Game Review: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Sky

Of all the spin off games from the main Pokemon series, I don’t think any is more controversial than the Mystery Dungeon series. Unlike what I’ve seen from reviews of the other Pokemon games, the Mystery Dungeon review forums –– particularly those for Explorers of Sky –– always seem to be perfectly split between people vehemently expressing their love for the game and people listing reasons why they hate the game. As a proud member of the former community, who thinks the game has the most fleshed out and emotionally impactful story of all Pokemon games, and the best soundtrack of all Pokemon games, I think Explorers of Sky in particular is important beyond its amazing story and soundtrack; it really prompts the question of how important aesthetic should be in games.

To summarize: The story opens with a cut-scene of a storm, and in between flashes of lightning the player learns the storm separated them from some unknown character. Then, after the player’s eventual game partner finds them washed ashore on a beach, and they both successfully fight off some bullies, they mutually agree to form an exploration team together at the nearby Wigglytuff’s Guild. Then, after completing some minor exploration missions with their partner, Chatot, the guild’s head of intelligence, informs the player that the number of outlaws in the Pokemon world has been rapidly increasing as a result of Time Gears being stolen –– and that if all the Time Gears are stolen, the world will completely run out of time and elicit the planet’s paralysis. So, for another roughly four missions, the player progresses through the game thinking the objective is to prevent the Time Gears from being stolen. However, after an epic plot twist, and a trip to a creepy, dystopian future, the player learns that the ultimate objective is to collect the Time Gears and bring them to Temporal Tower to restore time everywhere in the Pokemon world. Additionally, the player is actually a human turned into a Pokemon –– which becomes important later in the plot.

Now, the plot of the game is literally the exact same as the plot of Explorer of Sky’s preceding games, Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness. Aside from a few minor changes to the game (more starter Pokemon to choose from, more dungeons, etc.), the two major changes are the Shaymin plotline (which is the source of the title for the new game) and the addition of five special episodes that exist solely to flesh out characters and answer the unanswered questions of Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness. Something that’s really interesting about these additions though is that neither of them are part of the main plotline. In fact, the Shaymin plotline is post-game, which makes it even more interesting why the developers would base the game title off it, and the five special episodes are completely optional, and nothing is really taken away from the game experience if the player chooses not to play them. What both of these added elements do accomplish though is add more development for characters that in the preceding games were one-dimensional; they also give us insight into plotlines that, as a fan of Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness, I was begging to know more about when I played the preceding games.

Given how controversial the preceding games were when they came out –– A.K.A the backlash the games received for their graphics despite having an awesome story –– it’s funny to me how the developers literally responded by making no improvements to the graphics or game mechanics. They just added some post-game, optional elements and called it a day. And honestly, that’s why I love this game. What I interpret that response as is the developers mocking video game critics that value the aesthetic of something so much that it willingly overlooks how amazing the story is. I mean, even those who bash the graphics of the game, from what I’ve seen, don’t really bash the story. So, it really does beg the question: Why should aesthetic be so important?

Now, sure you could respond to this by saying, “Why not just maximize on both? The two qualities aren’t mutually exclusive. You can have an amazing aesthetic that is attached to an amazing story.” And, I agree with you. But why should a videogame have to prove itself? In my opinion, I am more forgiving of a game that has poor graphics an an amazing story than the reverse. I even thought the graphics actually added to Explorers of Sky –– there’s a lot of charm and nostalgia associated with those kind of pixel graphics for a lot of people that I think a lot of critics overlook. To those who criticize the repetitive gameplay though, I’ll admit that all you do gameplay wise is just navigate through dungeons, which gets very repetitive –– so, I see why that wouldn’t be for everyone.

If anything, I hope this at least inspires us to think about why aesthetic should or should not be so important. I personally think the threshold should just be whatever doesn’t hurt your eyes and still contributes something to the game. If that’s attracting people’s attention to the game by having a really beautiful aesthetic – great. Or having a very old, pixel aesthetic to evoke people’s childhood charm –– great. Or some other resolution for some other purpose –– great. But I personally don’t think games should ever be solely defined by their aesthetic. Also, the soundtrack for this game is absolutely amazing. Definitely check it out.