DS PREVIEW
Hands on with DS' Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team
A new perspective on Pokémon: don't catch 'em all, become 'em all |
Who'd want to be a Pokémon? Rudely captured from your natural habitat by some stuck-up teenager, you're only released from your subsequent captivity when he wants you to fight one of your own kind.
It's cockfighting for kiddies. What would the RSPCA say?
At least in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team – a game where you get to be a Pokémon for the first time – human ringmaster Ash is nowhere to be seen. Yes, this time it's an all-animal affair, as in a plot twist surely inspired by gloomy Austrian writer Franz Kafka, you wake up one day to find you've actually become a Pokémon.
Unlike Kafka's The Metamorphosis however (in which the hero is transformed into a giant insect but no one notices), in Blue Rescue Team your new status is a call to action. Pokémonland is being ravaged by natural disasters, and it's down to you to buddy up with another little critter and form a rescue team.
Playable on Nintendo's E3 stand last month, a session with the game started off with the usual customisation options as you get to choose which type of Pokémon you want to be, as well as naming and choosing your buddy. (You start out as a duo, but by the end of the game you'll have four in the gang). Then it's off into the woods to start your rescue plan – which in a move reminiscent of US foreign policy consists of attacking all the wild Pokémon you come across.
Perhaps not surprisingly considering Blue Rescue Team is a role-playing game at heart, it's pretty combat-focused. All the action happens in real-time; with your buddy automatically following on behind, you just have to walk up to other Pokémon for a brawl to kick off.
Your fighting moves (as well as other commands, such as throw, items, and team formation) are selectable mid-scrap using small buttons on the touchscreen. But the combat is pretty fast, and so most of the time you're better off setting up your tactics beforehand rather than trying to be clever halfway through. One exception though are the linked moves – these see you combine with the other members of your group for more powerful attacks.
The DS' topscreen is used to display stats such as health and the level you've so far achieved; the latter is increased via experience points gained in battle. You can also dig down into details such as offensive and defensive stats if you want. These can be improved using cash, which you use to buy upgrades and extra items.
Graphically the game is cute and colourful, with all the tried-and-tested Pokémon characters on hand as you work through the plot, which is based around the missions certain Pokémon give you. Each of these missions takes place in a randomly-generated dungeon that Nintendo claims will increase replayability (although it might just be an excuse to make it a bit easier to create the game).
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team certainly seems to be maintaining the high standards of the series, despite being something of a side concern while we wait for the proper debut of Pokémon on DS (in 2007, with Pokémons Pearl & Diamond).
No UK release date has yet been announced, but we'd expect it to be filling stockings by December.
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