Random Adventure

Adventures in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon EOS, randomised by the incredible Sky Temple Randomiser - https://skytemple.org - Project Pokémon

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Let's get started

ROM - Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Sky - NDS Randomiser - SkyTemple Randomiser v 1.3.3 Emulator - OpenEmu (with DeSmuME core, I believe)

Details below the cut:

So, I love the Mystery Dungeon series. It's my opinion that they are the best spin off from the Pokémon franchise and it's a hill I'll die on. I've played around with randomisers in mainline games for years now but recently found Sky Temple. I've done a handful of runs myself but thought it might be fun the share my adventure and all the absurdity that comes with it.

The following have all been randomised:

Starters and personality test questions

NPCs, bosses, Pokémon spawns

Items in dungeons, shops, job rewards, rank up rewards

Dungeon layout, traps, weather, length (up or down 10%) and monster house chance (between 0% - 100%)

IQ groups, movesets, TM/HM movesets and compatibility, abilities

I've also opted for first move being an attack but not necessarily stab, for dungeon floors to look similar, for title screen music to be randomised only, and have chosen to use the monster house patch to prevent giant floor monster houses which existed previously - simply, they were run enders and very very frustrating, yeah yeah I know. Git gud.

Console and Arcade video game emulator for macOS.

SkyTemple - PMD Explorers of Sky ROM Editor

ROM editor for Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Sky. Let's you edit starters, graphics, scenes, dungeons and more!

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Vision

Shaking off our funny turn I stored some items with Tentacool, had another look at what the Swablu bro's are selling and headed back to the guild to meet up with Typhlosion. On the way though we see our two little friends talking to a stranger:

Buizel explains that they lost an important item a while ago and have been searching for it ever since...

And kind Mr Quilava has offered his help in locating this item...they set off in search but on his way past Quilava bumps in to us...

... and we start to feel weird again...

Freaking out we tell Weavile what we saw but.... she passes it off as a bad daydream caused by all these sudden changes in our life.

I guess will see... we should get back to the guild to see Typhlosion

[084392]

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Apple bro's

The Kecleon Mart is run by an exuberant pair of Swablu. They offer is their wares but there was nothing exciting enough to make their inventory worth showing today - but randomisers have a habit of making the shop inventories bizarre s I'll show you any notable mentions as we go.

After browsing their stock we hear two children calling out to the shop keepers:

The kids order an apple and go trotting away with it, and one of the Swablu explain that the two kids look after their poorly mother, that's why they are out alone doing the shopping.

It isn't long before the brothers come hurtling back!

The Swablu Bro's had gifted the children an extra apple as a gift. Grateful and happy they go to run off again... but Nosepass trips

The apple thunks to the ground and rolls to our feet.

We scoop it up and has it back to Nosepass... but as we do we grow dizzy.

Our ears fill with static.

Then suddenly with a screech we hear..

A scream. But no one else seemed to hear it? It was definitely Nosepass's voice too... well let's just hope it was the wind

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Meeting the locals

I. Love. Treasure Town.

There are few hub areas in video games that give me the warm fuzzy feeling of nostalgia like Treasure Town does in the PMD games. The town will have different visitors every day, ranging from random locals to guild members and other exploration teams. Lets take some time to meet today's visitors:

Our first two are Dragonite and Abra from the guild. I loooove Abra in place of Sunflora, her shy but excited personality feels right with an Abra.

Next, some exploration teams! Team Seedgey are usually a Seedot and a Pidgey but are replaced by a Bronzer and a Golem.

Team Tasty are usually a Swellow and a Wurmple (named that way because Wurmple fears Swellow will one day eat him!), replaced by Wartortle and Skiploom

And team Ebony is usually a Shuppet and a Murkrow - here, a Spearow and a Hoppip.

Who would your ideal exploration team be? I must say, I'm pretty happy with Luxio & Weavile ❤️

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Treasure Town

Typhlosion dutifully guides us out of the Guild building down in to the high street of Treasure Town and Weavile introduces us to all of our local shopkeepers:

Three guesses who they are meant to be!

Treasure Town is fantastically stocked with all your exploration needs. A bank, to store all your coins - remember you lose half if you faint in a dungeon! An item storage for the same reason. A shop to link your moves together, so they are used in conjunction in one turn. And a market to buy and sell items!

Other notable mentions are a shop where you can open chests, a nursery to hatch eggs and a dojo to train in. These are not available at the start of the game, but I'll introduce you to these shopkeepers later.

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Chapter 3 - The Scream

After yesterday's successful mission we got a well earned rest and awoke bright eyed and busy tailed to join in the morning cheers.

Gosh they certainly do Guildmaster Gooey.

Shinx grabs us and takes us up to the first floor to explain to us the other kind of mission available. Yesterday we looked at the 'jobs' board, where you'll be tasked to do anything from finding lost items and escorting pokémon through dungeons, to rescuing those lost within. If you look on the other side of the room there's another noticeboard:

As Shinx explains, this board is for outlaws. Weavile isn't too happy and Shinx tries to comfort her... I think... by explaining that although there are some pokémon that are rotten to their core we will mainly be tasked with catch petty thieves. At least for now.

Shinx reckons we need someone to guide us around so calls in the cutest fire type in all the land

Typhlosion was the most recent apprentice before us and is simply overwhelmed with the responsibility of showing us around, promptly whisking us around the guild building to show us all he areas we've already seen - bless him.

This character is usually a Bidoof, but I'm so happy to see this big fluffy baby (yup yup)

Next time he's show us around Treasure Town so we can meet our shop keepers!

[largestmothinnorthamerica]

Top 10 anime betrayals

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First Assignment

Shinx asks us to undertake our first assignment from the job board. He explains to us that time is all out of whack which is causing pokémon to grow angry and aggressive as well as triggering the appearance of 'Mystery Dungeons' (Roll credits)

Our first mission is to recover a precious pearl for a Totodile. It's their life and it has been lost in the Drenched Bluff - which is where we are heading to recover it (this is usually a Spoink, if you hadn't already guessed!)

Weavile comments that she's disappointed that we're going to pick up something someone else dropped rather than exploring new lands for treasure but Shinx gives her a verbal spanking and we trundle off on our way

In your usual game Drenched Bluff is going to look like this:

Floors: 7

Rest stops: No

Traps: No

Monster Houses: No

Main type: Water

Boss: None

(Source: Bulbapedia)

Note worthy - with randomised music my favourite dungeon theme in the game is playing. This is usually reserved for a late game dungeon but it's so cool to hear it again this early. There's also this cool terrain with drops off into nothing like late game dungeons which makes for hilariously angry Primeape unable to reach us!

Luxio levelled up twice in this dungeon and learned a new move:

Also return of the Gracedia flower which I picked up, revealing it alters the forms of Kricketot rather than the usual Shaymin

Fun Snorut AI fuck up (we were on the other side of the map, this is why I disable healing moves on other team members)

Also got caned by traps in this one room. Poison spikes, seal trap, grudge trap. A nasty combo

We made a lucky escape on the the last floor and found Totodile's pearl, which they gladly accepted and handed us a whole heap of rewards including stat boosting items and a whopping $2000! Though Shinx quickly snatches all but $200 from us, citing the guild fee as the reason....

With that we're on to Chapter 3 next time

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Swalot's Guild

It sure was a long day...and our heroes are exhausted. So exhausted that Weavile has just face planted on her bed. 'Um' indeed Luxio

We get a well earned night of sleep before a booming voice wakes us up

What kind of pokémon could have such a loud voice!?

The world's angriest Mudkip!! (He's replacing Loudred)

After Mudkip explains to us just how terrifying it would be to incur Guildmaster Gooey's wrath we scarper through to the morning meeting and meet the rest of the guild -

There's my favourite group of goofballs ❤️

So if I have got my order right we can now confirm:

Jynx as Croagunk Absol as Dugtrio Omanyte as Chimecho Dragonite as Corphish Mudkip as Loudred Typhlosion as Bidoof (yup yup) Abra as Sunflora and Ledian as Diglett

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Chapter 2 - The New Guild Recruits

Weavile takes us back to the impressive guild building and it's again confirmed that our Wigglytuff stand in will be Swalot!

Weavile once again stands on the grate so her footprint can be analysed, but this time she is braver with our company and doesn't run away

The sentry is perfectly happy with her feet so asks us to step on the grate... but they're struggling to work out who (or what) we are!

Sentry Ledian is our stand in for Diglett. He takes a moment but he confirms that we are a Luxio and that we're not often seen around these parts which I find a little hard to believe when we make it down into floor one of the guild as the guild master's sidekick comes out to great us and he is a Shinx!

So Chatot will be a Shinx this go round! Shinx musically explains to us that we can register as apprentices with the guild but in order to do so we must meet the guild master himself...

What a cutie ❤️

And with the Guildmaster's blessing, Team Randos were initiated as apprentice explorers ~

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Team up!

After beating our first bosses we return to the beach where Weavile tearfully explains to us what exactly it was those rotten pokémon stole from her.

Weavile goes on to explain how she found the fragment one day and has been inspired to find it's origin. How she wants to see the world and help others, but that she had chickened out of signing up as an apprentice with the local guild. After a short discussion we agree for form an exploration team with Weavile and she advises us that we need to go register wiiiiiith....

The Swalot Guild! So hyped for big gooey guild master

And that is the tutorial done, lets get in to Chapter 2 and start confirming some NPC castings!

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Beach Cave boss fight: Team Skull

Me and Weavile made it to the Beach Cave Pit where Eevee and Whiscash were waiting for us.

This is the first boss fight of the game and Weavile is already overleveled as balls at lv 12 but they put up a decent fight. Normally you'll fight Zubat lv 3 and Koffing lv 6. My Whirlwind was useless here as neither could be blown away, so it was Crabhammers all day.

In the end we win and Team Skull hand over Weavile's treasure and scamper away. I'm sure we haven't seen the last of them

[squid-eevee]

you don’t understand how long this took to make.

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Won't be long till ol butterfingers over here accidentally robs Kecleon and has to run for her life

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Beach Cave pt2 - seeds glorious seeds

I mentioned before that normal items are hard to come by in randomised runs, that's mainly because randomising games totally throws off any game balance that designers probably worked long and hard implementing. Here we get a Kecleon shop in dungeon one despite us having no possible way to have the money available to buy anything! I had picked up some Cacnea Spines which I sold for $28. At this stage we can only hold one item at once so I wanted the space free without wasting an item.

I take back what I said about traps last post as it appears they are here.... and they nearly killed me. Ran on to a secret set of stairs and before I went down them I wanted a gummy that was a few spaces away - only to stumble on a self-destruct trap and nearly die...

These secret stairs can lead to an area called the Secret Bazaar or to a room like the above filled with chests. Sadly I can only carry one item so I grabbed one Deluxe Chest, healed up and carried on.

More mad item balancing. Prior to this Golden Seed I found a Joy Seed which increases your level by 1, so I used that on myself. Then I found the Golden Seed which I used on Weavile - increasing her level by 5. We then stumbled on a Gracidea which I couldn't pick up. If we come across one later I will see which pokémon this has an effect on in the item text, as it won't say Shaymin unless RNJesus is being particularly merciful

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Beach Cave

Welcome to Beach Cave! This is the first dungeon in PMD EOS and is usually fairly straightforward. The pokémon are weak, it's not very long and is designed to be a tutorial level. In usual play throughs these are the specs of the dungeon:

Floors: 5 Rest stops: No Traps: No Monster Houses: No Main type: Water Boss: Zubat and Koffing (Source: Bulbapedia)

Our pokémon pool and bosses will always be different. We may encounter traps but I know we won't see a Monster House as they are turned off for the first 4 dungeons which I confirmed when setting up in SkyTemple. We may also have 4, 5 or 6 floors due to the 10% either way randomiser

This is also our first opportunity to check out our moves and abilities:

So I'm not overly enthused by my moves. Whirlwind could be helpful to get out of a sticky situation, and crab hammer is strong but low PP. Weavile has some moves that I know the AI is going to have a mare with. I've turned off Follow Me, because from past experience the AI will just use it over and over, even when there are no enemies in the room. I'll see if I have the same issue with Ingrain but overall at least that will heal her if needs be.

I got tagged by this Salamence while looking for my abilities and nearly died... so that's fun

Ability wise, I'm not mad. Cloud Nine will be a lifesaver for sure, The issues with randomised weather is that you can escape a monster house by the skin of your teeth and walk straight to a floor with a sandstorm blowing or hail crashing down and it can kill you before you have a chance. As you'll see, healing items are few and far between in randomisers. In my personal run I had about 7 Golden Masks but didn't pick up my first Max Elixir until late in the plot.

Magic Guard is very nice, Cute Charm will be very helpful too I imagine. Snow Cloak will be great if Cloud Nine is nullified somehow, or if it only works once per floor - which it might well do.

Overall we're not looking too bad

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Thieves!

Weavile notices us passed out in the sand and comes to check on us. We're a little bruised and confused, but otherwise fine. We've woken up in the world of pokémon, jee this could be dangerous...Now all we need to do is not tell anyone that -

Dammit Luxio!

Well luckily these two assholes were far enough away not to hear our confession but they do steal Weavile's treasure and going running off into Beach Cave. Weavile asks us to help them recover their stolen goods and we agree.

Let's get this adventure started!