I'd heard mixed things about the 3DS Mystery Dungeon games,

Haven't played Gates but Super is alright, doesn't hold up to Explorers though.

Also, was it because of the story or mechanics that the 3DS games weren't as well received?

>>32936290
Super brings some good while also getting rid of some of the good. Mechanics-wise it's more or less the same, but the biggest thing I think a lot of people are upset about is the new recruit system. You have a limited amount of recruits and once you recruited them all that's it. With that also is the "availability of pokemon" where you can't just keep using your favorites because they take breaks which forces you to use different pokemon but it's super aggravating none-the-less.

On the plus side, the dungeons are cool and legendary fights are a lot of fun. They also bring back characters from previous games like Wigglytuff, Grovyle, Rampardos and Cincinno (but it's mostly just for flavor since it doesn't add anything in particular).

I personally recommend Super overall if you enjoyed the other entries.

>>32936290
>Also, was it because of the story or mechanics that the 3DS games weren't as well received?
Gates: Mechanics
Super: Story
Acutally, Super was pretty well received, especially after what was Gates. They're both plenty different from the DS games, which is offputting for some. The postgame for both of them is lacking, the former having pretty much none, and the latter being just going into a dungeon to recruit a mon 400 times, while having a shitton of dungeons (and 4 entire contintents) with little to no story influence and about 4 actual challenge dungeons.
Both the RT and Sky post games were better, since they had story and were way harder.

>>32936354
What bothers me with Super is that the dungeon are short as fuck. The DS entries had dungeon that could go up to 50 floors before the post game. Now the longest dungeon during story mode is less than 20 if I remember correctly.
I know the dungeon got way harder than before, but I liked the long phase of exploration in Rescue Team and Explorers

Gates was the best story-wise, the gameplay could have overall more polish but it ain't bad. Couldn't give less of a shit about not being able to play as Riolu or something

Super has nice gameplay but the story is rushed as all hell. Still pretty good

>>32936426
That I definitely agree on with you. Some of the fun in sky was preparing for the very long dungeons. I appreciate what they did with some of the Super ones, but I'd like for them to expand on them if they do future iterations.

Gates is amazing, it just gets hate for not having all the mons

>playing Pokemon for the story
Play Super. Super's gameplay is a lot different, your bag space is much bigger and regular attacks do almost nothing, so most of the strategy revolves around how you use your items and teammates' movepools.
RT's the best for gameplay, though Explorersfags would call it "clunky". Item managament, keeping teammates alive, and all that are very imprtant in it, and this sort of thing hasn't returned even in Super. In fact, I'd say Super's done the reverse by adding a Progress Device to savescum, and a full party revival orb.
Explorers is easy to cheese throughout the maingame and has less challenging postgame dungeons, and is still cheesable.
Gates is bad gameplay-wise, a lot's removed from RT and Explorers to simplify things. Some of the changes did carry over to Super, like weakened regular attacks, so you won't miss much.

>>32936096
>I'd heard mixed things about the 3DS Mystery Dungeon games, are they good?
They're totally fine.

>How do they hold up to Rescue Team and Explorers?
They're both better and worse in some aspect, with both of them failing at having some interesting post game.

>Am I missing anything if I play Super but not Gates?
Yeah, you're skipping a whole game, while GTI isn't the most well received pokemon game it is still a pretty unique experience, due to what it tried to be, also i think if you were to skip GTI it would be harder to go back at it after finishing super if you would want to.

>>32936290
>Also, was it because of the story or mechanics that the 3DS games weren't as well received?
Gates failed in the fact that it's a little too easy and changed the mechanics a lot, also it pretty much has no post game, but the story is pretty great, if you play these games for the story i would say this is a must.
Super failed for having a train wreck of a story, that could've been good but made pretty questionable decisions, also while it has a post game that can take you at the very least 20+ hours, it's looked down upon for it being only exploration and nothing else, it's strong point is that the gameplay in super may be the best one in the series.

>>32936444
trips of truth

>Rescue
First game, a bit rough around the edges but good. Some things in it were never touched on again, making it a bit unique.

>Explorers
A great sequel which improved on most things. The best all around package.

>Gates
First 3DS game. Development seems to have gone into mostly making a 3DS game, so content suffers. Generally considered to have the best story but worst gameplay.

>Super
Opposite of Gates. Best gameplay but worst story. There are some weird choices (in both gameplay and story) that held it back.

>>32936096
>Am I missing anything if I play Super but not Gates?
There are a few references in the connection sphere you won't get, but that's minor stuff.