It's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. The only real issue is that there's not as much to do as in Sky once you beat the game. Though in my case, what there is to do has held my interest far longer.
The gameplay in Gates is more polished then in Explorers, which might make the latter a little annoying to play if you choose to play the former first. The things I like most about Gates in that regard are having access to shortcuts for all four of your moves (You only have one in Explorers, meaning you need to open the menu whenever you want to use a move that isn't set to a shortcut), and your walking speed in dungeons is much faster then in Explorers, where it felt needlessly slow to me.
Last edited by Rakurai; 22nd May 2013 at 10:28 PM.
It's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be. The only real issue is that there's not as much to do as in Sky once you beat the game. Though in my case, what there is to do has held my interest far longer.
The gameplay in Gates is more polished then in Explorers, which might make the latter a little annoying to play if you choose to play the former first. The things I like most about Gates in that regard are having access to shortcuts for all four of your moves (You only have one in Explorers, meaning you need to open the menu whenever you want to use a move that isn't set to a shortcut), and your walking speed in dungeons is much faster then in Explorers, where it felt needlessly slow to me.
Then, of course, the jumpover from 8-bit design to three dimensional came as a success, proving to be a quite charming set of graphics wherever you went. The cut-scenes, improved, the gameplay became more user-friendly to an extent (as you said), and, other than the lack of new stuff, was a well-deserved sequel to the past games. Sad that it got a 6 out of 10 by Game Informer, but I still enjoyed it to as far as I got.
Spoiler:- Credits:
The animation above is made by the Dev Six Team, creators of the fan-made game Fighting is Magic. Follow them on www.mane6.com!
Pretty much none of the "professional" reviewers give games in the PMD series good scores, which is unfortunate, since far too many people trust them. At least they've got the demo so people can judge it for themselves, though it would've been better if the demo had covered the first chapter entirely, since the plot starts to get interesting right after where the demo ends.
In any case, the quality of the graphics and soundtrack is another reason why I enjoyed the game much more the previous entries.
I happen to be attracted to the move to 3D from 32-bit. It reminds me of how excited I was to play Pokemon Stadium and see all of my favorite pokemon in 3D. I'm still annoyed that it took this long to make the same transition in the main line of games.
At any rate, I will continue to play the 3DS MD and if I find that I really liked it, I'll move onto Sky. Thanks Rakurai.
I have not, and am most likely not going to, buy Gates to Infinity because I feel they have been quite lazy with it.. I mean, yes, it is a total rehash with new 3D graphics but I mean come on..
Gates to Infinity starters - 5
Explorer of sky starters - 19
Not to mention those 5 are all from Unova, which I have just played through twice with Black and Black 2.
From what I read as well, there is not as many pokemon in the dungeons either.
But I must ask, is the storyline as brilliant and deep as the other games?
Spoiler:- End of the previous game is mentioned.:
The sadness of saying goodbye to your partner at the end of the game was just amazing, I rate the mystery dungeon games so highly because of how deep and thoughtful the storylines are, not to mention solid gameplay that I find no faults with.
Playing Gates To Infinity made me realize how little the number of Pokemon in the previous games actually mattered to me.
In any case, if you're looking for an interesting story, it still delivers in that regard. Some people would say Explorers was better, but I liked it the most out of all the games, especially since they decided to break out of some of the trends that were present in the plots of the previous games. Plus the ending is the best out of any of the games in the series IMO.
As for my general thoughts on Gates, I thought it was a large improvement over Explorers. Bear in mind, I thought Explorers wasn't that good and Rescue Team was just poor in quality. A lot of people rave on about the story in Explorers but I really found it hard to get into. The biggest flaw was this (storywise): putting so much focus on the partner, who is quite frankly a dull and uninteresting character, with no other characters who consistently do anything with you. The partner simply cannot carry a good story, and if I don't care about the characters, I won't care much for the story.
Other major flaws was the first third being almost entirely filler, and 'me' not really having anything to do with it - I was really just being pulled around by the boring partner going through a series of isolated events, very few moments having any relevance to what happens later on. In addition, the game gave me and by proxy me in the game no reason to be interested in his exploration goals, and given that it's a game about adventuring, wanting to be an adventurer is kind of a given. Even fan favorites, Grovyle and Dusknoir, didn't do that much for me.
I was left really saying 'if Explorers done this, this and that' with the story I'd have probably loved it, and Gates to Infinity gave me many of those points: A robust set of characters who get involved with what you're doing with their own hopes and fears, a vastly better written partner who isn't using me as a crutch for his ambitions (or at least giving me a reason to be interested in his paradise dreams given the current state of the pokemon world, and it did seem for more give and take from him rather than just take), less obvious villains, more moral grey points, the first few hours actually being interesting and setting the fictional world effectively, and making the ending have far more sticking power by
Spoiler:- ::
having you not come back immediately after the credits finish - really allowed to set in what happened to you instead of doublebacking too quickly
I can see why Explorer's plot was loved at the time being the only decent story pokemon has ever made at the time, but one of the best game stories ever made? Seriously? And with Gates being out for about 2 months now, I'm actually really surprised the story of Explorers aged that well with people on the whole regardless whether people have played Gates or not.
Ok, I'm prattling on about the story too much, but in the end, within the pokemon franchise, it's the biggest unique selling point, and for me, by far the most interesting to discuss.
You know what I miss when I'm playing this? Efficiency Expert.
I've lost count of the amount of times a Pokémon spam a single attack on a Pokémon that 4x resists it when the Pokémon knows a super effective attack, or the amount of times I've had one of them attack a frozen Pokémon (which now take no damage for some reason). Seriously, Blizzard is useless on AI partners, because it'll freeze something once, then waste half its HP attacking the Pokémon that's now immune to damage from halfway across the room.
Also, I hope the next game zooms out the camera a bit. It took me hours to get remotely used to only being able to see 3 squares away.
One shudders to imagine what inhuman thoughts lie behind that mask...
I have not, and am most likely not going to, buy Gates to Infinity because I feel they have been quite lazy with it.. I mean, yes, it is a total rehash with new 3D graphics but I mean come on..
Gates to Infinity starters - 5
Explorer of sky starters - 19
Not to mention those 5 are all from Unova, which I have just played through twice with Black and Black 2.
From what I read as well, there is not as many pokemon in the dungeons either.
But I must ask, is the storyline as brilliant and deep as the other games?
Spoiler:- End of the previous game is mentioned.:
The sadness of saying goodbye to your partner at the end of the game was just amazing, I rate the mystery dungeon games so highly because of how deep and thoughtful the storylines are, not to mention solid gameplay that I find no faults with.
The story is far better and the lack of pokemon actually makes it better, as it puts more emphasis on each individual pokemon, rather than a ton of random ones.
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Originally Posted by Rakurai
