For all who loved the old DWM and Azure Dreams, this is those Dungeon Crawling games mixed with PokeMon; excellent game!
The main storyline is fairly short , but i see it as an extended tutorial. You have your main two characters and follow through a quirky little storyline that, by the end of it leaves enough loose ends for afterwards and you won't have levelled up to a level where it takes the fun out of continuing playing. Most of the game features are unlocked after the conclusion including plenty of much larger, stronger dungeons and (after a slightly too easy storyline) they are more challenging and bring in hundreds of more Friends to recruit and introducing extras like 'Level 1 Dungeons'. Probably the most irritating thing about the storyline is that you are forced to stick with the same two characters and charge through the story so when you have completed it any other Friends you have can't possibly compare to the levels of your mains; therefore you are inclined to keep using them instead of training up evenly. Neither can you evolve until the conclusion but, as said, that is an extra you get to wait for till the definitely more challenging 'after-storyline' section. The evolution system works differently and can be rather frustrating dragging one PokeMon at a time back and forth evolving them all and then going to the Moves Shop to get them to remember all of their earlier moves which you wouldn't otherwise have access to.
The item section also differs from previous PokeMon games, having one slot per item instead of ''Oran Berry x 99'' you only have twenty slots for everything, so you are forced to seriously plan what to take with you and in dungeons what needs to be collected and what should be left behind.
The most annoying thing about the entire game i would say is the recruitment system. Instead of collecting eggs in Azure Dreams, or throwing food in Dragon Warrior Monsters or indeed chucking PokeBalls in PokeMon, joining PokeMon is totally random and you have no control over it other than increasing the percentage possibility of them deciding too join.
The missions can get fairly same-same but if you are going through that dungeon anyway you can just pick up a mission and do it along the way at no expense (also keeping an escape option open if the need arises) and with the WiFi and Wonder Mail extras you can be rescued and rescue people from all over and involve yourself more in other peoples games and keep everyone held together by a certain rescue-glue that has been added in.
I would say this game has been boosted with the twist in gameplay and has managed to maintain most of the better aspects of the previous games like the 'catch 'em all' theme. A thoroughly addictive game once started with plenty of quirky little extras such as the personality test at the beginning. I say it's a fine addition to the DS shelf and PokeMon catalogue alike.