The new Pokémon game is a dull gig economy simulator

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX review: The game is pretty. And that's basically it. - The Washington Post

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Video Game Reviews

By Mikhail Klimentov | March 9, 2020

Plenty of games seem simple and welcoming on the surface, only to reveal great depth upon closer inspection. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX is not one of those games.

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The game has you founding a rescue team to save Pokémon in trouble, or simply to run errands for them — a kind of Pokémon gig economy job.

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You receive assignments and travel through dungeons to complete them. Along the way, you solve a mystery about natural disasters wreaking havoc on Pokémon habitats, and whether you, a human-turned-Pokémon, play a role in the calamity.

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Dungeons have the hypnotic, sleepy quality of being driven down a highway in a warm car. An auto-move feature, which ferries your team through the dungeon, makes the game bearable.

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It also exposes a fundamental problem: There's no good reason to explore. Dungeons are dull and repetitive, and the mini map shows where all of the dungeon's loot is.

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A few hours in, the game starts to feel like an exercise in finding the shortest way from point A to point B.

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Mystery Dungeon hints at the possibility of depth by giving some Pokémon unique abilities. In one configuration, a Hoppip in my squad allowed my team to heal more quickly when walking in halls — a useful ability when dungeons are just big empty chambers broken up by long hallways.

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It complemented the effects of some of my other abilities and items, and suggested a deeper game in which stacks of items and abilities would meaningfully add up, encouraging thoughtful team composition.

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Unfortunately, these decisions don't feel consequential. At a certain point, the plain fact of mass — you pick up new rescue team members while exploring dungeons — overwhelms any opposition, type advantages be damned.

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Early in the game, I routed Zapdos with two electric Pokémon and a full squad of misfit F-tier hangers on, despite accidentally confusing one of my strongest teammates mid-fight.

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My favorite part of the game was inventory management.

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What a bummer.

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