Explorers of Sky also features unique, exclusive items at Croagunk Swamp Shop. Additionally, new shops have been added to the game. An underground mall in Treasure Town is home to Spinda's Café, which is essentially a smoothy bar, and Wynaut's Recycle Shop. These two shops will allow you to convert lots of your space-cluttering, mundane items into tasty character buffs and better items.

Graphically, there have been no improvements to the game. While I really like the character designs and pleasant environments, the dungeons are rather bland and uninspired. Aurally, the same great Mystery Dungeon theme song and dungeon tunes will have you whistling long past the time you've shut the lid of your DS. However, as is the case with the rest of the title, don't expect anything innovative.

Of course, controls are also identical to what was offered in Time and Darkness. In other words, the D-pad controls are perfectly competent, but the touch-screen, stylus-based controls are comparatively woeful.

The team at Chunsoft simply phoned in the code to Nintendo, knowing that the throng of unsophisticated youngsters that is their demographic will eat it up regardless of its lack of value. What's worse, they were probably mandated to do so by the publisher. While Explorers of Sky would be a decent game if it were judged in a vacuum, when viewed alongside Explorers of Time / Darkness, there simply isn't enough unique, quality content to make it relevant. This is perhaps one of the worst values in gaming I've ever seen.

By Jonathan Marx
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