeon games. Just a smaller scope game, with characters that are STRONG would easily become my favorite one in the whole series. But again, I really liked this video! I really hope you continue making video essays like this one, you did an amazing job with the editing. And your voice was very calm, and easy to understand. My voice is always rambling, so I've never really attempted to make a video essay due to that issue. XD Keep up the great work. ^^
Glad you enjoyed! It would be neat if PMD explored more of the social aspect of the world, sort of like Persona does. I suppose we'll have to wait until the next one. And as for my voice, I really struggle to speak off the cuff, so the reason it seems calm is because I've scripted every word. It makes the video take longer to produce, but I think it allows my arguments to come across much better, so it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. Maybe in the future I'll get better at non-scripted content.
I love mystery dungeon but i truly believe it belongs in the pixel art style much more so than the main series games. The stiff 3D models essentially doing the same animations as 2D sprites would like jumping up and down twice quickly just doesnt feel right and lacks the charm of the classics.
That story... all these years later, I *still* hear Arceus and every other Pokemon telling me, repeating to me, "Don't give up" and it fills my eyes with tears. Since I last played the game, I *died* and came back. And I still hear them telling me to not give up. I love that game as much now as I ever did and I'd *love* to see a remake of it on a current gen system.
I think you're the first person I've ever seen who couldn't get into explorers but still like Super and even Gates. Granted I didn't play much of those two due to not having access to them, but with how universally praised explorers and the original rescue team games were, it's definitely an odd feeling lmao
I appreciate how nuanced your analysis is. I've always debated on if I prefer Super or Sky as my favourite mystery dungeon game, both have their strengths and weaknesses, but it's frustrating when people are really black and white over which one is better. I also love how much focus was on the world building and casual elements of the story, but wished you'd mentioned the music or aesthetics of some of the locations because they're a huge part of the game's composition. Still a very enjoyable video :)
Thanks! I wish I'd remembered to mention the music as well, because it is also one of the reasons I love this game so much. PSMD is always in my VGM music to listen to.
tysm fur making this video, pmd has been a lifelong fav series in gaming to me largely due to its unabashed, shamelessly goofy and softhearted good-naturedness, which feels like a panacea to teh cynisism and jadedness so prevalent in current popular culture in so much of society. blows my mind seeing you only have 990 subs, im here to stay, friend! PLUR it up!!
I loved the school section and it always bummed me out to see people rag on it because it imo juxtaposed the latter halfs craziness so perfectly! I adored collecting every Pokemon and all the touches to earlier series, 100% this game was a joy!! Also hearing the OST again gave me some feels, the volcano theme is soooooo good ❤
I love this game, one of the most standout things for me is how much love and care they put into the postgame. Every Pokemon you recruit has its own quest to go on, and legendaries have their own special boss fights. It really felt like a love letter to the series when it came out because they put *every* Pokemon in. The sense of exploration felt by trying to find the Pokemon you want to recruit on the web or unlocking new dungeons on a far off continent is awesome too.
I definitely agree with the criticisms of the final section of the story. But I do actually have a LOT of appreciation for the ending because of a specific way I read it. Or at least, a little bit of it since everything would be WAY too long. It's not perfect. But I do love it. I almost like to think Dark Matter only shows up later because it parallels all the negative emotions building up without anyone even knowing, and then crashing down on them ALL at once. Almost no one shows any signs themselves because Dark Matter takes on the brunt of just about ALL of it. And it's too much for them to handle. So they resort to destroying the source, being everyone. Which will also destroy themselves, considering everyone is the only reason they exist. A line that really interested me was "This world WANTS to collide with the sun!" We're all aware of how excessive negative emotions can lead to VERY self destructive behaviors. Considering Dark Matter takes on what the world feels, they assume this is what the world wants. Kinda edgy reading yeah, but it is one way I interpret it. Definitely not perfect either. I'd say more but this is long enough. 😅
I like this interpretation, and that it differentiates itself from what Gates was doing. I think what would make it work better for me is if there was some major character in the game who bottled up their negative emotions only for it blow up on them later. It would help make a thematic through-line to the game that I feel isn't as strong as it could be.
@@AurumAlex64 Yeah exactly. I feel like the ONLY moment we got that showed any of this AT ALL was the partner's break down. Through that usual positive demeanor of there's was an isolation that ate away at them. Which was ALSO the only moment dark matter was foreshadowed.
@@djroscurro9859 Krookodile was a character I thought they could've easily done this with. If you visit him before leaving missions in Lively Town, he's always grumbling about how much he hates the world. Which is really interesting, but they don't really go into details, then he gets turned to stone and we don't hear anything from him again.
@@djroscurro9859 There is actually a cute story of him cleaning up his act, getting a job delivering, and getting a crush with his employer (a Miltank), so that's pretty neat. I still think he could've been utilized better in the main game.
FINALLY THE ACTUAL BEST POKÉMON GAME IS GETTING ATTENTION! Like it’s got everything: great soundtrack, great story, has decent challenge, still has the best gameplay loop in the Mystery Dungeon series, has a lot of content, etc. I really hope this game gains a modding community, I’d love to play a version with the gen 7+ Pokemon added.
@@AurumAlex64 Yeah, every single year Pokémon day rolls around I hope that we get that new gen 7+ PMD announcement, but in the meantime, I’m more than glad to play Super.
The partner theme of Super feels super nostalgic. I think I was like... 17 or so when I played Super for the first time, and yet I still felt "have I heard this music before?" There's just something about it that feels like friendship.
I grew up playing rescue team, playes eos when it came out and only skipped gates in the entire franchise. I have every reason to join the crowd shouting eos as the greatest part of the series, if only out of nostalgia alone. But I absolutely disagree. Super is by far my favourite and its especially for the school section just like you said. It really understood what being part of a community of pokemon would mean and I love it dearly for that. The plot twist had me on the edge of my seat and I felt like they were specifically made for older fans of the series as well. It's insanely underrated Absolute banger of a video
I find it interesting that all of the good things you listed about Super Mystery Dungeon are the same reasons why I tout the PokéPark games. I adore playing a Pokémon game with no humans and Pokémon that are just... living their lives. You can befriend every single Pokémon in each game and it's never just through battling - you solve tons of puzzles, too. Your partners (in 2, at least iirc) have their own backstories and character arcs and it's all just.... fun.
Yes, I've heard PokéPark (especially 2) are very good games in that regard. I'm not sure why I've never played them before, but I should get around to it at some point.
I have grown up with mystery dungeon and at 27 years of aga now I still will always put them as my favorite pokemon games. Great video and great games!
Explorers of Time / Sky / Darkness is the best entry by far. Everything the later games in the series do well originates here, with the greatest execution. The mundane day-to-day takes up the entire first half of the game, followed up with a non-stop thrill-ride. Instead of Super's late-game grandiosity, the trek to the end of the world is desolate, lonely and tragic. Otherwise props for the video, it might be the first good video essay I've seen on the series, apart from the music ones. And for using Road to Primeval Forest as BGM.
You hit the nail on the head with why the ending infodump doesn't work. In all the previous games, you learn that you'll disappear before the final dungeon, which gives you time to process it. Super, meanwhile, seems like it's subverting expectations for the sake of it, and I still don't get what the point of undoing the Beheeyem twist was.
I would like you to play Explorers, but ironically, so you can better talk about Gates. Gates had major gameplay issues, but it's characters are the best written in the series with actual growth and development (especially when you compare it to anyone in the Wigglytuff guild in explorers, all of which are cardboard cutouts with catchphrases). Paradise gave you stuff to do outside of missions or while waiting for the story to progress, it made the first steps to ditch whatever the hell the grindy IQ system was and apply more broad skills (too bad the difficulty didn't justify it). How it handled the leaving scene was far better than the first two, which paved that mindset for super. Visually stunning dungeons. I absolutely love the shocking dark tone of it all. It's a game about hope, but one that makes the point of hope's importance in times of despair. Or rather, even suggesting hope cannot exist without despair. Some of the most heavy lines and scenes happen in that game and despite it's flaws, it's such a shame that people skip over it or go into it wanting to hate it. It deserves a highlight over Explorers. Explorers has been done to death. (And just so we're clear, I like Explorers. But I like it in the same way I like Fallout New Vegas: good game, not remotely the perfect experience people biasedly claim it is, and the obsessive behavior over it often drags the fanbase down a bit.)
More people need to be talking about how good Super mystery dungeon was so I'm very glad this extreemy well done video exists and you've convinced me to give Gates to infinity another try I was like you and just kindof stopped playing it for some reason on my first couple attempts. If you're considering going back to try Explorers of Time I HIGHLY recommend going with Explorers of Sky instead it has all the same content and more both in gameplay and story plus quality of life stuff and bonus chapters that flesh out the cast and world more and add extra closure. EoS is the PMD Fan favourite when it comes to narrative for good reason and is still my absolute favourite Pokémon story.
Super is like... my second favorite videogame of all times. My favorite pmd game, also, even though I played all of the others in order as they released, so it does say a lot that I wasn't biased towards thinking everything that came after explorers was bad. I'm so happy to see that there's more people out there that instead of complaining about Super's first half, praises it. That was actually my favorite part of the game, it just... felt so good. It was living your second life as a pokemon, seeing those characters in situations that bring you back to your childhood (it really made me feel nostalgic) and just getting to experience such a colorful and beautiful world... It was perfect. And if that wasn't enough, you get to the second half of the game and turns out this game also has a deep dark story (or rather setting, since gates' story is actually darker than this) like explorers?? For me, this was the definitive pokemon game. Sure, this game has some problems like the ones you mentioned + the human being a bit useless to the plot in the end + the postgame being really lacking, but the rest is so enjoyable that I've already beaten this game 4 times and I'm going for the fifth. And don't get me started on the music. It's my favorite soundtrack from any videogame to the point it has shaped my own style. There will never be a game that makes me feel so alive than this one. Great video btw :)
Super is also my favorite PMD game, and you hit the nail on the head. I've been trying to include it in some PMD-centric stories I craft for that reason-it really is just peak. Also, I'm a big fan of your music. Keep up the great work!
Ya know, you've kind of sold me on trying out Super Mystery Dungeon sometime. ALL I ever hear about this game is how much it sucks that you get stuck in school for so long. But maybe that just makes everything worth it in the end. Plus the rest of the game sounds frankly dope.
Awesome vid! I've played them all, but I've been considering giving GTI and Super a second go, since I don't feel like I clicked with them as well as I could've. Sky was my first as a kid, and its one that I've replayed too many times to count. It really is just a special game, and I know you'll love it. I recommend Sky over the others because of the bonus special episodes you can play for side stories. The 5th, though, is less of a side-story, and more of an epilogue that runs parallel to the end of the main story. It's very special, and makes me cry for sure. Also keep in mind that the end of the main story is barely halfway through the entire story of Explorers! The postgame is massive. I hope we get to hear your thoughts once you get through it!
Having discovered Gates when the demo released as a kid, and playing it to then forgetting about Pokémon as a whole later, to then rediscovering PMD in middle school again through Super was surreal Super was my first full playthrough of any PMD game and I've played it about 6 times now, I know the ins and outs and all the intricate details and reasons behind every action in the story. I just get too excited if someone brings it up because I know I can add something and I still want to be known for the game in some way, that's how much it means to me. Thank you for making a video for the game, and I'm genuinely surprised it's gotten as much attention as it has. People might have disdain for it because of playing the 2D games first, but it doesn't change the fact that it's still one of the best Pokémon games out there
I honestly can't even describe how I feel about Super. I absolutely adore it, starting by me being able to play as a Fennekin, but it honestly has one of my favourite, if not my favourite stories in Pokémon ever. It is such a great time just living in this little village and becoming an actual part of this community, and later sneaking out at night to persue greater things. Even though I see some iddues with the finale now, thank's to this video, I especially like the conclusion of accepting the darkness within instead of banishing it. I can't remember, because it was so long ago, but I think gates didn#t have the same conclusion, and was more in favour of destroying the darkness, but I could be wrong. I really appreciate someone highlighting most of the things I love about this game, especially since the Pokémon community has a very big "new thing bad" mentality, and while I can't recall people being particularly negative about super mystery dungeon, I don't remember seing much praise either.
I think Explorers tends to hog the conversation about Mystery Dungeon, but I think there's a lot of good things to say about the other entries as well, so that's one of the reasons I wanted to make this video in the first place.
ahh... super mystery dungeon. i haven't heard that name in years. this video came to me on my recommended out of nowhere. i hadn't interacted with mystery dungeon content in quite a while, but i thought i'd watch it to relive some nostalgia. after i watched this video, i was reminded of just how much i love this game. all those years ago, picking up a copy and playing it for the first time, i daresay it changed my life. it had to have been one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life because it was just so relatable! (in the beginning at least...) i believe it was the last game to which i cried. five years ago was the last time i cried tears of joy. and honestly, i wish i could experience something similar again. maybe i should pick up from the post-game, maybe that holds more fun for me! i won't know until i try! thank you for reintroducing me to this game. this video highlights everything i adored as well as everything i hated. while the dungeon crawling was a bit tedious, it paid off because in the end, i was able to defeat dark matter. i gained skill so that i could successfully play. successfully play to enjoy the heartwarming story that has me smiling to this day. cycling back to my adoration for everything. i can't explain enough why this game makes me feel so much because not even i know! i'll return... and this time i won't forget the reviver seeds. ❤
Honestly my favourite will still be explorers of sky, it was a masterpiece of the series, but I still REALLY liked all the games! I never had issues with the storylines or enjoyment of the games. Was I sad about selection and wanted to be a vulpix forever? Sure. Did I enjoy the stories? Yes! And I think the switch remake of the team blue and red were wonderful too!
In a weird way I’m glad that you didn’t play Explorers of Sky before playing Super because you would’ve seen the plot twist a mile away lol. I really enjoyed this review, especially since the gameplay in Super improved so much from said game and deserves more love!
I've been a huge PMD fan since Red and Blue, and while Explorers was my favorite story-wise, I felt like they were only getting better in terms of gameplay up thru Gates. I got Super on day 1 and... promptly put it down. That was so long ago now that I don't even really _know_ what I didn't like about it. Maybe it was the lesser emphasis on expedition teams, maybe it was vastly different approach to recruitment, or maybe it was just burn-out after having spent hundreds of hours in Gates. It's sat in the back of my mind all these years, but I've only ever heard negative things about it. This is the first convincing argument I've seen for why I should maybe go pick it back up and give it another chance. Possibly convincing in a way that wouldn't have been nearly a decade ago. Time to see what I've been missing this whole time.
Wow that's how you know you're a real fan. You love the series, and you've yet to even play the one pretty universally regarded as the the best I really hope it gets the dx treatment soon
I had completely forgotten how special these games are until I saw this video. I have so many fond memories of playing every Mystery Dungeon game. It's such a charming and unique pokemon experience in its own right. Also I don't think you've mentioned this, but the soundtrack of every Mystery Dungeon version is also very much noteworthy and iconic. Thank you for rekindling my appreciation for these games
You no longer need to tell me to play Explorers of Sky. I have done so, here's the video: ruclips.net/video/KptNQoqG4qE/видео.html
On the subject of "is pokemon scifi", remember that even in Gen 1 and 2 they have aliens, teleportation, time travel, and can convert animals into data and vice versa, but are also only just putting up radio towers for the first time xD
Yeah, the technological divide is kind of strange, even in the Mystery Dungeon series. Like, on the one hand, the connection orb seems to be this wireless device that can instantly connect with people across the globe, but then the most sophisticated technology in Serene Village seems to be houses made out of wood planks. I think it works, though, I like the aesthetic of the world overall.
I also think the franchise has become increasingly more sci-fi since around Gen 6 as well, what with Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire introducing alternative universes and Gen 7 having the Ultra Beasts. It's funny, because I don't think most people see Pokémon as a sci-fi franchise, but I would say it absolutely is.
@AurumAlex64 I've always had the headcanon that PMD world basically has magic and the Pokemon just uses item like orbs and wands as magiteck devices (what witht the Connection Orb like you said, plus looplets that use emera in dungeons, etc).
That would make sense, considering things like the barrier of the spring water definitely gives off "magiteck" vibes
I think the pokemon human world is like that cuz of pokemon legends. Objects like rotom appliances get sent back in time with space time distortions + they have electric pokemon, so people end up reverse engineering technology rather than building it from scratch
Pokemon is definitely sci-fi. Maybe not in the vein that people tend to think of sci-fi, certainly leaning more towards the science fantasy angle, but I would definitely class it as sci-fi.
I can't tell you how many times I've seen people criticize this game for the school section, yet here you are praising it. It's _super_ refreshing!
The school section is awesome. I wish more Pokémon games were willing to do things like that and weren't in a rush to get to the "good" stuff.
That's actually one of my major criticisms with newer Pokemon games and latter Mystery Dungeon games, the beginning areas feel far too hand-holding. Sometimes it's better to drop oneself into the world unadvised. But I do find this take very unique and it was a great argument in the video essay.
@@Axecon1 I occasionally do video addendums to my essays, basically shorter videos where I talk about a topic tangentially related to the essay at hand, and the one next week is exactly about why I love these kinds of long, hand-holdy intros. Maybe I'll convince you :)
@@AurumAlex64 I'm sorry, I'm really enjoying the video, but this is the worst take possible. These intros can exist, and they have merit in existing, but being unskippable and mandatory are objectively awful design decisions and are things that every mod/rom hack and quality of life update makes away with on their first opportunity, and they do so for a reason.
@@AzureTheSky Oh, to be clear, when I talk about hand-holdy intros, I'm not talking about unskippable cutscenes or forced tutorials. I'm moreso talking about games which hold back central mechanics or have an extremely heavy story-focused intro. One of the examples I don't directly bring up but show in the video is Dragon Quest VII, where it takes about 3 hours to get to any real combat (and it takes 20 hours to unlock the main mechanic of jobs). The focus of those first 3 hours isn't overlong tutorials, it's setting up the world and story, at the almost complete expense of the gameplay. And I think that choice is ultimately a net positive for the game.
I should also mention that my perspective is mostly from the story angle. I think when these intros are done well, they have a tremendous impact on the narrative of the game that games which rush through the beginning often lack. So I like when games give that extra time, even if they aren't that much "fun" to play in the moment.
"It's even complete with random strangers who attack you for no discernable reason."
Love that.
While Dark Matter is similar to Bittercold, I think the key difference between them is the kind of negativity that formed them, Bittercold's was more malicious (like when the Pawniard tricked Dunsparce or when Gurdurr deceived you and your partner) while Dark Matter's was more mundane (literally anytime someone got angry or jealous for any reason ever, THAT mundane). This affected how they needed to be defeated: Bittercold was done by spreading positivity, trust and hope, while Dark Matter was by accepting those emotions as part of you, when it's defeated it even says "thank you" for accepting it, the game is basically telling you that the best way to deal with these emotions and thoughts is to accept them as part of you, not hating them or even yourself because it'll just make things worse, it's why Dark Matter has a voice, to make it feel like a person (just destroying Dark Matter with force makes it come back in the future but much more powerful) and I appreciate this message, I like how the power of friendship and hope isn't enough this time.
Can you tell I adore this game? But just in case it's not clear, I absolutely ADORE this game
I like this reading between the two games. I think my issue is that I don't feel Super does a great job getting across why Dark Matter has risen again until the literal last second. The Partner claims that we weren't able to beat Dark Matter the first time because they didn't understand they needed to accept it rather than just beat it up. That makes sense, but I think this should be reflected throughout the game. Like, we never see a character who tries to ignore all their negative emotions so they don't have to deal with it, only for that plan to end up backfiring on them because, well... you can't just bottle up your problems like that. They get sort of close with Krookodile, but he's shuffled off right at the final third. If there were an ongoing storyline of this sort throughout the game, it would build a clear thematic parallel to what Super is trying to do, and the difference is I think Gates does do this.
I would also argue Gates does kind of get at the sort of "mundane" negativity as well. Kyurem has his great speech where he says: "The shadow of hopelessness and despair that darkens their view of the future.... The negativity of each and every one of those Pokémon stagnated and spiraled.... While no one paid any heed, it swelled greater and greater until at last.... The Bittercold was born." Kyurem makes clear that the Bittercold didn't come about because of nefarious intentions, but because people simply didn't care. They didn't care about their friends, they didn't care about their neighbors, they didn't care about making the world a better place. I feel like Gates is suggesting the Bittercold was born from apathy rather than malice.
@@AurumAlex64 I'd say Super deliberately didn't want to show the "evil" building up because it really was bit by bit over a long time (likely thousands of years as they refer to Mew's era as ancient), extremely minor things adding up but as in Dark Matter forming, not pokémon's relationships growing worse over time like in Gates. All of this because, in my interpretation, Dark Matter was about our INNER struggles with our own flaws (which most of us deal with alone and tend to hide, maybe could be a reason why the story doesn't show it), while the Bittercold was about the distrust BETWEEN Pokémon and loss of hope caused by acts like the deceiving done by Gurdurr and Pawniard. It's a bit tough writing down all my thoughts here, specially with english not being my 1st language and me having way too many thoughts on these two silly games lol
And to clarify, most of what I said really is just my interpretation on what we were given and not some sort of canon I created in my head, I'm kinda just trying to fill in some gaps as both games fail to state things 100% clear, more so Super but Gates also fails a bit, which might be good, it lets you fill the holes it leaves, could be why I enjoy these two stories more than Sky's
@@lucasferro6050 Ah, that difference of "inner" vs. "between" makes a lot more sense! I think that sums up the differences between the two games pretty well.
I was going to say that Dark Matter formed out of the negativity of ancient Pokémon, while Bittercold is more recent and thus represents current negative feelings more, but your point is actually much better. Well thought out!
As someone who has thought more about the difference between the Bittercold and Dark Matter than they probably should, I really like this interpretation.
Dark Matter being much more sentient than the Bittercold always threw me off when trying to think of them as sharing a universe (which was probably not the way they thought when making Super). I ended up coming to the explaination that Bittercold is much more composed of feelings like apathy and the lack of empathy, with the need for change not being acknowledged causing its physical form to be solid and cold. Meanwhile Dark Matter was built from so many different societies and situations that its form ended up being less clear, only having a solid form when in the world it pulls you into to fight. Dark Matter creating a hard shell could also be symbolic for how it was segragated and locked away from everything else.
Their cores are also very simmilar, so I think that them being formed from a simmilar process is plausible.
So basically the Bittercold was formed from who and what we see in Gates, while Dark Matter was formed from millenia of emotional racism.
Super I think manages to do something special with it's post game story too. It really makes you feel alone. Your one loyal friend is gone, and with that comes a big difficulty spike, and if you go to train up, your met with a mechanic that many have shown their distaste for... Other pokemon have their own lives. Helping that sad Riolu that helped them once get their Fennekin friend back isn't always their first priority, While you're connected, you're still little more than kind strangers to them. And so as you deal with the loss of your best friend, the world keeps moving not caring in the slightest about how alone you feel or the struggles you're going through.
Or rather, just as you have struggles, they have struggles too. Part of friendship is understanding that your life isn't more important than theirs.
Did you choose riolu as character and Fennekin as partner?
Me too! this duality of a physical attacker and a special attacker is very good :)
Also unlike other Mystery Dungeon games. Your partner doesn’t exactly follow you but instead, they walk alongside you. Usually they just walk behind you in towns. But Super has them walk to the side of you in town. This is because they’re more important than ever. It’s such a cute detail that didn’t need to be there, but it’s there nonetheless.
Oh, I hadn't noticed that before. That's actually really neat.
i find it fascinating that you’ve played through all the mystery dungeon games but haven’t even cracked the surface of Explorers. that one truly is so rich and genuinely awe-inspiring at some moments. i hope you’re planning on experiencing it soon, it’s so so worth it
There's no way I can take this video serious if they didn't even finish the main story of Explorers.
@@king_eziel This was one of the few times I was so glad I came down to the comments in the middle of the video.
I'm leaning towards that sentiment. Having played Super myself, it was ok, definitely not bad, but Explorers is still peak.
To be fair, hearing that he dropped the game 2h in, he might have gotten stuck at Mt. Bristle and I wouldn't blame him. No chance to train before it so you are at quite a low level, huge chance of losing your starting items which are fairly powerful and useful (scarfs), stab quick attacks everywhere from 2 spaces far and you faint in 2 hits at that level meaning if you approach them you might die... It can feel rng-heavy for such an early point in the game.
@@VilasNil It's difficult, but not drop-the-game difficult; children with minimal strategic skill have beaten the game. If you can't get past that, then idk how you can review a series you cannot keep up with.
@@awastedcow Okay so I rarely comment on.....really anything online and I definitely don't make long comments like this, but I cannot count the number of times I've booted up my DS Lite Explorers and played the Explorers games from beginning to end over the years. I'm in my late 20's and Generation 4 was my childhood. Explorers of Time, Darkness, and Sky are all I need in regards to the PMD series (and yes, I've got all 3 games). Never really sat down and got through the 1st PMD (idk why though, I've tried in the past a couple of times but I just couldn't get into it, despite knowing how great of a game it is).
Gates to Infinity I heard was okay, but as for Super Mystery Dungeon, I've heard horror stories about it (and witnessed them too). Both my best mate from Highschool and my Fiancé have SMD and it infuriated my Fiancé and just flat out made my best mate rage quit multiple times. Their biggest complaints were how unnecessarily difficult it was. You can only recruit ONE of each Pokémon in the game, Everyone's HP Stat was cut in half (Ex: in PMD Explorers of Time, Darkness, and Sky. My partner is Empoleon who's Above level 70 and has over 200HP. Meanwhile my Fiancé's Empoleon had barely above 100 HP, maybe 110 or so, and her Empoleon was almost the same level as mine, maybe 5 levels off or so.), while you explore a dungeon, wild Pokémon can KO each other and EVOLVE, and some other things that have faded from my memory. The only good/cool thing I can think of from this game was the twist ending where you don't dissapear, but your PARTNER dissapears and you have to now go on a quest to bring him back.
The worst part of it all, the story just wasn't good. By itself it's......alright, but compared to Gen 2 PMD, it's just........bad..............like REALLY BAD. The final boss was a complete let down too (It was just some weird shadowy sphere thing that was obnoxious to beat, just flat out forgettable). When I first beat Explorers of Time nearly 20 years ago, I literally cried. PMD2 as a whole is one of the very few games to exist that come close to pure perfection. The characters, gameplay, story, visuals, and that AMAZING SOUNDTRACK, ALL OF IT I LOVE!!! The only other game that I hold in such high regard is Terraria.
Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon came out right as Game Freak and the Pokémon Company as a whole started putting less effort into the games. Heck, you could see the signs as early as Generation 6. Gen 6 was fine, until you got to the end of the game and found out that the Elite Four AND the League Champion's entire Pokémon teams were 10 Levels lower than your team or more, even if you didn't do any grinding or go out of your way to fight every single trainer. Mega Evolutions were an awesome idea and I, like many others, were excited to see what new Mega Evolutions would come from Gen 7. Instead we got "Alolan Forms" and Z moves. Then when the train which is properly known as Sword and Shied came out, you had Dynamax and Gigantamax which were just a half baked fusion of Mega Evolutions and Z moves. The overall difficulty of the games have dropped significantly over the years as well. I seriously don't understand why Game Freak doesn't give us a Difficulty Toggle like nearly every other game does, or even let us make multiple save fines instead of just ONE!!!
Like I said, I'm in my late 20's and I started out with Generation 4 (both the main line games along with the side games and spin offs) and I went backward and played the earlier generations and loved them. Generation 1 - 5 is peak Pokémon. Gen 6 is alright, but after that, it all started going down hill very fast and I hate to see that happen to a franchise I held near and dear to my heart. Last year I got Cassette Beasts on Steam close to the holidays and for almost 2 months I could not put the game down. It reminded me of what I loved about the Monster Taming genre so much and added new things that made it fresh, fun, but fairly challenging. Hell, it's one of the extremely few games that I went out of my way to do a 100% run, including all of the Steam Achievements.
I'm not gonna judge this dude or talk smack about him for making a video of his favorite game. If the dude enjoys it, then at the end of the day, that's all that matters. I grew up with Mega Man X Command Mission and replayed the living heck out of it over the years, and that game is not even close to being the best RPG ever (the game sold roughly 0.3 millions copies world wide, that's how much of a flop it was). But despite all of it's flaws, I still love the characters, music, and gameplay to death. So if this guy loves Super Mystery Dungeon then that's A-OK. Also if AurumAlex, if ya happen to read this, PLEASE go back and play PMD2 from the very beginning all the was to the end of post game (preferably Explorers of Sky since it has all the content from Time and Darkness plus a lot of extras) if you haven't already. I guarantee that you will love it dude.
"720 Pokémon, the total number of Pokémon from the first 6 generations"
Volcanion found dead in a ditch
God that ending with partner.. I played all mystery dungeons so when it came I had expected it.. but then the twist just stabbed me in the stomach
Yeah, it is a pretty neat twist, it got me good my first playthrough
That's the point of the twist, and I love it
I'd gotten so used to leaving at the end that I was in absolute denial.
The fact that the partner didn't come back until after a few dungeons too was brutal (though I think it was a bit empty in terms of plot, as I got through that part of the postgame in only an hour of a few solo dungeons. The random memory loss plus timeskip at the end of it was jarring too, took me a while to understand what was happening.)
The school premise is so underrated. It made me more attached to my “classmates” and my town, its more simple and chill and it made the stakes so much emotional. Plus the fact that this is the last game with mega evolution made it the perfect mystery dungeon game for me. I also loved the characterization of my partner.
some people complain about the pacing being slow in that portion, but I'd have been happy if the entire game was that pace, I never felt I cared as much for the expedition guild (even ampharos who shows up a bit earlier) because by that point it's like a railroad into chaos real fast. It'd have been better if there were more episodic adventures with the world getting increasingly empty and desolate before the abyssal badlands arc.
It made sense for me to go to school. It makes sense you learn about dungeon mechanics there. Plus all the reasons you said.
The school aspect was one of my favourite parts of Pokemon Ranger Shadows of Almia. I actually cared about my classmates and who they were as people. Guardian signs quickly lost me.
Have you played Mystery Dungeon DX at all? It's pretty much post-game, but Mega Evolution is possible in there as well
I think it should be noted from the beginning your character is perceived to be a child by other Pokemon and your character is somewhat surprised by this revelation. This implies that they think themselves as being older and honestly they do act more mature.
That's something that I really liked in Super versus the other Mystery Dungeon games because as someone who played the previous ones as a kid, it felt like this one grew with it's audience (something that I wish the Pokémon mainline series would try out more often).
Honestly, I hope you give Explorers of Sky a spin. As a kid it was my first Mystery Dungeon game and it's story quite literally changed my life.
To this day I can hear one specific song from the ost and just feel the exact emotions they wanted out of it from remembering the story segment it plays in. I'm only being vague to simply not spoil anything.
Don't Ever Forget? Memories Returned? In the Morning Sun?
don't forget about the bonus episodes you get for getting farther into the main story
EoS is so _good._ I thought it might've been a little overrated since some people can get a little obnoxious over liking it. I've seen people praise it while trashing PSMD. I started playing it a while ago and it became my favorite game, beating out Xenoblade X.
My first MD was explorers of darkness when i was a kid. I finished it in the span of a year just cause I didn't want to end. I still had to finish it but man was it a Rollercoaster.
It's now in my top 5 among persona and xenoblade
The fact that several songs come into my head with the scenes/emotions attached to them truly shows how wonderful this game and its soundtrack really is. The beach scene with the bubbles, crossing the ocean on lapras, seeing your first time gear, let alone some of the more spoilery scenes, these are all ingrained in me
You know it's refreshing to hear someone actually liking Super AND Gates despite what most of PMD fandom have to say about them. Anyways, you are spot on with your analysis and pretty much convey what I most find endearing about this silly little spin-off of one of the most successful media franchises on Earth lol.
Keep on the good work, mate, and consider me one of your new subscribers! I hope there will be more from you, especially in regards to PMD.
P.S. Would love for you to share some love for Gates as well. Despite its flaws, that game deserves better.
P.P.S. Also, I hope you will play Explorers of Sky soon and make a video on it. It's the fandom's darling for many reasons.
I really, really like Gates as well. When I was collecting footage of Gates for this video, I just started sitting there and watching the scenes play out longer than I needed to, and I said to myself, "Wow. The character work in this game was pretty great." It also doesn't get enough credit for being a 3D Pokémon game on a handheld before X and Y (though I'm pretty sure Rumble Blast also came out before Gates).
There was a stylistic choice from gates onwards that I just couldn’t reconcile. I mean this is a world in which all pokemon are fully sapient, and capable of speaking perfect English, forming diverse communities and constructing towns and even cities…. So why do they say their own species name every other sentence?
Gates doesn’t deserve any more love than it already gets. Game is the worst one in the series
@@davidwaxter66 To think Gates is worse than Rescue is deranged. Bad. I'm getting my spray bottle.
I think Gates has a very strong story, but the gameplay is probably the least interesting in the series, IMO, and that makes me hesitant to revisit it.
Farming Stairway Wands for Arceus's Final Dungeon.
This is the only game where Regigigas is actually good since you can nullify it's ability.
I've legit used Regigigas in PSMD because of how insane it is. Unless you get criminally bad luck and spawn in a monster house, you can just take like 5 steps or go to a wonder tile, and even if you spawn in a monster house, more likely than not, you'll have other party members to take care of it for the first few turns.
Arceus is the only Pokémon in the game whom I haven't recruited, because I don't feel I have the patience for it.
@wikiuser92 It's not hard.
Get a Loopet that allows you to avoid traps. And get Good Emeras that boost powers and stats. Only bring one teammate. And make sure to hoard at least 80 stairway wands. Regigigas is great.
The part of Super that really got me was that it makes you feel like you've lived a full life by the end. The school is childhood, the guild is early adulthood, the end of the game is middle-aged, and post-game is retirement.
Yess!
I cannot tell you how much it means to me that you were able put into words what's so good about this game, that I have not been able to in uh... (looks at calendar) 4 whole years. All that stuff about mundanity and single mindedness and such is so incredibly spot-on
I hadn't replayed the game since it released, and it held up so well. It's got such a good sense of humor too. I think I've convinced myself this in my top 10 games of all time.
@@AurumAlex64honestly psmd is one of three games tied for all-time favorite for me
One of the biggest things that makes me like a game is its soundtrack, so I’m only slightly disappointed that you didn’t mention how incredible psmd’s is
@@byakudora Agreed. I listen to PSMD's music on the regular.
I grew up with the Explorers games, but nostalgia aside, I agree that Super Mystery Dungeon is by far the best in the series.
Explorors of Sky, though!
It's so refreshing to hear someone praise this game and put words to the reasons why this game resonated with me so much as a teenager. This game was my introduction to the mystery dungeon universe, and despite all the praise for explorers I still can't help but just care about this game so much more, and all I ever hear about the game is complaints about it being after gates. The world really does go above and beyond, but it feels like it gets the short end of the stick solely because it came out after gates. It feels so unfair to the game that people write it off thanks to its predecessor's reputation, especially when it does so much to build on almost everything the previous games had to offer.
In short, thank you for putting words to the feelings I've had issues explaining for 8 years. It's so nice to hear someone vocally praise this game besides myself for the what I think is the first time I've heard.
Glad you like the video! I've always had a soft spot for this game. It's too bad it gets criticism for being after Gates, especially because Gates... isn't bad? I've really never understood the dislike for either entry, to be honest.
While I never played Mystery Dungeon beyond the Rescue Team demo, I know well that “Fire Island Volcano” from Super MD serves as an excellent example of the kind of music that video games may incubate “Yeah, didgeridoo intro then pound those drums to set the tone that this is a tropical volcano, now travel to the opposite side of the globe in Ireland! Yes, the Australian Aboriginals and Irish Celts, what do they share? Hatred of the British!”
Fire Island Volcano is an instant playlist addition. I love Ancient Barrow as well
@@AurumAlex64This game has so many good songs. Fire Island Volcano like you both say, Lush Forest, Noe Town (best town theme out of the extra continents for me), both of the Tree of Life theme, Final Boss - Phase 1 and 2; especially 2, etc. I could go on and on, btw, I always loved the jukebox in this game and Explorers, it's so cute. Wish we can get them back someday. Bonus: throw in the Partnet's Theme as well because of course you do that.
I am stunned that you bounced off of Sky, because Sky was absolutely the one that sucked me in BIG time. It's been a long time, though - it may have a much slower start than I remember - but where the story goes is immensely memorable and honestly I didn't find myself resonating with a Mystery Dungeon game as well UNTIL Super Mystery Dungeon. I do remember the context of your character being human not coming up until later in the game in Sky and Red/Blue, so the contrast of the school in Super DOES make sense for why it's a stronger initial hook.
Super is criminally underrated.
Its the second best mystery dungeon behind explorers
I agree with you!
I played the Rescue Team DX and still don't get the appeal. I didn't have the nostalgia factor either but felt the gameplay was still a too bit clunky.
I feel like it gets hit by what i like to call “sticker star syndrom” where people who have never played the game just lump it in with gates to infinity (I dont hate gates as much as most people do mind you but i do think its the worst entry in the series)
@@diamondmasterandwillythecatit is the best mystery dungeon game in front of explorers
Completely agree, I loved the game from start to finish, and thought the school section was a super wholesome intro. The soundtrack is absolutely amazing too (looking at you Fire Island Volcano and Echoes of the Mystical Forest).
Super Mystery dungeon was much more difficult than its predecessors imo
Agreed, some of the later dungeons were a bit of a struggle
Yeah. It felt so rewarding conquering so many dungeons, but some were still beyond me. To this day, I've yet to even attempt to reach Arceus to complete my Connection Orb.
I always saw the school section as more of a prologue, to get you attached to your partner and flesh them out a little before the stakes rise to real levels, unlike something like rescue team where your partner just randomly has an entire house he can give to you.
Yep, I also like that in Gates we had to literally find someone to get our house built. That's a fun early-game conflict to have.
I had recently finished the main story and epilouge of this game and it's become one of my favorite games. One thing I felt you could have put more emphasis on in the video is your partner compared to previous games. The partner has more depth then any other game, and it really pays off by the end.
Yes, I really love the Partner in this game. I also really like their relationship with Carracosta too. Like the scene where the Partner can't bear to see their dad turned to stone was great, and it's the kind of scene only Super could do.
This game essentially turns the partner into the main character with a destiny they must fulfill, while you are the partner. And I like that. Nothing really encapsulates this better than the climax with the Dark Matter battle and them trying to reach a flying tree with hardcore parkour.
I still love the living shit out of Super Mystery Dungeon to this day, and am sad my 3DS has bit the dust so I can't really go back to it easily (At least, without going down the piracy route for something I already own). It does a damn good job at making the world feel alive - and it did something that I hated at first but grew to love. It forced me out of my comfort zone in regards to progressing with the game and forced the story to keep moving. I despise the hell out of time limits and going at someone else's set pace usually, but something about how this game did it made me enjoy the story all the more. It wasn't a case of the story only moves on when you're ready - you're thrown into the thick of it whether you like it or not, and whether you're prepared or not. It forces you to think on your feet a lot more, and use all the resources at your disposal while also making the threat of Dark Matter all the more real. It's actively trying to destroy the planet, and no - you don't have time for sidequests.
I still long for a new Mystery Dungeon - not another rehash, but an actual proper entry into the series bringing in the new mons. You could do so much with 3 more generations of Pokemon and all the new mechanics - Eternamax a Whalord that has a town living on its back and a mystery dungeon in its belly. Have a region where Pokemon are naturally Terrastialized - but fall sick when they venture too far out, so you have to find a cure or workaround when you and your partner suddenly Terrastialize as well. Bring in Z-Rings and have there be a chain of missions where you're trying to figure out how Z-Moves work and how to do the dances. Make a government that is trying to use Mega Evolution to start a war and seize control - causing the other major regions to fight back with their own gimmicks. There's so many possibilities on mechanics alone - let alone the hundreds of new Pokemon to throw in.
It's such a shame that such a great series is sitting and collecting dust at this point - I hope that Nintendo gets their ducks in a row and makes a new Mystery Dungeon for Gen 10, since I doubt it would happen for 9 at this point.
Yeah, there are so many possibilities for a new PMD. I'm sure we'll get another one eventually, but I don't think it'll be any time soon, unfortunately.
[28:42] HOLY CRAP, this brought back memories! Extremely vivid memories of me using this EXACT strategy, in this EXACT dungeon!
For those who don't know, "Sand Dune of Spirits" is a postgame/epilogue dungeon where you're only allowed to bring the protagonist on your first playthrough. However, unless you do a lot of grinding beforehand, you'll most likely run into the issue that the player character is _too weak_ to reliably fight through all of this dungeon's enemies all on their lonesome, especially if you picked a Pokémon that has a type disadvantage here. However, there's another solution: _avoiding fights at all costs._ If you've stockpiled enough Stayway/Warp Wands and other tools, you can potentially just spam those to force any nearby enemies to a random part of the floor and/or prevent them from chasing you, allowing you to focus exclusively on finding the stairs. Even though it's only 10 floors, I recall my first run through this dungeon being very tense as I was constantly weighing risk/reward and managing both my HP and my resources.
This was the most memorable PMD dungeon I EVER played, because it made me fundamentally overhaul my strategy to get through it!
if i had to choose something that represents my childhood, it's this exact game. The music, the characters, the amount of times i struggled in the dungeons cause ive never playes these types before and my 12 year old self screaming in victory when i reached Arceus at the very end. I could replay it for the rest of my life and be happy with it, there was always something new to see. (Also, the plottwists were INSANE for little me, kept me hooked all times)
I really hope we get a new Mystery Dungeon some day. Eight years is a long time!
That's how I feel about Explorers. I'm glad you could have a similar experience.
Thank you for agreeing that Super was genuinely underrated, I can't agree enough-
I love Super, but one thing I'm absolutely bummed over is that... with them bringing back all the regions, and the perfecting of the gameplay, and the callbacks and fanservice, I fear it means that the game is essentially a love letter and goodbye to the series.
Especially with no new game (DX hardly counts) for such a long time...
Though the addition of a continent previously unseen other than the main one may mean that if they were to make another game, it would be on the Sand continent.
In hindsight, it does feel like they might've known this was their last hurrah, at least for a while. But I'm hopeful that one day....
This is a great video! You really hit the nail on the head for why Super in particularly drew me in, even as a fan of the main series. As much as I like Explorers of Sky, Super just was always more enjoyable to me by a pretty large margin, and I’m glad to see other people understand where I’m coming from.
Nintendo cooks when they emphasize story.
>I much prefer the average Xenoblade story to the average Final Fantasy story, it’s not even close. Xenoblade’s emotional narrative, enriched characters, and consistent storyline with only a single retcon (and it was on a character design losing a key in DE).
>Fire Emblem doesn’t always hit on the story, but when they do, it is absolutely 🔥. Though in Three Houses, it’s mainly 2 out of the routes that are excellent (not Black Eagles)
>Zelda when there’s good story is high art. Majora’s Mask is so layered.
>Mother 3’s social commentary deserves its place with core literature.
>Super Paper Mario made me cry, and has actually inspired a certain western animated series I wish the interview was still up for.
Let Nintendo writers cook!
I think Nintendo also cooks with their comedy too. Bowser's Inside Story is genuinely hilarious, and (maybe controversially), I think Color Splash is almost just as good in that regard
I still remember my first time picking up and playing PSMD. I first started with Gates and completed it, thoroughly enjoying it the whole way through. After that, I picked up Explorers of Sky and enjoyed it even more. These games just clicked with me. To this day, Explorers of Sky is still my number 1 favorite game of all time. So, when PSMD came around, I jumped on it, ready to sink my teeth into another PMD experience.
But, I never got past the school section of the game. I lost motivation and put the game down for several years. At the time, I blamed the intro for being absurdly slow, and not giving me what I wanted, which was, to create an exploration team and go on missions, just like Explorers. I eventually did get back to the game a couple years later and reach the credits, and thank goodness I did, because the second half was right up my alley. Finally, I made it to Lively Town and the game can actually start. It was awesome. I'm not exactly a completionist, so I just stopped there once I beat it and moved on to the next game.
Thinking back about the reasons why I stopped playing on my first playthrough, I really think if I had just gone in with the right mindset of what this game was going to be like, I would've completed it for sure. All I cared about was just getting to the exciting part. I didn't want to go to school in game, I played games to avoid thinking about school. I didn't want to play a kid. Now that a lot of time has passed and my gaming tastes have changed, I feel I've started to enjoy the little things that games like PSMD provide, and more importantly, what games like Pokemon SV lack. I'd always check in on Doduo running around Lively Town, along with the other NPCs, meanwhile SV doesn't even give us houses to enter anymore.
I totally agree that if this game came out in 2024, the reception would be a lot different. However, that doesn't change the fact that 15 year-old me couldn't stand the glacially slow intro section and just went back to playing Explorers of Sky in protest. You truly never know what you have until you've lost it...
PSMD clicked with me immediately. I played it when I was about the same age as you, so it's interesting in the difference in our reactions. I think there was something just kooky enough about the idea of Pokémon going to health class every morning that made me want to see it through. It helps that the dialogue is also pretty witty for a Pokémon game. I think there's just something deeply adorable about this game that I can't quite put my finger on, but it makes PSMD very inviting to revisit.
This was such a great take! Honestly, I still prefer the Explorers games as I found the plot to be the most engaging. But PSMD was still incredible! I loved the characters, the environments, the story, etc! And while many dislike the elementary school part, I loved how it got me invested in the other characters. I wish that we got even more of that in Explorers with the guild members. I wanted to go on missions with Sunflora, Loudred, Corphish, etc. And while EoS developed that more with the extra stories, it still didn’t quite satiate me. Getting to traverse the Ancient Barrow with Goomy, Deerling, and Espurr was so much fun! And then the dark matter world with the entire exploration society? Those experiences wouldn’t have been an option in the first two installments of the series!
Overall, this was such an amazing game and I really hope Spike Chunsoft gives us another original game in the future. It’d be insane if they some how managed to naturally incorporate all 1,000+ mons into it. Idk how they would, but hey, it’s not the craziest thing they’ve done! Point is, the PMD series is my favorite part of Pokemon and I really wish more people understood what makes it great. Thanks for such an awesome video!
I loved this video. I was genuinely shocked when I saw how small your channel was for the quality you've put into this. I hope you grow, my friend. +1 Sub.
The release date in my country for Super was exactly on my birthday, i had school that day but I'd play it whenever could and finished the main story in just 4 days, probably thanks to my neordivergent hyper focus.
My school days were rough and confusing as i wasn't very happy, my neurodivergent brain didn't help with school work unfortunately, but being able to know almost every time how much of every item i needed to safely finish the dungeon made me feel not so incompetent.
Explorers will always be my favorite as that game helped me realize i wanted to be a writer so that I'd be able to make others feel the same way i did playing it, but Super helped me through a rough time and I'll always be thankful for it.
I personally prefer Super, but seeing someone respect both is still something I can very much respect back.
I still have my copy and my 3DS, and I go back to it regularly. Hard to believe there hasn't been a new PMD game since, aside from the Rescue Team remakes
It has been a disgustingly long time, I'd be really interested in seeing what they could do with a new game. We have 3 entire generations worth of new material to work with!
12:50 What I like about things like this is that it doesn't assume you to be an all powerful hero, even ignoring being a kid, this scene shows just a standard level of competence once should get from a leader, Everyone else is much more experienced, Archen and Bunnelby have moves with good type matchups, and the only pokemon on the expedition society that has a weakness is Mawile who is second in command, it only makes sense that Buizel who has super effective moves and resistances would be tasked with ensuring the safety of new recruits.
Agreed with everything here. For some reason, I find Pokémon being very competent and considerate at their jobs to be adorable, it's difficult to explain.
Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon is, without a bunch, my favourite Pokémon game of all time! The story is so surprisingly incredible and interesting, and the characters are so compelling. I adore all of the MC and Partners schoolmates, and the entire Expedition Society.
With Super Mystery Dungeon as a Mystery Dungeon Fan, I started it but ended up dropping it early on, only starting over and playing through the main story only a few years ago. I think my overall opinion is I enjoy the gameplay loop, especially with Emeras adding something fun to collect, and the story was good, but could have been a lot better. I think my biggest problem is not that the opening act with school was too long (at it was enjoyable), but that it took up half the storytime of Super, when I feel like it should have been something like the first third/quarter of the game, allowing both the guild and main story sections to have time to build up.
I felt it a bit difficult to get attached to the guild side of the story due to how fast it goes into the main story of the stone Pokemon, fighting Entei and then going up Revelation Mountain only to be stuck in the shadow realm and losing nearly the entire guild. Like the shadow realm plotline would have worked really well, if we had a more slow build up throughout the guild section getting to know the characters and the tasks of the guild helping out in more small scale rescue missions, like rescuing a Pokemon or defeating a Criminal. It goes too fast into main story, which that doesn't have time to breathe either, with the villain group not being well defined in motives due to mind control and the stakes ramp up way too quickly with involving nearly every legendary Pokemon available (that wasn't turned to stone) to defeat a non-pokemon entity, which was much better executed in Gates to Infinity.
If the story had more time to develop and dungeons to explore during the second half, I would probably have this game's main story a lot more, but overall I think it just ends up being the weakest story of the Mystery Dungeon series for me. at least the ending gave me laugh when I named my partner Pokemon Fennekin "Light", causing one of the lines to be "The Light" "Light!" when the partner Pokemon was going away.
I think an expanded Expedition Society would be better as well. I do like the school stuff, so I'd probably prefer to just make the main story a little longer (maybe take some time away from the postgame) to give the Society that extra stuff.
As someone who's played and loved Rescue Team and Explorers, I love this video. It really encapsulates everything I love about Mystery Dungeon and offers some fresh perspective on the discourse surrounding newer generations without doing the two things every Pokémon video essay - retreading old ground and over-summarizing. There's actual, tangible analysis, breakdown, and defensible conclusions, along with a healthy amount of review and personal experience. But there is one small, glaring issue - in a video about an overlooked game that loves plot twists and reveals, you neglect to put a spoiler warning on revealing the Mystery Dungeon's mysteries. I really feel like you could have gotten the points you wanted to across and had a good foundation for your arguments, even if you just glossed over those elements. Like I said at the beginning, as someone who had only played the first two generations of PMD, I was really looking forward to hearing about someone's passion for what they believe is a game that deserves more and is the pinnacle of a massive series. Yet now I feel like that critical element of a playthrough of a (somewhat "underground" or "niche") game has been taken. I want to make one thing clear - I think this video and the argument it presents is very well-crafted, digestible, and appealing, and it's changed my view on PSMD. Because of this video, I have a genuine interest in seeking out PSMD (and GtI) to see if they really are the masterpieces the rest of the Mystery Dungeon community neglects. Still, I think you could've done so without prematurely peeling back the curtain.
I apologize if this comment comes across as confrontational or aggressive, that was not my intention in the slightest. I'm just someone who adores Pokémon, the Mystery Dungeon series, and well-made video essays, and this piece of work has given me a lot to think about. I only wanted to express that, along with my frustration over what I believe is the sole flaw on an otherwise excellent, convincing argument.
Note: this entire comment is rendered null and void if it turns out you only scratched the surface of PSMD's twists/reveals LMAO
I 100% Super as well! Not having to deal with awful recruit rng actually gives you a feeling of
Yeah, this is possible to complete.
i played this game as my first mystery dungeon and i found painful explorers, the reason this game is so good in my opinion is because the gameplay is fluid, other games are so slow and unbalanced, if you ever play explorers again, don't do the last dungeons, you'll find a monster room and get discharg'd by every porygon ever all at once and die, also super can be 100%, for other games because of the different recruiting method you will never have every mon recruited, heck, arceus is just not in explorers for some reason (even if having keckleon as a near impossible catch that recquires the maximum recruiting odds just to have a 0.1% chance of recruiting is genius) also super being the last original mystery dungeon game is painful, it was in 2015, 10 years ago please spike chunsoft do somethingggggg (also the only point nobody criticizes and for a reason is the ost, god damn dark mater 2's ost hits harder than 252+spatk chi yu with overheat specs under sun
Yep, though I liked all the mystery dungeons I've played, I suspect Super will be the only one I 100% exactly because of the recruitment method. And the OST does indeed slap.
29:14 I have been personally attacked!
I sunk so many hours into this game to optimize my efficiency and accomplish ludicrous feats of precise execution!
Fine with your opinions otherwise but Age of Calamity did NOT deserve that stray.
Ha, while I will admit to not personally loving Age of Calamity, I was moreso trying to point out that the critical reception seems inconsistent; if you're gonna dock points for mystery dungeon being repetitive, I think there's a lot of games that should also have much lower critic scores. It could've been a lot of games really, Age of Calamity is for some reason the first one that came into my head
@@AurumAlex64To add my 2 cents on this point as well, I'd argue that it's not the repetitiveness that is the problem, plenty of games are really repetitive with the gameplay loop afterall. It's what you do with it during the gameplay loop that decides whether it's the fun kind of the repetitive, or the boring kind. Afterall, Left 4 Dead 1/2 are incredibly repetitive when you look at it. You start in a group 4 going from point A to point B, and you shoot zombies along the way, rinse and repeat until the finale where usually you have to hold down the fort for a bit 'til rescue comes. Yet, that game gets praised to hell and back because of the what happens in the journey from A and B. We can derive that from Super too. What sets Super gameplay apart from the other games in the PMD series to me is how they implemented more gameplay to the traditional dungeom crawl all its predecessors did. Super changes a lot what didn't work in the previous games while also adding lots of little things that just makes dungeoneering fun and engaging (i.e. the looplet and emera system is a great way to keep you engaged, the fact that you can assume direct control of your party, albeit limited compared to DX, is a godsend. Plus you can push Pokemon around, great for dealing with Monster Houses).
Thank you for this video!! Finally some Super Mystery Dungeon positivity! Fun fact, in Japanese and other localisations, it is called… Mega Mystery Dungeon, eh. Resource management is probably the best way to describe the gameplay, yeah! It’s why I’ve always loved the games. I am very close to 100% Super, I just find the system very encouraging. I really appreciated the difficulty in the game too. I vastly prefer short but difficult dungeons to dungeons that are just… 40-99 floors for the sake of it.
Explorers of Sky was my first and only game in the series. I have so much to say about it now after like 12 years, but I wont rant. It was one of the first games I owned that made me cry for the characters loss and turmoil to save their future. It's very melancholic to know that the best time to enjoy these deep stories has already passed for me, rhe emotion just isnt as strong now as an adult.
As someone who played explorers as a kid and it stuck with them, I can say you should really experience super for yourself. Or should have. I played super for the first time 15 years after explorers and it hit the same notes. If anything the perspective of leaving childhood and innocence makes super hit harder as an adult.
YES!!!! I haven't even watched this video yet, but I already love it. This is my favourite game in the series, and people are SO critical of it, but it's SO good! Yes it's got some problems, but it delivers on some incredible moments. I can't wait to hear what you have to say about it!
My only gripe with Super Mystery Dungeon is the story pacing. The gameplay and overall plot are great, but personally I find the original games to be better pacing wise
Freaking FINALLY some Super Mystery Dungeon love! Honestly so tired of seeing people call it bad. It's EXTREMELY underrated, and I'm glad you've put some words on why it's so good. ❤
Amen to this. Explorers is not bad, but I'm sick and tired of people gushing about it all the time without giving Super as much as a chance.
@@wikiuser92 Yeah, I love EoS, but it's honestly a bit tedious to get through nowadays. I appreciate some of the more modern features Super has.
Play explorers of sky, its my favorite, it has spindas cafe and other extra content compared to the other explorers games. The ost and Treasure town specifically always comfort me
I loved this game when l got it. The way l got my copy of super was ironically from my school as in, my school asked what we wanted for Christmas. (40 dollar limit) my teacher given it to me, l will treasure this game forever.
Dang, I wish my school gave us Christmas presents. That was very nice of your teacher, though!
It was so nice to see someone praise a game I hold so dear to me. I remember I only watched one trailer to this game before it came out and bought it about a couple years after it had launched (Sun and Moon had launched by that point) I had previously played Gates back then, but it was my only mystery dungeon game. I had such a wonderful time with the story and the gameplay and I grew immensely attached to these characters. I also think the connection orb is the best implementation of the recruitment system in all franchise.
Anyways, your video was amazing. It reminded me why I love this game and it's world building so much. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this game. It's my favorite Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game :)
What I don't like is that you are basically unable to play as other pokemons like it was possible in the first Mystery Dungeon, you are also unable to truly create a full team because all the pokemon you recruit will have long set of days where they are unavailable after using them; I understand that maybe it's realistic, but that doesn't make it fun, it makes having a full team thats not just you and your companion impossible. I also miss the mechanic of the first Mystery Dungeon where you could after the story fully ditch your starter pokemon for another one fully, it made it so you could play as whatever pokemon you wanted, even legendaries.
super is such a cozy vibe
THIS IS WHAT IVE BEEN SAYING THE WHOLE TIME BRUH. This is literally my favorite Pokemon game of all time and one of my favorite games ever.
My biggest memory of this game is the moment that you get one of those "Yes or No, but we all know the plot won't change" prompts about running away from your home town... And I genuinely am thinking "Running away is the right choice, because the villains know I live here, and I cannot put it past this game to set my hometown on fire." Not many JRPGs have the audacity to get you in that mindset, especially not when you do know that the choices don't actually matter.
I also appreciate that the protagonist in this game has some *really* sassy dialogue options. You get to really lay into people sometimes, and it's great.
Im a 100 pokemon away from getting the 720 on the game with almost 70 hours played, this definetly became my favorite Pokemon game (and DAMN I loved the story of the game, all of it)
The only two times a video game has made me cry, is the end of Explorers of Sky, and the school cast seeing me off in Super Mystery Dungeon. These games were the greatest~
You brought up something I never considered about why I like this game, the slice of life side of things. I run a pokemon tabletop united game, I really focus on trying to give things a slice of life aspect the gym leaders have lives outside the gym, the pokemon league is regulated and most trainers have people to check in with and they have there own lives, the evil team don't wait for the party to show up if they are in one city and you guys go the other way they damn well are going to keep going and finish what they re doing while you are elsewhere.
The older I get, the more important the smaller stuff is to me. I ran into a subreddit once that was a bunch of people recounting stories as if they were staff working in a Pokémon Center. So one story would be like, "a trainer yelled at me after I suggested they polish their steel type," or something like that. I just thought that was a really neat idea, and it's the kind of low-view perspective the series seems totally bereft of on occasion.
Wow! I totally agree with a lot of this video, and I think this definitely changed my mind a little on Super. I'm definitely more of a casual gamer, so Infinity is definitely still my favorite due to the easiness. But the atmosphere and mundane parts of Super are some of my favorite. Even though it was a slog, then I enjoyed the slower parts of Super when I played it. The slow pace, and general story kinda reminds me of Persona 3 or 4 to be honest. Persona definitely has more happen in it's first seven hours in comparison. But sometimes instead of crawling in Tartarus and grinding my party. I like learning about Persona's World and doing the social links, and not even because of the stat benefits. It's because I like exploring the map, and learning more about my friends that I make. Persona 3's social links are definitely my favorite. And there's less slow moments like that in Persona 5, which sometimes makes the story feel really rushed. I'm glad the Mystery Dungeons I've played haven't had that problem so far. I do wish the characters of Super were as fleshed out as Gates, since I didn't grow a super close connection to a lot of the school children, or even the Rescue Expedition. But otherwise, other than the bone crushing difficulty, I still really enjoyed my time with Super. And even though the story again, I think still wasn't as great as Gates when it comes to plot themes. But I still love the appreciation for life and stuff. Those two games remind me of Persona three yet again. As you can tell, I really like that game. XD
I still have to play more games, I'm currently stuck on Rescue Team DX, but I think I'm just bad. I'd really like to see another game like Super or Gates atmosphere wise though. The maps don't need to be huge, and the story doesn't even need to be as big or grand as most of the Mystery Dungeon games. Just a smaller scope game, with characters that are STRONG would easily become my favorite one in the whole series. But again, I really liked this video! I really hope you continue making video essays like this one, you did an amazing job with the editing. And your voice was very calm, and easy to understand. My voice is always rambling, so I've never really attempted to make a video essay due to that issue. XD Keep up the great work. ^^
Glad you enjoyed! It would be neat if PMD explored more of the social aspect of the world, sort of like Persona does. I suppose we'll have to wait until the next one.
And as for my voice, I really struggle to speak off the cuff, so the reason it seems calm is because I've scripted every word. It makes the video take longer to produce, but I think it allows my arguments to come across much better, so it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. Maybe in the future I'll get better at non-scripted content.
I’m really glad they focused on the partner Pokémon for Super and the main character just kinda feels like taking the backseat most of the game
I love mystery dungeon but i truly believe it belongs in the pixel art style much more so than the main series games. The stiff 3D models essentially doing the same animations as 2D sprites would like jumping up and down twice quickly just doesnt feel right and lacks the charm of the classics.
I agree some of the models can look strange, but the portraits are the most important part for me. As long as they keep those around, I'll be happy.
That story... all these years later, I *still* hear Arceus and every other Pokemon telling me, repeating to me, "Don't give up" and it fills my eyes with tears. Since I last played the game, I *died* and came back. And I still hear them telling me to not give up. I love that game as much now as I ever did and I'd *love* to see a remake of it on a current gen system.
Honestly, I would take any new PMD related stuff at this point. It's been too long.
It's incredibly close, but I still think I like Explorer's of time/darkness/sky a little more. But they are the only two games that made me cry
I think you're the first person I've ever seen who couldn't get into explorers but still like Super and even Gates. Granted I didn't play much of those two due to not having access to them, but with how universally praised explorers and the original rescue team games were, it's definitely an odd feeling lmao
I appreciate how nuanced your analysis is. I've always debated on if I prefer Super or Sky as my favourite mystery dungeon game, both have their strengths and weaknesses, but it's frustrating when people are really black and white over which one is better. I also love how much focus was on the world building and casual elements of the story, but wished you'd mentioned the music or aesthetics of some of the locations because they're a huge part of the game's composition. Still a very enjoyable video :)
Thanks! I wish I'd remembered to mention the music as well, because it is also one of the reasons I love this game so much. PSMD is always in my VGM music to listen to.
tysm fur making this video, pmd has been a lifelong fav series in gaming to me largely due to its unabashed, shamelessly goofy and softhearted good-naturedness, which feels like a panacea to teh cynisism and jadedness so prevalent in current popular culture in so much of society. blows my mind seeing you only have 990 subs, im here to stay, friend! PLUR it up!!
When you talk about the appeal of Pokémon it reminds me of the Detective Pikachu movie and why I loved it
I loved the school section and it always bummed me out to see people rag on it because it imo juxtaposed the latter halfs craziness so perfectly! I adored collecting every Pokemon and all the touches to earlier series, 100% this game was a joy!! Also hearing the OST again gave me some feels, the volcano theme is soooooo good ❤
Thank you for making me realize that there's more fun to the school section than it just featuring my favorite Pokemon as an important character!
I love this game, one of the most standout things for me is how much love and care they put into the postgame. Every Pokemon you recruit has its own quest to go on, and legendaries have their own special boss fights. It really felt like a love letter to the series when it came out because they put *every* Pokemon in. The sense of exploration felt by trying to find the Pokemon you want to recruit on the web or unlocking new dungeons on a far off continent is awesome too.
Super is such a good time. Replaying it for this video desperately makes me want another with Gen 7+ stuff.
I definitely agree with the criticisms of the final section of the story. But I do actually have a LOT of appreciation for the ending because of a specific way I read it. Or at least, a little bit of it since everything would be WAY too long. It's not perfect. But I do love it.
I almost like to think Dark Matter only shows up later because it parallels all the negative emotions building up without anyone even knowing, and then crashing down on them ALL at once.
Almost no one shows any signs themselves because Dark Matter takes on the brunt of just about ALL of it. And it's too much for them to handle.
So they resort to destroying the source, being everyone. Which will also destroy themselves, considering everyone is the only reason they exist.
A line that really interested me was "This world WANTS to collide with the sun!" We're all aware of how excessive negative emotions can lead to VERY self destructive behaviors. Considering Dark Matter takes on what the world feels, they assume this is what the world wants.
Kinda edgy reading yeah, but it is one way I interpret it. Definitely not perfect either. I'd say more but this is long enough. 😅
I like this interpretation, and that it differentiates itself from what Gates was doing. I think what would make it work better for me is if there was some major character in the game who bottled up their negative emotions only for it blow up on them later. It would help make a thematic through-line to the game that I feel isn't as strong as it could be.
@@AurumAlex64 Yeah exactly. I feel like the ONLY moment we got that showed any of this AT ALL was the partner's break down. Through that usual positive demeanor of there's was an isolation that ate away at them. Which was ALSO the only moment dark matter was foreshadowed.
@@djroscurro9859 Krookodile was a character I thought they could've easily done this with. If you visit him before leaving missions in Lively Town, he's always grumbling about how much he hates the world. Which is really interesting, but they don't really go into details, then he gets turned to stone and we don't hear anything from him again.
@@AurumAlex64 I really wish they elaborated on Krookodile more in the post game at least, if they really weren't able to in the main story.
@@djroscurro9859 There is actually a cute story of him cleaning up his act, getting a job delivering, and getting a crush with his employer (a Miltank), so that's pretty neat. I still think he could've been utilized better in the main game.
FINALLY THE ACTUAL BEST POKÉMON GAME IS GETTING ATTENTION!
Like it’s got everything: great soundtrack, great story, has decent challenge, still has the best gameplay loop in the Mystery Dungeon series, has a lot of content, etc.
I really hope this game gains a modding community, I’d love to play a version with the gen 7+ Pokemon added.
It's a really fantastic game. I hope we eventually get a new PMD with gen 7+ Pokémon, but that's gonna be a while it looks like.
@@AurumAlex64 Yeah, every single year Pokémon day rolls around I hope that we get that new gen 7+ PMD announcement, but in the meantime, I’m more than glad to play Super.
The partner theme of Super feels super nostalgic. I think I was like... 17 or so when I played Super for the first time, and yet I still felt "have I heard this music before?"
There's just something about it that feels like friendship.
I grew up playing rescue team, playes eos when it came out and only skipped gates in the entire franchise.
I have every reason to join the crowd shouting eos as the greatest part of the series, if only out of nostalgia alone.
But I absolutely disagree. Super is by far my favourite and its especially for the school section just like you said.
It really understood what being part of a community of pokemon would mean and I love it dearly for that. The plot twist had me on the edge of my seat and I felt like they were specifically made for older fans of the series as well. It's insanely underrated
Absolute banger of a video
I find it interesting that all of the good things you listed about Super Mystery Dungeon are the same reasons why I tout the PokéPark games. I adore playing a Pokémon game with no humans and Pokémon that are just... living their lives. You can befriend every single Pokémon in each game and it's never just through battling - you solve tons of puzzles, too. Your partners (in 2, at least iirc) have their own backstories and character arcs and it's all just.... fun.
Yes, I've heard PokéPark (especially 2) are very good games in that regard. I'm not sure why I've never played them before, but I should get around to it at some point.
I have grown up with mystery dungeon and at 27 years of aga now I still will always put them as my favorite pokemon games. Great video and great games!
I fell in love with Mystery Dungeon. My parents got Blue Rescue Team for Christmas that year and I was hooked
Explorers of Time / Sky / Darkness is the best entry by far. Everything the later games in the series do well originates here, with the greatest execution. The mundane day-to-day takes up the entire first half of the game, followed up with a non-stop thrill-ride. Instead of Super's late-game grandiosity, the trek to the end of the world is desolate, lonely and tragic. Otherwise props for the video, it might be the first good video essay I've seen on the series, apart from the music ones. And for using Road to Primeval Forest as BGM.
Thanks! Looking forward to playing through Sky for the first time!
You hit the nail on the head with why the ending infodump doesn't work. In all the previous games, you learn that you'll disappear before the final dungeon, which gives you time to process it. Super, meanwhile, seems like it's subverting expectations for the sake of it, and I still don't get what the point of undoing the Beheeyem twist was.
I would like you to play Explorers, but ironically, so you can better talk about Gates.
Gates had major gameplay issues, but it's characters are the best written in the series with actual growth and development (especially when you compare it to anyone in the Wigglytuff guild in explorers, all of which are cardboard cutouts with catchphrases). Paradise gave you stuff to do outside of missions or while waiting for the story to progress, it made the first steps to ditch whatever the hell the grindy IQ system was and apply more broad skills (too bad the difficulty didn't justify it). How it handled the leaving scene was far better than the first two, which paved that mindset for super. Visually stunning dungeons.
I absolutely love the shocking dark tone of it all. It's a game about hope, but one that makes the point of hope's importance in times of despair. Or rather, even suggesting hope cannot exist without despair. Some of the most heavy lines and scenes happen in that game and despite it's flaws, it's such a shame that people skip over it or go into it wanting to hate it.
It deserves a highlight over Explorers. Explorers has been done to death.
(And just so we're clear, I like Explorers. But I like it in the same way I like Fallout New Vegas: good game, not remotely the perfect experience people biasedly claim it is, and the obsessive behavior over it often drags the fanbase down a bit.)
More people need to be talking about how good Super mystery dungeon was so I'm very glad this extreemy well done video exists and you've convinced me to give Gates to infinity another try I was like you and just kindof stopped playing it for some reason on my first couple attempts.
If you're considering going back to try Explorers of Time I HIGHLY recommend going with Explorers of Sky instead it has all the same content and more both in gameplay and story plus quality of life stuff and bonus chapters that flesh out the cast and world more and add extra closure. EoS is the PMD Fan favourite when it comes to narrative for good reason and is still my absolute favourite Pokémon story.
Super is like... my second favorite videogame of all times. My favorite pmd game, also, even though I played all of the others in order as they released, so it does say a lot that I wasn't biased towards thinking everything that came after explorers was bad. I'm so happy to see that there's more people out there that instead of complaining about Super's first half, praises it. That was actually my favorite part of the game, it just... felt so good. It was living your second life as a pokemon, seeing those characters in situations that bring you back to your childhood (it really made me feel nostalgic) and just getting to experience such a colorful and beautiful world... It was perfect.
And if that wasn't enough, you get to the second half of the game and turns out this game also has a deep dark story (or rather setting, since gates' story is actually darker than this) like explorers?? For me, this was the definitive pokemon game. Sure, this game has some problems like the ones you mentioned + the human being a bit useless to the plot in the end + the postgame being really lacking, but the rest is so enjoyable that I've already beaten this game 4 times and I'm going for the fifth. And don't get me started on the music. It's my favorite soundtrack from any videogame to the point it has shaped my own style. There will never be a game that makes me feel so alive than this one.
Great video btw :)
Glad I was able to verbalize some of your feelings about the game! Super's in my top 10 video games as well.
Super is also my favorite PMD game, and you hit the nail on the head. I've been trying to include it in some PMD-centric stories I craft for that reason-it really is just peak.
Also, I'm a big fan of your music. Keep up the great work!
@@mythicalmew6054 Omg, thank you so much!! ^^
Ya know, you've kind of sold me on trying out Super Mystery Dungeon sometime. ALL I ever hear about this game is how much it sucks that you get stuck in school for so long. But maybe that just makes everything worth it in the end. Plus the rest of the game sounds frankly dope.
Awesome vid! I've played them all, but I've been considering giving GTI and Super a second go, since I don't feel like I clicked with them as well as I could've. Sky was my first as a kid, and its one that I've replayed too many times to count. It really is just a special game, and I know you'll love it. I recommend Sky over the others because of the bonus special episodes you can play for side stories. The 5th, though, is less of a side-story, and more of an epilogue that runs parallel to the end of the main story. It's very special, and makes me cry for sure. Also keep in mind that the end of the main story is barely halfway through the entire story of Explorers! The postgame is massive. I hope we get to hear your thoughts once you get through it!
Having discovered Gates when the demo released as a kid, and playing it to then forgetting about Pokémon as a whole later, to then rediscovering PMD in middle school again through Super was surreal
Super was my first full playthrough of any PMD game and I've played it about 6 times now, I know the ins and outs and all the intricate details and reasons behind every action in the story. I just get too excited if someone brings it up because I know I can add something and I still want to be known for the game in some way, that's how much it means to me.
Thank you for making a video for the game, and I'm genuinely surprised it's gotten as much attention as it has. People might have disdain for it because of playing the 2D games first, but it doesn't change the fact that it's still one of the best Pokémon games out there
I'm glad I was able to share my love for this game to so many people, I really did not expect it to blow up like this haha
This game even connects all the mystery dungeon games in One universe, Wich I love so much
I honestly can't even describe how I feel about Super. I absolutely adore it, starting by me being able to play as a Fennekin, but it honestly has one of my favourite, if not my favourite stories in Pokémon ever. It is such a great time just living in this little village and becoming an actual part of this community, and later sneaking out at night to persue greater things. Even though I see some iddues with the finale now, thank's to this video, I especially like the conclusion of accepting the darkness within instead of banishing it. I can't remember, because it was so long ago, but I think gates didn#t have the same conclusion, and was more in favour of destroying the darkness, but I could be wrong.
I really appreciate someone highlighting most of the things I love about this game, especially since the Pokémon community has a very big "new thing bad" mentality, and while I can't recall people being particularly negative about super mystery dungeon, I don't remember seing much praise either.
I think Explorers tends to hog the conversation about Mystery Dungeon, but I think there's a lot of good things to say about the other entries as well, so that's one of the reasons I wanted to make this video in the first place.
My fav one and it brings all the old ones together old and new faces to be met and recruted
Sky being my second fav
You've earned a subscription solely for talking about my current hyperfication
ahh... super mystery dungeon. i haven't heard that name in years.
this video came to me on my recommended out of nowhere. i hadn't interacted with mystery dungeon content in quite a while, but i thought i'd watch it to relive some nostalgia. after i watched this video, i was reminded of just how much i love this game. all those years ago, picking up a copy and playing it for the first time, i daresay it changed my life. it had to have been one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life because it was just so relatable! (in the beginning at least...) i believe it was the last game to which i cried. five years ago was the last time i cried tears of joy. and honestly, i wish i could experience something similar again. maybe i should pick up from the post-game, maybe that holds more fun for me! i won't know until i try!
thank you for reintroducing me to this game. this video highlights everything i adored as well as everything i hated. while the dungeon crawling was a bit tedious, it paid off because in the end, i was able to defeat dark matter. i gained skill so that i could successfully play. successfully play to enjoy the heartwarming story that has me smiling to this day. cycling back to my adoration for everything. i can't explain enough why this game makes me feel so much because not even i know! i'll return... and this time i won't forget the reviver seeds. ❤
very good video, I love watching stuff like this when I'm doing other stuff at my computer. very calming voice and very very good work!
Honestly my favourite will still be explorers of sky, it was a masterpiece of the series, but I still REALLY liked all the games! I never had issues with the storylines or enjoyment of the games. Was I sad about selection and wanted to be a vulpix forever? Sure. Did I enjoy the stories? Yes! And I think the switch remake of the team blue and red were wonderful too!
In a weird way I’m glad that you didn’t play Explorers of Sky before playing Super because you would’ve seen the plot twist a mile away lol. I really enjoyed this review, especially since the gameplay in Super improved so much from said game and deserves more love!
I've been a huge PMD fan since Red and Blue, and while Explorers was my favorite story-wise, I felt like they were only getting better in terms of gameplay up thru Gates. I got Super on day 1 and... promptly put it down. That was so long ago now that I don't even really _know_ what I didn't like about it. Maybe it was the lesser emphasis on expedition teams, maybe it was vastly different approach to recruitment, or maybe it was just burn-out after having spent hundreds of hours in Gates.
It's sat in the back of my mind all these years, but I've only ever heard negative things about it. This is the first convincing argument I've seen for why I should maybe go pick it back up and give it another chance. Possibly convincing in a way that wouldn't have been nearly a decade ago. Time to see what I've been missing this whole time.
I'm glad I sounded convincing. I hope you enjoy the game!
Mystery Dungeon games in general are in the S tier of all Pokemon media up there with Pokespe, Showdown and some fan games
Everyone praises Explorers, but yes.... super mystery dungeon was the one I owned. I played it over and over. It's my favourite mystery dungeon game.
Wow that's how you know you're a real fan. You love the series, and you've yet to even play the one pretty universally regarded as the the best
I really hope it gets the dx treatment soon
I had completely forgotten how special these games are until I saw this video. I have so many fond memories of playing every Mystery Dungeon game. It's such a charming and unique pokemon experience in its own right.
Also I don't think you've mentioned this, but the soundtrack of every Mystery Dungeon version is also very much noteworthy and iconic.
Thank you for rekindling my appreciation for these games
Thank you for the kind words! And yes, I wish I had mentioned the music too, because it's really great stuff.