What’s an E3 without a Pokemon game announcement? It isn’t! Nintendo chose E3 2009 as the forum to announce yet another entry in the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon roguelike action-RPG series, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky. If you’ve been following the Japanese Pokemon game releases, you’ll know that this latest entry is a complement to Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness.

Like the other Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky turns players into pokemon. They then join rescue agencies and perform missions for other pokemon. This means dungeon crawling!

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky could be viewed as an enhanced and updated version of Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness. It features the same basic story, but also includes new special episodes, 19 possible pokemon to have as an avatar, the ability to trade with the other two Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers DS games, Wi-Fi internet missions and a game demo that can be sent to friends over local Wi-Fi…

Title: Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness and Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of DarknessPrice: $34.99 (each)System(s): DSRelease Date: April 20, 2008Publisher (Developer): Nintendo (The Pokémon Company)ESRB Rating: “Everyone” for mild cartoon violence.Pros: It has “Pokémon” in the name, the character and town graphics are good and attacks can be mapped to buttons.Cons: You have to buy two games, the gameplay is more frustration than fun and the dungeons graphics are really bad.Overall Score: One thumb sideways, one thumb down; 62/100; D-; * 1/2 out of five.

The game is technically adequate but the blandly generated dungeons don’t do the franchise justice. Also, for all of the well-intentioned features and pretty decent graphics (as is expected at this point from any Pokémon DS game), I played this for a few days, put it down and then never wanted to pick it back up. I had zero care as to the level of my avatar or getting through the next random dungeon. Instead, I am pretty content to leave it as-is, which is a really bad sign for a role-playing game that is intended to be enjoyed for months.

Click through for the full review…

A couple of my friends are serious Pokemon addicts, so after the Mudkip teaser, I was quickly ordered to complete a second cross stitch with a similar theme. Since I only like the pokemon which look cute, I decided to do a cross stitch featuring Smoochum, Elekid and Magby.

Click through for more information and cross stitch links…

The first Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games appeared not too long ago and, surprisingly, found success as that they filled a dungeon crawling niche that was vacant on the DS. Now Nintendo has announced that on April 20, 2008, two more titles in the series will be available. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness will both be translated and localized for a North American release. Unlike the previous entries Red Rescue Team and Blue Rescue Team, which had a titles on the DS and GBA, both of these new releases are designed specifically for the DS.