So, I have a confession to make. I’ve been playing a Pokémon game.

Okay, that’s kind of a laughable confession seeing as how I’ve “caught ’em all” way back when the original Gameboy game came out. Mock all you want, it was a pretty solid RPG, and the collecting via link-cable trading was a clever way to create a social aspect to the game. (Too bad the money-leeching trading card variety took over; but I digress.)

But! I am not playing Diamond or Pearl, but Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon (PMD) is the latest Western release of the Mystery Dungeon series of games developed by Chunsoft. Mystery Dungeon is a series I learned about last year via GameSetWatch’s @Play series of blog posts about roguelikes. You play the part of a Pokémon yourself, rather than a trainer, and you go off on rescue missions facing up against rogue (*cough* sorry) Pokémon who have been driven wild by strange natural disasters. And yes, this is definitely a roguelike. You can faint from lack of food. Dungeons are randomly generated, everything is turn-based reacting to player actions, and the random number generator can drive you mad (eventually). Continue reading →