Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity occupies a complicated position in gaming history. Released in 2013, it represented the franchise’s first full leap into 3D character models, trading the charm of beloved sprite artwork for technical ambition that the 3DS hardware could genuinely showcase. The result proved polarizing then and remains so in 2026.
If you’re weighing up the queried £59.15 price point, there’s substantial context worth understanding before committing to that purchase. Market realities, gameplay expectations, and hardware recommendations could collectively save you considerable money and potential disappointment.
Understanding the Mystery Dungeon Formula
For anyone unfamiliar with the series, Mystery Dungeon titles cast you as a human transformed into a Pokémon, navigating procedurally generated dungeon floors alongside a partner. The genre blends roguelike mechanics with heavy narrative emphasis, and the franchise earned its devoted following through emotionally resonant storytelling rather than mechanical complexity alone.
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity arrives as the third mainline handheld entry following the DS-era Explorers games, representing simultaneously the series’ most technically ambitious showcase and its most contentious design decisions.
Starter Selection: Innovation or Regression?
Earlier Mystery Dungeon entries employed personality quizzes to determine your starter Pokémon, creating genuine emotional investment before a single dungeon was explored. Knowing your character reflected your actual personality made the narrative land differently. Gates to Infinity abandoned this system entirely, substituting manual selection from just five options: Pikachu, Snivy, Tepig, Oshawott, and Axew.
Five starters. The subsequent Super Mystery Dungeon offered twenty. Explorers of Sky provided considerably broader access. The restriction feels stark for veterans expecting traditional breadth, and the removal of the personality quiz strips away a layer of personalization that elevated previous entries emotionally.
Despite this, the move mechanics received meaningful refinement. “Move Growth” allows moves to increase in power, accuracy, and PP through repeated use across your entire team, rewarding consistent playstyles with tangible progression depth. It’s a genuine mechanical innovation that partially compensates for the roster reduction, though whether it adequately balances the losses depends entirely on your priorities.
Magnagates: Hardware Showcase at Its Most Creative
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity was evidently designed to demonstrate 3DS capabilities, and the Magnagate system illustrates this ambition most vividly. By using the 3DS camera to scan circular real-world objects (coins, cups, plates or anything with a recognizable round shape), players unlock portals to “Infinite Dungeons.”
This AR implementation was genuinely novel for a Pokémon release and remains among the more creative applications of 3DS camera technology across the platform’s entire library.
The gameplay structure around these dungeons proves thoughtfully considered. Rather than deploying your main save file’s team, Infinite Dungeons place you in control of all five starter Pokémon simultaneously. Items and money earned transfer back to your primary “Pokémon Paradise” chest, creating risk-free exploration that complements the main campaign without disrupting primary progression.
Practically speaking, the Magnagate system functions better as a novelty than a sustained feature. The dungeons lack the narrative context making the main campaign engaging, and scanning real-world objects grows tedious after initial excitement fades. As a hardware demonstration it remains impressive. As a core gameplay pillar it falls somewhat short.
Pokémon Paradise: Where the Game Truly Shines
The most surprising element of Gates to Infinity is that its town-building mechanic proves more engaging than the dungeon crawling itself.
Pokémon Paradise serves as your central hub, and unlike the functional prep areas of previous games, it constitutes a fully customizable settlement. Materials collected from dungeons enable construction and upgrading of various facilities. The “Treasure Store” operated by Rampardos. The “Gold Bar” shop run by Cofagrigus. Each building adds functionality, personality, and genuine reason to invest in the grind.
Reviewers consistently identify Pokémon Paradise as the most compelling aspect of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity. The feedback loop of exploring dungeons to gather materials, returning to develop your settlement, then heading back out with improved infrastructure creates satisfying progression that the dungeon crawling alone doesn’t consistently deliver.
This simultaneously constitutes a compliment and a criticism. When a dungeon crawling game’s most memorable feature involves town management rather than actual dungeon exploration, it suggests the core mechanical loop needed additional development attention.
The Text Speed Issue (And the Community Fix)
The most genuinely frustrating aspect of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity is its notoriously sluggish text speed, which standard game settings provide no option to adjust.
For a narrative-heavy title that frontloads considerable story content before gameplay properly opens up, this creates a legitimately tedious early experience. The opening hours feature extensive dialogue crawling across the screen at a pace that tests patience considerably.
Players running modded 3DS consoles with Luma3DS have a community solution available. Creating a specific “Infinite Text Speed” cheat via a cheats.txt file in the Luma titles folder addresses this completely. The relevant folder codes are:
- US version:
00040000000BA800 - EU version:
00040000000BA900
This forces instant text rendering and transforms the experience substantially. If you’re playing on modded hardware (which we’d recommend for any 3DS title in 2026 given the eShop closure), implementing this fix should constitute your first action.
Performance and Hardware Recommendations
The game operates on any 3DS hardware, though performance varies meaningfully between models. During large-scale “Team Attacks” where multiple Pokémon execute coordinated moves simultaneously, base 3DS and 2DS hardware exhibits noticeable slowdown.
“New” series hardware (New 3DS XL, New 2DS XL) handles these sequences considerably more smoothly. If you’re gaming on original 3DS or 2DS hardware, anticipate occasional performance dips during the most intensive combat sequences. Not game-breaking, but worth factoring into your hardware considerations.
Series Comparison Context
| Metric | Gates to Infinity | Super Mystery Dungeon |
|---|---|---|
| Starters | 5 (Manual Choice) | 20 (Quiz or Manual) |
| Pokémon Count | 144 | 720 (Every Pokémon to Gen 6) |
| Difficulty | Very Easy (Early game) | High (Challenging post-game) |
| UK Value (Loose) | ~£22.00 (CeX) | ~£25.00 (CeX) |
| UK Value (New) | ~£212.00 (Import) | ~£90.00 |
The roster comparison with Super Mystery Dungeon proves stark. Gates to Infinity’s 144 Pokémon against Super Mystery Dungeon’s 720 encapsulates the fundamental design compromise. For newcomers choosing between these titles, Super Mystery Dungeon delivers a dramatically more complete experience.
However, Gates to Infinity’s Move Growth system and Pokémon Paradise depth provide mechanical innovations that Super Mystery Dungeon partially walked back. Neither game proves strictly superior across every dimension.
The Difficulty Deficit
Gates to Infinity sits among the easiest Mystery Dungeon releases, particularly in early stages. Veterans will find the challenge level underwhelming throughout the primary campaign. Newcomers may appreciate the gentler learning curve, but reduced difficulty removes much of the tension that makes roguelike experiences compelling.
Late-game content and optional dungeons provide genuine challenge, but the primary campaign rarely threatens experienced players. This reduces the stakes of each dungeon run considerably, which undermines one of the genre’s core emotional hooks.
Market Reality Check (2026)
Verdict on the £59.15 Price: The queried price of £59.15 sits significantly above current market averages for a used UK copy (typically £20 to £35). Unless the copy is brand new and factory sealed, or includes rare localized packaging, you can likely save over £25 purchasing from a domestic UK seller.
Current market context:
- Loose UK copies at CeX: approximately £22.00
- Used marketplace copies: £20.00 to £35.00
- New/sealed import copies: up to £212.00 (collector premium)
The eShop closure has appreciated physical 3DS values broadly, but Gates to Infinity remains among the more accessible Mystery Dungeon titles price-wise compared to genuinely scarce entries like Explorers of Sky. That £59.15 price point suggests either a sealed copy or an optimistic seller. Verify condition thoroughly and compare domestically before committing.
Final Assessment
Score: 6.8/10 (A technically ambitious transition prioritizing hardware showcase over series strengths, partially redeemed by genuinely innovative town-building mechanics.)
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity isn’t the worst franchise entry, but it isn’t the strongest introduction either. The Magnagate AR system demonstrates genuine creativity, Pokémon Paradise provides real depth, and Move Growth adds mechanical nuance. But the stripped roster, unadjustable text speed, reduced difficulty, and dungeon crawling that never consistently reaches the series’ emotional ceiling make this a compromised experience overall.
For Mystery Dungeon veterans: approach with measured expectations and implement the text speed fix immediately on modded hardware.
For newcomers: begin with Explorers of Sky or Super Mystery Dungeon instead. Gates to Infinity makes considerably more sense as a second or third entry once you understand why series comparisons matter.
For collectors: the sealed copy market continues appreciating, but £59.15 for a used copy likely represents overpaying. Confirm condition carefully before purchasing at that price point.
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