All the Pokemens

[Aura]

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Let's Go! Stormy Adventure Squad!

Before we continue with Blazing Adventure Squad, we're gonna switch things up with Stormy! Or, as the fan translation localizes it: Tempest!

Here is the splash screen for the localization. It's got some cute art!

As I mentioned before, these three games actually share save data, so you can load the same file between the three versions. We'll go over the advantages this can give you, but one of them is immediate. Unfortunately, I wasn't paying enough attention and skipped through the text boxes (I wasn't expecting anything special when I tested this feature out to make sure it would work smoothly on emulator). I'll try to get screenshots of it when I cover Light Adventure Squad next time. But I'm pretty sure one of the benefits was increased storage space at Kangaskhan Storage. Presumably to accomodate for the fact that you're storing items from three separate adventures.

Anyway, without further ado, let's jump right into the start of the second of three parallel adventures.

Right away, it's very clear that this game is almost identical to Blazing Adventure Squad. The hub's name this time is Pokemon Beach rather than Pokemon Village, but the layout is exactly the same. In fact, the only notable difference so far is that two of the residents, Numel and Sneasel, have been replaced with Turtwig and Floatzel respectively.

Other than that, the intro of the game is exactly one-to-one with Blazing Adventure Squad, just with a new coat of paint for the beach theme.

The first notable difference, however, is that, this time, Shuckle has disappeared into a dungeon called Dubious Hill rather than Dubious Forest.

And, as expected, we're picking from 9 pokemon. This time, we're choosing from pokemon that are predominently blue!

Following the logic from before, I decided to start with two pokemon we've never had a chance to start with in a Mystery Dungeon game before: Wooper and Azurill!

=============

 

New Recruits

--------------

Muddy (Wooper F); Lv. 5

Item: None

Abilities: Damp, Water Absorb | Moves: Water Gun, Tail Whip, Mud Sport

---------------

Bubbles (Azurill M); Lv. 5

Item: None

Abilities: Thick Fat, Huge Power | Moves: Splash, Charm, Bubble

Bubble is actually a special egg move, I've only realized just now. Azurill normally only knows Charm and Splash at Lv. 5. Clearly, they wanted this pokemon to be capable of actually fighting early on. However, this isn't STAB Bubble, so it may be lacking a bit.

===========

Anyway, once we've decided on our team, Slowking leads us to Dubious Hill. Of course, it's out the same way.

Dubious Hill

Welcome to the Stormy Adventure Squad's first dungeon! Much like Dubious Forest, don't expect much in the way of danger here. It's another tutorial dungeon but, again, a new coat of paint and some new threats.

Items:  Poke,  Apples,  Big Apples,  Cheri,  Oran, and  Pecha Berries,  Blast,  Heal,  Reviver, and  Stun Seeds,  Geo Pebbles,  Blue,  Grass,  Orange, and  White Gummis,  Max Elixirs, and an assortment of  Wonder Orbs.

While it's possible that Bulbapedia simply doesn't have as comprehensive info on this game (I've already found a White Gummi in this dungeon which isn't listed on Bulbapedia) as with the more popular Mystery Dungeon games, it seems these dungeons aren't quite as copy-pasted as I expected. The items listed here are different, at the very least. 

----------------

Dubious Hill [1F - 2F]

Pokemon:  Natu,  Hoppip

In addition to the items being different, there's only two pokemon on the lowest floors. But right away, this dungeon seems a bit more difficult than Blazing Adventure Squad's. Hoppip is actually resistant to our water attacks!

One thing I realized I didn't show off before was the full list of IQ Skills. Outside of Everlasting which prevents the pokemon from evolving when turned on, the default IQ Skills seem to be the same as in Explorers of Sky. Though I don't know exactly how IQ works in this game. If I had to guess, it's probably lifted straight from Explorers, but I have no way of knowing at the moment.

On the second floor, I ran into a  Cheri Berri, and here's a  White Gummi, too! This is proof there may be items available in these dungeons that I don't list, so keep your eyes peeled if you're playing along! I'll try to make it a point to screenshot as many different pokemon and items on each floor as I can.

------------------

Dubious Hill [3F - 4F]

Pokemon:  Natu,  Hoppip,  Smoochum,  Budew

Smoochum and Budew join on the third floor. Thankfully, this is low-level so that Smoochum isn't one of those terrifying Perish Song users we've dreaded throughout Explorers. Though these girls do take quite the beating, so you may want to tread carefully. Depending on your starter, Budew might be genuinely pretty scary to run into. It'll go down pretty easily, but its Absorb will be STAB and super-effective to Water-types, quad-effective to Muddy! Yikes! But let's not psyche ourselves out. It's still an early-game dungeon and there are always Geo Pebbles you can fall back on if nothing else. Besides, Azurill's Bubble can attack from a range! So it shouldn't be too difficult to avoid any hits. I don't mean to frighten anyone with this over-analysis, it's just interesting to me this game would start you out against a pokemon that has such an obvious surface-level advantage over you. But of course, it's low enough level that it's not likely to survive much at all either way. Even if it gets a hit off, it's not likely to get much out of it.

On the fourth floor, Bubbles leveled up and learned Tail Whip!

-----------------

Dubious Hill [5F - 6F]

Pokemon:  Natu,  Hoppip,  Smoochum,  Budew,  Mime Jr.

Finally, for the last couple of floors, you might run into Mime Jr.! ...I didn't, though, so there's not much to say there.

============

In the end, we find Shuckle all the same.

And that's the end of the dungeon! Nothing really special to talk about, but you really can't expect much out of tutorial dungeons. There's just one more of these and then maybe we'll start getting into more interesting stuff? Who's to say, really.

==============

Of course, things play out all the same from here on out. We celebrate Shuckle's return, talk about the tasty food he was after, and then Slowking asks for us to start an Adventure Squad.

And with that, Team Nature is established in the world of Storm!

After being taught about the various facilities available at Pokemon Beach, we then unlock our second dungeon here: Lively Field! But next time, we've got just one more Adventure Squad to touch in on... see you soon for our introduction to Light Adventure Squad!

[Aura]

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Go For It! Light Adventure Squad

And today we're introducing the third and final of this trio of Mystery Dungeon Games: Light Adventure Squad!

This time, I actually caught the screen that displays when you link up new save data. And yeah, it turns out I wasn't missing much. I haven't actually gotten into any item or team management, but it seems like not only does storage space increase to accommodate the items from each game, but the pokemon you have recruited will also be shared between versions. This was one of the reasons I didn't really want to play these games one after another. I figured I'd end up with a really overpowered team from the end-game of Blazing Adventure Squad and I wouldn't really want to use any of the pokemon from Stormy or Light. This way, I can raise up pokemon from all three squads! Time will have to tell how exactly I sort all this out, though.

This game is set in Pokemon Meadow...

Other than that, the story plays out the same. Though the variable residents this time are Glameow and Grumpig.

This time, Shuckle's gotten lost in Dubious Valley!

And then we have to choose from another set of starters! The link here is pretty straight-forward: They're all Yellow and/or electric types!

I ultimately went with these two for my first expedition. Say hello to Chipper and Wish!

============

 

Team Nature

-------------

Chipper (Pachirisu F); Lv. 5

Item: None

Abilities: Run Away, Pickup | Moves: Growl, Bide, Quick Attack

If I'm being honest, I had no idea Pachirisu had Run Away. If I did, I probably wouldn't have selected her...

-------------

Wish (Togepi M); Lv. 5

Item: None

Abilities: Hustle, Serene Grace | Moves: Growl, Charm, Peck

Peck is a special egg move since Togepi is another pokemon that lacks harming attacks early on.

===========

Slowking leads us to the first dungeon as per usual and we make our way to Dubious Valley!

=============

Dubious Valley

Anybody else getting dejavu? Of course, we've never been here before, though!

Items:  Poke,  Geo Pebbles,  Oran, and  Pecha Berries,  Apples, and  Big Apples,  Max Elixirs,  Grass,  Green, and  Brown Gummis,  Heal,  Stun, and  Reviver Seeds, and some  Wonder Orbs.

I'll be honest, this dungeon actually proved to be a lot more difficult than the others, though I think it's mainly because of my starter choices. I didn't expect Pachirisu to be so fragile. I basically have to take advantage of Quick Attack's range to KO enemies without taking damage, and a miss or second pokemon can make things incredibly awkward. And then I found out the hard way that Pachirisu had Run Away when I tried to let Togepi take over and got ambushed from behind... Ugh, lots of terrible memories...

When we faint, we wake up back at the entrance of the dungeon. Slowking feels sorry for us a bit, but gives us a quick pep talk and sends us right back in. This is the sort of thing that typically happens when you fail the first exploration in a Mystery Dungeon game. Honestly, though, I was kind of expecting this game to give you a chance to choose a different pair, but it seems, at least for now, you're committed to the pair you chose. Thankfully, since this is the first dungeon in the game, we really don't have anything to lose.

===========

Dubious Valley [B1F - B4F]

Pokemon:  Pidgey,  Paras,  Bellsprout,  Bonsly

There are two major factors that led to a lot of my failed runs. The first is just bad luck with pokemon spawns (as depicted here, for example). The other is the deceptive bulk of these enemies. It seems like every enemy takes one or two more hits than I expect to go down. And that's bad when dealing with things like Bellsprout's deceptively strong STAB Vine Whip. Bonsly resisting all of our attacks also didn't help much.

One thing I noticed while exploring today is that individual seeds seem to have different models in this game! Here is a Stun Seed, for example. There was another kind of seed in the previous screenshot, too, though I don't know what kind of seed that was just yet. Keeping track of what certain seeds look like might save you the headache of going after seeds in awkward positions.

The biggest thing that helped me through to the end of the dungeon was Wish's Hustle ability which increases the damage he can deal at the cost of reduced accuracy. Unfortunately, having Hustle as the leader is where I quickly was made aware of Chipper's Run Away ability which is just as annoying here as it was in Explorers. Oh well. At least I was able to get another valuable lesson: Just like in the postgame in previous games, you don't get sent back home unless the current leader gets defeated. Since Wish here has a lot more bulk, he was the much safer choice.

In the end, I was able to make it to Shuckle, saving him from Dubious Valley!

And that's that for this dungeon!

=============

And we all know how things play out from here. We return to the village with Shuckle, find out he was looking for the rumored tasty food, and Slowking encourages us to form an Adventure Squad! Now we have access to all the starters!

And in the end, we unlock our next destination for this game: Sparkling Field! But now I'm wondering if I should continue from here and swing like a pendulum back toward Blazing Adventure Squad, or if I should this going as a cycle and return to Blazing Adventure Squad next? I think I might continue straight into Sparkling Field next time. Things will flow better that way, I feel. See you soon!

[Aura]

We're continuing with our coverage of Adventure Squad! This time, I want to start off by showing what the save file looks like once all three games have been registered. It's all pretty straightforward stuff, but you have the logo for the Blazing, Stormy, and Light Adventure Squads: A flame, cyclone, and a beacon. These same icons appear in the logos of the games as well as as a constellation in the sky during the intro.

Now that we have an Adventure Squad formed, here is what the main menu looks like. It seems that Wonder Mail and Friend Rescue is now exclusively tied to an online service, meaning it's no longer accessible at all. It doesn't seem like there are any passwords at all, so we won't be able to utilize this if we ever find ourselves in trouble.

Anyway, today is our first time progressing beyond the introduction to the game, so we're gonna take a moment to explore Pokemon Meadow.

This Bibarel here seems to get really drowsy and doses off on the regular... maybe he has narcolepsy? Maybe we should just leave him be...

Glameow here also seems to go out on adventures. But she admits her pace must not be quite fast enough at getting these jobs done to make enough of a dent in the board.

Chikorita and Rattata here explain to us that, indeed, evolution is not restricted in this game! You can evolve in dungeons! But Chikorita warns us that enemy pokemon can also evolve...

Grumpig seems to tease Farfetch'd a lot. In this interaction, the two share a back and forth. It seems Farfetch'd is a big gossip, though, so they might be a good source of information down the line...

Over here is a sleeping Munchlax who seems to be dreaming about food.

I do have plenty of food items in my inventory, but I don't see any way to give Munchlax any of them, so I'm guessing, at least for now, this is just flavor text...

This Politoed is kinda funny. He seems to mumble to himself some fairly rude things dismissing you as some nobody who fails to make an expression.

And, of course, we can find SHuckle and his friends over here, happy to be reunited.

Over here on the east side, there appears to be a shop that'll open later, themed around Gastrodon. Curious what this'll be...?

Regardless, it's time to start covering the facilities! First up, we have the Kecleon Shop which appears to only have one of the Kecleon Bros. running it. Either the purple Kecleon will show up later, or he just isn't in this game. Regardless, there's only one Kecleon here.

And his inventory seems pretty standard. But we don't really have much money to work with, so we can't really buy much of anything.

And then there's Kangaskhan Storage where we can store items. If I'm understanding how this works right, items stored here can be withdrawn in any of the linked save files, much like in the Special Episodes in Explorers of Sky.

A new feature here, though, is the Custom Set option which allows you to register your current inventory to store and withdraw those items easily all at once. It's actually a really cool feature I wish Explorers had! It could've saved a lot of time in setting up for every exploration.

And then we have Duskull Bank. We don't have much money, but we may as well deposit what we have. There's nothing special going on here.

Finally, we can talk with Slowking to adjust our party.

And this is where we can choose from all our starters.

The party I decided to go with ditched Pachirisu in favor of Pikachu who doesn't have Run Away to worry about.

============

   

Team Nature (Light)

------------

Spark (Pikachu F); Lv. 5

Item: None

Ability: Static | Moves: ThunderShock, Growl, Tail Whip

-------------

Shine (Meowth M); Lv. 5

Item: None

Abilities: Pickup, Technician | Moves: Scratch, Growl

--------------

Wish (Togepi M); Lv. 7

Item: None

Abilities: Hustle, Serene Grace | Moves: Charm, Growl, Peck, Metronome

--------------

Stars (Psyduck F); Lv. 5

Item: None

Abilities: Damp, Cloud Nine | Moves: Water Sport, Scratch, Tail Whip

==========

Now let's finally turn our attention tot he Request Board. I probably don't need to explain this, it's the same as the Job Bulletin Board in Explorers. It doesn't look like there are outlaw jobs like in Explorers, so it's mostly just rescues and item hunts.

An annoying element of this, though, is that, without a second screen, you have to press A on the job to actually view the details, including the reward. Sometimes there can be important information hidden in this page that would make or break your willingness to accept the job.

Regardless, since we just unlocked Sparkling Field, let's get all the jobs set in that dungeon that we can! We can hold up to 8 jobs!

And once we're ready to go, we make our way to Sparkling Field from the exit to the Meadow.

============

Sparkling Field

This is our first "real" dungeon, in that it's the first time we're exploring with a full team! Unlike in Rescue Team or Explorers, you actually get quite a selection to choose from to make your team. So it feels a bit less like you have to take whatever the game gives you. Even still, most of these pokemon feel really lacking at Lv. 5. But hopefully it won't take too long for them to get their more useful attacks.

And this is also where it seems coverage of this game starts to fall apart. That's rough! I'll try to note all items that I stumble across going forward, but I can't guarantee a comprehensive list of items.

Items:  Poke,   Special Bands,  Wooden Spikes,  Blast,  Sleep,  Warp, and  X-Eye Seeds,  Clear,  Pink, and  Red Gummis,  Max Elixir,  Fire Blast,  Foe-Seal Orbs

 Wooden Spikes seem to be renamed Sticks from Explorers. Not technically a new item, but I figured I'd add a blurb here about it due to the name change.

Anyway, I had an awkward run this time where I ended up getting KO'd and losing pretty much everything useful, so I just reloaded my save after the run and started over. But here are some screenshots of the items I discovered my first attempt:

Here's a TM! You can't see it in the screenshot, but it's actually spinning in place which is kinda cool. I was surprised to pick this thing up and find out it had Fire Blast on it! It seems really early on to allow me to find a TM like that! I briefly considered teaching it to Wish, but I figured with the Hustle ability, this thing would be missing more often than landing any hits. Wish really needs high-accuracy attacks or attacks that can't miss.

Here's what the held items look like on the left part of the screen. They appear as golden scarves in this game. I wonder if their color changes depending on the version?

Here's the Pink Gummi,

And a Blast Seed, it's Brown.

Now, onto my real run:

---------------

Sparkling Field [1F - 11F]

Pokemon:  Mankey,  Magnemite,  Krabby,  Aipom,  Sunkern,  Snubbull,  Treecko,  Ralts,  Shroomish,  Baltoy

Before we get ahead of ourselves, let me talk about some problems I'm running into right now. This game definitely seems to be the most difficult of the three and that's partially because almost all of these pokemon resist Electric attacks and/or are strong against Normal types. Every Growl and Tail Whip is felt badly here. Magnemite in particular is especially scary because its Thundershock is strong and capable of paralyzing you. And most of my pokemon only know Scratch or some variation of it. It resists Pikachu's ThunderShock (which is also Pikachu's only harming move right now), so all I can really do to it is pray that Wish wants to cooperate and Magnitude will turn into attacks that will not only land, but do some sort of actual damage against these things. It's rough. Maybe bringing in pokemon from other playthroughs might not be such a bad idea...

Anyway, not only are these pokemon resistant, I don't think any of them go down to a single one of my strongest attacks, even with neutral damage. So I'm basically guaranteed to receive damage or a debuff at every encounter. Some of these pokemon take several turns to KO. There is something that makes this game a lot rougher than typical PMD and I'm not quite sure what it is just yet. Perhaps the low number of dungeons per game means the difficulty spike will be a lot steeper. Regardless, it's a bit embarrassing that I'm this far in and still getting walled by the easiest dungeons in the game... this might be a bit of a grindy game whether I like that idea or not...

Also, what Chikorita warned us about turned out to be true! Some bad luck against a Sunkern led to it KOing Stars and evolving! It turns out, enemies will evolve if they KO a pokemon that isn't your active leader. KOing the active leader leads to an instant game over (which is what happened my first attempt).

I found a Red Gummi on the 5th floor.

Music: Dubious Forest

On the 6th floor, the tileset changes to this more forested layout. The music changes here as well.

I found a Clear Gummi down here,

I wound up rescuing PIdgey here!

And on the way to the next dungeon, I stumbled across a scary sight: Yes, we're already running into traps! This time it was just a Warp Trap, which is a lot less devastating when you can freely switch your leaders around, but if Warp Traps are here, you know that means we've got all sorts of other traps to worry about, too. I can't list out all the traps you could potentially find, either, so be extra careful! One step could ruin your entire run!

On the 7th floor, I think this red seed here was an X-Eye Seed.

Then, we rescued Paras.

On the next floor, it was Bonsly's turn for rescue,

This Green seed here is a Warp Seed.

Finally, we found a requested Pecha Berry,

And we rescued Bellsprout.

Finally, Shine learned both Bite and Fake Out during this adventure. Fake Out being an incredibly helpful asset as it actually gives us hope of dealing damage against ranged enemies beyond literal sticks and stones.

And that's it for Sparkling Field! Yeah, not a whole lot ended up happening, huh?

Regardless, as a reward for one of the jobs we've completed, we got a Bonsly to want to join our little club! Why not, right?

===========

Energy (Bonsly M); Lv. 1

Item: None

Abilities: Sturdy, Rock Head | Moves: Fake Tears, Copycat

===========

Another interesting item we got as a reward for a different quest was a  Team Elixir! This sounds like an incredibly useful item that restores the PP for all moves on all pokemon in the active party rather than just one! This can make PP management in long endurance dungeons far less stressful!

Upon clearing these jobs, we've gone form Normal Rank to Bronze Rank! And our reward now is a  Joy Seed!

=============

The next morning, Slowking meets with us to warn us that in the dungeons ahead, we're likely to face even tougher pokemon. To prepare us, he decides he's going to teach us a new technique: The Stack Attack.

Slowking leads us to a tutorial area where he created a Stack Spot: A hole in the ground that we'll typically find in dungeons.

To perform a Stack Attack, we'll have to form a Stack, first!

Slowking instructs Wish to jump into the hole first.

Then, he instructs Spark to climb on top of Wish. We can select spark from a menu here.

And with that, we've formed a stack! Pikachu is balancing precariously on Wish's head! By doing so, our collective HP is combined and we can move around as a single unit! Slowking explains that pokemon can stack based on their size. A pokemon can join a stack if they are smaller than all the pokemon currently in the stack, and the stack can only have one pokemon of the same size.

In Explorers, Pikachu and Togepi were the same size, so obviously, this uses a different source for the pokemon's size. I suspect the size might be an internal variable carried over from My Pokemon Ranch, as this Stack mechanic is one of the behaviors pokemon can exhibit at the ranch. Regardless, this does pose an unfortunate oddity that's going to plague me with party planning. It seems unintuitive to guess what pokemon is "larger" or "smaller". Like, obviously, a Wailord will be larger than a Rattata, but I would deifinitely think Togepi would be smaller than Pikachu, right? Yet apparently it's Pikachu who rides on top of Togepi. It seems like there's no way to know for sure who can stack on who without checking their summaries and comparing their sizes directly.

Now we get into the Stack Attack. When we go to select an attack, we'll instead select an attack from each pokemon in the stack.

And then, each pokemon will attack one after another! It seems this is this game's quirky answer to the Linked Moves from previous PMD games.

It seems we hit Slowking good!

Once we're done with the stack, we simply select Hop Down from the menu to get off.

And that's it! This seems like a weirdly convoluted system, but I'll have to wait and see how I feel about it. The biggest thing I'm worried about is how this is going to affect team composition... It's gonna be difficult planning teams that have varying sizes while also keeping a good balance of types and roles.

Once the tutorial is over, it seems we've sent Slowking flying into the air!

And he lands right on his face... When we rush over to his aid, though, he assures us he'll be fine.

Slowking then goes on to teach us a little more about Stack Attacks. It's a technique that's been passed down for generations and requires absolute faith in your teammates, but it's an incredibly powerful asset and an essential for Adventure Squads in these parts.

After a clever little title drop, we're given an odd fake-out end card... I've honestly gotta say, the humor doesn't really hit the same in this game. I'm not sure if it's just written by someone else, but it just kinda comes off as awkward more than anything else.

Slowking proceeds to explain that the Pokemon Stack will prevent your HP from recovering naturally, which I'd say is a reasonable downside and will frankly encourage me to use Oran Berries a bit more responsibly, too.

And with that, we've now unlocked our third dungeon, Shady Crag! But we're not going there just yet. Next time, we'll be catching up with the Stormy Adventure Squad! See you soon!

[Aura]

We're back with more Adventure Squad! This time, we're rejoining the Stormy Adventure Squad.

Right away, you might notice a curious detail: We're already Bronze Rank! Yes, as we're carrying over the same save file, that means our Rank is preserved from game to game as well! This should make the game a bit less of a grind than you might have if you tried to just play one version of the game. But it might also mean we're going into some of these dungeons lower level than intended... We'll just have to play things by ear for a while!

Poking around Pokemon Beach, of course, most of the NPCs are the same here, even the variable pokemon have the same roles. Turtwig occasionally does jobs from the board and Floatzel is teazing Farfetch'd.

I, of course, took the time to prepare a new party. I tried to keep in mind size differences for stacking in preparation this time, but all of the pokemon we got in Stormy Adventure Squad happen to all be the same size. In Light Adventure Squad, we do have Psyduck which is one size larger than everyone else. But other than that, we've got nothing. Regardless, let's meet our new teammates!

============

 

 

Team Nature (Stormy)

---------------

Muddy (Wooper F); Lv. 7

Item: None

Abilities: Damp, Water Absorb | Moves: Water Gun, Tail Whip, Mud Sport

--------------

Bubbles (Azurill M); Lv. 7

Item: None

Abilities: Thick Fat, Huge Power | Moves: Splash, Charm, Bubble, Tail Whip

-------------

Flow (Riolu M); Lv. 5

Item: None

Abilities: Steadfast, Inner Focus | Moves: Endure, Quick Attack, Foresight

------------

Fountain (Squirtle M)

Item: None

Ability: Torrent | Moves: Tackle, Tail Whip

Yes, I'm aware the nickname is misspelled in-game. I'll try to fix that asap.

==========

With our team prepared, we went to gather all the jobs in the newest dungeon, Lively Field, and now we're ready to take it on!

=============

Lively Field

Here is Team Nature's Stormy division's first "real" adventure!

Items:  Poke,  Power,  Special, and  Twist Bands,  Apples,  Cheri, and  Oran Berries,  Blast,  Heal,  Reviver,  Sleep,  Stun,  Warp, and  X-Eye Seeds,  Wooden Spikes,  Black,  Blue,  Brown,  Gray,  Green,  Pink,  Royal,  Silver, and  Yellow Gummis,  Max Elixirs, and assorted  TMs and  Wonder Orbs

-----------

Lively Field [1F - 5F]

Pokemon:  Tangela,  Yanma,  Pineco,  Dunsparce,  Surskit,  Whismur,  Skitty,  Barboach

Many of the pokemon here are incredibly dangerous. Tangela's Sleep Powder and destroy you while Pineco's Protect can cause serious problems this early on, especially since I can't quite one-shot anything yet. It also knows SelfDestruct, but you've got some starters with Damp in this game, so that's not too much of a problem. Still, if you don't happen to have Wooper with you, then watch out! Then there's Skitty with both Attract and Cute Charm if you happen to be the opposite gender... Yanma  and Surskit can also hit from a range with Quick Attack and Bubble, so you'll need to be careful of that, too.

On the third floor, Flow leveled up and learned Counter. Without Bite as an Egg move like in Explorers of Sky, Flow might be relying on Counter to deal some extra damage to ease the burden on Quick Attack.

I wound up recruiting a Pineco!

===========

Torrent (Pineco M); Lv. 7

Item: None

Ability: Sturdy | Moves: Tackle, Protect, SelfDestruct

===========

On the fourth floor, Fountain learned Bubble! That's a great boon both for range and damage output since it's a STAB special attack!

On the 5th floor, we rescued Hoppip!

Wooper also learned Mud Shot! It's great to have some type variety! But we're still pretty vulnerable to Grass-types...

--------------

Lively Field [6F - 11F]

Pokemon:  Tangela,  Yanma,  Pineco,  Dunsparce,  Surskit,  Whismur,  Skitty,  Barboach,  Croagunk

Starting on the 6th floor, you can start running into Croagunk! Be careful not to use Water attacks against it! It has Dry Skin and will heal from them!

On the 7th floor, I stumbled across a Slumber Trap. Boy do I love these traps...

Thankfully, nothing too rough came from the trap and I was able to get through and rescue Natu!

Then came another Hoppip on the following floor...

On the 9th floor, I found my first Reviver Seed! They're golden, so they should stand out pretty well.

And our last pokemon to rescue is yet another Hoppip! Kind of odd that we've had so many repeat clients. I can only assume the pool that can be generated from is different based on your current rank or something.

And after 11 floors, we reach the end of the dungeon! This one did admittedly take a couple of runs. But we made it to the end! And we'll keep going strong, too!

From one of our missions, we received a Pecha Scarf as a reward! Very nice!

And then, of course, Slowking begins to teach the Stormy division about the Stack Attack.

With another title drop (Yes, it does get the title right. It says "Let's Go! Tempest Team Nature!" and then "Do your best, Tempest Team Nature!", I just unintentionally mashed through the first one), we're left to another fake ending and the game proceeds!

And with that, we've unlocked the third dungeon in Stormy Adventure Squad! But next time, we check in with Blazing Adventure Squad! Then we should have the chance to start playing with Stack Attacks! See you soon!

[Aura]

And once again we're back with more Adventure Squad! This time, we're taking our second look at the Blazing division of Team Nature.

Of course, as with the other two games, the variable pokemon are share the same dialogue.

Anyway, let's not waste any time in our coverage today and get right into our new squad!

===========

 

 

Team Nature (Blazing)

--------------

Moon (Teddiursa M); Lv. 7

Item: None

Abilities: Pickup, Quick Feet | Moves: Fake Tears, Lick, Scratch, Covet

--------------

Wildfire (Growlithe M); Lv. 5

Item: None

Abilities: Intimidate, Flash Fire | Moves: Bite, Roar

-------------

Blaze (Torchic F); Lv. 5

Item: None

Ability: Blaze | Moves: Scratch, Growl

--------------

Cinder (Charmander M); Lv. 5

Item: None

Ability: Blaze | Moves: Scratch, Growl

==========

There was actually only one job I wanted to do here. The others were item deliveries with items that are just too valuable for me at the moment.

So, off we go to Cheery Field!

===========

Cheery Field

It's time for the Blazing Division's second dungeon! It's very clear to me that, despite sharing naming conventions, there are more differences between these dungeons than merely aesthetic and the selection of pokemon. There appears to be variance among the available items and the pokemon spawns are a bit more complex in some than others.

Item:  Poke,  Apples,  Cheri,  Oran, and  Pecha Berries,  Clear,  Grass,  Gray,  Green,  Pink,  Red,  Silver,  Sky,  White, and  Yellow Gummis,,  Blast,  Heal,  Sleep,  Stun, and  Warp Seeds,  Wooden Thorns,  Power,  Special, and  Twist Bands,  Max Elixirs, and assorted  Wonder Orbs and  TMs.

-------------

Cheery Field [1F]

Pokemon:  Spearow,  Machop,  Ponyta,  Exeggcute,  Cubone,  Larvitar,  Nincada

This dungeon has a handful of significantly rare pokemon that might immediately catch your eye.

I've noticed a large amount of TMs on the first floor: Three in fact! This could just be a coincidence, but I do have to wonder if there's some hidden mechanic that randomly crates special floors with bonus rare items like these.

Regardless, I wound up using one of these TMs to teach Wildfire Fire Blast. Admittedly, this was entirely on accident as I meant to back out rather than select a pokemon, but once I got to this menu I couldn't get out of it. But hey, Wildfire has a Fire attack now! Good for him! Unfortunately, Fire Blast isn't a ranged attack like I thought it was and it misses quite a lot. So it's not ideal.

-------------

Cheerful Meadow [2F - 3F]

Pokemon:  Spearow,  Machop,  Ponyta,  Exeggcute,  Cubone,  Larvitar,  Nincada,  Kakuna

Kakuna joins on 2F. Why it was too good for 1F? I couldn't tell ya. But here it is.

An enemy I killed on this floor ended up dropping a  Deluxe Box! That's something we've yet to see... there must be an equivalent to Xatu's Appraisal back in Pokemon Village... I suppose we'll figure outwhat to do with this thing later on. But it's certainly worth holding onto.

The description says you need to bring it to Gastrodon, so I guess it's tied to that building with Gastrodon on it.

I also ended up finding a  Power Band! I decided to give it to Moon since he's got the most powerful physical attacks right now.

I also came across an Exeggcute that wanted to join the party! Frankly, support with Hypnosis could come in a lot of handy, so yeah, I brought her along!

===========

Kindle (Exeggcute F); Lv. 11

Item: None

Ability: Chlorophyll | Moves: Uproar, Barrage, Hypnosis, Leech Seed

Kindle won't be doing much but putting pokemon to sleep for now, but I think she has potential with a little bit of development.

============

For now, I decided to swap her out in place of Blaze, since I think we've already got some really solid DPS with Moon.

Speaking of Moon, he learned Fury Swipes! I decided it was for the best to replace Fake Tears rather than Scratch, though, and it ultimately proved to be a good call. Fury Swipes seems to miss almost every attack for some reason. It must be disgustingly low accuracy.

After encountering a Larvitar, it used Sandstorm! I figured I'd share what a Sandstorm looks like in this game! Nothing fancy or anything.

---------------

Cheery Field [4F - 5F]

Pokemon:  Spearow,  Machop,  Ponyta,  Exeggcute,  Cubone,  Larvitar,  Nincada,  Kakuna,  Swinub

Swinub joins up on the 4th floor.

---------------

Cheery Field [6F]

Pokemon:  Spearow,  Machop,  Ponyta,  Exeggcute,  Cubone,  Nincada,  Kakuna,  Swinub

Larvitar takes its leave on the 6th floor.

On the sixth floor, I rescued Cherubi!

--------------

Cheery Field [7F]

Pokemon:  Spearow,  Machop,  Ponyta,  Exeggcute,  Cubone,  Nincada,  Swinub,  Beedrill,  Tyrogue

Kakuna is the next to go. In its place are Beedrill and Tyrogue!

On the 7th floor, the dungeon changes to a more flowery yellow color scheme.

-------------

Cheery Field [8F]

Pokemon:  Spearow,  Exeggcute,  Cubone,  Swinub,  Beedrill,  Tyrogue

Ponyta, Machop, and Nincada take their leave next.

------------

Cheery Field [9F - 11F]

Pokemon:  Exeggcute,  Cubone,  Swinub,  Beedrill,  Tyrogue

Finally, Spearow is the last pokemon to leave.

---------------

And with that, we've cleared our second dungeon! Or, technically our sixth dungeon, depending on how you look at it.

=============

When we got back to the village, however, where I was expecting the Stack Attack tutorial like the other runs, I instead got a cutscene where Slowking asks if we know about the Gastrodon Shop. I'm assuming I got this scene because I picked up a Deluxe Box...

The in-universe reason for the shop's closure was due to the Gastrodon that run it going away on a trip.

But now they've returned, so the shop is open again! According to Slowking, there are unique items here, and you can also open treasure boxes here, too. I'm running on the assumption right now that this is essentially a single store that combines the Croagunk Swap Shop and Xatu Appraisal.

Unfortunately, there was something kinda... missing in that. Yeah, not only did we not get the Stack Attack tutorial, we also didn't unlock the next dungeon. It's looking like we're gonna have to go back and do some more jobs! Next time, we'll do just that to unlock the third dungeon in Blazing Adventure Squad! We'll see how things go! See you soon!

[Aura]

It has been a very long time since I've made an update on here! I apologize for the wait, life has gotten quite busy between my job and various avenues in life. With how long these posts can take to make, trying to squeeze regular updates into my schedule has been quite the ask. So I've been thinking on ways I could reduce the time investment these updates take to make, and I'm hoping this current solution will work out really well! I've decided to go ahead and start recording my experiences! Now you can watch what I do each session directly rather than relying on my memory to recount everything that's happened. Honestly, this is probably something I should've started doing a long time ago.

Anyway, last time, we left off at a rather awkward point where, rather than unlocking the next dungeon, we instead unlocked the Gastrodon Shop! At this store, we can open boxes just like at Xatu's Appraisal in Explorers. We've gathered a couple of boxes so far, but all I've gotten so far are Gold Ribbons and Gummis. Those are really nice items, but nothing particularly note-worthy in terms of uniqueness. The East Sea Gastrodon opens boxes for you while the West Sea Gastrodon sells you rare items like Wonder Orbs and TMs, the kinds of things the pink Kecleon would sell you in Explorers. We're probably gonna wanna check in with these two frequently throughout our adventures.

So, in between updates, I did go through and do a bunch of missions in Cheery Field, which was enough to bump us up to the Silver Rank. We also recruited Cubby the Cubone here, who will be taking Teddiursa's place. Of course, we also went through the same Stack Attack tutorial that we did in the other two games. And now all three save files are at the same point in the story! The most important detail is that we unlocked the new dungeon Sunset Crag. So, let's get into the nitty gritty!

=============

Sunset Crag [5:35]

Serebii | Bulbapedia

This is the first dungeon with Stack Spots which we can use to set up Stack Attacks. And now that we get a chance to actually play with them, I think I have a better understanding of how they work. In addition to the weaknesses listed in-game, it seems that you're allowed at least one pair of pokemon that are the same size to balance in the stack, hence why the tutorial was possible even with pokemon of the same size. Pokemon must be stacked with the largest on the bottom and the smallest on the top. You can't have a larger pokemon on top of a smaller pokemon. Size is determined by species. Most pokemon we currently have are only size 1, but Wildfire the Growlithe and Noodle the Ekans (who we recruit here) are both Size 2, so if either of them are at the bottom of the stack, I can still fit two more Size 1 pokemon on top of them.

Stacked pokemon can link moves together and, supposedly, can even learn egg moves by watching other pokemon use them. Though I suppose that's forbidden knowledge for now. We'll see if it ever comes up. Pokemon in a Stack do not recover HP passively, so Oran Berries will prove to be a lot more important. While in a Stack, you also cannot switch leaders, you *must* play as the stack. However, there are greater benefits beyond just linking moves together: The biggest boon is that moves used by pokemon higher up on the stack don't actually consume PP! So you can get away with using much more powerful attacks than you normally would! This should make all those misses far more bearable. The pokemon on the bottom must always use an attack, though, and they will always lose PP. So be sure to think carefully what moves your largest pokemon knows to ensure you never have to worry about running out of moves.

A bit more on the scary side, however, it seems that wild pokemon can also appear in stacks as well. This could lead to you being surprised with a barrage of dangerous attacks. But it can also potentially allow you to KO several pokemon at once if you hit them hard enough. This is the central gimmick this whole game is built around, and I'm a lot more sold on it now that I'm actually able to play around a bit. Still, I suspect it's gonna lead to a lot of nightmares in the later game.

Now that you can watch my video, I feel it's less important to detail the pokemon you can find here, but if you'd like more detail, you can always check the Serebii and Bulbapedia pages I've listed above. Listing out all the items and pokemon you can find on each floor is one of the most time-consuming parts of Mystery Dungeon that makes it so draining to cover. By omitting these details, which I was mostly just lifting off of these sites anyway, I hope this will be a much more pleasant experience going forward.

I should note, however, that Slowking did warn me about Monster Houses. So I suspect from here on we're going to start running into those. I didn't run into any myself, but I do urge anyone playing along to make sure you're bringing Spurn Orbs and other items to help with Monster Houses if/when they spring up.

At the 8th floor [16:11], the tileset and music change. On the early floors, nothing is particularly dangerous aside from the introduction of stacked enemies, but deeper in the dungeon, we start to run into Hitmonchan.

These guys can put up a bit of a fight. I first run into one on B10F. They can apparently know Agility which is a dangerous move in its own right, but they can soak up a lot of damage and, paired with stacks, Agility is even more dangerous. I'm not sure what kinds of other attacks these guys have without knowing what level they're at, but one of them used Feint, so I suppose that means either learnsets are different from Platinum or these things are as high as Lv. 21! Not that level means much in Mystery Dungeon, but it does provide an explanation for why these guys can take such a beating. But if it knows Feint, then it's probably not out of the question it knows Bullet Punch and Mach Punch, too, giving it some reach.

Regardless, after 15 floors, we reached the end of the dungeon no problem! Ironically, Wildfire was just about to run out of Belly so I was just dismounting the stack right at the end of the dungeon, unsure of how much further we had to go. So it looks like Cubby ended up stealing all the credit for the adventure. Sorry, Wildfire!

At the end, Slowking draws our attention to yet another new service added to Pokemon Village: Slaking's Dojo. But the way it's being described, it doesn't sound quite like a parallel to Marowak's or Makuhita's Dojo, but rather a parallel to Electivire's or Gulpin's Link Shop, just minus the linking service. We'll check it out next time!

Anyway, I hope you guys like the video format better! Or at the very least that it's an acceptable substitute! This is the best compromise I can come up with to keep these updates from taking up entire days at a time, especially as we get to the more complicated dungeons at the end of the game. I hope I can come up with better ways to improve this format in the future! But for now, things are still relatively uneventful. Regardless, next time, we'll be returning to Stormy Adventure Squad! See you soon!

[Aura]

We return with Stormy Adventure Squad! This time the audio is much higher, but I've now realized there's an odd aspect ratio issue I somehow failed to notice previously. Hopefully this problem should be fixed next time when we play Light Adventure Squad.

Anyway, I didn't notice it at first, but since we gained access to Slaking's Dojo on our shared save, all three games now have access to the dojo, same with Gastrodon's shop. So it seems we don't have to unlock these anymore and can play around with any moves we could potentially learn from Slaking right now!

Anyway, armed with knowledge of how Stacks work, I decided to swap Bubbles out for Stars the Psyduck, as Psyduck is a Size 2 pokemon. However, Stars is a little bit underleveled which gets us in a spot of trouble early on in our adventures this time around.

Anyway, after we make our preparations and take on a job, we head out to our next destination: Cloudy Crag!

=============

Cloudy Crag [7:03]

This is the Stormy Adventure Squad's first adventure with Stacking! I found myself a bit more afraid of potential threats this time around, but I think that's mainly due to Stars being underleveled. Toward the end, when he started to catch up, and he and Flow both got some solid standard moves, I felt a lot more confident.

I found Corphish to be a noteworthy danger early on, as it knows Bubble so it may be able to outrange you.

Burmy can also be a threat due to Protect, so watch out around them and try to KO them quickly!

At 16:55 I step on a Warp Trap, discovering that these traps affect each pokemon in the tower independently! All three pokemon were scattered to random parts of the map, making Warp Traps especially dangerous! With the ability to switch leaders, the danger is mitigated a little bit, but you could still end up in incredibly awkward situations, especially with enemy Stacks roaming around! You don't want to be caught on the ground against a Stack of enemies. A Rollcall Orb might be more important in this game than I initially thought. But, if nothing else, you should at least be able to knock over enemy Stacks with items like Sticks.

At 19:41, we reach the 8th floor where the tileset and music change.

At 21:50 I had an unfortunate run-in with a Slugma that proved these guys can be a lot more dangerous than I gave them credit. I was in a really difficult spot where Stars was in the front, but right behind him was Fountain who was low on HP. My best bet seemed to be to hope for the best and let Stars do his best. His best wasn't much and unfortunately lead to him being KO'd.

This KO not only led to a lost Reviver Seed, but also enabled Slugma to evolve into Magcargo! I didn't think too much of it at first and admittedly thought this technically made the fight easier since Water Gun would now be 4x effective! But I was dead wrong as this evolution must've given Slugma a massive boost in stats. It went from taking 30 damage to only 3! And it was using Amnesia to boost its Sp. Defense further! I ultimately won out by hitting it with a Stun Seed and moving Flow down to take him out with a physical Force Palm. But man, was that a scary encounter.

After that encounter, I stacked Muddly and Flow onto Stars while Fountain followed on the side to recover health slowly. The idea was to heal the whole stack with a single Oran Berry originally, but it turned out Stars's max HP was low enough that it didn't factor much into the Stack's overall HP, meaning the whole stack was doing solid.

At 27:36, I arrive at our first Kecleon Shop! I pawn off some items I don't foresee myself relying on in exchange for a Reviver Seed he was selling. As coverage of these games are fairly poor, don't expect very reliable sources on where special Kecleon stores might show up. But I'll do my best to seek them out!

And after 15 floors, we finally reach the end of the dungeon!

============

After the fact, I stop by Slaking to see if we can do anything with our current active party, but none of our team has any interesting moves they can learn. At least just yet. I'll bet we can get some interesting moves once some of our pokemon start to evolve! But that's it for now! Next time, we play around with Light Adventure Squad's first adventure with Stacks! See you soon!