Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness / Time imminent on DS

It's been out in Japan since September last year and soon western gamers are going to have the choice of two new Pokémon games, too. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness will be released next week in the US, on April 20th, complete with over 490 pokémon (surely some sort of record, if anyone is still counting) and a plot to recover some stolen time cogs.

As hinted at by the games' titles, unlike the last Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games for DS which revolved around rescuing the little critters, the focus this time around is on exploring dungeons instead. Obviously still with a primary goal of finding pokémon, of course, but this time you'll be recruiting them to your poké-party RPG-style rather than entrapping them in ball then fighting them to the near-death.

Of the pokémon in the game, a few of the starting critters from the first games have been replaced with some of the fourth-generation variety – namely Turtwig, Chimchar, Piplup,and Munchlax. And, as is generally the way with games that are released in two versions, each edition of the game contains exclusive pokémon not found in the other. So Celebi will only be available in Explorers of Time and Mewtwo is in Explorers of Darkness.

So-called legendary pokémon can be recruited as in the first game, but some require you to find a special item known as the Enigma Part before they'll consider it. The picky little blighters.

Once again, the game's plot sees you waking up to find you've transformed into a pokémon (which one depends on the outcome of a personality test at the start of the game), then setting off on explorations to find other lost pokémon while uncovering the mysteries of why you've been transported to some weird world full of the assorted fist-happy creatures in the first place.

We weren't the greatest fans of the previous Pokémon Mystery Dungeon instalment for DS, so let's hope these two new will pit a more exciting challenge. Certainly, in Japan the games have been flying off shelves – as of January they'd sold well over a million copies there.

For now only the US release date next week has been announced, but hopefully we'll have confirmation of when it will be out here soon, too.