Let's Play Mystery Dungeon DX, Part 10: Death in the Sky

So the final stretch of the game starts off with a dream. But it's not Gardevoir this time, but rather Gengar! Having been absent for a while, everyone's favourite bully and rascal shows up to try and eat my dreams and give me nightmares, because Gengar wants to expose me... for some vaguely-defined reason. He rants about me being a human before, and that means I can't be a good person. Interesting mindset there, Gengar!

However, a bright glowing light shows up, and drives Gengar off in fear (and tears, as revealed later). Okay, that's a bit random! It is also a bit random because I'm trying to save the world from a meteor, I think trying to 'expose' my true nature or whatever isn't something that you should be focusing on, Gengar. But the whole point of his character is that he's petty and obsessed with reputation, so okay. 

Gardevoir appears and gives me a bunch of revelations. Turns out that my purpose was to deal with this meteor, which is a fair bit less mystical than I thought it would be. And I don't want to be too harsh on a children's video game released more than two decades ago, but there are a lot of bizarre plot holes here. Gardevoir notes that the original 'me', the human, was selected because of some quality that would allow me to save the world from the meteor. Fair enough, typical isekai stuff. But then it leads to the question of the 'human world' and 'Pokemon world' that has never really been properly explained. The Pokemon in the Mystery Dungeon world clearly know what a 'human' is, and apparently one of their key legends involves a human, a Gardevoir and a Ninetales interacting with each other. A legend that is proven to be true and no one acts surprised that it's true. So at what point did the humans and Pokemon started to diverge? 

Anyway, Gardevoir also notes that apparently, before being isekai'd, I asked the mysterious forces that isekai'd me to wipe away all my memories. Not all of them, just most of them... because clearly I know I'm a human. Just... just not my purpose. Which is handwaved as me not feeling suitable for the job, and whatever I do in the world will fill me with that confidence that I am really the chosen one or something... which, again, not the smartest thing to do because a K-Pg extinction event level meteor is incoming to the world, and also... just what did the memory loss really prove? It's honestly kind of a weird insertion of this 'chosen one' and 'isekai purpose' plot that doesn't really fit all that well. It is telling that Ginji's Rescue Team introduces a different story beat to focus on for its climax; one that's apparently only explored in the epilogue, and that's also the one that most of the people I discuss Mystery Dungeon Red/Blue with remember the most.  

Gardevoir then also explains that at the end of this purpose, after dealing with the meteor, I can return to my world... but that would also mean parting with Bulbasaur. I am sad at this, and Gardevoir talks about how she, too, has to part and be separated with someone she was once close with, but meetings and partings are just a way of life. It's at this point that Gardevoir realizes someone is spying on the dream... and that interloper, Gengar, has ran away crying. 

Yep, again, without spoiling a 20-year-old game, all of this feels like it would've made for a much stronger emotional hook than whatever that was. Oh well!

The game lets me thankfully grind in other dungeons first, which I sorely needed. Not just because of the level thing, which I also desperately need, but I just need more apples! So the meteor is nice enough to continue falling down to earth while I run around some of the previous dungeons, building up Magnemite to use in Sky Tower.

As I head into Sky Tower, Alakazam and Xatu are sitting on Xatu's peak waiting for me. They tell me that the two of them created something called the Teleport Orb... and they also had help from a very shy Ghost-type Pokemon. Aww, Gengar! I mean, he's still scum, honestly, but at least he's helping out. The teleport orb lands us... in the middle of nowhere in the sky, leading to a comical scene where Mudkip and Bulbasaur fall several dozen feet until they land onto clouds that we can walk on. Any explanations to why these clouds are walkable, One-Piece or James-and-the-Giant-Peach style? No, no real explanations. My garlic frog and mudskipper boy can just walk on it just because. 

Sky Tower itself is connected to this cloud platform, and it's a impressive... well, giant tower made of clouds! It really does have a 'J-RPG last dungeon' vibe to it. And as I enter and prepare to fight a horde of Flying-type Pokemon, the first Pokemon I meet is...

...Forretress. 

Yes. The Pokemon based on a bagworm, a type of caterpillar. And not just that, also one that's covered itself in steel, and also has a visual resemblance to mollusks. Yes. Hundreds of feet above the ground, in a remote location where only those gifted with the powers of flight can reach, my first encounter is a metallic bomb bagworm. 

You know what? I'm not even mad. It's so funny, I can't be angry at it. 

Other Pokemon on this altitude are all Flying-types or are beings that levitate. I do get that they don't want everything here to be Flying-types, hence we've got hovering ghosts like Duskull and Shuppet, or levitating Pokemon like Weezing, Sorlock and Lunatone. But Forretress? Really? 

Anyway, after being defeated the first time, I started grinding a fair bit. I have a couple dozen Makuhita dojo tickets, and I decided on the party I wanted to bring to the Sky Tower, which is Mudkip, Bulbasaur and Absol. I pump up their stats with the pile of gummis and vitamins that I've never, ever used. Maybe that's why I've been finding some parts of the game so hard, I've kind of been gimping myself by not using these as soon as I get them. A bit more grinding to stock up on berries and seeds later, and I am back up on the Sky Tower grind. 

Sky Tower stands a whopping 36 floors, and I really do like the Pokemon population as we go up. Anything that floats or has wings are fair game, so we've got Scizor, Venomoth, Claydol... not sure about the Dusclops, though. Altaria, the dragon-bird made out of clouds, is perhaps the one that's the most sensible to see around.

Perhaps the most dangerous ones to me, however, are Tropius and Flygon, who just plain hit really, really hard and infest the upper half of the dungeon. Tropius is particularly dangerous to me because I run Mudkip as my main Pokemon; while Flygons just deal a lot of area damage in general. 

Through all of this, ranged attacks are my friends. Bulbasaur has Energy Ball, and Mudkip has the glorious Ice Beam, which deals super-duper-effective damage to a lot of Pokemon like Flygon, Tropius and Salamence. Absol having Fire Blast is also great for the Scizors and Forretresses that can tank the Ice Beams. Oh, yeah, the pseudo-legendary Salamence and Metagross show up in the last couple of levels, and those are as scary as they are in the regular main games. 

And, of course, at the topmost part of the tower is... Rayquaza himself. 

And just like all the legendary birds, Rayquaza is on a 'fight first, ask questions later' mentality. His pre-boss fight banter is a rather interesting one, where Rayquaza gives this huge rant about how he has spent the last hundred thousand years in the skies, and creatures on the ground should know their place -- just like how he knows his place in the sky. A bit different for you to get on ground when you're perpetually floating, Rayquaza, but oh well. 

The fight against Rayquaza, I felt, was a fair bit easier than Groudon was. The grinding I did before Sky Tower and through Sky Tower probably helped a fair bit, but Mudkip knowing the 4x effective Ice Beam is most certainly a major factor of why it went a bit easier. 

There is a bit of a gimmick with the Rayquaza fight where sometimes some tiles light up, indicating that a massive gust of wind is about to blow through... but with two of my three party members knowing moves that can hit Rayquaza from anywhere on the battlefield, it really is just a matter of endurance, spamming Tiny Reviver Seeds and Oran Berries, and just chipping away at Rayquaza. He's also got a pretty neat special animation showing off his Hyper Beam attacks. 

Ultimately, Rayquaza falls. And just like the legendary birds, Rayquaza shows that he's not actually done yet, and he's about to charge his Hyper Beam. Before he fires, however, an earthquake -- or rather, a skyquake -- shocks everyone present. Rayquaza is a bit confused about it until Bulbasaur yells at him to look up... and there's a meteor falling down from the skies! It's a really huge meteor, too, and some angles in the cutscenes make it look like it's larger than entire mountains. 

Rayquaza forgets being an elitist about whether you're a Pokemon of the land or the sky, and decides to take aim and fire on the giant meteor. Before he does that, he tries to test Mudkip and Bulbasaur's mettle, asking if they are ready should they turn to collateral damage. Of course, being anime protagonists, Mudkip and Bulbasaur yell something to the effect that they are always ready and wouldn't have came if they didn't know the risks. Rayquaza takes aim, and launches a Hyper Beam that hits the center of the meteor. The cutscene takes a hilariously long amount of time for what's basically just cutting to and from the same shot, but I suppose they spent a lot of time modelling that meteor and wanted some mileage out of it. 

The shock waves from the meteor launch Mudkip and Bulbasaur away... and I cut off to Mudkip in a strange, white smoky plane. Mudkip immediately identify this as him being turned into a 'spirit'. Which means it's the damned afterlife. Right, rather unexpectedly in a game that still mostly plays around the PG-13 rules of Pokemon, we get to see Mudkip in purgatory, in the border between life and death. 

And as Mudkip lies there, Gengar shows up. Gengar makes a whole big deal about going kekekekeh and dragging me to the 'dark realm'. Right, dragged off to hell by a shadow ghost! I also love how my character's first response to that is 'what the heck is the dark realm'? We get a scene of Gengar dragging Mudkip along... but around halfway through, Gengar goes all frustrated and he's obviously acting, because Arceus-forbid he does something nice. Gengar then decides to just 'leave me behind', and I wake up surrounded by the supporting cast on Xatu's mountain. Bulbasaur tells me that he, too, was rescued by Gengar. 

We then get into a bit of a celebratory moment. Xatu notes how the meteor disappearing is going to make the calamities and natural disasters slowly dissipate. The supporting cast gets all happy about it, and there's a bit of a joke about everyone trying to get Lombre held in place so Blastoise could shoot him with a Hydro Pump. It feels a bit odd and a bit too long, especially since Lombre is such a flat character that I'm not sure why he's being bullied like that. 

But as I, isekai Mudkip, watches all of this going on, the ghostly spirit of Gardevoir shows up and tells me that it is time. There's a bit of a whole tearful goodbye as everyone present realizes that my body is starting to break apart and turn into fragments of light. Bulbasaur gets all sad and cries about how this wasn't what he wanted, that we promised to be a Rescue Team, and how everything wasn't supposed to be like this, and why didn't I tell him what was going on. 

As I turn into a ball of spirit-light and float up into the sky, some of the more mature characters like Alakazam and Xatu try to comfort Bulbasaur, saying that Mudkip probably feels just as sad, and there was no real way to communicate it during the adventure. They also reiterate how saving the meteor was the purpose of why I came to the Pokemon world. Most of the characters get a line or two of dialogue, although the only memorable one is Shiftry, who bemoans never really managing to thank me. 

And at that point, as my spirit floats into the sky and the rest of the world of Pokemon mourn my passing, I hear 'voices' -- of whom the game doesn't indicate who -- talking about how my friend is heartbroken, how Bulbasaur is a true friend, and perhaps someday, we'll meet again. 

Then the credits roll. It's completely just words, and I really feel this would've been a lot nicer with like even generic screenshots of the adventures that Mudkip and Bulbasaur has been. As it is, a long unskippable credits scene isn't the best thing to sit through. 

And at the end, Mudkip in the ball of light responds to the mysterious voice he's talking to, saying that he doesn't want to leave, and he wants to go back to his friend. And thus, with the wish and choice being made, the strange powers that be send the ball of light back to the Pokemon world, and I remanifest as a Mudkip in front of my house, where I'm greeted once more by Bulbasaur. 

The end! Though not really, cause the game made sure to tell me that there are a lot more post-game content to deal with, please don't leave. 

But that's it for now from me for Mystery Dungeon DX. It's been a great, fun ride. I never had the chance to play Mystery Dungeon back in the GBA/DS days, since I never managed to find the cartridge for sale; and by the time I had some savings of my own, Mystery Dungeon was nowhere to be found on the shelves. The only way I could enjoy this wacky spinoff had been through strategy guides and the Ginji's Rescue Team manga, and I've seen my friend play through some parts of the story. It's always been fascinating to me that this is a world where we cut away the human portions, and focus fully on having the Pokemon as characters, something that I genuinely didn't realize I needed until I discovered the world of Mystery Dungeon. 

That said, how do I feel about the game? Knowing a lot of the story beats already, none of the plot twists (other than that there's a final level post-Groudon) are particularly new to me, so that is something that might've influenced my opinion on this game. I would also note how grindy the game is, and the gameplay cycle really isn't something that I enjoyed anywhere as much as any of the mainline Pokemon games... or maybe I'm just an old fart now. There are also many aspects of the story where the drama just doesn't hit, particularly everything revolving the 'main mission' of me being isekai'd, who are the powers that isekai'd me, and the specific connections to the human world... 

But ultimately, those are relatively minor complaints. I did truly enjoy the chance to play through this game and the story, and while I don't think I like the gameplay enough to fully complete the post-game -- I'll probably take a crack at some of the early missions -- I am happy to say that I at least completed the main story! So yes, until next time!

Random Notes:

• I will probably do the post-game which leads up to a bunch of revelations about the Ninetales legend at some point... but not right now. I'm not the biggest fan of the Mystery Dungeon gameplay cycle and the novelty has definitely worn off. I do want to take a break from the game and work through my list of other games -- Metroid Prime and Legends of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom are two Nintendo ones I do want to get through -- and so I might do a bit of a 'post-script'. Or I might not. I haven't done one for Shining Pearl, have I?
  
• The name Gardevoir has its root words in French, so in the past couple of dreams she has been signing off with au revoir, which I thought is cute. 
• Another Pokemon that shows up in the Sky Tower is Dusclops, which... doesn't make the most sense either, but at least its pre-evolution Duskull flies up and there's a slight bit of Ghost-type theme on the middle-lower floors. 
• But seriously, I depended quite a bit on Mudkip's Ice Beam. I brought some extra Max Ethers just to reload Mudkip's Ice Beams!
• Another type of items I haven't been using properly are the orbs. I think I used a Petrify Orb in one of the later levels in Sky Tower, and a Power-Up Orb in the Rayquaza fight... I just am one of those gamers that just hoard all the consumables for fear of using them, I suppose.
• I do know what Gengar's deal is, but since his story apparently all happens in the post-game, a lot of what he's doing in the main story really does end up feeling a bit like it comes out of nowhere, doesn't it?