Mystery Dungeon
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''Mystery Dungeon'', known in Japan as is a series of
roguelike Roguelike (or rogue-like) is a style of role-playing game traditionally characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, grid-based movement, and permanent death of the player character. Most ro ...
role-playing video games Role-playing video games, also known as CRPG (computer/console role-playing games), comprise a broad video game genre generally defined by a detailed story and character advancement (often through increasing characters' levels or other skills) ...
. Most were developed by Chunsoft, now
Spike Chunsoft is a Japanese video game development and video game localization, localization company specializing in role-playing video games, visual novels and adventure games. The company was founded in 1984 as Chunsoft Co., Ltd. and merged with Spike (compa ...
since the merging in 2012, and select games were developed by other companies with Chunsoft's permission. The series began when co–creator of ''
Dragon Quest previously published as ''Dragon Warrior'' in North America until 2005, is a series of role-playing video games created by Japanese game designer Yuji Horii (Armor Project), character designer Akira Toriyama (Bird Studio), and composer Koi ...
'', Koichi Nakamura, was inspired by Seiichiro Nagahata's experience with '' Rogue'', who is also a fellow developer from the company, and a desire to create an original series. It began on the
Super Famicom The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, commonly shortened to Super Nintendo, Super NES or SNES, is a Fourth generation of video game consoles, 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan, 1991 in No ...
, progressing to almost all of
Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...
's and
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's home and handheld consoles, WonderSwan,
Dreamcast The is the final home video game console manufactured by Sega. It was released in Japan on November 27, 1998, in North America on September 9, 1999 and in Europe on October 14, 1999. It was the first sixth-generation video game console, prec ...
,
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, and
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. The series has inspired other entries in Japan and has moderate popularity, mostly from crossover entries with the ''
Dragon Quest previously published as ''Dragon Warrior'' in North America until 2005, is a series of role-playing video games created by Japanese game designer Yuji Horii (Armor Project), character designer Akira Toriyama (Bird Studio), and composer Koi ...
'', '' Chocobo'', and '' Pokémon Mystery Dungeon'' series. Despite the moderate popularity of the franchise, there have been numerous manga, anime, and novels published under it, whether they are coming from the company's original series, '' Shiren the Wanderer'', or across many crossovers. The premise of most ''Mystery Dungeon'' games is to play a silent protagonist who travels across the world to discover mysterious dungeons that have randomly generated rooms and never have the same patterns upon entering into it more than once, with the protagonist sometimes accompanied by a group of party members or going alone. Though it is relatively inspired of older roguelike games, like ''
NetHack ''NetHack'' is an open source single-player roguelike video game, first released in 1987 and maintained by the NetHack DevTeam. The game is a fork of the 1984 game ''Hack'', itself inspired by the 1980 game '' Rogue''. The player takes the role ...
'', the franchise had a few unique gameplay elements that would appear in future titles; one such is rescuing other players online via a generated password. Since its debut in 1993, the franchise maintains a strong cult following for its challenging yet rewarding difficulty and how it appeals to hardcore RPG fans as a whole.


Games

Although all games in the series bear the ''Fushigi no Dungeon'' moniker somewhere in their Japanese titles, only the ''Shiren the Wanderer'' games contain original characters; all other license their characters from other role-playing game franchises. The first game, '' Torneko's Great Adventure'', stars a shopkeeper character from the same developer's '' Dragon Quest IV''. Chunsoft has also started several lines of branded ''Mystery Dungeon'' games, starting with one featuring the Chocobo from SquareSoft's ''Final Fantasy'' series in 1997, then
Bandai is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational toy manufacturer and distributor headquartered in Taitō, Taitō, Tokyo. Its international branches, Bandai Namco Toys & Collectables America and Bandai UK, are respectively headquartered ...
's ''
Gundam is a Japanese military science fiction media franchise. Created by Yoshiyuki Tomino and Sunrise (now Bandai Namco Filmworks), the franchise features giant robots, or mecha, with the name "Gundam". The franchise began on April 7, 1979, with ...
'',
Konami , commonly known as Konami, , is a Japanese multinational entertainment company and video game developer and video game publisher, publisher headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, Chūō, Tokyo. The company also produces and distributes trading card ...
's '' TwinBee'' and
Namco was a Japanese multinational video game and entertainment company founded in 1955. It operated video arcades and amusement parks globally, and produced video games, films, toys, and arcade cabinets. Namco was one of the most influential c ...
's '' Tower of Druaga'' series in 2004,
Game Freak is a Japanese video game developer, best known as the primary developer and co-owners of the ''Pokémon (video game series), Pokémon'' series of role-playing video games. History Predating the video game company, ''Game Freak'' was a self- ...
's ''
Pokémon is a Japanese media franchise consisting of List of Pokémon video games, video games, Pokémon (TV series), animated series and List of Pokémon films, films, Pokémon Trading Card Game, a trading card game, and other related media. The fran ...
'' series in 2005, and
Atlus is a Japanese video game developer, video game publisher, publisher, Arcade game, arcade manufacturer and distribution company based in Tokyo. A subsidiary of Sega, the company is known for the ''Megami Tensei'', ''Persona (series), Persona'' ...
's ''
Etrian Odyssey ''Etrian Odyssey'' is a dungeon crawler role-playing video game series. It is primarily developed and published by Atlus and currently owned by Sega. By 2016, the series had sold a combined total of 1.5 million copies worldwide. Each installme ...
'' series in 2015. Currently, ''One Way Heroics'' is the latest crossover with the series. Other games who are not developed or published by the company but uses the same moniker would also appear throughout the years, namely the ''
Touhou Project The , also known simply as , is a bullet hell shoot 'em up video game series created by Indie game, independent Japanese Doujin soft, soft developer Team Shanghai Alice. The team's sole member, ZUN (video game developer), Jun'ya "ZUN" Ōta, ha ...
'' series with its spin-offs titled ''Fushigi no Gensokyo''.


Spin-offs

The franchise had its first spin-off game in 2004, titled ''Shiren Monsters: Netsal''. It is only one game based on the monsters from the ''Shiren the Wanderer'' series. Its gameplay was notably changed to the sport genre, specifically towards
association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...
, compared to the main series' roguelike genre. ''Pokémon Mystery Dungeon'' is part of the franchise since 2005 and serves as a crossover between ''
Pokémon is a Japanese media franchise consisting of List of Pokémon video games, video games, Pokémon (TV series), animated series and List of Pokémon films, films, Pokémon Trading Card Game, a trading card game, and other related media. The fran ...
'' and ''Mystery Dungeon''. It was turned into its own spin-off series due to its worldwide popularity.


Gameplay

Most ''Mystery Dungeon'' games center around exploring a dungeon with randomly generated layouts and fights. These are in a turn-based manner, where the player's every action such as attacking or walking, is met by the opponents' action. Chunsoft described the gameplay as being like
chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...
. Escape from the dungeon is usually only allowed in certain places, or through the use of certain items. When the player loses the game, the player loses all money and half the items in the more forgiving variants, or loses everything and has to start from scratch in others. An effort has also been made to expand the series' gameplay features, such as adding job systems to some games, and giving each dungeon a different feel and goal. Features distinct to the ''Shiren the Wanderer'' series include the "Melding Jar" which allows players to synthesize items and weapons into more powerful ones. The ''Chocobo'' games further simplify the genre's difficulty to appeal to a wider and younger audience. Nakamura explained that the appeal of the ''Mystery Dungeon'' series is that every game is different and that players' skills are constantly being challenged, which helps the player feel deeply involved. Seiichiro Nagahata, who supervised and planned the development of ''Shiren the Wanderer DS'', explained that the ''Mystery Dungeon'' series is all about "tension" and "reasoning".


Development

During the 1990s, the
computer role-playing game A computer is a machine that can be programmed to automatically carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as ''programs'', w ...
genre became famous in Japan due to the successful hit of the ''
Dragon Quest previously published as ''Dragon Warrior'' in North America until 2005, is a series of role-playing video games created by Japanese game designer Yuji Horii (Armor Project), character designer Akira Toriyama (Bird Studio), and composer Koi ...
'' series. However, most of the roguelike games that were published for PC used to not have a Japanese translation; the genre's recognition remained low in result. While following the basic game system of roguelike games, other companies tried to bring the genre into a
home console A home video game console is a video game console that is designed to be connected to a display device, such as a television, and an external power source as to play video games. While initial consoles were dedicated units with only a few game ...
. Two of the earliest-known attempts were
Sega is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises for arcade game, arcades and video game cons ...
's '' Fatal Labyrinth'' and '' Dragon Crystal'', both games released in 1990, but which lacked the depth of a typical computer-based roguelike. Neither proved to be successful games.


''Dragon Quest''

After the launch of the Super Famicom and finishing development for '' Dragon Quest V'', the company ceased working on the ''Dragon Quest'' series and began working on the ''Mystery Dungeon'' series. The series was based on the 1980's game ''Rogue'', which has spawned its own genre called roguelike. For a week Koichi Nakamura, founder of Chunsoft and co-creator of the ''Dragon Quest'' series, played ''Rogue'' at the recommendation of a colleague, Seiichiro Nagahata, trying to understand the game's appeal, and concluded the high degree of challenge made the game very rewarding. While working on a roguelike game for the Super Famicom, the team decided to use characters from a recognizable franchise in Japan. Koichi Nakamura has asked Yuji Horii, scenarist and creator of the ''Dragon Quest'' series, about the possibility to add characters and items from the franchise, including Torneko, the merchant appearing in Chunsoft's previous work ''Dragon Quest IV'', only to have the permission accepted soon after. ''Torneko no Daibōken: Fushigi no Dungeon'' was published in 1993 and became the first video game to bear the "Mystery Dungeon" moniker. Even if it sold less than the series' main titles, the game has sold over 800,000 copies. Koichi Nakamura conceived the series as Chunsoft's first original work. The game spawned two sequels starring Torneko, '' Torneko: The Last Hope'' in 1999 and '' Dragon Quest Characters: Torneko no Daibōken 3'' in 2002, and a follow-up, '' Dragon Quest: Shōnen Yangus to Fushigi no Dungeon'' in 2006, where Torneko would appear as a cameo instead of the protagonist. And indeed, the game became the first of the over thirty ''Mystery Dungeon'' rogue-like series.


''Shiren the Wanderer''

The company wanted to work on the new features and gameplay mechanics added in ''
NetHack ''NetHack'' is an open source single-player roguelike video game, first released in 1987 and maintained by the NetHack DevTeam. The game is a fork of the 1984 game ''Hack'', itself inspired by the 1980 game '' Rogue''. The player takes the role ...
'', a variant of ''Rogue'', one of them was being able to steal items from a shopkeeper. However, it was not possible to translate the new content from ''NetHack'' with characters from the ''Dragon Quest'' series; one such with Torneko who is a merchant. Two years after the release of ''Torneko no Daibōken'', ''Mystery Dungeon 2: Shiren the Wanderer'' was released as the company's second work for the ''Mystery Dungeon'' series, with a new world setting and unique characters. Many titles from this series were developed simultaneously throughout the years, where one title was focused on creating original features in its gameplay than the other for which they were forced to focus on "traditional dungeon types" due to the limitations on the other hardware; ''Mystery Dungeon 2: Shiren the Wanderer'' on Super Famicom and '' Shiren the Wanderer GB: Monster of Moonlight Village'' on
Game Boy The is a handheld game console developed by Nintendo, launched in the Japanese home market on April 21, 1989, followed by North America later that year and other territories from 1990 onwards. Following the success of the Game & Watch single-ga ...
, and '' Shiren the Wanderer 2: Shiren's Castle and the Oni Invasion'' on
Nintendo 64 The (N64) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on June 23, 1996, in North America on September 29, 1996, and in Europe and Australia on March 1, 1997. As the successor to the Super Nintendo E ...
and '' Shiren the Wanderer GB2: Magic Castle of the Desert'' on
Game Boy Color The (GBC or CGB) is an 8-bit handheld game console developed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on October 21, 1998, and to international markets that November. Compared to the original Game Boy, the Game Boy Color features a color TFT scre ...
. The success of the first game in Japan helped key employees that participated in the aforementioned game's development return to work on the series' future titles throughout the years, such as character artist Kaoru Hasegawa, supervisor Seiichiro Nagahata, and scenarist
Shin-ichiro Tomie is a Japanese game director, writer and part of Spike Chunsoft's affiliation. Since 1995, he contributes to the company with the ''Mystery Dungeon'' franchise as the main writer for the ''Shiren the Wanderer'', and ''Pokémon Mystery Dungeon'' se ...
. A unique gameplay element that first appeared in ''Magic Castle of the Desert'' and would appear later in the ''Mystery Dungeon'' franchise and its crossovers is rescuing other players via passwords. They went with this idea instead of using the Game Boy's
Game Link Cable The also known as ''Video Link'' in early versions, is an accessory for the Game Boy line of handheld consoles. Introduced in 1989 alongside the original Game Boy, it was revised over four generations with varying degrees of backward compatibil ...
because there were not many owners of the cable. This idea was expanded in '' Shiren the Wanderer Gaiden: Asuka the Swordswoman'' with the addition of online support. Within the online support, players would receive new dungeons, called either "Weekly Dungeon"; a dungeon that can be played online on a weekly basis, or "Challenge Dungeon"; the dungeon's difficulty would be increased and useful items would appear less frequently.


''Chocobo''

The ''Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon'' series is fully developed and published by
Square Enix is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational holding company, video game publisher and entertainment conglomerate. It releases role-playing video game, role-playing game franchises, such as ''Final Fantasy'', ''Dragon Quest'', and '' ...
, then SquareSoft before the merging with Enix. However, Nakamura has supervised the first two games and was the producer for '' Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon'', before
Hironobu Sakaguchi is a Japanese game designer, director, producer, and writer. Originally working for Square (later Square Enix) from 1983 to 2003, he departed the company and founded independent studio Mistwalker in 2004. He is known as the creator of the ''Fi ...
took the place for '' Chocobo's Dungeon 2''. ''Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon'' would become the first title to be released in the ''Chocobo'' sub-series, while ''Chocobo's Dungeon 2'' became the first ''Mystery Dungeon'' title to be released outside of Japan. Starting in '' Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon'', some of the more difficult game elements were removed so that it would appeal to "small children and female" players.


''Pokémon''

Tsunekazu Ishihara had worked previously with Chunsoft with '' Tetris 2 + Bombliss'' as the producer, and met Nakamura, who was the game's director. Prior to the development of ''Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red and Blue Rescue Team'', Ishihara had played a few games from the ''Mystery Dungeon'' series, namely ''Torneko's Great Adventure: Mystery Dungeon'', and was impressed with the genre's depth and quality. The game's development started after Nagahata and Tomie approached Ishihara and agreed to work on an easier version of the genre for the mainline ''Pokémon'' fans. During the development of '' Red and Blue Rescue Team'', Kouji Malta, one of the programmer for these two games, and contributed previously on ''
EarthBound ''EarthBound'', originally released in Japan as is a 1994 role-playing video game, role-playing video game developed by Ape, Inc., Ape Inc. and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System as the second e ...
'' and ''Shiren the Wanderer 2'', stated the company went through bad business performance, as employees from Chunsoft would leave the company progressively due to this issue. The game's success not only helped giving more popularity in the franchise, it also helped Chunsoft avoiding bankruptcy. The widespread success of the first game helped creating a spin-off series, with it selling over 10 million copies four years after its first titles were released in Japan. Unlike the ''Dragon Quest'' branch, it does not have a linear timeline between the mainline ''
Pokémon is a Japanese media franchise consisting of List of Pokémon video games, video games, Pokémon (TV series), animated series and List of Pokémon films, films, Pokémon Trading Card Game, a trading card game, and other related media. The fran ...
'' franchise and this series so newcomers would be introduced easily into the series and the genre.


''Etrian Odyssey''

The game was developed by Spike Chunsoft and Atlus, the latter being the developers of the ''Etrian Odyssey'' series, with most of the actual development done at Spike Chunsoft, while Atlus acted as supervisors. During development, both the companies would continuously share their most recent data on a shared server, and discuss details of the game direction using an instant messaging program; additionally, they would hold weekly meetings during which they made various arrangements for the game, and every month during development, Spike Chunsoft would send their latest playable build to Atlus, who would check the direction the game was going in.


Music

Though the franchise is divided with numerous crossovers, the majority of its soundtracks were composed by late Koichi Sugiyama, and
Hayato Matsuo is a Japanese music composer and orchestrator who primarily does work in video games and anime. He has worked on games such as '' Front Mission 3'', ''Final Fantasy XII'', the '' Shenmue'' series, '' Magic Knight Rayearth'', and '' Hellsing Ulti ...
for the ''Dragon Quest'' crossovers and ''Shiren the Wanderer'' series. Sugiyama made use of East Asian elements for the ''Shiren the Wanderer'' series, compared to his more European-styled ''Dragon Quest'' compositions, using instruments such as a
shakuhachi A is a Japanese longitudinal, end-blown flute that is made of bamboo. The bamboo end-blown flute now known as the was developed in Japan in the 16th century and is called the .
flute. This theme would remain for the series' next titles. Other composers such as Yuzo Koshiro for the ''Etrian Odyssey'' crossover or Keisuke Ito and Arata Iiyoshi for the ''Pokémon'' crossover have frequently contributed in the franchise. In addition to new compositions, tracks from previous mainline titles would also be featured in some of the crossover's titles, one example being the ''Dragon Quest'' crossover with tracks from the mainline games playing in these titles, in majority being from ''Dragon Quest IV'' or '' Dragon Quest VIII''. ''Etrian Mystery Dungeon'' would includes arranged music from previous ''Etrian Odyssey'' games. Joe Down Studio developed the music for ''Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon'' and featured extensive remixing of music from various ''Final Fantasy'' games due to the positive reception of remixed ''Final Fantasy'' music in the game '' Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales'', and requested that they be allowed to use music from the early ''Final Fantasy'' titles as it would be appropriate to the theme of forgotten time.


Other media


Books

One of the few novels that were related to this franchise was an adaptation of ''Mystery Dungeon 2: Shiren the Wanderers story, with a title that translates to ''Shiren the Wanderer: Flowers Dancing in the Golden Town Amteca'', released in December 2004. However, many manga were released for many crossovers of the franchise, ranging from ''Dragon Quest'' to ''Pokémon''. One such is a manga titled '' Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Ginji's Rescue Team'', a 6-part manga based on the video games ''Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red and Blue Rescue Team'' that first appeared in Japan's
CoroCoro Comic is a Japanese children's manga magazine published by Shogakukan. It was established in 1977 and several of its properties, like ''Doraemon'' and the ''Pokémon'' series of games, have gone on to be cultural phenomena in Japan. The name comes fr ...
in December 2005.


Anime

There exist anime adaptation of the ''Pokémon Mystery Dungeon'' series since its debut. The first anime adaptation was titled ''Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Team Go-Getters Out Of The Gate!''. It is based of ''Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red and Blue Rescue Team'', and was aired in Japan on September 8, 2006. This episode follows the beginning of the game's main story. Another special episode, this time based of ''Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Darkness'', was first broadcast in Japan on September 9, 2007, as part of Pokémon Sunday. A sequel episode, ''Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky - Beyond Time & Darkness'' was first broadcast in Japan later on April 12, 2009, also as part of Pokémon Sunday. Both adaptation follow the beginning and the next-to-last chapters of the game's main story.


Mobile

Other variations notably inspired by the mystery dungeon series are Pixel Dungeon, which was released in 2012, and Labrinth of the Witch which was released in 2019.


Reception

The ''Mystery Dungeon'' series can be seen as moderately popular in Japan, whereas the overseas community has a smaller following of dedicated fans. The ''Shiren the Wanderer'' series has been both praised and criticized for its difficulty, and generally noted for the uneven quality of the randomly generated levels, or "floors", the games produce. The series, along with its main protagonist Shiren, appeared in video games that were developed or published by Spike Chunsoft, with games like '' Crypt of the NecroDancer'', ''
Terraria ''Terraria'' ( ) is a 2011 action-adventure sandbox game developed by Re-Logic and published by 505 Games. The game features exploration, combat, crafting, building, and mining inside a procedurally generated 2D computer graphics, 2D world. ...
'', or '' 428: Shibuya Scramble''. Passionate fans of the ''Shiren the Wanderer'' series are commonly called "Shi-Ranger" in Japan. Other Japanese role-playing games would incorporate random dungeon generation as part of their design, mimicking part of the nature of roguelikes, and were considered roguelike titles when published in Western markets. Such titles include '' Azure Dreams'', '' Dark Cloud'', '' Shining Soul'', and ''
Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...
''. The
massively multiplayer online role playing game A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game. As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a character (o ...
''
Final Fantasy XIV ''Final Fantasy XIV'' is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed and published by Square Enix. Directed and produced by Naoki Yoshida and released worldwide for PlayStation 3 and Windows in August 2013, it replaced ...
'' added a randomly-generated Deep Dungeon that was inspired by the procedural generation of roguelikes.


Ratings

The ''Shiren the Wanderer'' series has generally favorable ratings in Japan and throughout the world.
Famitsu , formerly , is a line of Japanese Video game journalism, video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly f ...
awarded a 36/40 to ''Shiren's Castle and the Oni Invasion'' and a 38/40 to the original release of ''Magic Castle of the Desert'', the highest score the publication had given to a
Game Boy Color The (GBC or CGB) is an 8-bit handheld game console developed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on October 21, 1998, and to international markets that November. Compared to the original Game Boy, the Game Boy Color features a color TFT scre ...
game.


Sales

As of 2025, a grand total of million copies across the franchise have been sold, the majority of which are in the ''Pokémon Mystery Dungeon'' series. The ''Pokémon Mystery Dungeon'' series is known to have high sale rates among the franchise, surpassing one million copies for most of its games, and more than two million for titles like ''Blue Rescue Team and Red Rescue Team'', and ''Explorers of Time, Darkness and Sky'' alone. Combined worldwide sales for the three ''Explorers'' games passed over 6.37 million copies according to
Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA) is a Japanese organization that was established in 1996 to "promote the computer entertainment industry ..with the aim of contributing to the strengthening of Japanese industry as well as to th ...
; 4.88 million for ''Explorers of Time'' and ''Explorers of Darkness'' and 1.49 million for ''Explorers of Sky''. They are currently the best-selling games in the ''Pokémon Mystery Dungeon'' series, surpassing their predecessors. They are also the best-selling games in the ''Mystery Dungeon'' franchise in general; surpassing Squaresoft's ''Chocobo's Mysterious Dungeon'' and Enix's ''Torneko: The Last Hope'', both accumulating 1.34 million and 759,000 copies respectfully. '' Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity'' was the 18th best selling game in Japan in 2012, with more than 373,000 copies sold. The ''Chocobo'' series is thought to have had middling success, with strong launch sales but not a huge popular response.


Notes


References


External links

*
About the franchise at the Mystery Dungeon Franchise Wiki
{{Kadokawa Dwango Chunsoft games Kadokawa Corporation franchises Roguelike video games Video game franchises Video game franchises introduced in 1993