Well, just like the first Mystery Dungeon games, you play as a human having been turned into a kind of pokemon, which all depends by a "personality" test. You also get a partner as well at the start of the game. Explorers of Time is just another version of this game with different pokemon I believe.Now, the game is almost exactly the same as the first games, you're a human who gets turned into a pokemon in some way, you wake up in a unknown world, you meet someone, you get together and make yourselfs a rescue team, you do missions, and you beat the bad guys or save the world and then happily ever after. However, this game was still quite addicting, even though it was the same style of play.
Same features such as IQ, linking moves, buying, selling, banking money and storing items as well as the dojo where you could train if need be. There was a couple of extra things they added, such as the ton of dungeons, more items, secret boxes etc. As well as being able to evolve your other recruitment pokemon at a forest and various mini-games including identifying pokemon's footprints. And this time you didn't get a house of any sort, you stayed in a little room at the guild, while they ripped 90% of your earnings. After you beat the game however, you get to stay in your partner's old home, which inside the cliff on the edge of Treasure Town. You still do rescue missions, escorts, and deliveries of items, but they added "Outlaw" missions, Outlaws being pokemon who are wanted by the "police" in some way. They are the hardest of all the sorts of missions, but they are also the most rewarding, rarer items as well as a lot of Rescue points which increase your rank just like the first. Battling is just like the first, you encounter enemies in Mystery Dungeons which change completely everytime you visit and fight them using your normal attack or your selection of moves you've learned. Your partner and other recruits attack or move randomly, so you have no control over them. Very easy to begin with, but later in the game, you have to worry about Monster Houses. When in a open area in a dungeon, sometimes a Monster House occurs, which brings about 8 to 20 enemies from the ceiling all ready to kill you.
Pokemon types occur as normal, leaf effective against water, water effective against fire etc. Your normal attack however can hurt a Ghost type more than a Normal type attack though as it has no type so no advantages or disadvantages. There are a couple of legendary pokemon featured in this game, including Uxie, Mesprit, Azelf and Dialga which are all from the D/P series Pokemon games. After the main story, you encounter 3 more legendaries in the follow up storyline, Cresselia, Palkia and Darkrai.Presentation: 9/10 - Everything is good, you know what to do immediately without any help, a bit too much info though sometimes.Graphics: 7/10 - The normal, average graphics you would expect for a DS game, 2d, RPG maker quality, other than the animations which are quite good. Could have made better text boxes also.Sound: 5/10 - Quite boring, not really catchy, reminds you the old "beep beep" music of Final Fantasy I.Gameplay: 8/10 - Quick and fun to play, IQ and Gummis and Tactics make for some interesting gameplay. Only flaw is that sometimes your partner or recruits don't actually follow the tactic they're set on, such as "Let's stick together" and they go off wondering somewhere.Lasting Appeal: 5/10 - Very fun first time around and after the main storyline, but not that fun or interesting to play again or to start over or even to play Explorer's of Time. Only real reasons would be to level up and gain a rank or two.Total: 34/50 - A pretty decent game even though it's the old game with a different slightly storyline and extra features. Only good enough to play it once and once only.-anandjones