The chances are, when you think of Nintendo, you think of Mario - a portly plumber at the beck and call of a pink princess. Or perhaps you're more of a Legend of Zelda fan, and the little elfen Link is your first choice. For us though, it's Pokemon, with it's yellow electric mouse Pikachu being among one of the most recognisable characters in existence. With more spin-offs, tv shows and merchandise than you can shake a Sudowoodo at, it comes as little surprise that it's games that have sold over 250 million copies worldwide since the series began almost twenty years ago. And now it seems Nintendo have yet another game to add to the long list of Pokemon games - a new entry in the 13 million copy-selling Mystery Dungeon series.
This is literally the only piece of artwork we have to go on - a logo.
One of Nintendo's longest standing Pokemon spin-offs, the Mystery Dungeon franchise puts players in direct control of a Pokemon, exploring randomly-generated dungeons with a party of other critters and taking part in simple turn-based battles with enemies along the way. Known as a "rogue-like" dungeon crawler, they're a genre of games well known for being as hard as nails - although generally speaking, the Pokemon games are much, much kinder than many you'll encounter. With a limited amount of stamina with which to explore the dungeon, you'll want to put a bit of thought into choosing your path and battles, as passing out will cause you to lose all the items in your bag, and most of your money too.
Here's a screen of the last game, showing the nimble Pikachu in action
In traditional Nintendo style there's absolutely no information about what the new game, Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon, will actually involve - apparently we can look forward to "even greater, randomly generated dungeons that change" every time you enter, as you "battle alongside Legendary and Mythical Pokemon to save the world in a sweeping tale of adventure and mystery". So, basically the same as every other mystery dungeon game released so far then.
Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon is due out in America in late 2015 and Europe soon after, in early 2016. With games industry trade show E3 kicking off in less than a month's time, we suspect we'll see more in the coming weeks - so watch this space!
