Marking the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series' first foray onto the 3DS, Gates to Infinity gets things started with a bump - and in more ways than one. After a somewhat unusual dream where you hear the voice of a mysterious Pokemon, who's apparently in trouble, calling out for help, you find yourself free-falling from a portal in the sky. But that's not the biggest surprise - catching sight of your reflection, you find your human form has been replaced by that of a Pokemon, and you're now stuck in the mythical Pokemon world.
OK, so it's not that different a start to the previous mystery dungeon games, but it at least gives you a reason for why you've suddenly found yourself in the Pokemon world, playing as a Pokemon. But while the previous games gave you an obtuse personality quiz in order to decide which Pokemon you'd become, in Gates to Infinity, you simply get to choose your character and partner in crime from the Black and White starter 'mons Tepig, Snivy and Oshawott, plus TV show favourites Pikachu and Axew. Decisions, decisions, decisions.
Team Pikawott - featuring Dunsparce.
After much umming and ahhing, we eventually settled on the winning team of Pikachu and Oshawott - arguably the two cutest Pokemon there, which, you can be assured, in no way affected our entirely strategic choice. With our big decision made, it was off to explore the wonderful world of Pokemon we went, as we trotted through the forests and towns, learning of our partner's dream to go on lots of adventures, and create a world full of like-minded Pokemon. Being the helpful type that you are, you inevitable decide to help young Oshawott (or whoever your partner 'mon is) on his quest to build up 'Paradise', whilst trying to get to the bottom of these Mystery Dungeons which keep cropping up all over the world, causing the local Pokemon to act somewhat strangely. What follows is a hybrid of a dungeon-crawling role-playing game and town-building sim, driven by a surprisingly decent story that combines your human/Pokemon's foreboding dreams with your upbeat partner's quest to grow Paradise - two concurrent stories which eventually intertwine with hilarious hijinks along the way, from Pokemon crushes to con-artists and more.
While the story isn't anything especially original or dramatic - it's the same old tale of friendship trumping everything and saving the world, it's all told in the cutesy endearing way that means you can't help smiling along with the characters. It's more in depth and story-driven than your main series Pokemon games, which mostly just act as a vehicle to carry the addictive critter collecting system, with more fleshed out characters - such as the cowardly Dunsparce, haughty Virizion and the ever-helpful, if a little slow, righter of wrong-doers, SIR Quagsire. There's a surprising amount of humour squeezed into the dialogue too, with the highlights being Emolga and Virizion's frequent fallings-out and the aforementioned SIR Quagsire, mmm-hmmm - in fact, you might even find yourself growing to love Pokemon you'd never have considered in the main games, such as the big beefy softy Gurdurr.
Cofagrigus is like the Pokemon equivalent of a magpie.
As you may expect from a game with the words "Mystery Dungeon" in its name, the majority of your time is spent trawling through the titular dungeons, named as such not just because they keep popping up all over the place, but because they also switch round their layouts every time you enter. Each floor is crawling with other Pokemon spoiling for a fight, and skirmishes are fairly frequent, with you and your enemies taking it in turns to fire moves at each other - but this isn't like your standard Pokemon game. Rather than spinning into a battle, every encounter takes place in the world itself, as you retain full control over your Pokemon, but the action becomes slower, and more noticeably turn-based. Moving from side to side, and circling your opponent as you fire off moves, your Pokemon's position is crucial, as each attack has it's own area of effect, with some hitting just a single Pokemon, while others affect the whole room; some affect 'mons one or two tiles away, while others can even work round corners. Every so often your battle prowess will impress one of your opponents that they'll beg to join your team - and much like the main Pokemon games there's a sort of collection aspect, with around 150 Pokemon to recruit - although the vast majority of creatures you encounter are from the new Black and White games, with a few old favourites from the older Pokemon games, such as Marill, Eevee and Swinub, thrown in for good measure.
After a few hours of gently easing you into the basics through a handy tutorial, the game begins to open up and you're free to accept whatever jobs you fancy from the Request Board - a bulletin board on the outskirts of Paradise where Pokemon can post requests for others to tackle, usually for a reward of some sort. There isn't a great variety to their missions though, as they usually involve trawling a dungeon in search of a certain item, hunting down and defeating a particularly strong 'mon or rescuing a stranded Pokemon, and each is rated by difficulty ranging from one to five stars. While many of the requests will be set for the same dungeon, you can't tackle multiple missions in a single trip any more, meaning you'll have to make separate trips each time - which is perhaps not as repetitive as it initially sounds, given that the layout of each dungeon changes each time you enter.
Stairs are strictly one way - once you use them, there's no coming back.
Along with giving you the chance to befriend new Pokemon, the quests also give you the chance to make your current Pokemon exploring team stronger too. The more you use a move, the more those moves grow, with the levelled up move being automatically shared amongst your entire team - for example, if Virizion uses Quick Attack a lot, and eventually levels it up to Quick Attack II, other Pokemon who share the same move, such as Dunsparce, will automatically use the more powerful Quick Attack II too. Better still, as you're beating up any Pokemon who stand in your way, you'll gain experience points which let you level up - and those experience points are shared with your friends back in Paradise, too, so no-one gets left out, and you're never stuck with a drastically under-levelled 'mon that's of no use to anyone.
When you're not adventuring, you can kick back with some hardcore town customisation instead, turning Paradise into your own one-of-a-kind headquarters. Using the materials you've gathered from completed requests you can turn the piece of desert wasteland your partner bought on impulse into a bustling metropolis full of shops selling rare items, fields to grow berries and dojos to train in to power up your team's moves - there's even a couple of bonus mini-games you'll unlock too. With each request you complete, you'll earn a number of 'Paradise Points' which add together to increase your town's overall size too, giving you more space for your developments.
Mini games can reward you with useful items.
Perhaps the only real downside to Gates to Infinity is your team-mates' intelligence. When team Pikawott were just a duo, Oshawott had a tendency to spam his Water Gun attack at enemies with the Water Absorb ability, which lets them absorb water moves and heal themselves instead, making battles last ten times longer than they should have. Then the team grew to four and another problem crept in; a problem which will likely be familiar to anyone who's played a Mystery Dungeon game before. You see, once your mates get a whiff of Pokemon blood in a dungeon, they'll sometimes charge off in the opposite direction to find the enemy, which is usually so far away it's not even showing up on your map - and once they've dispensed with them, they'll snap out of their blood lust, and just wander round in circles aimlessly until you walk all the way back to them. By which time, one of your other teamates will probably have wandered off too, meaning you'll need to repeat the process all over again - and if you're especially unlucky, such a fragmented team may be the death of you.
One final feature that lets you jump into a quick dungeon crawl outside of the main game are the AR Magnagates - by pointing your 3DS' camera at a random round object, such as a CD, pizza or Club Nintendo Kirby Frisbee, you'll be able to "discover" new dungeons. Playing with a randomly generated team from the initial starter Pokemon, it's very much the same idea as in the main game, with you heading for the stairs on each floor before defeating each dungeons' boss at the end - although any money or items you gather will then be carried across to your main game. If you want even more dungeons, there's a number of extra ones available to buy, with six extra dungeons to download at the moment, priced at an eye watering £1.39 each - although the first 'Poke Forest' level is free until the 20th June. Each level tends to focus on a particular area, with some dungeons giving you masses of cash, while others are chock full of rare items, and others still let you recruit Pokemon you wouldn't otherwise be able to get, such as the remaining starters you didn't choose. Since the game's release in Japan in November last year, they've had a total of twelve downloadable dungeons so we're expecting a second batch to come, raising the total cost of the game by almost £17 if you want to see and do everything.
Despite some questionable team-mate intelligence, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity is a fun dungeon-crawler with a cast of well-written characters and compelling, if a little sugary sweet, story. With a near-infinite supply of Magnagate dungeons, a huge town to grow and a sizeable main story, it should be more than enough to tide Pokemaniacs over until of Pokemon X and Y this October.
Format Reviewed: Nintendo 3DS
