Spinoffs Mystery Dungeon - is it a done deal?

I want to say yes, Super was pretty good and had amazing storytelling/dungeons, and from what I've played, only Gates was the 'bad' game of the family (only thing I didn't like was the tiny amount of Pokémon available). I can't say anything on the Wii games, which I think were Japan only?
From what I've seen, most people don't like Gates, and all the others are good/great.
So I'm sure they can come back nice and strong (Unless they planned Super to be the last, the trailers and advertisements did kind of implied it to me)

 

I hope not! The story for each one so far has been pretty engaging and the sub-world that we've been given is something a lot of fans really appreciate from Pokémon's diversity.

 

I think it still has some good years left in it. The PKMD serious has been around for quite a while and I'm sure Nintendo still has a few ideas up their sleeves. I just hope that what they consider to be a new entry into the series isn't just a remake of one of the older ones that has fresh sprites (still would be neat just not as much so.)

 

I really want to see some more PMD games. I really liked Explorers and Super Mystery Dungeon (I never played the other two games) and I'd love to see the series continue.

 

Honestly, the optimist in me says yes, but the realist says it's probably up in the air at the moment.

I've discussed this a lot on my Tumblr (even got an ask about something similar the other day), but I feel like the issue is that even though Mystery Dungeon is probably the most popular Pokémon spinoff out there, it's been struggling for a long time now. Rescue Team was solid (if having some flaws here and there) and Explorers is well-known for how good it is, but I can't help but feel like the switch to a single version, as well as the fact that it seems to be tied to Pokémon's current "yearly release" schedule, is hurting its development.

Like, with Gen 5 we had BW1 in 2011, BW2 in '12, and Gates in early '13. Gen 6 rolls along and we get XY in late '13, ORAS in '14, and Super in '15. Then last year came Sun and Moon. And, surprise surprise, both Gates and Super were really flawed games (in their own ways) that felt undeniably undercooked, at least somewhat. It probably isn't a coincidence, no?

A guy I talked with once about this had a good metaphor along the lines of "Gates felt like the devs worked around a steep time limit, while Super felt like they worked against a steep time limit", and I think that's very true. Gates is fairly polished and has cool side-stuff, but the core gameplay is really lacking in content or any of the depth that the first two games had (probably because they couldn't add it without unpolishing the game), while Super has a whole gaggle of stuff in it but there's a ton of stuff that's really clearly in need of touch-ups (none of the new game mechanics gel together well, the lack of personalization like nicknaming or how you only get one of each Pokémon, dialogue not changing if you evolve any Pokémon, the enormous amount of problems and holes in the story, etc).

And considering neither Gates or Super sold particularly well compared to the earlier games (TDS collectively sold about 6.5mil, neither Gates or Super even cracked 1.5mil), I can't help but worry about where it'll go from here. I love Mystery Dungeon more than the main series games and I don't want it to just up and die, but it really is a tough situation. Either way, we'll just have to wait and see.

 

Honestly I feel that as much as PMD2 is the undeniable best in the PMD series, people often (and in a lost of cases, quite unfairly) compare PMD3 and PSMD to it. Like, I get it. Nostalgia can cloud a lot of people's judgments. It's happened to all of us as least once in our lifetimes. But...PMD3, despite all of its flaws, was still a really good game. And while I haven't finished PSMD due to its poor leveling system, I can still say that what I experienced of the story was pretty good. So PMD imo isn't dead. It's just in decline. It'll climb back up to where it was, just give it time to.

 

Super kind of killed the series for me. I cannot keep concentrated on the story and the new mission system is awful.

 

I'll admit, Super had quite the steep difficulty curve compared to previous titles. I do hope that they make a new PMD game though, regardless of the issues its predecessors had.

 

I would like there to be more, but Super kind of seemed like it was meant to be the last in the series. They revealed the entire world map, there's nothing left to find. Unless they keep rolling with the multiverse idea and make another world solely inhabited by Pokémon, I think the writers have written themselves into a corner.

I think my main issue with the two newer games is that there wasn't a lot of post credits story content. In Gates especially it just seemed really forced. Well my issues with gates could probably fill a small book, so I guess that isn't saying much. Really I think it's just a technology limitation. I've noticed the quality of the dungeons in Super went down drastically compared to Gates, and I think they did it intentionally, along with getting rid of the old mission system which would have needed its own engine to generate everything, just to make room for the number of dungeons and Pokémon they added, all 3D rendered in that tiny 3DS card.

Now just imagine what they could do if they made a mystery dungeon for the Switch. I think that would have some real potential. Overall, I think rescue team was cool with its semi-random events linked to the legendary Pokémon that happened post credits, and explorers just had so much story with so many things to do, in terms of the types of missions to go on, rewards to get, and items to collect. There were just more options for how to play the game, rather than a linear path, which honestly I think is Super's one major flaw. It's too linear. That and the lack of level grinding. I know that's a weird thing to say, and I like having the option not to need to, but it really took away the leisurely pace of the game and just made it sort of an info dump with no freedom to explore how we'd like, until post credits and at that point the game just becomes jarringly different with the lack of story.

Spoiler: Minor Spoiler: What happens when you finish Super 100%

I've completed the game 100% and unless I missed something, nothing happens when you complete the map. Your partner, whose life dream it had been to do so, doesn't comment on it. When you finish the treasure collection, Ampharos doesn't say anything, he just keeps asking if you're working on it. You get some marks on your start menu to show you've finished the map and the collection, but nothing else happens. The last dungeon isn't even all that difficult since by then you'll have easy means to get to level 100.

 

I believe it can restore itself to its former glory, it just needs to not do so many silly additions and changes.
I know some ideas are great. They need to realise however, that not any idea is a good idea.

Go back to the drawing board and rethink.
Because super mystery dungeon was just frustrating to play.
Besides having a cute story and lovable dialogue.

 

I love the Mystery Dungeon series and I don't think its dead yet but I do agree with some of the comments above with the new entries. Gates just feels rushed and incomplete and Super just felt like it was missing something. If we were to get a new game, I would want something that has solid game play and a mature story like explorers of sky. To me both Gates and Super felt more like a game for a child and lacked the complexity in story and game play. Super had a good story but it just felt childish at times.

 

Sorry, I got no words to say, I wanted to say that out there, indie devs and half the internet are way better at making a great Pokémon mystery dungeon game. But I don't think there are any game programmers on this forums, if any, would be quite a few, so I was quite scared that I would get scolded by the forum members.

Actually, I was surprised that smd sold so baldly when I come across this post. It blew my mind. But could someone cross check if smd failed to stand out because of all the reasons mentioned above?

Btw, most of the music is great, some tracks should deserve at least a Oscar nomination. Especially the final part of the boss battle. The musician(s) who collaborated with the team defiantly wasted his/their time. (Just my opinion)

 

Do you think that one of the main cause of the decline of mystery dungeon is because of the dungeons themselves? These random generating turn-based caves are enough to piss me off, requiring luck to pass through the more difficult, trap-laden ones. It feels like a pain in the a~, going through a new dungeon, but only to get kick out by the strong Pokémon or fallen into a deep pit, only to be greeted by a game over screen. They don't feel like places to explore as one of the Japanese developer says. But from the comments above, it looks like there are other factors that decline the mystery dungeon games. Such as steep leveling curve, and the flawed connection orb. But I just want to make sure that this is also a factor in the decline of the mystery dungeon games.

 

I believe that Mystery Dungeon is not a done deal yet: all the game developers have to do is find where they messed up these past few itterations and stop doing that. Kinda like Sonic Mania? That game went back to the franchise roots and was overwhelming praised by critics, so the same could happen to Mystery Dungeon. Make it all small and pixel-y again, put a super heartbreaking story somewhere in there, get rid of that stupid "One Job at a Time" rule and then I could see fans flocking to the next game.

Right now, the problem is that GtI and SMD don't seem to deliver to older fans of the series (like me). The story's just kinda there and the characters aren't as strong as they were in Rescue Team or Explorers. Older fans could see that and it probably affected their thoughts on the franchise quite a bit, with the first two series' games in those points being top-notch. The newer series' just felt lackluster when compared.

So if they can go back to what made the first two generations of Mystery Dungeon special, then I would say that it's not all doom and gloom for the series. They just have to rekindle that nostalgia inside of us.

 

I hope it'll continue. Explorers of Time/Darkness gave me some good memories. Although the ending did hit me right in the feelings.

 

Althought the partner in smd is very special.

 

For what it's worth, since my last post in here I watched a video going into Gates' development, and it turns out that Chunsoft actually had their merger with Spike around the same time - turns out that most of the programming team, and some other members of the original staff for Rescue Team and Explorers (the composer, for instance) left the company, which explains why Gates turned out to be... an amateur job, to put it one way? Basically Chunsoft became Spike-Chunsoft and Gates was what the new team cut their teeth on. It also explains why the 3D Mystery Dungeons have always felt kind of... off? Maybe I'm the only one who felt this way, but Gates, Super and Etrian always felt very blah to control, very slight input lag and cluttered menus and weird weird weirdness.

So basically PMD might still be going on, but unless some massive change or overhaul takes place or the old team comes back, I'm not sure how likely it is we'll get another game with the gameplay of Rescue/Explorers, at any rate.

 

I don't think it's a done deal. It's always been once per generation since generation 3 and the last was Super in gen 6 so it seems likely that we'll see one sometime in generation 7. As for the quality, I like them all, even Gates to Infinity wasn't as bad as people say it is and the only flaws I see in Super is the balance where it's super hard to level up, recruited allies are so many levels ahead of the player, and later dungeons will often one shot the player, even at high levels. The other flaw is how Pokémon become unavailable after using them.

Hopefully any new installments will improve on those things and I'm optimistic they will.

 

finished honestly ,cant see any future for it at this point
the explorers of sky/darkness plots werent waay too different from red rescue/blue rescue,though all were really amazing with the story and gameplay and will go down as a part of the most underrated Pokémon games of all time along with the Pokémon ranger ones