After 20 Years, The Best Pokémon Spin-Off Still Remains The Strongest Series Departure
There are tons of different spin-offs in the Pokémon series when it comes to games, from battle sims like Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon Champions to survival titles like Pokémon Pokopia and unorthodox experiences like Pokémon Snap. With the mainline franchise reaching its 10th Generation with Pokémon Winds and Waves, it’s easy to forget how good the spin-offs can be, especially with the success of recent breaks in the series, such as Pokémon Legends: Z-A. However, despite recent spin-offs being well received, they barely hold a candle to the first one that fans consider almost equal to the original games.
Some Pokémon spin-off games are good enough to gain sequels, becoming series all on their own separate from the mainline turn-based RPGs. The Pokémon Legends games are a prime example of this, but even the two games in that series retain much of what the usual Pokémon titles have. For the longest time, only one spin-off game really attempted to change the formula of Pokémon by establishing an identity far beyond what players could have expected, in a world only slightly adjacent to what anyone had already seen.
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Released In 2006 As A Dungeon Crawling Adventure With Talking Pokémon
In September 2006, The Pokémon Company released Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red/Blue Rescue Team, with players able to pick the Red or Blue version much like the original Pokémon Red and Blue Gen 1 games. Similarly to those landmark titles, the first Mystery Dungeon experiences were an iconic addition to the franchise, breaking completely from worlds where humans capture or observe Pokémon in various ways. Instead, the Mystery Dungeon setting sees a human become a Pokémon themselves, and form friendships with other sentient Pokémon in a dungeon crawling RPG experience.
The reason why the Rescue Teams games are so beloved comes down to a combination of their premise and the gameplay that backs up its structure. Players begin these games immediately by taking a personality test to determine what Pokémon they will embody, establishing a strong focus on narrative right away. The other Pokémon games have some personalization at the start of their games too, but mainly just cosmetic changes to your Trainer avatar. There are dozens of possible Pokémon you could be in Mystery Dungeon, changing dialogue sprites and gameplay abilities in significant ways.
Every Pokémon you choose comes with a choice in a Pokémon partner, who has a independent personality like a party member character in any RPG. In fact, all the Pokémon in Mystery Dungeon games are their own characters, from vendors, allies, friends, bullies, enemies, and near deity like gods when it comes to Legendary Pokémon. The plot of the game is about unraveling various mysteries, but also forming a titular Rescue Team with your partner to save Pokémon who get lost in various dungeons.
Surprisingly Great Story Telling Combined With Intricate Team Building Mechanics To Explore Diverse Locations
The story of the first Mystery Dungeon games may not be as intricate as its sequels would create, but they are still far beyond even the plots of some mainline Pokémon games. Instead of defeating Gym leaders and stopping evil teams, Mystery Dungeon is all about forming relationships with other Pokémon and earning a positive reputation as a Rescue Team by completing quests. These games are organized into dungeon crawls, where you must explore unique biomes that have multiple floor layers. Discovering stairs leads you deeper into these dungeons, which act as grid-based explorations with limited turn-based actions between enemies and party members.
At first, you and your partner are all that’s needed to explore these dungeons. However, as the Mystery Dungeon games continue, you can recruit new Pokémon for your team, helping to balance weaknesses for more challenging quests. For the most part, story content is only handled by you and your partner, but other missions are more open-ended. Rooms in dungeons are generated randomly, adding great variety to locations even if you’ve visited them multiple times.
Memorable Bosses & Impactful Moments Established One Of Pokémon’s Best Experiences
Building teams for dungeon exploration and progressing to tougher and tougher areas for longer crawls made Pokémon Mystery Dungeon a highly engaging spin-off. Yet, there’s no denying that the game’s story had plenty of memorable moments too, especially against some great bosses like Zapdos, Groudon, and Rayquaza. The build-up to some bosses was almost as exciting as the fights themselves, as your party has to go through multiple dungeon floors to reach the boss room. As a result, defeating a boss is a result of endurance and smart tactics well before you even face their challenge.
The surprisingly heartfelt story of the game also touches on the series’ ideas of friendship in new ways, by establishing mysteries slowly and building up to a satisfying finale. Although the first games can be a bit repetitive, the Explorers of Darkness/Sky sequels to the Rescue Team titles are fantastic narrative games, and could have only been built by what came before. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon remains the only spin-off in the Pokémon franchise that truly rivals the original turn-based games in my opinion, and still remain great games to play two decades later.