Pokemon Mystery Dungeon-Explorers of Sky: Sweet slow burner

I don't like harbouring gaming grudges, all the more so if said grudge is against a game belonging to a genre I favour and if that game happens to be a spin-off of one of my favourite series. I wrote off the DS entries of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series after a disappointing experience with Blue Rescue Team, promising myself never to touch them again; but now, one and a half year later, I felt that it was time to give the DS branch of the series another chance and to try my hardest to get over that saddening grudge. I had been toying with the idea for some time and had purchased a copy of Explorers of Sky, thinking that it would be better to start again with a brand-new entry; and lately, a review of that game on The Lucky Critical gave me the boost I needed to start playing it in earnest.

And so did I. The opening quiz produced Pikachu—to my mild surprise, since I had tried hard to obtain that Pokemon in Blue Rescue Team and failed entirely. I had already played as Pikachu in my run of Gates to Infinity and wanted to try out another 'Mon, so I took the quiz a second time... And landed Pikachu again, to my utter surprise. Well, I guess it was destiny! I thus went with Pikachu and selected Skitty as my partner, because hey, I just cannot resist cats. Especially if they're kittens. I decided from the get-go that this would be a duo run because a) I didn't feel like levelling up other 'Mons and b) The Lucky Critical's review had conveniently revealed that the last dungeon had to be tackled with your partner only, so better get used to it right away! And so, I dove into action with that colourful fury duo.

After 14 hours of said action, I am literally glued to Explorers of Sky and loving it more by the hour. I certainly didn't expect that in the beginning, given how slow and unimpressive were the early stages of the game. I was not allowed to tackle more than one mission at once, which was annoying as my greatest desire was to Crawl'n'Grind. Each mission was preceded and followed by unskippable cutscenes taking place at the Guild; and although these scenes were kind of cute and helped establish a sense of belonging to the Guild, they became irritating after a while. There was an annoying mini-game that further ruined the already slow pacing, and the story consisted of fending off the attempts at stealing food perpetrated by a team of cartoonish ruffians. All that was rather vapid, and although the game was much more pleasant than Blue Rescue Team, I was not exactly glued to it. I would play only once in a while, clearing a mission or two before closing my DS and diving back into Demon Gaze.

Fortunately, this lukewarm gameplay experience was not meant to last. After a couple of hours, the story suddenly took a most interesting turn thanks to some unexpected developments, gaining a much broader scope in the process; and to my utter delight, the dungeon crawling followed suit. My crawling horizons were suddenly expanded to massive proportions, as I could tackle as many missions and dungeons as I wanted and Crawl'n'Grind to my heart's content. And Crawl'n'Grind I did, clearing all the Dojo's dungeons and tons of missions. Oh, the delight! Once I was sated, I dove back into the story, without forgetting to take a break every now and then to grind and farm useful items. After several hours of that regimen, I'm totally and desperately hooked on Explorers of Sky: although I'm nearly at the Final Boss' door, I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of the game. I want to keep gorging on crawling and grinding until I get my fill of it, and something tells me that these urges will not be sated after beating the final boss. Which is for the best, given that the game goes on after that. More crawling, yes please!

Of course, it certainly doesn't hurt either that the game looks and sounds amazing. This is a late-era DS game, and it show beautifully: the colours are splendid, the graphics bristle with exquisite details and the 'Mons detailed animations are absolutely adorable. There is a staggering graphical gap between that game and Blue Rescue Team, and it's all for the best given how primitive the latter was in that department. As for the soundtrack, it is a pure piece of ear candy with dozens of tracks in various styles, most of them being considerably more complex than what you'd expect to find in a Pokemon spin-off aimed mainly at kids.

Although I'm not done yet with my playthrough, I can safely say that the DS branch of the series has totally and beautifully redeemed itself thanks to Explorers of Sky. It has done so to such extent that I'm even considering giving another try to Blue Rescue Team, the game that started the grudge in the first place. Or former grudge, should I say, because this is now a thing of the past. The present is all about playing Explorers of Sky and enjoying it to the fullest, and you can expect more writing about that game before I'm done with it—and after, for that matter. Until then, thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!