What is this game series?  When did it start?  Is it good?  How does it compare to traditional Pokemon games?

How did I miss this?

It is a mystery.

It is your basic rogue-like game. It started sometime around the launch of the DS and has only one version on a different platform currently. Good bad or whatnot would be a matter of personal opinion I suppose. Rogue-likes are the most amazingly hardcore genre in existence though, so don't try it unless you are prepared to get kicked in the nuts a few times.

Rogue?

Yes, like the game Rogue. That would be how the genre was named. However, I doubt this was your intended meaning. It is like the Chocobo's Dungeon, Izuna, or Shiren the Wanderer games. If you want to try a similar game you can get ADoM for the PC and give it a whirl. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is significantly less hardcore than ADoM though.

Oh okey dokey cheers.

It doesn't really sound like it is for me. But thankyou for answering my questions.

its a rip off of Chocobo Mysterious Dungeon.
they even ripped off the name xD.

They also ripped off the developer! Wait, no. They hired the same developer. I'd like to add another witty line here to mock you further but I can't think of anything at the moment. Feel free to check back later though.

xD well both from Square Enix but one is Square (Chocobo) and the other is Enix (Pokemon)

Well the only thing I know is that I don't like it

Tell me you're not serious.

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Mystery Dungeon has a few good tracks though: