Classic Game Room - POKEMON EXPLORERS OF SKY for DS review
  • 12 years ago
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of SkyWhen I see the title Explorers of Sky and learn that this is the fifth installment in the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series with other titles being Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness, I immediately think of Swordquest Waterworld, Fireworld, Waterworld and the never-completed Airworld. If those titles mean anything to you then the prospect of playing a Pokémon game is probably farfetched to begin with, but your kids probably love it.I rolled up my Gen-X sleeves of disgruntled bitterness and tackled the Pokémon sensation for the first time with this game. I ignored most of the 90s pop-culture shows like Pokémon and Power Rangers the first time around (except for the pink Power Ranger) but decided to give this game a chance and found a well-made dungeon crawling exploration game, albeit with lots of colorful creatures that remind me of a cross between Godzooky and Snorks.In Explorers of Sky, you are a human transported into the land of the Pokémon. You are first given a personality test and assigned a Pokémon in the game. My Pokémon is Totodile. I thought this was fitting because of all the Pokémon he most closely resembles Godzilla, which is the giant monster I would happily be for a day. Id prefer Space Godzilla actually, but thats a separate story.The player chooses a teammate and I picked Charmander because his tail is on fire, which is the closest thing to a flamethrower that I could initially find.After a few quick lessons on how to play the game, the player forms an exploration team and joins the Explorers Guild. I named my team Team Mayhem in honor of Project Mayhem, and on our first adventure we were sent. Team Mayhem to the rescue!As the title suggests the majority of gameplay takes place in Mystery Dungeons, the stereotypical 2D top-down RPG style inside mountains and ice caves dungeon crawling landscape. Not being familiar with previous games in the series, the visual style and graphical presentation reminds me of a GBA Zelda game like Link to the Past. High contrast, colorful visuals grace the screen and the music and sound quality has reasonably high production value.
Recommended