Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX game cover.

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX is a Nintendo Switch title that is a part of the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series. It is the first remake in the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series, being a remake of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team and Blue Rescue Team.

Differences of No Wonder Mail and Wonder Mail category

(The guide was created by ShadyGamerX. Source: https://www.speedrun.com/pmddx/guide/ze9x4)
The main differences that Wonder Mail brings into the game are Spikes and Rare Qualities. Spikes are great throwable items that deal tons of damage from range and animate very quickly. On top of that, registering the shortcut allows the AI to throw them, making them much safer off-screen. The main caveat here is that the AI only throws one spike per enemy, unless it’s a boss or there are multiple standing in a line. This means that in most cases, the AI cannot kill anything at range, unless you one-shot the enemies. This is why being able to one shot enemies with Spikes is of utmost importance in this category.

The second change is being able to more reliably obtain Rare Qualities. This is relevant with the aforementioned Spikes, because there are two Rare Qualities that allow us to consistently one-shot nearly all enemies: Lonely Courage and Thrown Item Boost. Thrown Item Boost is simple, it multiplies the damage done by Spikes by 1.5. Lonely Courage gives you a massive offensive (1.5× damage dealt) and defensive (0.5× damage taken) buff when you have no allies nearby nor in the same room. The offensive buff allows you to deal the same amount of damage with Spikes as with Thrown Item Boost, while the defensive buff makes it near impossible for you to die. As a result, Lonely Courage is objectively superior to Thrown Item Boost outside of scenarios where there are nearby allies, such as boss fights.

There is also a third Rare Quality worth mentioning, called Defensive Rhythm. It essentially functions as the defensive buff of Lonely Courage, giving you permanent +1 defensive stages and going further up each time you get hit for the remainder of the turn. So Defensive Rhythm + Thrown Item Boost is as good as Lonely Courage. Thrown Item Boost on its own is better in the earlygame before you have Absol to one-shot enemies with Spikes. Meanwhile, Defensive Rhythm shines in lategame allowing you to forego the safer Wait There strats in favor of the riskier Go the Other Way strats.

Getting any of these Rare Qualities is purely luck, and it is up to you to decide whether you want to reset for them or not. Lonely Courage is OP to the point where survival becomes trivial. That said, even without Rare Qualities, the run is considerably more beginner friendly compared to No WM. This route assumes that we don’t reset for Rare Qualities and as such includes strats that work more generally. There are also other decent Rare Qualities that are worth keeping if you happen to get them, it is suggested to check out what they all do in the in-game keyword list.

Other differences include faster boss strats using the items we Wonder Mail in. For example, the Groudon and Rayquaza fights become a complete joke thanks to the All Protect orbs.

Routes

(The guide was created by ShadyGamerX. Source: https://www.speedrun.com/pmddx/guide/ze9x4)

Any% Wonder Mail

Pikachu and Machop

Machop has the highest attack stat out of all the starters. Combined with the Power Band and Proteins that we Wonder Mail in, it is possible to one-shot some enemies with Spikes even without any Rare Qualities.

Pikachu has the highest special attack stat out of the starters. Thanks to the Special Band we Wonder Mail in, we can use two sets of two linked moves being Thundershock + Electro Ball and Grass Knot+Iron Tail, saving PP while still being able to deal with enemies consistently.

Machop and Totodile

Machop has the highest attack stat out of all the starters. Combined with the 1.5× damage multiplier from Thrown Item Boost or Lonely Courage, we are able to consistently one shot nearly all enemies without needing a Power Band.

Tototdile has the second highest attack stat out of the starters. Thanks to the Power Band we Wondermail in, we can bring his attack up to par with Machop, meaning we have pretty much a symmetrical pair capable of one-shotting everything.

General Tips

(The guide was created by ShadyGamerX. Source: https://www.speedrun.com/pmddx/guide/ze9x4)

Auto modes

The auto mode introduced in RTDX can be a double edged sword. It allows for faster corridor movement than humanly possible, or even with TAS inputs, for that matter. However, it can easily screw you over by going in unexpected directions or unnecessarily approaching enemies. Its movement can still be somewhat predicted most of the time and therefore its usage takes some skill to master.

The way it works to my knowledge is that the auto mode actually knows the locations of every room in the floor and always takes you to the closest unexplored room in order to find the stairs. So in a way, you can sort of cheat by using the auto mode. If it turns you around, there’s a good chance that there are no rooms in that direction.

It is recommended to useauto mode in corridors whenever there aren’t too many enemies around to run into. In rooms it is usually slower to use it since it won’t dash and goes after items. If there are more enemies nearby or you want to move more carefully for other reasons, you can opt not to use auto mode but to quickly toggle it to check which direction to go to at intersections.

Lastly, even if you don’t want to use auto mode for movement, you can still toggle it to quickly check items in rooms: The bubble that appears on your character will tell exactly what the item is without even having to move close. <ref>