The original Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games were Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team on GBA and Blue Rescue Team on DS. These are Pokemon spin-off crossovers that combine Pokemon characters, items and moves and turn them into an isekai roguelike where if you die in the randomized dungeon you lose all the items you were holding. These games are now being remade together as Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX releasing on 6th of March for Nintendo Switch. You can play the demo yourself now.
Charmanders to Chikoritas
I played the same length of the demo in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue team via my Wii U to see what features are different that we can tell so far. As I both didn’t finish the originals and haven’t played for a long time some of these things might not be new or occur later.
Obviously the graphics and music are improved. The controls and UI are also different which is good as now you can see your hunger without having to open your menu. Your partner Pokemon now has a hunger meter too.
One of the first things you’ll notice is that you no longer have to cheat at the opening quiz to get what Pokemon you want, as you can now choose. Gender differences are now shown on Pokemon, mostly being Pikachu’s tail.
Additions
This DX version has quite a few new things added. One is auto-saving. As you had to manually save at the end of each day in Red and Blue Rescue Team. This was possibly done as a way to prevent resetting failures but also to prevent progress loss.
As far as I could tell there was no push/pass through mechanic in the original and they would get out of your way, while now you can either push them or pass through but pushing costs hunger. The map in DX shows some enemy/item dots even if the room hasn’t been entered. This is a change I don’t appreciate.
Some smaller adjustment changes are that Linking moves now seems to be free when it used to have a cost. Additionally when picking a job you don’t have to take then accept, it’s just one step. Pokemon in need will stay still, which is good because you no longer have to chase them around.
One that might bother some is the auto-mode however that just puts your own character onto an exploring AI but ceases in battle, so it doesn’t do much more than maybe save a bit of time. Something I didn’t see in the DX demo but might happen is that enemy Pokemon can pick up dungeon items. Then you can take it for yourself by knocking them out.
Later Features Brought Back
A couple of changes were adapted from later releases. As now using the “a” button no longer does a basic attack but uses from your pool of moves thus reducing their PP. This is clearly a balancing adjustment so you have to put more effort into your exploration. Another one is treasure boxes, which didn’t exist until the sequels. The sparkles that show a dungeon has more treasure at this time might also be a new thing as it’s connected to the treasure boxes but I’m not completely sure.
HOLD UP I didn’t know shiny pokemon were in the new mystery dungeon remake, LETS GO pic.twitter.com/6JXoY0gu3Z
— ⚜️ mana mana ⚜️ (@mana_chan__) January 10, 2020
Something I haven’t seen but @mana_chan_ on twitter found an item that mentions shiny Pokemon. Meaning it’s possible that you can rescue shiny Pokemon and add them to your team.
The order of events can also be slightly different. In DX you meet Diglett before you head onto Mt. and the demo ends. While in the originals you won’t meet him until you save him. In the DX Demo you can use the Dojo, while up to that point in the story it was not yet open.
That’s all for things I could tell were different. Once the full game is out I reckon they’ll be a few more adjustments. One thing to anticipate is that the connectivity features from the original now should be using online.
Demo Impressions
As for my thoughts on the demo, I’m glad that Mystery Dungeon is coming to Switch. The remake looks pretty good. In some areas they might stick out differently but it’s not too bad. I think it looks better than Super Mystery Dungeon and it’s great to hear the music again. Now that we can use the internet, I’ll be able to rescue my friends!