The show! Will! Go! On!

Keldeo reared up on his hind legs, his expression serious and his Secret Sword raised and glowing brightly.

Keldeo the Critic

Editorial 5- The Top 11 Dumbest Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky Moments

Tiny URL: otr484h

"It's me! Keldeo the Critic! I review it so you don't have to!" Keldeo said, "Remember when I did an editorial on the Top 11 Dumbest Gates to Infinity Moments? I made a few references to the Explorers games that came before. I said that I missed Grovyle, I praised the story line, and I expressed how much I missed Gummis."

"So, I'm sure that many of you think the I'm one of those fans who thinks that Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky is absolutely flawless," Keldeo with a smile. Then he shook his head and said, "I am not. In fact, I've noticed a bunch of holes and issues in the plot of this game, and now I'm going to duck."

Keldeo ducked his head down, and a flurry of thorns, spikes, and gravelrocks went flying towards him, just barely missing his head.

After the attack was over, Keldeo lifted his head up again and said, "Look, no game is perfect. No story is perfect. So there's nothing wrong with looking through this story to find the things that could have been made more perfect with a little extra work, that way games in the future might be a little bit more enjoyable."

An image of Pokemon SUPER Mystery Dungeon appeared.

Keldeo sighed and looked up slightly. "We can only hope. . ." he said softly.

Keldeo refocused and said, "Well, I have to say that just like how I got some help from Imperator Justinian in my Gates to Infinity list, I also asked him for some help in finding some flaws in the Explorers games too, so thanks again Justinian! So, here's the top 11 dumbest moments of this game's story and game play. Why top 11? Because 10 just isn't enough. So, without further ado, here are the top 11 dumbest Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky moments."

. . .

"Oh, and by the way-."

"SPOILERS!" Zorua shouted.

Number 11

"Arce. . . who?"

"I'm sure we all know that the higher being Dialga mentions at the end of Grovyle, Dusknoir, and Celebi story in Explorers if Sky is Arceus. Bulbapedia even confirms it."

Keldeo lost a bit of his perkiness and said, "But Justinian and I both agree that this kinda feels like a cruel tease. The game lets you recruit Darkrai, Cresselia, Dialga, and Palkia; but the game doesn't even let you see Arceus, let alone battle or recruit him."

Keldeo perked up again and said, "But you know, I kinda understand why. The game wanted to keep Arceus as the supreme being of this world. Arceus is an actual invincible being, unlike he is in the Anime, of course. It's almost as if they wanted to make Arceus a little more similar to God in real life. So Arceus not being present isn't that bad. . . It still annoys me though. . . wow, imagine having Arceus on your team. . ."

Number 10

"Sentry Duty. . . yay?"

Keldeo smiled sheepishly, "Yeah, the little Sentry Duty minigame where you match footprints wasn't fun. But what Justinian pointed out is that there isn't that much in terms of non adventuring game play outside of the Sentry Duty minigame. Luckily, Gates to Infinity saw this as a problem and provided the building of Pokemon paradise. Beartic Slide, Sunken Treasure, Prize Palace, and all the other places to build, let alone the challenge in actually building, upgrading, and painting them really got you interested and invested when you're not going on adventures. Explorers just doesn't have that extra charm. You just have to just keep doing missions and be satisfied with that."

Keldeo grinned and said, "Oh well! At least you can do more than one mission in a dungeon at once!"

Number 9

"Zero Isle."

Keldeo shook his head, "Justinian hated these dungeons. I hated these dungeons. They were not fun. They were an attempt to create some kind of challenge mode for the game, kind of like Battle Frontier or Black City or White Forest. But the problem is that the Zero Isle dungeons just slap restrictions on you! Like you start at level 1, or you can't level up, or you can't bring items."

Keldeo frowned, "Now, is that fair? It's challenging, yes, but Mystery Dungeon is a game that depends on strategy. There are a lot of elements that make up that strategy. So when you slap on all those restrictions, it kinda destroys the strategy that made the game fun."

"Trust me when I say that any quote unquote 'rare' items you could get in these levels are not worth it."

Number 8

"Grovyle not just telling the guild that they needed to bring the Time Gears to Temporal Tower."

Keldeo frowned, "I mean, how hard could it be? He didn't even have to say that he was from the future. All he had to do was say that Dialga's tower was badly damaged, and that he needed to bring the time gears there to fix it, and that any instances of time stopping in the Time Gear areas would be only temporary."

With a defeated look on his face, Keldeo said, "Okay, you could say that they just wouldn't believe a story like that, and yeah, it would take a lot of convincing. And if the world famous explorer Dusknoir showed up and called him a lying criminal who wanted the Time Gears for himself. . . well, yeah. . .it probably wouldn't have worked. But Grovyle could have at least tried instead of just stealing the Time Gears and making himself look evil!"

Number 7

"Grovyle trying to kill the partner and Azelf."

Keldeo made a face.

"Yeah. . . I'm surprised that no one has ever brought this up before. Grovyle tries to take them out just to get the Time Gear. And. . .well. . . yeah, the Time Gears are important. Time is gonna stop if he doesn't get them. 'Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,' and all that. But still, Grovyle was going to kill two innocent Pokemon, one of them a Legendary."

Keldeo sighed and said, "Oh well. I guess it was just a way to show how desperate Grovyle was to save the world."

Number 6

"No final battle with Team Skull."

Keldeo growled, "You didn't need to tell me twice, Justinian. How can the makers of this game not give us a change to fight Skuntank and his gang! Sure, we do get to fight Koffing and Zubat, but we never get a fair fight with Skuntank. And that infamous Perfect Apple scene is so infuriating!"

Keldeo stomped his hooves and said, "Sure, I get it, that Noxious Gas Combo sounds nasty enough to make you black out for a while, but come on! How can we not get a chance to defend our honor against these thugs. And, okay, fine, they get beaten up in Brine Cave and their true colors are revealed to Chatot the jerk, more on him later, but how come we don't get a chance to land the final blow on him."

Keldeo breathed out heavily and said with a stern, straight face, "Well, there's a theory going around that Team Skull died in Brine Cave. . . . . . . . . . . no comment."

Number 5

"Random human?"

"In all the Mystery Dungeon games, you play as a human that was taken from your world, turned into a Pokemon, and brought to the Pokemon world. . . except for this game. In this game, you're a human from the future who got turned into a Pokemon and brought to the past. In other words, you're a human from a Pokemon world."

Keldeo looked utterly dumbstruck.

"How the hay dose that work? I mean, if you're from the future, that means you're form the same world! And if the future has humans, then the past should too, right? Well then where are they? How can there be humans in the future but not in the present? Unless. . . you're the only human in existence? That makes even less sense! Shouldn't you have ancestors in the present? Where's your family?"

Keldeo fell onto his stomach and closed his eyes hard, trying to think. "Okay. . . I've got two theories."

Keldeo opened his eyes, got back up and said, "Theory one: this world has both humans and Pokemon, but either they never interact and live on separate continents or there are some places where there's zero interaction, Wigglytuff's Guild being one such place. But when the planet was paralyzed in the future, some human went to the Pokemon continent to see what they could do, and you we're one of them. You end up being the only survivor, and you team up with Grovyle and Celebi and eventually go back to the past only the get mind wiped and transformed by Darkrai."

"Theory two: this is a Pokemon only world, and you did originally come from the human world, but were sent to the future where the planet is paralyzed as a human first. Then you go to the past with Grovyle and get mind wiped and transformed."

Keldeo frowned, "You know, it would have been much easier if you weren't form the future, or if you had always been a Pokemon instead. It would have epxlained how you could understand Poke languae when you were a human from the future having conversations with Grovyle!

Number 4

"Darkrai . . . just. . . Darkrai. . ."

"Okay, I actually only noticed two-thirds of the issue here, but Justinian noticed that third that I overlooked," Keldeo said, "And now that I think about it, it gets even worse when you realize that both Sunflora and Bidoof got backstory episodes in Explorers of Sky. So we have to ask, why didn't Cressila and Darkrai get backstories?! What the heck?! I mean, are we supposed to just accept the fact that Darkra is evil? That isn't right! As players who want to get into the lore of the world we are playing in, we have the right to know about the main antagonists. Think about it, we never even learn the simplest things about Darkrai or Cresselia! Right down to: Where did they come from? Who do they know? How long have they been at it? Hey, Darkrai seems really determined to take over the world, can we learn what drove him to make such a decision? Did he see a prophesy? A vision of the paralyzed planet? Was he abused, treated with prejudice, or mistreated to the point that it turned him evil? How exactly does Cresselia fit into all of this?"

Keldeo faced hoofed and said, "Ugh! This is the same problem Munna and her gang had in Gates to Infinity, only worse, because in this game, Darkrai technically wins and looses at the same time!"

Keldeo nodded, "Yeah, that's the second problem with Darkrai in this game. In one way, Darkrai kinda won in this. We know that Grovyle and Dusknoir game from a future where the planet was paralyzed and covered in darkness. That's what Darkrai's whole plan was, to make a dark world where he could rule."

Keldeo frowned angrily and shouted, "Except that never happens! Future!Darkrai's not the ruler of the dark future, Primal Dialga is! So what happened to Future!Darkrai? Did Primal Dialga overthrow and kill him in the future? Or did Future!Darkrai just take one look at Primal Dialga and realize that he didn't really think his whole plan through? In either case, Darkrai should be thanking the player for foiling his plan, but then again he'd have no way of knowing it was gonna fail at the time. . ."

Keldeo put his hoof down and said, "Oh, and I'm not through with Darkrai yet. No sir. Here's a huge, big, giant, major plot hole!"

Keldeo put a hoof to his head and said, "How did Darkrai, a medium sized Legendary Pokemon, knock down a huge tower that goes high up into the sky? I mean, what did Darkrai do? Keep using Dark Pulse at it for years and year? That's like trying to use a pen to dig through a brick wall!

Keldeo thought for a moment, and then said with a smile, "But you know, I suppose it would be possible for Darkrai to smash the base of the tower enough for the whole thing to become unsteady enough to fall over and crumble like that. You know. Just kinda throw off the balance."

Then Keldeo frowned, "Too bad the picture in the game clearly shows that not only is the base completely untouched, but that the tower has big chunks taken out of the sides of it up its entire height! What did Darkrai do? Fly around crazily throwing Dark Pulses at it? How did he get away with this!? How did Dialga or even Lapras not notice this!?"

Dialga was meditating on top of Temporal Tower when he heard the sounds of explosions coming from down below. Dialga sighed in annoyance, and rolled a large boulder over the side of the tower. Dialga looked down and watched the boulder fall.

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"

SPLAT!

Dialga smiled, nodded, and picked up a Golden Apple as rap music started playing inexplicably.

Here, kitty-kitty! Meow-meow, cat, meow!

Mew Power in the HOUSE!

Dialga triumphantly took a bite of the rare fruit, looking thoroughly satisfied with himself.

"You know what I think?" Keldeo said, "I think the game makers wanted to make a serious after game where a mysterious evil chess-master villain is revealed, so they just shoehorned Darkrai being behind Temporal Tower's collapse without having a clue how he could have done it!"

Keldeo nodded resolutely, "Yeah! That's right! I said it! It would have been impossible for Darkrai to do this, let alone do it without being seen! And Darkrai being shoehorned in would also explain his lack of backstory! Wow, it's like they shouldn't have even tried making an after game at all! The Grandmaster of All Things Bad is a better developed villain than Darkrai!"

Number 3

"Why didn't Dialga just go get the Time Gears himself?" Keldeo asked incredulously.

Cobalion suddenly walked over and said sternly, "Hold it right there, Keldeo. That complaint is hardly valid."

"What do you mean, Cobalion?" Keldeo asked in disbelief, "This is one of the hugest plot holes I've ever seen in a video game!"

"Keldeo, there is a perfectly good reason for why Dialga couldn't do anything," Cobalion said.

"Oh really? What is it?" Keldeo said in a challenging tone.

"Dialga had already become too corrupted into his Primal Dialga form to think rationally," Cobalion said with certainty.

"Uh, no Cobalion," Keldeo said, "From what we can gather from the game, Temporal Tower has been damaged for some time, and by the time we finally get to the top of Temporal Tower, Dialga is only partially in his Primal form. He's still able to talk and still has some intelligence left in him, so I'm sure that back when Dialga first noticed the huge chunks taken out of the sides of the tower, he would have been sane enough to realize that he had better get it fixed before he went crazy and time stopped. He must have had more than enough time to figure things out!"

Cobalion blinked, staring at Keldeo in silence. Then he said, "Well, Dialga is probably unable to leave Temporal Tower as long as it's standing, due to the fact of him being the Legendary Pokemon of Time."

"Uh, that's wrong, Cobalion," Keldeo said politely, "You're able to recruit Dialga later on, so he clearly can leave the tower any time he wants."

A brief look of embarrassment flashed across Cobalion's face, but he quickly regained his confident composure and said, "Well, Dialga is probably unable to touch the Time Gears. It's like how like the like-poles of a magnet repel each other. Time repels time."

Keldeo shrugged, "That actually sounds clever, Cobalion. But why doesn't Dialga just ask, or command, someone to get the Time Gears and bring them to Temporal Tower for him? He could have even asked Palkia to help him!"

Cobalion's eyes darted around in a subtle nervousness, then he answer, "Well, Dialga is too proud to ask for help."

"What!?" Keldeo exclaimed, "All of time is at stake! His sanity is at stake! Are you telling me that he is going to condemn himself and the entire world to fate worse than death just because of pride? And didn't I mention he could have forcefully commanded someone to do it as the proud and mighty Legendary Pokemon of Time?"

Cobalion gave a loud sigh and said, "Very well, Keldeo. You've bested me. I suppose that I now see that this is a huge plot hole. But the plot of the whole game seems to depend on Dialga not being able to do anything for some reason."

"Like the eagles not being able to drop the One Ring into the volcano themselves in the Lord of the Rings movies," Keldeo said with a grin.

Cobalion gave a small smile, "Yes. But I still feel that the writers still could have given us an explanation. I know that in the book it said that Sauron's magic kept the eagles out of Mordor, and that should have been in the movie. But the writers for Explorers never gave us a reason why Dialga, or Lapras for that matter, couldn't either get help or help themselves. But there had to have been some reason, so I and others like me came to the conclusions that you so easily debunked, and I actually commend you for that, Keldeo. I appreciate you helping us not blindly accept poor writing. Hopefully Game Freak won't make such huge mistakes again."

Keldeo smiled proudly and said, "Thanks, Cobalion. And I sure do hope they don't create any more huge plot holes like that. And hey! At least it gives me an excuse to make a How It Should Have Ended skit!"

Dusknoir stood by the time portal in front of the crowd of Pokemon with the tied up and gagged Grovyle next to him.

"Thank you so much, Wigglytuff Guild," Dusknoir, "Thanks to you, the criminal Grovyle has been captured. And now, I shall take-"

Dusknoir was suddenly interrupted by a flash of light as Palkia appeared with Dialga in tow. Palkia also held a struggling Darkrai in his claws.

"PALKIA," Dialga said with a nod to the Legendary Pokemon of Space.

Palkia threw Darkrai into Dusknoir, and they both hit the ground hard right in front of the time portal.

Plakia then freed Grovyle from the rope and gag. Grovyle marched over to the Ghost-type and Dark-type and said, "Celebi says happy Pledging Tree Festival. . . IN THE REVERSE WORLD!"

Grovyle kicked both evil Pokemon into the portal, and Palkia shattered it with one swipe of his mighty claws.

With a flash, Grovyle, Dialga, and Palkia teleported away and reappeared at the top of Temporal Tower.

"GROVYLE," Dialga said with a nod to the Grass-type.

Grovyle quickly placed the Time Gears into their proper places, and Temporal Tower quickly repaired itself.

Palkia held out two giant mugs and said, "PERFECT APPLE CIDER."

Grovyle took out a big bottle of the beverage as rap music suddenly played out of nowhere.

Here, kitty-kitty! Meow-meow, cat, meow!

Mew Power in the HOUSE!

Grovyle filled the mugs for the Legendaries, and he took the bottle for himself. They all put their drinks together in a toast and drank deeply.

"Very funny," Cobalion said, not sounding very amused, and he walked away shaking his head.

Keldeo watched him go, then turned with a smile and said, "Well, as you can clearly see, Dialga and Palkia, in this game at least, have fallen into the same useless as Arceus does in nearly every fanfic he's in *cough*ZaltonandZoroarkduoofdeath*cough*."

Number 2

"Chatot."

Keldeo covered his face with his fore hooves.

"Oh. My. Gosh."

Keldeo uncovered his face and said, "This character is just. . . frustration incarnate! He smugly takes nearly all of your money 'for the guild,' and in the anime he takes your item too, he belittles you and picks on you whenever you do something wrong, and after he witnesses you getting kidnapped by Dusknoir and you come back with a harrowing tale of an evil plot and the approaching tramp of doom, HE LAUGHS RIGHT IN YOUR FACE!"

Keldeo took a few deep breaths and said, "And I know, I know, Chatot said he was acting to test you-LIAR!"

Keldeo pointed in an accusatory manner and continued, "I don't believe him! Those two Pokemon had to have been traumatized and spoke with urgency in their voices and sincerity in their eyes! How could anyone have a reason to doubt that?! Why would anyone feel the need to test that?! What drove him to laugh like that? He must be some kind of complete idiot to think that they would lie about something that serious! The only reason Chatot changed his tune was because the rest of the guild weren't as stupid as he was and said, 'Hey, with time stopping all over the place and Dusknoir kidnapping them right in front of us in broad daylight, I'd say that we should believe them, because they're obviously telling the truth, you moron!'"

Keldeo fell down to his knees and took a moment to catch his breath.

"I'm sorry. . . I really don't like this character. . ." Keldeo said softly.

And the Number 1 DUMBEST Explorers of Darkness/Time/Sky Moment is. . ..

"The Perfect Apple Incident."

Keldeo stood straight faced, appearing to be holding in some intense anger.

"I'm not going to get angry again," Keldeo said, "I already got angry talking about Chatot, and I'm not going to lose it again. I'm just going to explain this point calmly and move on."

"All the player and partner had to do was say, 'Team Skull attacked us and stole all the Perfect Apples. ARREST THEM!'"

Keldeo clenched his teeth and said through them, "But nope! They just sit their like idiots, either stuttering stupidly or standing there in a dumb silence, while Team Skull just walks right in, gives Wigglytuff the Perfect Apple, and leaves you to get punished by Chatot- OH MY GOSH, SAY SOMETHING YOU MORONS!"

Keldeo waved his forehooves wildly and said, "Sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm done, I'm okay, I'm done. I won't get angry anymore, I promise."

Keldeo sighed and said, "Look, I know you might be thinking that the Perfect Apple Incident might be necessary, but when you really think about, and weigh it up against how unpleasant it all is, you'll find that the game would have been much more pleasant without it. I mean, what does it teach us? That Team Skull are a bunch of jerks and that the Noxious Gas Combo is unbeatable? Well, how about this: we have a boss battle against Team Skull, we beat them, they use the Noxious Gas Combo to escape, we still score the Perfect Apple and get it to Wigglytuff."

Keldeo shook his head and said, "I'm sorry, but I don't see how failing the missing and getting cruel and unusual punishment by Chatot benefits the story in any shape or form! What if there were simply no Perfect Apples on the tree? Why would that deserve punishment?"

"And another thing, I find Wigglytuff's reaction to hearing that he's not gonna get a Perfect Apple VERY disturbing. Why? Well. . ."

Keldeo shifted uncomfortably and said, ". . .Okay. . . I really don't like talking about these kinds of things. . . but. . . look, if you replaced 'Perfect Apple' with, let's say, alcohol, or cigarette, or any mind of addictive substance. . . literally nothing would change story wise. Look at that scene, he acts like he's going through withdrawal. It's like it should be in some kind of Anti Drug PSA."

Peewee Herman: "It isn't glamorous. Or cool. Or kid stuff."

Keldeo frowned and said, "And don't use 'oh, but the incident let us see Wigglytuff's slightly crazy and violent and mood swinging personality traits' as an excuse. That could have just waited for the Fogbound Lake expedition to have a scene showing that. There are a million better scenarios to introduce us to Wigglytuff's kookiness that I'm not gonna take the time to talk about here."

"And I also really can't get over how they just let Team Skull come in with the Perfect Apple like heroes without saying anything! I mean, seriously! Are you really that stupid! Let's look at another How It Should Have Ended skit!"

"There you two are!" Chatot said, "Did you get the Perfect Apple?"

"Team Skull stole them all!" the Chimchar shouted furiously.

"WHAT!?" Chatot shouted, flapping his wings in rage, "Well! The Guildmaster is gonna hear about this!"

Chatot ran off, and seconds later, Team Skull walked in pompously.

"HA-HA-HA!" Skuntank laughed nastily, "You losers are really gonna get it from Chatot! I can't wait to see Wigglytuff's reaction when he sees this!"

Skuntank took out a Perfect Apple and held it high with pride.

"Big mistake," the Chimchar said with a smirk.

"YOOM-TAH!" shouted a voice.

Team Skull barely had time to scream as Wigglytuff practically flew at them and proceeded to beat the three criminals senseless.

"Berry Juice," the Chimchar said with a smirk.

The Meowth took out two Berry Juices and handed one to his partner as rap music suddenly began to play out of nowhere.

Here, kitty-kitty! Meow-meow, cat, meow!

Mew Power in the HOUSE!

The duo smiled as they drank a toast to themselves, and to justice.

"The only good thing that came out of it was the scene where the other guild members share their food with them after Chatot not only denied them food, but made them watch everyone else eat!"

Keldeo clenched his teeth.

"That bird is sadistic!"

"I don't care what anyone else says. The Perfect Apple Incident is by far the dumbest Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Darkness/Time/Sky moment."

Keldeo took a long deep breath, and let it out slowly.

"Well, now that I got all that over the way. . . I can fill my head with thoughts of how awesome this game is!" Keldeo declared happily.

"Even with all these problems, the good things about this game completely make up for it! It's plot is deep and dark at times; the characters are all complex and well developed; the dungeon crawler game-play is fun, the Gummi and IQ Skill game mechanics are clever; and there are so many heart pounding, heart warming, and heart breaking moments. The way characters like Grovyle, the partner, and Dusknoir stay in our minds shows how Explorers is definitely the best Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game in the entire series."

"Do yourself a pick up a copy of Explorers of Sky for yourself!" Keldeo said proudly, "I'm Keldeo the Critic, and I review it so you don't have to!" Keldeo then went off on his way.

Dusknoir, Grovyle, and Celebi made their way through the Passage of Time. It was a translucent tube of light that seemed to wobble and float through infinite space and time.

"Look!" Celebi shouted as she pointed out at a massive sphere of light that seemed to be floating towards the sphere that they had just come out of via the Passage of Time.

"Is that the other world that is going to hit ours?" Grovyle asked.

"Of course it is! That's what it's doing, isn't it?" Dusknoir said.

Celebi nodded, "Yes. . . this is more serious than I thought. We have to hurry and ask that entity to stop it! Now!"

"Okay then, let's go!" Grovyle said as he quickened his pace through the Passage of Time.

The trio moved fast through the Passage of Time, modified by Dialga and Palkia to lead them to the world where they could find the entity that could save their world.

The End

Credits

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How It Should Have Ended (HISHE)

Gordy- Pig Power in the House by Tag Team

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Special Thanks

Imperator Justinian

Bulbapedia