Oct 16, 2007

So you were transformed into a furry critter in the previous Pokémon Fushigi No Dungeon (Pokémon Mystery Dungeon in English) and you liked it. That's nothing to be ashamed of. Life as a Pokémon is actually quite good and doesn't ever involve being shoved into a ball or forced to bite out the throat of some other poor creature, because when humans aren't looking, Pokémon live in houses and talk Japanese.

Because it was reasonably entertaining the first time around, you might as well do it all again, and luckily the new game offers more of the same: random dungeons, lots of battles and a generously low level of difficulty.

Newcomers to the Mystery Dungeon series will find this a good introduction to the concept, although since it's been around for such a long time it's unlikely that many potential fans won't have seen at least one previous version.

The aim is simply to explore a series of increasingly vast dungeons that are randomly generated every time you play. There's an overworld of sorts but it merely serves as filler between expeditions into the various underground lairs.

Dungeons are filled with hostile creatures that hunt you down in a turn-based sort of way. While you can move around in real-time, each step your character takes will trigger a movement from any active enemies in the room, and they'll eventually get close enough to start a fight.