Let's Play Mystery Dungeon DX, Part 1: That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Mudkip

Technically, this should be titled "Pokemon: Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX". But that's a mouthful, and frankly I kept forgetting the 'Rescue Team' subtitle of the first pair of Mystery Dungeon games, so I'll be referring to this let's play as just Mystery Dungeon DX.

I love the idea of the Mystery Dungeon games. Back in the GBA and NDS days, where Nintendo and GameFreak tried to extend the life of a Pokemon generation with spin-offs instead of trying to churn out a generation every other year, Mystery Dungeon and Ranger were two games that were really trying to change the formula a bit. I played a lot of the original Ranger game, but never had a chance to properly play Mystery Dungeon. 

I loved the concept, though. It is what modern day anime weebs would call an 'isekai' genre, except I'm pretty sure this game predates the common usage of that term. I'm not sure if I particularly like the roguelike dungeon-delving game mechanic, but let's just say that I'm here more for a ride through a remake of a game I never got to play as a kid more than actually trying to be good at the game... something that I find is a lot less stressful and much more fun to me. I had absolutely zero idea that Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team got a remake on the Switch,  and that it was out, so finding this on the shelves at all was a huge surprise for me! And so here we are, cracking through it on a let's play. 

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So yeah, we start off with a bit of a strange dream-like state, and it does seem that this first Mystery Dungeon game does have a strong dream component. Instead of asking for my name, the mysterious voice of the narrator asks me a bunch of wacky questions, ranging from simple personality test questions like asking me how I study for an exam, or asking me to grab one of my fingers from the other hand... to hilarious ones like "There is an alien invasion! What do you do?" These questions, combined with the gender I pick, gives me one of a small batch of Pokemon that will represent me... and I got a Mudkip!

I had wanted to play a Bulbasaur, my favourite starter, but Mudkip's a very close runner-up, so that's absolutely fine. The game lets me pick a non-Water-type as my 'partner', which I pick a Bulbasaur. That's neat!

I would like to take this moment to point out the possible starters for this game. We get all the starters from the first three generations, which makes sense since Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team was originally a Generation III game. We get some mascot Pokemon that are prominent from the anime, like Pikachu, Meowth, Psyduck and Eevee, which also make sense... but also in this pool are some very nice oddballs like Skitty, Machop and Cubone. I appreciate it. 

Anyway, the game makes it pretty clear from the get go that I, the Mudkip, is meant to be a human who just wakes up one day as a mysterious Mudkip that appeared in the Pokemon world. And this is a Pokemon world like no other, since there are no humans in this incarnation of the Pokemon world, and all the Pokemon speak to each other and live in little villages and houses. That's fun! That's adorable!

I, the human-turned-Mudkip, have no idea what's going on, though. As my new buddy Bulbasaur wakes me up and asks me what's going on, I (who actually know what Pokemon are, so human-me came from a 'regular' Pokemon world, I think?) am surprised that I'm a Mudkip, with some adorable animations as I look at my own fins and tails and act all surprised at this. My Bulbasaur friend is just confused at my insistence that I'm human, but the game doesn't dwell on this too long as it's intent on tossing me straight into my very first Mystery Dungeon. 

A Butterfree flutters in, in panic over the fact that a random fissure opened up and swallowed up her child, a Caterpie, and despite being a fully evolved Pokemon the Butterfree just can't think of what she should do to rescue her child. Instead, Bulby and I have to go and trek into the fissure to rescue the missing Caterpie, because that's what heroes in an RPG game does. 

Enter the first Mystery Dungeon: Tiny Woods!

 

The gameplay is a strange variation of the Pokemon rules we all know and love. My two guys have four moves from the get-go, and we move around these randomly-generated floors and look for stairs that let us proceed to the next level. All the while collecting items and fighting enemies -- and it's not just turn-based combat like regular Pokemon, but we also turns are taken to move around and some moves (like Mudkip's Water Gun and Bulbasaur's Vine Whip) have a greater range. In addition to HP and PP, I also have to keep in mind my hunger (or 'belly') status by eating apples, which adds a nice little wrinkle into things. There are also some additional mechanics down the line, which makes Mystery Dungeon's system surprisingly a bit more in-depth than I expected. 

This is a tutorial dungeon, so there's a lot of chatter about how to move around, how to access menus, how to attack, how to move, how to move quickly... which I feel was a fair chunk of information to take in. The combat in Tiny Woods is pretty simple, with most of the enemies being just Sunkerns and Wurmples.

We find the Caterpie at the very end of the short dungeon, just scared and curled up, and we rescue him. Bringing the Caterpie back up, his mama the Butterfree thanks Bulbasaur and I, and give us some rewards. Yay, RPG tropes! Caterpie becomes a huge fanboy over being rescued from falling down a fissure, and as the two bugs leave, Bulbasaur brings me to our new house and base and asks if I want to create a Rescue Team. (If I refuse, Bulby cries and you can't refuse a crying onion frog). Bulbasaur then gives us both scarves -- my Mudkip wears it like a scarf, while Bulby wears it more like a ribbon. 

And as the first day concludes, the game zooms in on the title drop... and Mudkip dreams. Ominous dreams happen every single night as I go to sleep (which gives me interesting Persona 5 vibes, just with less psycho warden kids) and hover in a strange light-scape as I reminisce about my previous human life. 

The next day, Bulbasaur takes me to the mailbox in front of our base, where a Pelipper shows up with a bunch of mail. Very One Piece, isn't it? Having sea birds deliver news? A pelican is actually equipped to carry parcels and news in its huge beak, though. That's really cute. I live and sleep in that house, but apparently not Bulbasaur, who hangs out elsewhere? Apparently all we get is just a starter set, which essentially is just the formalization of the Toolbox (item) and the menu to see tutorials. I must assume that Bulbasaur did all of the paperwork to sign up with the Poke-World's equivalent of unions off-screen. 

Our next quest is from Magnemite, who ask us for help to get two other Magnemite free. Apparently they got stuck, but since it's just two of them, there aren't "enough to make a Magneton". I think other than very early supplementary material and dex entries, this might be the few bits of media that actually acknowledge that Magnetons are supposed to be three Magnemites stuck together by magnetism, not the straight evolution that the game (and later on manga and anime) tend to display. 

Our next dungeon is the Thunder Wave Cave, filled with a bunch of Electric-types like Voltorb, Plusle, Minun, Elekid, and the odd Rattata or Nidoran. It's both easy and difficult for my Mudkip, who is weak to Electric-type attacks but also has access to Mud Slap and Mud Bomb. It's a simple five-floor cave, not really much different from Tiny Woods other than the themed Pokemon inside. It's pretty neat! With the Magnemites rescued, it's another rescue properly done. 

After another night and another dream sequence, Bulbasaur brings me to the town! Not-so-creatively called Pokemon Square, it's a pretty standard RPG starter town, with a bunch of shops and NPCs. I always love exploring these things. Bulbasaur introduces me to a bunch of the most important locations -- the Kecleon shop, the Gulpin shop, the Kangaskhan storage shop and the Persian bank. The Kecleon shop is ran by two Kecleons -- a regular one and a purple one, and they establish themselves as two representatives of a whole Kecleon store industry. Purple Kecleons, despite what Mystery Dungeon and even the anime itself would have you believe,  are not what actual shiny Kecleons look like. Real shiny Kecleons just change the colour of the zigzag belt, which is stupid. A stupid, stupid decision. Purple Kecleons are so cool!

Persian runs the bank, and makes a note that if I fall in the dungeon, I will lose all my money and items. Well, that won't do, so let's store everything in the bank! A cat most known as the pet cat of Giovanni is totally trustworthy, right? (Persian is actually trustworthy). Kangaskhan, who works off an adorable hut shaped like herself, does a similar service but for storing items. Anything that isn't a berry, apple or revival seed goes there, I suppose. 

Gulpin runs the 'link shop', which is one of the unique mechanisms in this series where you can link two moves together. They spend more energy (and I think PP as well) but I can unleash two moves at the same time, which would break a regular Pokemon battle game -- as Mega Kangaskhan proved in Generation VI -- but in Mystery Dungeon with its more endurance based mechanism, it's just an interesting mechanic. 

Lastly, though Bulbasaur doesn't point it out yet, is the Makuhita Dojo on the south of town, who promises training in exchange for specific dojo training coupons. An actual gym, like a sports gym, in a Pokemon game? Wow, the mainline games would never!

There are also a pond with a gorgeous waterfall with a Whiscash in it, who I think is meant to be like a town elder. And wandering in the middle of the square are Snubbull, Bellsprout and Lombre. They all give various advice, or mention about the recent strange natural disasters like earthquakes or fissures opening on the ground. You'd think elemental creatures like Pokemon would be a bit more used to it, but I guess they are really big fissures. 

At the absolute eastern end of the town is the Pelipper Post Office, which, gloriously, is shaped like a giant Pelipper head. I just love the design of these Pokemon buildings. There aren't a lot, but they sure are very charming! And we've got a common fantasy RPG trope, the request board! And I can accept multiple ones. Some of them are just going to a specific floor in a specific dungeon -- which are all Thunder Wave Cave this early on -- and rescuing a fallen, fainted Pokemon. The others are to escort a client to a friend waiting in the cave. 

The escort missions I kind of understand, but the 'save me' missions are a bit questionable. Okay, sure, maybe they can scribble down a letter asking for help as they get injured in a dungeon run or they fall into a fissure or something. But you're telling me Thunderwave Cave, B4F, has a working mailbox? Either the dungeons have a working postal service, or the Pelippers fly all the way down deep into the dungeons, take the letters but leave the wounded Poochyena behind. On second thoughts, they do evolve from seagulls and everyone knows seagulls have less empathy than the devil, so I guess that tracks. 

This leads to a second run through Thunder Wave Cave, which is essentially the same thing. In the escort mission, the guy we escort is actually a Pokemon, and they actually act as a party member, with the Elekid in this first mission helping by launching thundershocks at the enemy. Good show, Elekid!

I also test out link moves a bit more, and it's... it's interesting? I did link Tackle with both of Mudkip and Bulbasaur's strongest moves, but I generally like to have more PP to be able to survive the dungeon explorations. I'm sure there will be moments where having more PP or having more damage-per-move is going to matter, though. 

Anyway, with that mission done, I'm just kind of stockpiling and grinding experience points and items. After another cryptic dream the next day starts off with a cute little Diglett popping up and accidentally boring a hole. Mudkip and Bulbasaur encourage the wanton trespassing and property damage because Diglett is just a kid, but the tunnel actually acts as an instant shortcut between my base and the Pelipper Post Office, which is mighty convenient! This next day ends with another Thunder Wave Cave run, and... and that's where we'll stop this let's play for today because the next one is slightly longer and all the explanation about the town and some of the mechanics did take up more space than I thought.

But yeah, I'm enjoying Mystery Dungeon a fair bit! I'll be happy to see where this goes. It's a really charming game and a charming world, with a straightforward premise and a much snappier set of dialogue than some of the Pokemon games released around the same time. I'll have fun with this one, I'm sure!  

Random Notes:

• 
  This game is relatively faithful to the original Rescue Team games, but apparently with a lot of quality-of-life changes from Explorers and other Mystery Dungeon sequels baked into the gameplay. Chief among them is allowing gameplay to continue even if your 'main' character faints, or the ability to rename your character, your partner and the team name from the main menu. That's nice! Some other mechanics that I'm not familiar with (like IQ) have also been streamlined. That's nice! I'm not here to learn a crapton of mechanics, I'm just here to have a good time! 
• I got a Mudkip so I'm quite fine with it, but this game allows you to actually redo the personality test if you don't like your reincarnated form without having to do a hard reset. This apparently wasn't in the original game.  
  
• Some of the attacks are definitely revised, I'm sure. My Mudkip starts with Mud Bomb and Bulbasaur with Seed Bomb, and neither of them existed in Generation III. I assume these were different moves initially? Though I think I read somewhere that DX also rejiggered a bunch of the starter Pokemon's movesets to  make the early games more fair. 
• I did see some of my friends play these games back in the day, and I totally bought and read the tie-in Ginji's Rescue Team manga which streamlined a lot of the main plot. That was a pretty neat adaptation, or at least I felt like it was a satisfying little read back in the day. 
• I like the touch that there are no potions in this game, at least not that I can find, since it's a world without humans and the potions in those spray cans are created by humans.
• Mystery Dungeons and its ever-changing layouts is apparently just the normal state of being in this Poke-world, and no one ever questions it. I wonder if any of the future games would actually give us an origin to the actual physics of the Mystery Dungeons? 
• Speaking of which, after we do their quest, escort Pokemon just get teleported out in a Star Trek esque beam of blue light, with some handwave over a 'mysterious power'. It's obviously just a handwave to let the players continue to explore, but I wonder if there's any real explanation in-universe. 
• My character, Mudkip, is mostly a mute protagonist as befits the Pokemon standard, with Bulbasaur being my mouthpiece. But Mudkip actually does have a fair amount of internal thoughts when thinking about his dreams, as well as when he levels up. 
• I also try the Makuhita gym, but it's basically just an enemy rush where I try to beat up as many enemies just to get EXP and level myself and my moves up. It's going to be a resource I hoard until I understand the game mechanics a bit better, methinks. I like that Makuhita explains that the Pokemon I'm beating up are actually volunteers who offer to help out young fledgling rescue teams. 
• ...these Mystery Dungeon DX articles were actually written and (mostly) completed before Legends Z-A came out. I thought they'd be a nice buffer, but then Pokopia and XD: Gale of Darkness happened at the same time, and I was far more interested in doing either of those two... but ended up kind of not doing either... so yeah, have this kinda delayed one!