Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team (GBA) Compare Prices

Game Review & Description: One day you awake to find that you''ve been turned into a Pokemon and the land around you is being destroyed by natural disasters. It''s up to you to explore dungeons filled with wild monsters and uncover your true destiny and purpose in a game where you get to "be" a Pokemon. The lowdown: Rather than being one of the core role-playing games in the Pokemon series this is a spin-off based on ChunSoft''s long running (in Japan at least) Mystery Dungeon series. The basic idea is that you enter a random generated dungeon and defeat all the wild Pokemon you find within it. Most of the standbys of the Pokemon world also make an appearance, including Technical Machines that enable you to lean new abilities, resistances and weakness to different elemental attacks. You can''t capture wild Pokemon but you can recruit them to your team, which adds something to your strategic options. Admittedly the game can get repetitive, but there''s generally enough to see and do until the "real" Pokemon sequels come out sometime next year. Most exciting moment: The combat is a clever mix between real-time and turn-based combat, with wild Pokemon moving about the dungeon at the same time as you. You can have four Pokemon in your team at once, with the computer controlling the other three, and each can have four attacks or abilities each. If you''re sensible you''ll put together a varied team so you''ve got an attack ready for whatever enemy comes your way. Since you ask: As with most Pokemon titles there are two versions of the game, in this case one for the DS and one for the GBA. They''re both essentially the same, except with different distributions of Pokemon in each. The DS does have a couple of extra options though, as well as an easier to use touch screen interface. The bottom line: Not the deepest Pokemon game ever but you''ll still find yourself wanting to catch ''em all. - HARRISON DENT