gaming Pokémon: Super Mystery Dungeon just became my favorite video game.

[jackfettgames 50]

"Your actions will have consequences."

This is a saying repeated throughout modern gaming culture after the immense success of Telltale Games's The Walking Dead.  And true enough, your choices in these games do have consequences: they cause one thing or the other to happen in the game's story.  With this framing, the story of a "choice game" often feels objectified and unaware of itself.

I thought this trait was inherent of games with choices until I played Pokémon: Super Mystery Dungeon.

In this game, the first few hours are spent building the characters.  I could go into an entire other thread explaining how well this game uses characterization, but for now I will keep it simple.  Your partner throughout the game is impulsively driven, yet she (as I call her) still wants to be accepted by someone, so she hangs around you.

As this game progresses, you come to a very important event.  You have been in a team with your previously mentioned partner and another person.  On a rash decision, your partner decides to abandon the third member of your group to get a goal.  As a testament to the writing, this frustrated me, especially when I had no choice to stop her.  However, this annoyance was key in the next scene.

Your partner asks you if she is annoying.  This does give you a choice in answering, so I chose to say, "You can be annoying," as I was annoyed, but more at the turn of events.

Her reaction stunned me.  My response broke my partner.  She ran off the screen after showing her devastated state.  However, I thought that would be the end of it, as it is in most "choice games."

The next day, my partner refused to hang around me, something she had done habitually up until that point.  With this change in such a simple event, I was more affected emotionally than by any "choice game," and I realized after that the game expertly utilized my emotions to make a point.

After that, I had to take a break.  I haven't come back to the game yet, so please leave spoilers out of the discussion.  I'm sorry if this is unclear, but I just really wanted to express my emotions.  Other than that, discuss the game and these moments below!

[Libra 11,691]

Yeah, i was actually suprised by the turn of events after i made some brash decisions. I was amazed and thought "oh my god my choices actually do matter for a change" i mean, games just shrug off any choices, or they do makes choices that cause certain characters to hate or like you, but only to kill off the affected characters.