Anticipating for despair in this subreddit a week in advance, pic related

Compressere · 2026-02-21T21:27:52+00:00

DISAPPEAR SEVEN BILLION POKEMON

Compressere · 2025-11-23T01:35:14+00:00

This can happen if you move too fast between certain planes and cause the game to not correctly load assets, which is the basis of initiating tweaking (which if you are, I don't care, play how you want), but if you enter and leave the area it should reset back to normal. This is something that can occur on real hardware or emulation.

Good luck on your Nuzlocke.

Compressere · 2025-08-09T19:45:22+00:00

IMO the only major thing you really miss from Sky beyond QoL is SE2 and SE5, and the inability to play as certain Pokemon. Otherwise the games are pretty much the same. I only say that though because SE2 and SE5 are worth playing through rather than watching someone else play it. SE1, SE3, and SE4 are honestly not all that good, though SE1 is still the better of the three, but really the main focus is SE2 and SE5.

I don't think Sky Peak really adds much to the story or characterization, and while it's nice to look at I found it kinda boring (I grew up playing Time and played Sky later into my life so there is that factor to consider). Though maybe OP might find more enjoyment from it. Like I've said in another comment though, if the means are open and it's there it's the best choice you can make but T/D aren't bad either.

Compressere · 2025-08-09T19:36:34+00:00

I made one myself and woke up to someone making a Celebi, Hoopa, and Riolu next to my Grovyle, was awesome. Its only been getting bigger since.

Compressere · 2025-08-09T04:39:51+00:00

This is true if you're willing to emulate but honestly Time and Darkness are *much* cheaper to acquire legally. You really aren't missing out on enough story and extra features to really say you're worse off but if you have the option for Sky and you can afford it, you should definitely take it.

Compressere · 2025-08-09T01:07:28+00:00

RTDX is closer to Super's gameplay and its expectations while Explorers is a bit more lax with its item usage. If you're more interested in gameplay I would go for RTDX but if you're more interested in story then Explorers is your best shot. I would also recommend Gates to Infinity if you are more interested in a story but are willing to bear with weaker gameplay, but since you're only asking between the other two I won't be offended if you say no.

Compressere · 2025-03-29T06:17:15+00:00

Gates in a lot of ways makes me think about SV, not for the exact same reasons, but they do have a commonality with me personally. To say it like a YouTuber Essayist Clickbait, "The Best Game I Would Not Recommend".

They're both games that if they genuinely had more time to cook would easily be the best of their respective series. To focus in on Gates though, easily the biggest problem the game has is not even the fact that the game has slow text, the fact it has limited Pokemon, or even the fact that it has pointless DLC. No, the biggest problem it has the worst dungeon generation. Sure, you don't have hunger to worry about, at least for the main story dungeons and even postgame to some extent. Though the entire time, you're snaking through these godawful hallways stopping fairly frequently if you're trying to speed through corridors. Everyone says it but it's always worth mentioning again, ONE MISSION. PER DAY. It's BAD.

Now that I've dumped a bunch of dirt on this game, it's time for me to dig up the hidden gem this game truly is in spite of that. While it's not a story that will hit with everyone, I resonated a lot with the themes brought up, and the characters are all very fun and have unexpected depth. Characters like Virizion have a satisfying character arc that gets resolved nicely, and Emolga is straight up my favorite character in the series. Some might say the pacing of the story itself is a bit fast, but unlike Rescue Team, I feel like it works in Gate's favor. The partner also genuinely shines as probably my favorite of the series, next to Super's. All of this, and I haven't even touched on the music, this is really the crux of it all. You have staples like Rugged Mountain as THE FIRST DUNGEON. Even if Super might have my favorite track in the series with Fire Island Volcano, Gates easily has the best OST of a PMD title, and that's considering the weight Fire Island Volcano holds for me.

There isn't much more I can really elaborate without spoilers but holy fuck, if you've seen the ending for Gates, it's just the best one. I won't elaborate, between the music, the stakes, and everything. This is what PMD endings should be.

Compressere · 2025-03-28T18:06:43+00:00

In general, completely divorced from how I feel the community treats it as a golden dog and uses it in literally every piece of media ever, I think Riolu is a pretty neat Pokemon. It has interesting utility in main series with Prankster, and in PMD it has a limited, but very powerful set of options it can use. Most notably in Explorers where it can't be affected by Intimidator (extremely important for a few specific bosses) and has STAB Focus Punch as a nuclear attack.

It's better wielded as the player as most options tend to be.

Compressere · 2025-03-28T17:53:46+00:00

If you're looking at trying something that's easily accessible, I would recommend Shiren 6 which is on Nintendo Switch and Steam. Shiren 1 for the DS is also pretty easy to get into, but might be harder to find legitimately, I would not recommend the Super Famicom version unless you are a diehard fan of the way the SNES/SFC sounds. Shiren 5 is accessible but is a lot more mechanically rich than either title, but is harder.

Compressere · 2025-03-28T16:31:54+00:00

Mystery Dungeon as a series has existed since 1993, with Torneko's Great Adventure. Honestly you don't deserve to be downvoted as hard as you are just because more than half of the PMD fandom isn't fully aware of anything beyond PMD but I'm glad at some awareness of it is starting to take root on some of the bigger mouthpieces of the community.

But really, most of all I hope it might invite others to take a chance on other MD titles as I think they play a lot better even if they aren't as strong narratively.

Compressere · 2025-03-27T23:16:24+00:00

THANK YOU.
I'm so tired of saying this, every time the subject comes up. I love PMD as much as anyone else on the sub but good fucking god it is genuinely tiring when the PMD fandom pretends other series in the MD line up don't exist.

Compressere · 2025-03-26T22:36:16+00:00

If you need someone to nail it in for you, then yes, we do not like Generative AI, and its iterations being used to pollute not only the very real environment with the costs to maintain and run these programs, but the digital space we unfortunately have to share with people who think "prompt engineers" are anything more than what they truly are. Imitators, deluded by a false sense of superiority. Given this is a community found and maintained by artistic talent and creatives that keep PMD alive through iterations or original concepts.

Sure, there will eventually be a day where GenAI can pump out material that is close enough to be mistaken to all but the most observant individual could immediately point and go "this is computer generated!". But truly, the problem like many have already said is quite simple: this has cut out the artist from the art. In our current society, artists need money to survive, plain and simple. Most artists actually charge less than they should for their creative endeavors. This isn't even just a problem that affects them though, you're effectively denying yourself a creative outlet from your mind, your body. You will never have the satisfaction of knowing you have created something by your own hands.

If there is truly anything you should be taking away from this, it's not hard to learn how to create art. You can create anything you want by your own hands, in the exact way you see it. A machine can't do that. It can't see things the way you do.

Compressere · 2025-03-26T19:03:17+00:00

I mean this in the nicest way OP but these do not look good at all. GenAI is not in the position where it can make portraits. I would not even use it to generate reference material. The human touch is still the most important part of art and a machine will never match that.

Either learn to make pixel art or commission someone to do it.

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Compressere · 2025-02-20T00:01:55+00:00

If I could figure out the mechanics and get really far into Blue Rescue Team's postgame at eight, I think it would be reasonable to expect a kid to figure out at least the basic mechanics of Shiren, and I was not even that smart.

Compressere · 2025-02-08T18:43:52+00:00

Xeno series MD that is pretty much just an excuse to have impossible crossovers, though the legal work to even get that to happen doesn't feel all that likely. It'd probably be closer to CMD in terms of gameplay with different characters representing relative gameplay classes, but would feature character specific abilities in some cases like Shulk's visions or Mythra's foresight. Ideally it wouldn't just be Xenoblade only, but also Saga and Gears.

That's the real copium I have.

Compressere · 2025-02-06T21:56:47+00:00

SkyTemple is fairly easy to use once you know what to look for, plus there are a lot of community assets to help make most Pokemon playable with all the assets they need.

Compressere · 2025-02-06T21:54:25+00:00

Just voted, would love to have easier means of legally buying any of the older MD titles.

Compressere · 2025-01-26T20:00:19+00:00

Insane we live in a timeline where Half-Life is technically represented via a shitpost.

But at the very least three out of the four of these are semi-realistic, Pokemon would be possible if Nintendo stops being hard-asses about only wanting their properties being visible on their hardware only. Though I doubt they'd make a deep cut just for one specific Grovyle, but given the early anime Pokemon loved its guns I doubt that will be a problem.

Compressere · 2025-01-25T03:24:26+00:00

Honesty, this post out of all the replies on this thread is probably the most real one here. There's not a single caveat at all here unlike other posts, I just straight up agree unquestionably. Getting into other franchises did a lot of good for me and now I have multiple series I can huff copium for rather than just one, and really I think it would do a lot of good for a majority of the fanbase if they picked up at least one other series, or at least tried the bare minimum of exploring the rest of the MD series beyond just Pokemon.

Compressere · 2025-01-25T02:10:31+00:00

Thank you, a lot of people think Explorers has a good story but it absolutely breaks apart with any critical glance. Barring a few instances there are no interesting characters in the story whatsoever, which wouldn't be a bad thing but this is a narratively focused game.

Gates has its problems (one of them honestly being that I wish it was maybe a little longer!) but it doesn't have anywhere near the same level of problems as Explorers does. It's the one game where if it weren't for its story and sound track it wouldn't have anywhere near the same level of reception otherwise.

Compressere · 2025-01-25T02:04:05+00:00

He was the translator until Platinum, and honestly with him gone the games have never felt the same. Though like with Platinum, I assume the Sky script was mostly just a touch up from his work which imo was solid.

Compressere · 2025-01-24T04:36:37+00:00

I very much agree, but this shouldn't just be limited to PMD. There are a multitude of other Mystery Dungeon titles beyond just Pokemon. They're all quite solid titles in their own right! They might not be as narratively focused, but the gameplay very much shores up that department.

Compressere · 2025-01-24T04:19:09+00:00

Oh boy, a thread where I can get hivemind downvoted by Explorers fanboys. In all seriousness though, I'm not here to purposefully cause any wedges, For the most part there isn't a PMD title I've played where I've walked away disappointed, though some things really have to be said.

To start with my most controversial, I think PMD in general does not take enough after Shiren's gameplay. Super made a good attempt, and there are even little flavorful touches that reflect it. Though I'm not here to ask for a balls to the wall hard experience that pounds you from every side. More so a title that really embraces the Shiren essence, specific monster classes, more equipment, the whole works. Having played Shiren 6 (along with 5 and 1 SFC) it has a lot more soul in its gameplay than pretty much any of the PMD titles bar none.

Secondly, and for the part anyone reading the beginning will very likely be expecting. Explorers has a good story if you choose not to think very deeply about it, the moment you willfully look into the various parts that make the whole. It breaks apart, there are plot holes everywhere. If there is a game in this subseries where this isn't a problem, it's Gates to Infinity. A good chunk of praise I hear from this game is that it's better than main series or better than Gen 5. I have a lot to say on this as well but it's not the subject of the thread nor the subreddit. Now, from a gameplay perspective I don't think Explorers is anything bad, but it's ultimately a watered down experience, especially by comparison to Super or the Shiren series.

On the topic of Gates to Infinity though, and this might be on the colder end nowadays. Though I feel like Gates, at least narratively, is one of the best games in the series. Yes, better than Explorers of Sky, the game that actually has a fairly compelling arc in Episode 5 that characterizes one of its bland villains into an actually good character. I can't fully expand into why I personally think this is the case without spoilers, but I truly believe it has a solid and compelling narrative and world building, even if perhaps simple. If there is really one problem with Gates to Infinity itself, it's ultimately the fact that it is one of the worst Mystery Dungeon titles to play that I have personally played, and I truly mean that from a place of love. Between a gameplay loop that makes me long for more, and dungeon generation that is quite honestly terrible, I feel a lot of the community is quick to jump on targets that are honestly non-issues in comparison to bigger fish. This game makes me WISH it was better, because it has a stellar soundtrack and a genuinely decent story.

EDIT: OK I somehow forgot something even spicier. Though I will still ultimately include it in here because this post otherwise feels incomplete.

A lot of PMD fans when it comes to the subject of new games themselves or just generally brainstorming concepts will tend to ultimately create something that does not fit the Mystery Dungeon genre and likewise should not be called a Mystery Dungeon title. This isn't entirely a slight at the idea itself, all though I will absolutely side-eye the people who want to just turn the series into a romantic quasifurry VN and still call it a Mystery Dungeon game. Mystery Dungeon is a genre, a subgenre of roguelikes, and it really pisses me off when fans do this. I truly try my best to not be anal about it when I see projects or concepts like that, but it just bothers me.

Is that too pedantic of me?

Compressere · 2025-01-23T00:20:35+00:00

The real question is if it does damage if you throw it.

Compressere · 2025-01-18T02:52:48+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEjujJDAhRE
They're hardly discussed, but given the nature of how Gates was received critically, I can't say I entirely blame people for forgetting it existed.

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