Shrike Flamestar
Video Game Addict
I, um, "obtained" the Red version of Mysterious Dungeon and played a bit of it. I can't understand a word of it, however, through trial and error I managed to turn myself into a Cyndaquil, choose Squirtle as my partner, figured out that the first name entry dialogue is actually for your partner and not you, got to the first dungeon and messed around in the menus, managed to get though the first "dungeon" (and level up twice!), named what I can only suppose is our Rescue Force, and finally quit shortly afterwards when you get your first piece of mail, as the incomprehensible items and not knowing what four out of five of them did was finally getting to me. All I could tell was that one of the four or five I had heals your HP.
It's extremely awesome, however. One thing I greatly appreciate is that Pokemon finally have a move that can be used infinitely without worry of PP, even if you do have other attacks you can use.
Controls seem to be simple, however I can tell there's a lot I don't understand still. Your standard, non-PP move is executed with A (for Cyndaquil it's a kind of tackle); the Menu is accessed with B; special attacks are accessed by going to the menu, choosing the first option, choosing an attack from the list, and then choosing the first option in the pop up box (second seems to assign it to a shortcut, but I have no idea what that shortcut is.). From what I could tell Cyndaquil starts with a 25 PP move that looks like a tackle, a 20 PP status lowering move, and gains Smoke Screen after the first level up, I forget how much PP it has. A and B pressed together causes your Pokemon to wait a turn, allowing wild Pokemon to move while you stand still. Press R once and you can change the direction you're facing; if an enemy is right next to you the direction "line" will automatically line up to face them. L seems to do nothing, but my keys seemed to be picky today, some times I had to press "B" *cough* about five times to get the menu to open, hopefully that's my, er, "system", and not the game. Select turns the screen black, I guess it's a pause or something. Start acts the same as R. Movement in dungeons is square by square as in the previous games, however in town movement is completely free. Also, in town the only control that works is B for the Menu (and A to select/talk/use things, of course) Saving I’m not sure of, however I believe it saves when you sleep in your bed. I just got some kind of error message or something though, however the same tends to happen with Fire Fred and Leaf Green on this same “system,” if you know what I mean...
I've been thinking about how great a Pokemon Tactics game would be, and this comes very close to my vision. It's not quite the same however, from what I've tried so far, it has the potential to be tied for my favorite Pokemon game along with Ruby and Fire Red. The gameplay is just pretty much perfect from what I played, the graphics are clean and smooth, and the art that pops up when a Pokemon talks is cute and expressive (Squirtle is hilarious when it’s surprised). The music is okay, however the music in the first "dungeon" got repetitive fairly quickly.
I really only have two problems with it. The first is the map overlaying the screen can be pretty annoying. In the options menu (which is buried deep in the main menu) it can be set to off, outline (default), and an outline filled with dots. It can be very helpful to see where you've been and haven't been, so setting it to off isn't a good idea, however even the normal outline can be annoying. The dotted one is almost unbearable. If these games come out in English (and they better), it may very well be the map that forces me to get Blue.
My only other complaint is that there's TO MUCH TEXT!!!!!! From what I can see, there's no Kanji, so people with a basic, fundamental understanding of Katakana should be able to handle it fine, however I know nothing about any type of Japanese. The menus are pretty much torture. I mean, there's a few obvious things, the last entry in any menu is "back," the first in a pop up box is usually "accept/use," and so on. From there it's pretty much trial and error.
Oh, another minor annoyance are the complex menus. If I could actually understand what everything was, however, that wouldn’t be so bad.
This is the first truly original Pokemon game in a while, and the only that is able to stand with the likes of the core RPG series to me. If this doesn't come out in English I will be sorely disappointed. After all, only a few Pokemon games haven't come out in English; The original red and green versions (obscure fact, the original Japanese red and green versions had even worse graphics then the English Blue/Red. Japanese Blue was a sort of promo and pretty much the only differences between it and the original red and green were the better graphics. That Japanese Blue became the English Blue, and our English Red was never even released in Japan. At least, that's true if Nintendo Power didn't lie to me...), TCG 2 (It's a shame, I guess the first TCG didn't sell well out of Japan), and the original Stadium (Another slightly obscure fact, our Stadium 1 was Japan's Stadium 2; and our Stadium 2 was their Stadium 3. We never got the true Stadium 1)
EDIT: You can become a water starter in Red! And thus, a fire starter in Blue!!!!!!!!!!!!! I first heard about this happening on GameFAQs, and so and went to check it out for myself. Conveniently, the very first new game I tried, I was a Squritle (it's random who you will be, by the way, so you'll have to keep on reseting until you get who you want)! In this case, if it comes out in English I WILL get the Blue version now, since I guess the version merely changes which team is good and which is evil, and probably also there are some exclusive Pokemon that only pop up in one version.
It's extremely awesome, however. One thing I greatly appreciate is that Pokemon finally have a move that can be used infinitely without worry of PP, even if you do have other attacks you can use.
Controls seem to be simple, however I can tell there's a lot I don't understand still. Your standard, non-PP move is executed with A (for Cyndaquil it's a kind of tackle); the Menu is accessed with B; special attacks are accessed by going to the menu, choosing the first option, choosing an attack from the list, and then choosing the first option in the pop up box (second seems to assign it to a shortcut, but I have no idea what that shortcut is.). From what I could tell Cyndaquil starts with a 25 PP move that looks like a tackle, a 20 PP status lowering move, and gains Smoke Screen after the first level up, I forget how much PP it has. A and B pressed together causes your Pokemon to wait a turn, allowing wild Pokemon to move while you stand still. Press R once and you can change the direction you're facing; if an enemy is right next to you the direction "line" will automatically line up to face them. L seems to do nothing, but my keys seemed to be picky today, some times I had to press "B" *cough* about five times to get the menu to open, hopefully that's my, er, "system", and not the game. Select turns the screen black, I guess it's a pause or something. Start acts the same as R. Movement in dungeons is square by square as in the previous games, however in town movement is completely free. Also, in town the only control that works is B for the Menu (and A to select/talk/use things, of course) Saving I’m not sure of, however I believe it saves when you sleep in your bed. I just got some kind of error message or something though, however the same tends to happen with Fire Fred and Leaf Green on this same “system,” if you know what I mean...
I've been thinking about how great a Pokemon Tactics game would be, and this comes very close to my vision. It's not quite the same however, from what I've tried so far, it has the potential to be tied for my favorite Pokemon game along with Ruby and Fire Red. The gameplay is just pretty much perfect from what I played, the graphics are clean and smooth, and the art that pops up when a Pokemon talks is cute and expressive (Squirtle is hilarious when it’s surprised). The music is okay, however the music in the first "dungeon" got repetitive fairly quickly.
I really only have two problems with it. The first is the map overlaying the screen can be pretty annoying. In the options menu (which is buried deep in the main menu) it can be set to off, outline (default), and an outline filled with dots. It can be very helpful to see where you've been and haven't been, so setting it to off isn't a good idea, however even the normal outline can be annoying. The dotted one is almost unbearable. If these games come out in English (and they better), it may very well be the map that forces me to get Blue.
My only other complaint is that there's TO MUCH TEXT!!!!!! From what I can see, there's no Kanji, so people with a basic, fundamental understanding of Katakana should be able to handle it fine, however I know nothing about any type of Japanese. The menus are pretty much torture. I mean, there's a few obvious things, the last entry in any menu is "back," the first in a pop up box is usually "accept/use," and so on. From there it's pretty much trial and error.
Oh, another minor annoyance are the complex menus. If I could actually understand what everything was, however, that wouldn’t be so bad.
This is the first truly original Pokemon game in a while, and the only that is able to stand with the likes of the core RPG series to me. If this doesn't come out in English I will be sorely disappointed. After all, only a few Pokemon games haven't come out in English; The original red and green versions (obscure fact, the original Japanese red and green versions had even worse graphics then the English Blue/Red. Japanese Blue was a sort of promo and pretty much the only differences between it and the original red and green were the better graphics. That Japanese Blue became the English Blue, and our English Red was never even released in Japan. At least, that's true if Nintendo Power didn't lie to me...), TCG 2 (It's a shame, I guess the first TCG didn't sell well out of Japan), and the original Stadium (Another slightly obscure fact, our Stadium 1 was Japan's Stadium 2; and our Stadium 2 was their Stadium 3. We never got the true Stadium 1)
EDIT: You can become a water starter in Red! And thus, a fire starter in Blue!!!!!!!!!!!!! I first heard about this happening on GameFAQs, and so and went to check it out for myself. Conveniently, the very first new game I tried, I was a Squritle (it's random who you will be, by the way, so you'll have to keep on reseting until you get who you want)! In this case, if it comes out in English I WILL get the Blue version now, since I guess the version merely changes which team is good and which is evil, and probably also there are some exclusive Pokemon that only pop up in one version.
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