A ROM hack of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky. Starting out nearly identical to the source game, it becomes obvious that things are going to go a bit differently this time around...
The ROM hack can be downloaded from here
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Tropes Appearing in Explorers of the Spirit
- Adaptational Jerkass: Cresselia. In the original games, Cresselia was upstanding, warm-hearted, protective towards the innocent, and defended the Explorers when they were falsely accused and nearly murdered. This is a complete far cry from her Spirit counterpart. In Explorers of the Spirit, she’s more in-line with Darkrai’s impersonation of her in the original games. When Xatu foresees a vision that Darkrai will bring about a world of ruin, she immediately turns on him without trying to tell him to reconsider his ways. She’s also similarly judgemental towards the protagonist when she confronts them in Chapter 9, opting to solve the solution with murdering them immediately.
- Amnesiac Hero: Much like in the original games, the hero doesn't remember anything about their original life before meeting the partner. Unlike the previous games, however, the memory loss is revealed to have occurred after being attacked by Palkia at the end of the original games as they were going through the Dimensional Rift as Darkrai.
- Ascended Extra:
- Giratina, a post game boss with no bearing on the plot, is Darkrai’s mind controlled Hench Pokémon.
- Breloom, who only appeared in Sky as a minor character that helps in the boss fight at the Sky Peak Summit, appears more often in the story and is revealed to have a backstory of his own.
- Darkrai himself appears personally much earlier than in Sky. Not even counting that we’re playing as another Darkrai for the entire game.
- Bittersweet Ending: The player leaves the partner, and it is strongly implied that they never return. But the partner is able to come to terms with this much better than their Sky counterpart. Meanwhile, the player is shown easily winning their Battle in the Center of the Mind. Chatot has learned to run the guild more fairly, Marril and Azuril are grown enough to join the guild for training themselves, Grovyle is coming to terms with being permanently separated from his partner, Weavile is ready to leave the forest with her team and face the world, Breloom has joined the survey team as he dreamt of. And the partner has faith that wherever the player is, he is a changed Pokémon.
- Brought Down to Normal: Darkrai, a powerful mythical Pokémon, is transformed into any one of the Sky starters at level 5.
- Canon Character All Along: The player character is the same Darkrai (albeit now an amnesiac) who was responsible of the events of Explorers of Sky.
- Demoted to Extra:
- Dusknoir, a supporting character in Sky, only briefly shows up in an opening cutscene. Possibly to make up for this, he gets a boss fight in the dream realm, possibly from Grovyle’s memories.
- Grovyle’s partner, the human, the main character of Sky, only shows up briefly in Darkrai’s Pensieve Flashback.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Darkrai with himself; telling the player and the partner that it was "cowardice" that stopped him from fighting back against Cresselia in the flashback. Flashback Darkrai seems less scared and more upset and betrayed by his once friend's behavior, making it a case of Darkrai being either unable or unwilling to comprehend his OWN good.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Close to the other Darkrai revealing all, after the player has established themselves as somewhat vindictive, giving the already-knocked out Drowzee one last smack (to the partner's chagrin), beating Zubat after the Apple Woods stunt (though many an EOS veteran likely relate to that particular one) a memory of Past Darkrai is seen with the pokemon showing very similar ideals.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: The player becomes this to the rest of the guild due to their volatile personality with the exception of their partner and Wigglytuff, to the point where several guild members anonymously request to not be put in the same group as the player and the partner on the expedition.
- Future Me Scares Me: Past Darkrai seems genuinely incredulous that he will bring a world of ruin in the future.
- Foreshadowing:
- The player is quite outspoken in this take on EOS, speaking up in ways they didn't in the original game. It's almost as if they're actually a different character.
- In response to one of the partner's questions, the player vaguely says that their body feels "unnatural". Not that they were a human previously. Just "unnatural".
- The player lacks their Dimensional Scream ability, which doesn't seem all that important since the Time Gears don't exist and Grovyle now comes from a place where the future is saved. In the present, the player and partner still find out about Drowzee from the job bulletin; and are able to find the waterfall cave with Breloom's help. Still, it begs the question as to why the player wouldn't have an ability that's so crucial to their backstory.
- Good Is Not Nice: While Cresselia’s goal from the original games hasn’t changed, she is cold, self-righteous, ungrateful, and is a bit of a hypocrite.
- The protagonist starts off as this as well, starting out rather violent towards either Pokémon who bully other Pokémon, or Pokémon who attack him.
- He Who Fights Monsters: Even before his face-heel turn, past Darkrai was rather...punitive and unforgiving towards criminals. However, this was not what pushed him over the edge. Rather, it was Cresselia immediately turning on him when she heard that Darkrai MIGHT bring the world to ruin.
- Internal Reveal: The game does nothing to hide the "Dream Guide" is obviously Darkrai...but since the partner has never seen a Darkrai before in this timeline and the player doesn't remember what a Darkrai looks like, the identity of the figure who's been leading them through the player's mind is a shock to them.
- I Hate Past Me: The player is fairly distraught to learn that prior to memory loss they were a Pokémon dead set on initiating the apocalypse. Breloom points out that this is a likely sign that they DO have the potential to rise above their past self.
- Hopeless Boss Fight:
- The Boss Battle against Grovyle in the Dream Realm. The game is aware of this and gives you tips on how to make it so that the player doesn't have to consume their Reviver Seeds upon fainting during the battle. If you do win, however, the game does give you an X-Ray Spec as an award.
- The final boss battle inverts this. Despite being surrounded by copies of Darkrai, they can barely make a scratch on the player and go down in a single hit. There’s one more Darkrai, who has more HP, but still has attacks that barely do any damage.
- Jerkass Has a Point: The Protagonist is prone to anger, but there are many times where his anger, and even some of his actions, are justified.
- Many of the Pokémon he attacks or fights are the ones who attack him and The Partner first.
- When Cresselia is trapped by Giratina, and The Partner feels guilty in their (however unwitting) role in leading to Cresselia being kidnapped, The Protagonist abrasively, but correctly points out that Cresselia was the one who attacked them first, and they had no choice but to defend themselves.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: the protagonist/ the protagonist transformed Darkrai. is ruthlessly tempered, and sometimes even violent. But they have a strong aversion to injustice, and being treated unfairly. For all of their faults, they do have a kinder side, such as supporting the partner, and having a genuine fondness for them, and those who do support them, as well as the innocent.
- Love Redeems: A platonic example. The partner and Breloom sticking with the player and encouraging them to work on their issues is what redeems Darkrai, not just losing his memory.
- Madness Mantra: The player character, After they and their partner attack Cresselia in self-defense, and resulting in the weakened Cresselia being kidnapped being kidnapped by Giratina in a result, the player declares they did nothing wrong. After settling down for the night, they whisper to themselves, "(We didn't do anything wrong.)"
- Morality Pet: The partner serves as this to the player, as the player despite being much angrier and temperamental, still genuinely loves and is protective of the partner (if not MORE protective) The partner standing up to the player's aggressiveness towards Armaldo in the Treasure Town Ruins helps the player understand the effect they're having on others.
- Off the Rails: The player character speaks, the dimensional scream is absent, and Time Gears do not exist, among several other things. As a result things deviate fairly quickly.
- Red Herring: Darkrai shows up as early as chapter 3 scheming, likely to throw off players who suspected the protagonist was actually an amnesiac Darkrai based on Palkia's lines replacing the dialogue between the human and Grovyle. It's sometimes easy to forget that time travel is a crucial part of Sky's story. In this case, the first idea is the correct answer, albeit with parallel timelines and alternate selves involved. Darkrai's parallel self lampshades it by monologuing about distractions at one point.
- Stealth Sequel: The game initially appears to be a new take on the same story as its source material, but is eventually revealed to be a sequel to the original Explorers games, following Darkrai after his interrupted Villain: Exit, Stage Left at the end of those games.
- Too Dumb to Live: Giratina, who despite being mistrustful of Darkrai easily falls into his mind control with a snap of Darkrai’s fingers.
- Title Drop: Chapter 14 is called “Exploring The Spirit”.
- We Used to Be Friends: Darkrai and Cresselia used to be partners in presumably an exploration team.
