Pokemon Ranger (Japan Version) for DS

Pokemon Ranger for the Nintendo DS is one of the latest Pokemon releases for the system. This game is not like the traditional RPG games but plays more like an action-adventure game. In the game you start out by becoming a beginner Pokemon ranger, and gradually you get more experience as the game ticks on. A Pokemon ranger is a person who goes out and helps people and Pokemon in need. For example you may have to return a Pokemon back to its master if it has gotten lost, or if a Pokemon has gotten into trouble itself you may have to help it out of the mess its gotten itself into.

The game play is fairly straightforward and linear, and the game usually tells you exactly what you have to do, however its the battles where things get tough. Unlike traditional Pokemon games you are issued a capture Styler at the beginning of the game, at first the Pokemon styler only has a few bars of energy, but as you progress in the game it gains more and more energy bars as you go on and complete missions and increase in rank. The styler is your capture device (instead of a Pokeball) and the object of each battle is to draw loops around the Pokemon in order to capture it. The number of loops drawn will vary by Pokemon, and the game tells you how many loops each Pokemon takes by displaying a number. But wait there is more, when you are trying to capture a Pokemon by drawing loops, it will also unleash attacks, which try to disrupt the process of you drawing loops by "breaking" the loops. If the attacking Pokemon manages to hit your loop, it will break the loop and damage the styler (you will lose energy bars on the styler).

The good news is that you can recharge your styler by capturing a Pikachu, Raichu, Magnemite, Magneton, Electrike or Manectric. These are names of the electric Pokemon that you can use to recharge your styler. Each Pokemon gives a different amount of energy to the styler. I recommend keeping some of these in your party at all times during the game. You can also recharge your styler to full capacity at any ranger base. If your styler looses all its energy its game over and you are sent back to your ranger base to pick up from the beginning of a mission or from the last point where you saved. Save often! Unfortunately you cannot save anytime in this game, saving is done by using save points while on missions or you can also save at the ranger base. The supply of electric Pokemon to recharge is usually plentiful and you can also use one and return to the area where you captured it to capture it again. These electric Pokemon are usually some of the easiest to capture. Rest assured this is all explained in the game, and the game does have a tutorial mode for beginners that explains all of this in case you do not understand just from reading the review.

Another element of the game is a Pokemon assist. A Pokemon assist is like a move that the Pokemon can either use outside of battle to help you clear obstacles or you can have a capture assist which is an assist that helps you capture a Pokemon. These are essential for getting through the game. The game also explains the Pokemon assist in the tutorial. An example of a Pokemon assist is the electric type assist that can be used to recharge your Styler.

One major drawback of this game is you cannot keep the Pokemon you capture during your missions and throughout the game. You have to release the Pokemon back into their natural environment after you are done with each one. After each mission you also have to release the Pokemon back into their natural environment, also if you use a capture assist or an outside move assist the Pokemon will automatically release into the environment. It would have been better and less disappointing if you could store the Pokemon you captured in Pokemon boxes like in the traditional Pokemon games. After you beat the story mode of the game the game allows you to keep Pokemon in your party, but you can only keep as much as your party holds, which is about 8-10 Pokemon, there is no storage for the Pokemon.

As you can probably guess the captures are easy in the beginning of the game but get progressively more difficult. There are boss battles which are more difficult than the normal missions you will go on. I am an adult and I found this game to be pretty difficult overall. It can take a while to get the hang of capturing Pokemon with the Styler and you have to be very careful with the touch screen because the looping motions can easily damage it. It is very easy to press down too hard on the screen while playing this game. Some normal captures will take more than one try and boss battles will take many tries to finish. Because of this I cannot recommend this game for children who get easily frustrated by video games, especially those who get frustrated by action-type video games. I had to put this game down several times during the course of playing and pick it up every couple days in order to get through it, because of its difficulty. The boss battles are especially hard, especially the end boss battle.



WARNING: These are SPOILERS!

After you complete the game (beat the final boss and story mode), you can unlock the Ranger Net function and complete extra missions. You cannot keep the Pokemon from these extra missions in your party however, they are released back into the environment like in the rest of the game. Mission 1 allows you to capture Deoxys. Mission 2 is to rescue Celebi. Mission 3 is to find Mew. After you complete mission 3 you can unlock an additional password mode. This is done by pressing the R button, X button and left on the d-pad at the Ranger Net screen. The password you need to enter at this screen is: P8M2--9D6F--43H7. Then you will be given a 4th mission, which is to capture Manaphy. Once you have done this mission, you will receive a Manaphy Egg. This egg can be transferred to the upcoming Pokemon Diamond and Pearl games, and you will get a Pokemon egg in Diamond or Pearl. The egg will hatch into Manaphy, and you will now have a Manaphy on your Diamond and Pearl games. Instructions for transferring are provided in-game. Note: this is the only way to get Manaphy onto your Diamond and Pearl games. It is a shame that you can only transfer one Pokemon though, it would be better if you could transfer some more Pokemon from this game to Diamond and Pearl.

END SPOILERS!