What are your favourite things about Mystery Dungeon games? What would you change if you could?
Some of my favourite things include the quiz at the start of the game, and the turn-based combat, which allows for an interesting approach to fighting (something that I love about turn-based dungeon crawlers, Mystery Dungeon included, is looking through all the items and abilities I have to see if anything can get me out of a really bad situation)
But I also have some problems with this series. First of all, losing items after getting defeated, with no chance to recover them feels unfair. I would prefer a system similar to one found in Dark Souls or Shovel Knight. Maybe if you made it back to the floor where you were defeated, you could find a room with your items just lying around, or a bag containing them. Of course if you didn’t recover them a day or two after your defeat, they would be gone, but at that point if you wanted to, you already tried to get them back. Maybe there could also be missions where you recover those items for other rescue teams?
Which brings me onto the next thing I dislike about PMD - it’s an extremely repetitive game at its core. Sure, it has some interesting missions and storylines, but most of the game is spent going through the same dungeons over and over to do basically the same missions over and over. Which you only do because you have some goal that they are blocking - like another part of the story, or some dungeon that you’re not quite ready for. This is the definition of grinding. How could that be improved?
First of all, by making dungeons more unique. Sure, some have water, various traps and of course different pokemon can be encountered in each one, but in the end they’re all just sets of rectangular rooms connected by narrow corridors and filled with enemies. Just having more than one algorithm for generating maps could make a huge difference. And making bosses more than just higher level enemies. That’s something that would make them far more memorable.
I think that’s what it comes down to - I’d like to see every adventure, every rescue mission that you embark on be memorable. Is it an unrealistic expectation? Maybe, but I’d like to at least see them try. I’d gladly play a Mystery Dungeon game that was significantly shorter but built to make dungeons and quests more unique, more engaging and more memorable.
I haven’t yet explained how I’d like to see the missions improved, but I got a bit carried away, so maybe I’ll end it here. A wall of text is certainly one way to introduce myself to the forum.
