Pokemon Ranger Reviews

First when I got my DS I had nothing except my stylus and a NFSMW game for the GameBoy Advance, but when I got my Pokemon Ranger I was just excited. The unique capture system requires quick, careful use of the DS touch screen, the good sized quest it offers can keep you busy for days, weeks, or even for months if you're more of a nerd. Attractive 2D Graphics and animation bring the Pokemon to life.

Pokémon Ranger is more than a one-trick pony, because the process of capturing different Pokémon has some variety and strategy to it. This still isn't as deep or involving of a role-playing experience as some of the other Pokémon games, though, because you don't get to level up the different Pokémon directly. In fact, you don't even get the sense that you're keeping all of the Pokémon you're capturing, as you promptly let them back into the wild once you use one of their special abilities. This means Pokémon Ranger doesn't give you that same sense that you're building up a huge collection of creatures, even though you still log the data for each breed you successfully capture. And at any rate, the whole theme of the game is different; you're cast as more of a nature-loving peacekeeper, as opposed to an animal trainer. But the result is another original Pokémon game with plenty of challenge, a unique spin, and an underlying "be good to the environment" message that both kids and grown-ups should be able to appreciate.

This is one of those games that are deceptively easy at first. Thanks to the variety of Pokémon (it's not the most of any Pokémon game, but there are around 200 different breeds), the capture process stays interesting. The same can't necessarily be said of the field-exploration sequences, most of which boil down to some pretty basic dungeon crawls with a whole bunch of thinly veiled key hunts in them. You'll often need to capture a certain type of Pokémon to proceed further into an area. Some Pokémon can cut through gates or wire fences, others can crush rocks, others can swing you across ravines, and so on, but all of this boils down to you getting some sort of obstacle out of your way. The level design of the different mission areas isn't bad, but isn't particularly imaginative, either. In between the game's equivalent of dungeon crawls, you'll get to explore a few towns and may undertake some optional capture challenges, which entice you to capture as many wild Pokémon as possible in a few minutes' time.