The 'Chu Brothers: A New World

Chapter 1: A Little Dream Makes One Big Adventure

12/26/19
10:00 pm
(My Bedroom) Jersey City, New Jersey; United States

"One year my ass." I was laying down on my bed and holding my DS. And yes, I did mean that.

It had been almost three years since Cord disappeared from Weird Woods and the town of Jersey City, New Jersey was as clueless as ever. No one got an answer to where he was, and asked even more questions than when the two kids in the ninety's disappeared. And the majority of those questions went straight to me. Since I was the only person to witness his disappearance, a lot of people—which included the press and police—asked me questions that I couldn't even begin to answer. Heck, I even had to show where I last saw Cord...

Twice!
So yeah, I'm not too happy with Cord. But that doesn't mean I'm grateful. As it turned out, Cord left a note inside the game cartridge. The note went along the lines on what you see below.

Dear Manny,
When you read this, I will be gone. Now, I understand you might be mad at me, and I'm sorry about that. It was something I truly had to do. Maybe you might understand if you were in the same situation. For now until I return, you can have my favorite game, Explorers of Sky.

You might just be surprised of where I was once I come back.

From Cord.

P.S.: Don't show this to anyone.

I was reluctant at first to touch anything related to the note. So my DS, the game cartridge, and the actual note was sitting in my room collecting dust for the past 2 years... All the way until two months ago. It was at that point that I realized that Cord actually wanted me to play this game and enjoy it—even if he's gone. I got everything set up in a few minutes and started playing the game.

First, you had the personality quiz. In all the Mystery Dungeon games, you always had to take this feature to find out what Pokémon would "best suit" you. This was possible by having a point-based system that tracked what answers you put. Honestly, the result can be pretty amazing if you're very lucky and pretty terrible if you get a Pokémon you hate. I spent the first half-hour trying rigging the game trying to get my—and coincidently Cord's—favorite Pokémon, Pikachu...

Quite frankly, I think Cord liked Raichu more than Pikachu, but whenever I asked that question, he would quickly change the subject.

Anyway, after what seemed like a million attempts, I finally got Pikachu, chose a partner—it was an Eevee named Abby if you were wondering—and got started on the story.

The regular story was pretty surprising. I only knew the first five chapters because of my background knowledge of the game, and played blind the rest of the entire story. The game got tremendously hard near the end since I was at a disadvantage every single matchup. It took me about four days to finish the story from when I started.

There's also a postgame storyline in this game. It was longer to finish since it required a lot more training—something that I didn't take for granted—and better ideas for fighting.

God, I really hated that Darkrai battle in the end. Me and Abby were so underleveled.

Something stood out to me when I got near to the final battle. I kept on recruiting members left and right, with the majority of the recruiting so far based on luck. This reason made me realize that I can do an achievement that is almost impossible to finish...