As a person who's played nearly all entries (minus Gates) of the series, I must say that Super has top spot for me in terms of plot, visuals, and gameplay, while having second or third in enjoyment you might get from things post-game.



The plot of Super got me hooked from the beginning and I immediately fell in love with the way it handled the player-human-turned-Pokemon and the partner character you have throughout the journey. It was such a refreshing change for me. In previous entries the player is found by the partner and they stick together like glue for the entirety of the game, but in Super you wake up alone and actually befriend your partner through a portion of the story. It set in an atmosphere that you - as a human turned into a Pokemon - are actually quite alone in this new world, and that your partner is simply another resident of it instead of having them slated with you from the get-go. There are actually portions of the game where you spend time without your partner at all and even go through plot relevant dungeons without them, and it reflected that matter of it very well.



On the whole, however, the story takes a bit of a while to get going, and that's saying something since unlike Rescue Team/Explorers - where there are blank periods that require you to do a certain number of missions to progress the story - Super pushes you right on with the plot no matter what you do. If you honestly really wanted to, you could zip right through the first dungeons you set foot in and the plot would carry on just fine. Considering how long it takes things to get going it's not majorly bad, but it makes the end-game of the plot feel way, way too fast. I would have preferred if they made a compromise where the early parts of the story push you on through, while the later parts included filler days where you'd have to do a few missions or go through certain dungeons to continue with the story. It would have made the latter half of the plot feel longer and allow the player to soak it up better. Though in all honesty I really wish the story had been longer, especially considering how big the world is this time around.



Another thing that's different from the previous games is that there are changes that actually encourage you to use items more. I find this a welcome change, since in older games I would have loads of items in storage I would never touch. Roguelikes usually try to incorporate a balance of strategy and item management and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon seemed to have trouble finding it in the previous entries, but have definitely found it in this one. It was a bit of a shock for me at first, since in the other games I'd only be concerned for Apples, Reviver Seeds, and Elixirs, /nothing else/, but after giving it time to adapt and trying out the other items (like wands) it made strategic bag balance and dungeon exploring a lot more fun.



Battle mechanics are pretty much the same, but have a few changes. You use moves to defeat enemy Pokemon and as you do, you gain experience. When you get enough experience you level up, which increases your stats and allows you to learn new moves. Type advantages/disadvantages from the recent core games are in full effect - for example - so type immunities like Ground against Electric are in full effect here and won't make a dent. A move leveling mechanic from Gates (from what I've heard) is carried on into this game, so there's that, and there's a synchronized attack called Alliance that you can do with your dungeon trawling party to gang up on an enemy all at once. Level-up movesets in this game align with the ones in Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, so if you or your partner are Pikachu and you really want Thunder Wave, you're gonna be waiting until Level /18/ to get it.



The good news, though, is that the Pokemon for you and your partner have complete movesets instead of having only 2 moves, some of them being Egg Moves or of an advantageous type against what your Pokemon is weak to. For example: Piplup comes with Mud Slap which is good against Electric types and Pikachu has Grass Knot which is good against Ground and Rock types. The movesets usually give the starters at least one move that can hit enemies from the distance as well, like Psychic for Fennekin, or Water Gun for Totodile. This is different from Rescue Team/Explorers as you have movesets that are useful right from the start, instead of starting off with what you'd have at that level (Tackle/Growl/etc).



A new thing in the game is the Looplet and the Emeras. At first, I found them pointless and confusing, but after a while it clicked and while the game doesn't do the best job at explaining it, they're basically super-strategic hold items. Looplets have various types allowing for different effects, like negating poison like Pecha Scarves or boosting your Attack like Power Bands, and Emeras are dungeon only items that you can apply to the Looplets to expand and stack up various effects. Instead of being stuck with a hold item that only defends against confusion, you can have a hold item that defends against confusion but also boosts your special attack, dodge rate, and let you attack twice by adding the right things to it. Emeras disappear once you leave the dungeon so building up on your Looplet is a constant cycle when you go to dungeons, giving you plenty of chances to try out various combinations.



Speed has been added as a stat to the game and it's literally hit or miss on whether you'll like it or not. Speed basically affects your evasion/accuracy rates. At the start of the game, you'll probably miss a lot - which will suck - but as you level up it'll turn around to where you'll hardly ever miss and your enemy will hardly ever hit. For the most part though I think they could've left it out or handled it a bit better. It takes a decently long time to beat enemies on the floors in dungeons when you cross them, and missing because of your speed stat just wastes PP and prolongs already extended confrontations, in my opinion.



The basic attack that does not use any PP for moves is unfortunately nerfed to the point of uselessness. It's something that seems to have carried on from Gates (from what I've heard, it had been weakened in it), and no matter what you do it will always do 5 points of damage, no more or less. Unless you need your enemy get a step closer to you or are absolutely, 100% sure that you will defeat the enemy with such a weak hit, you're likely better off not using it. Team members also seem to obsess over a single move in their movesets too, only switching to other ones if the enemy is weak against the typing and sometimes dart across a room to get items you might not even want in your bag, which can get frustrating and sometimes end in disaster. The AI makes them very good at knowing to avoid and stay out of range of sleeping enemy Pokemon, however, so it's not so bad.



The Connection Orb is a bit of a mixed bag however, in my opinion. It's the object you use to receive your missions and recruit Pokemon with, and I like it as much as I dislike it. It's easier to get Pokemon onto the team with them now, but you cannot nickname them and there's nothing unique about them. The Vulpix you recruit in this game will be the same Vulpix everyone else does, and since you can get /every/ Pokemon this way evolution is basically pointless. The missions aren't never-ending either. Once you connect with every Pokemon that there is in the orb, that's pretty much it. Though to be fair you'll probably have explored most of the dungeons and be just shy of 100% completion at that point. Still feels a bit of a bummer though, especially since this game has the most dungeons available in the series. There are other tasks within them that still make them worth exploring, but the lack of never-ending tasks tacked on a bulletin board just makes it feel as if something is missing. Something major. The Pelipper Island from the file select menu seems to be what makes up for this issue, but I've yet to really invest time to trying it out.



The continents in the game left me somewhat disappointed. While characters from previous games make well appreciated cameos in the world, there's no returning Treasure Town or Pokemon Square, and while some dungeons have themes and layouts similar to previous entries they aren't the ~same~ dungeons as the other games. At a certain point in the story you can have free reign on which continent you want to go to so long as you buy the passes to get to them, but nothing interesting happens on them throughout the plot. They just have dungeons and are there. I was expecting the plot to have me hopping to every continent through its progression, so I'm kinda bummed out about that.



The Jukebox feature plays music even when the 3DS is closed, and the music in the game is phenomenal, but you have to have a game with significant progress on it in order to have access to tracks you might like more.



Because of these drawbacks I'm giving the game 4 stars. It is a wonderful, WONDERFUL game and has lots of replayability, but unlike the older games it actually has a ceiling where, at some point, you will have nothing to truly do once you accomplish everything worth accomplishing. For the experience of its story and the explorability I definitely recommend it, but for first time players I'm somewhat uncertain. This game definitely has me thinking a lot harder and a lot farther ahead than the older games, so it really depends on the person on if they'd enjoy this game and its challenge or have trouble with it.