Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity is, as you may have guessed from the title, a dungeon crawler game developed by Chunsoft for the Nintendo 3DS. The game allows you to take control of the starter Pokémon encountered in Black & White / Black & White 2 (also known as the Generation V starters) as well as the poster child Pikachu and Axew – a Dragon type Pokémon. No trainers, Gym Leaders, or humans make a show in these line of games; it is all about the pocket monsters.

Our story opens in a dream sequence, a small creature being chased by a large flying Pokémon. As the player then comes to, they hear someone calling for help. Unable to trace where the voice is coming from, they begin to realise that they have changed into a Pokémon – this is your character selection screen. You can also select a ‘friend’ who will follow you around wherever you go.

This friend is looking to build a Pokémon Paradise, to ensure the happiness of all the Pokémon in the surrounding area. Together, you work your way through various tasks, encountering other Pokémon and progress the story further towards your companion’s goal as well as try to solve the mystery of the cries for help. As you make your way though the story, you collect more allies and teach valuable life lessons to the Pokémon you encounter. Be warned, you will come across LOTS of crying Pokémon!

Be warned, you will come across LOTS of crying Pokémon!

It has been a long time since I played anything remotely Pokémon flavoured and I must admit, I was a bit lost on the new characters. I did spend a fair bit of my time looking up each Pokémon I came across. You can always rely on the basic starters to be fire, water and grass based – a tradition they have kept in since the first game. The graphics are rather lovely, as you chat to each Pokémon a little avatar pops up showing their current emotional state – 99% of the time it’s crying.

The music is brilliant, really bouncy and catchy, the thing I did miss was the Pokémon calls but as all the dialogue is in English it would not have made much sense to pop them in.

One thing I noticed – the controls do not come naturally. Because the combat is still somewhat turn based (your opponent is able to move as you can or instead trade the move for an attack or special attack and so on) and the movement is fast and jerky, you often waste a turn just trying to face the right direction. The first few rooms were fairly easy, but when more and more Pokémon moved in and ganged up on my friend and I, we were pretty much doomed. Several restarts later, I worked out that you don’t need to necessarily check out ALL of the dungeon unless you want to grind your Pokémon and get levelled. This isn’t a bad thing, but I found myself rushing to get to the objective rather than focusing on the skills for my little troupe. The amount of menus to navigate too was a little off putting but it starts to make sense, usually in the throws of danger.