DS Review: Pokémon Ranger

The famous Pokémon franchise has seen a significant amount of spin-offs. Obviously, Nintendo knows how popular the pocket monster phenomenon is and has used it in many different genres. We’ve seen the little critters in pinball games, puzzle games, and even in a photo-taking game. We were even able to play as the Pokémon themselves in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon for either DS or GBA. This time around, Pokémon Ranger takes the standard ‘Catch ‘Em All’ formula and adds an interesting and fun twist to it.

You play the game as either a boy or girl Pokémon Ranger, part of an organization dedicated to preserving the harmonious connection between people, Pokémon, and the environment. Once recruited, you are given a ‘Styler’, a device that allows you to momentarily recruit the services of wild Pokémon to put them to good use, and then set the creature free once again. At first, you’re given basic missions, such as clearing blocked paths or putting out small fires, but as the story progresses you hear about the Go-Rock Squad, an organization seeking to exploit the powers of Pokémon for riches and power using devices similar to your Styler, and as expected you must go after them to put a stop to their evil plans.

This all sounds very Pokémon-esque, and it is; the twist comes in the way in which you capture Pokémon. Using the Styler, a small floating device that you control using the stylus, you must circle the Pokémon multiple times until it’s safe to let go of the touch screen and catch the creature. Pokémon will put up a fight though; small and weak ones will try to move away from the loops you draw, whereas strong Pokémon will attack your Styler’s path to inflict damage to your device. If a Pokémon touches the path of your Styler, either by direct contact or through a special attack, it will break the loop and force you to start circling all over again. As you might expect, the stronger and bigger a Pokémon is, the more times you will have to loop around it with your Styler in order to recruit it, and the tougher the challenge will be. Sometimes you will face multiple Pokémon at once, making the taming process very intense; your hand – and your touch screen – will feel the pain.

Once you catch a Pokémon, it will follow you around until you decide to use its abilities. Water Pokémon, for example, can extinguish flames. Small Pokémon such as Squirtle can put out a small fire, while its evolved form, Blastoise, can get rid of big, dangerous forest fires. Fighting-type Pokémon can destroy rocks, fire-types can burn wood, and grass-types can help you cross over cliffs, and so on. However, not only can you use Pokémon abilities to change the environment, but they can help you in Pokémon catching sessions as well. You could use Charmander’s fire powers to help you catch a grass Pokémon with ease, or if you’re low on energy simply ask one of your fellow Electric Pokémon to recharge your Styler, just to name a few examples. You have a limited amount of time to use a Pokémon’s abilities in battle once you decide to do so, so use it wisely. After his or her task is done, Pokémon return to the wild.

As you fulfill missions, you will move up in rank, which allows you to carry a larger group of Pokémon with you, and also increases your Styler’s path length. As you tame more and more Pokémon, your Styler will get experience points and eventually level up, giving you more energy to go by; if it ever runs out, it’s game over, so remember to frequently save your process on save stations located around the game’s towns and areas. The capturing process remains entertaining – although a little repetitive – throughout the entire game, but unfortunately the missions don’t. Most of them are simple dungeon-crawling sequences with a few obstacles here and there, and some random and predictable story plots along the way that aren’t very interesting. Level design is varied enough however; you will explore mountains, icy caves, volcanoes, sewers, forests, and a few towns and cities.

Pokémon Ranger has a brightly colored 2D graphic style that suits the series well. Attack animations are nice, and Pokémon are shown to scale with respect to other Pokémon. Music in the game is pretty standard; nothing great, nothing horrible. Pokémon retain their cries from the Game Boy games, which could be either a good or bad thing depending on your taste and experience with the series.

The single-player game will last you between 15 to 20 hours, but as always with the Pokémon series, there’s something else to do besides the main quest. Once you’re finished, you unlock a few extra missions, and there’s always that ‘Gotta Tame ‘Em All’ feeling that will motivate you to capture the 200+ critters found in the game, since not every single pocket monster from the old games can be found here. Besides its small repetitiveness, Pokémon Ranger is a very nice spin-off of the popular monster-catching series. If you’re a big Pokémon fan, it might take a while to get used to the ‘let’s save the environment’ approach rather than the standard ‘I have to be the best trainer’ take on the series, and the tact that Pokémon you catch can’t be kept, although their data is stored. If you can get past this, you will find a fun and challenging adventure that will give the series a nice twist and give you a new experience with the popular pocket monsters.

Things we liked:

Things we didn’t like:

Final Score: 7.5/10