Meta:Mystery Dungeon Introduction Guide
Mystery Dungeon Introduction Guide is a guide aimed at people interested in starting to play Mystery Dungeon video games or exploring them further. It aims to answer questions such as:
- What's a good starting point?
- What should I play first?
- What should I play next?
- What is a good order to play the games?
- What games should I play based on the games I enjoyed?
On the other hand, the goal of this guide is not to give any sort of opinion or analysis on the quality of the games, their game design, balance, graphics, story, music, or any other aspect, but to guide potential new players through a path that they may find interesting and explaining why that would be the case, allowing them to come to their own opinions.
Although many games in the Mystery Dungeon franchise are officially not available in English, some of them have received unofficial translation patches, and regardless of the available in-game languages, the Mystery Dungeon Franchise Wiki (MDFW) can be used as a resource to play and learn about the game, its content and its history, making the franchise more accessible. This guide takes MDFW documentation in account, and makes note of it when available.
There are many ways one could approach the franchise. This guide proposes a few different approaches.
Historical Perspective
For players who want to learn about the series in its original form.
If you are interested in playing the games the way a player would have originally experienced them, and see their evolution first hand, playing accessible or interesting games in their release order would be best. Of course, in this case, the best game to start with would be the very fist Mystery Dungeon game, 
Torneko's Great Adventure: Mystery Dungeon
. Although primitive in its contents and mechanics, it sets many of the fundamentals that will be expanded in later titles.
Although the best way to do this would be to play every single available release in order, this is an attempt at listing the most relevant, interesting, and influential games in the series, while also keeping in account their accessibility to English speakers either through translations or wiki documentation.
Order:
- Torneko 1 (1993)
- Shiren 1 SFC (1995)
Torneko 2 PS1 (1999)
Shiren 2 (2000)
Torneko 3 PS2 (2002)
Asuka the Swordswoman DC (2002)
Rescue Team (2005)- Shiren 1 DS (2006)
- Explorers TD (2007)
Shiren 3 Wii (2008)- Explorers of Sky (2009)
- Adventure Squad (2009)
- Shiren 4 DS (2010)
- Shiren 5 DS (2010)
Gates to Infinity (2012)- Etrian 1 (2015)
- Super MD (2015)
- Etrian 2
(2017) 
Rescue Team DX (2020)- /
Shiren 5 2020 (2020) - / Shiren 6 (2024)
Lenient Gameplay Focus
For players who prefer games on the easier side.
Although it is often said that Mystery Dungeon games, especially Shiren the Wanderer, are extremely hard, the games generally try to ease the experience with introductory game design suitable for beginners interested in learning. World of Dragon Warrior: Torneko: The Last Hope, Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer, Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer 2 - Shiren's Castle and the Oni Invasion, 
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red and Blue Rescue Team, Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon, and / Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island are good for beginners interested in understanding Mystery Dungeon gameplay but afraid that the games may be too challenging. While they still present a challenge, they are specifically designed with new players in mind.
If those titles are still found to be too hard, easier titles such as Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky or Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity can be considered, where the player can have a more relaxed experience focused on casually getting through dungeons or grinding levels and stats, collecting and using helpful or powerful items, or attempting to recruit Pokémon.
Challenging Gameplay Focus
For players who prefer games focused on harder challenges.
Mystery Dungeon 2: Shiren the Wanderer can be a good starting point, especially for players who want to challenge themselves by playing additional challenges such as not using warehouses. Another title notable for its challenging dungeons is / Shiren the Wanderer: The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate (2020).
In general, Mystery Dungeon games feature at least one challenging post-credits dungeon meant for the most experienced players.
Narrative Focus
For players more interested in stories.
A lot of players come to Mystery Dungeon through the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series games, often valuing the narrative side rather than the gameplay. While those games are the most focused on story, with some featuring the longest stories in the franchise, they are not the only games to feature stories.
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games often feature long stories with multiple arcs, starting with a simple slice of life style with Pokémon, and later involving them in grand adventures where they save the world from destruction.
Recommended order:
- Despite the story of these games being rather short and more direct compared to most of the later Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games, this has been and still is often the starting point for players interested in the story. Main story gameplay is easy and allows experiencing the story without any serious in-depth engagement with the gameplay. Certain parts of the story happen non-linearly after the credits, so keep playing.
- Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky
- The longest story in any Pokémon or Mystery Dungeon game, and another common starting point. A good portion of the story, while still linear, only happens after the credits, and five Special Episodes focusing on side stories with different characters are unlocked during the main story. Well known for its unexpected twists. Gameplay generally simplified over Red and Blue Rescue Team.
- Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity
- A story in the same style as Explorers of Sky, but without special episodes, and a shorter post-credits story. Well known for its unexpected twists. Gameplay generally simplified over the previous entries.
- Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon
- Another story in the same style, about the same length as Gates to Infinity. Well known for its unexpected twists. Although the gameplay is still comparatively simple, players of previous Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games are caught off guard by the much more involved gameplay experience, requiring more thoughtful movement and usage of items.
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series stories are written by Shin'ichiro Tomie and Emiko Tanaka. The former also held important development roles in the Shiren the Wanderer series, including story writing in most of the Shiren games. Thus, if you like his work on Pokémon Mystery Dungeon, you may want to check out his other works. Although Shiren the Wanderer stories are usually shorter and less grandiose than the overarching narrative of the average Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game, they still feature a lot of the same charm.
- The story is comedic and lighthearted. Thought and strategy are required to get through the main story gameplay, but it is easier than many other games. The story is spread out through the gameplay experience. It features the earliest story in the Shiren timeline, and it's a great starting point for players new to Shiren games thanks to its easier introductory gameplay.
- Magic Castle's story is most similar to the progression of the Rescue Team titles, likely being the inspiration for the format used by those games. Players traverse several shorter dungeons with a miniboss, and are allowed to store items, and currency, and bring them into dungeons. Items that would be rare in other games are quite common, making for an all-around easier Shiren experience than many other games.
- Shiren 3 features a long, overarching story that ties into Shiren's ancestry and the villagers of Otsutsuki Village. While the game is brutally hard, and unforgiving on the normal difficulty, and the post-credits gameplay can be extremely difficult and cryptic on top of it all, some players may enjoy the retelling of Japanese folklore and its accompanying music, and forego the post-credits gameplay.
- Features multiple stories, connected by them happening in the same general location. Most of the stories are lighthearted, but one in particular takes an unexpected turn. Accessing most of the story content requires beating the first dungeon, which in turn requires a decent understanding of game mechanics. Experienced players won't have much of an issue, but it may be tough for beginners. After many failed attempts, unlockables make the game easier for beginners. Once the first dungeon is beaten, the game opens multiple dungeons and story paths, including some easier dungeons that progress the story.
Other stories may require you to play their mainline titles first in order to understand the context behind some characters. This is the case for the Dragon Quest Mystery Dungeon series with the Torneko's Great Adventure trilogy following the events of Dragon Quest IV.
Outside of games, Mystery Dungeon also has anime, manga, and even novels retelling the stories from the games, or occasionally telling original stories.
Based On Common Features
If you've already played one of the games and want more, another approach can be looking at games that have common features (besides a story focus, which was already covered).
Feature: Monster collecting
- Monsters found in dungeons can be caught by throwing certain Jars at them. They can be called out of their Jar and can be trained by the player to make them stronger.
- Monsters found in dungeons can be recruited.
Feature: Explorable environments housing collected monsters
- Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer 2 - Shiren's Castle and the Oni Invasion,
Feature: Bonus challenge level reset dungeons that can be attempted with a variety of different monsters that have unique characteristics
See Also
| Mystery Dungeon |
|---|
| About Mystery Dungeon • Introduction Guide • Release Timeline |
References