Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity brought the roguelike dungeon crawler spin-off series to the Nintendo 3DS and continued the beloved formula of Spike Chunsoft's games, namely a personality test that determines the player's Pokémon and the subsequent traversal of procedurally generated dungeons together with a partner. Compared to the previous Explorers trilogy, the game arrived with simplified controls and a clearer interface, meant to make it more accessible even to less experienced players, but this drew mixed reactions from part of the longtime fanbase due to less depth compared to older installments and a noticeably shorter main story.

A novelty is the mechanic of building the so-called Pokémon Paradise, where the player gradually expands a settlement for rescued Pokémon using resources gathered during expeditions, adding a light building-and-management element on top of pure dungeon exploration. The graphical presentation uses the Nintendo 3DS's stereoscopic 3D effect to make dungeon corridors and battle scenes feel more spatial than the flat sprites of previous installments, though the overall visual style remains true to the series' cute aesthetic. The musical accompaniment builds on earlier installments and here too accompanies the story's key emotional moments.

Gates to Infinity is viewed as a transitional installment between the traditional approach of the Mystery Dungeon games and later, more ambitious attempts by the series, and despite its mixed reception it showed that the concept of roguelike Pokémon adventures has its place on the 3DS. For newcomers to the series, it offered an accessible entry point, while more experienced players more often reached for older installments, where they found a more elaborate story and a higher difficulty of progressing through dungeons. Still, the Pokémon Paradise mechanic became an interesting experiment that showed this spin-off series could draw inspiration from the building-game genre, hinting at the direction later installments of the series on the 3DS would take.