It’s alright, but any charm that it has can be found in later Ranger games that are much better than this one. The mechanics are expanded and improved upon in later titles, too. Nonetheless, I still wouldn’t say that this is a bad play; if anything, I appreciate it for utilizing the DS’s touchscreen in a way that is unique and fun.
The best game i hope i never play again. One of my favorite games from my childhood, i would go through it again and again, probably at least a dozen times throughout the years. However, now grown up with large adult meat hands, twiddling a stick around a 3 inch screen sounds miserable. Regardless, the game itself is such a unqiue and fun look at the pokemon universe, temporarily recruiting pokemon to help solve puzzles and catch other pokemon. Evil teams arent exactly a new idea in pokemon, but the Go Rock Squad stands among some of the most amusing, and many of their lines stick in my head to this day.
This review contains spoilers
I love the Ranger series. It’s my favorite spinoff, even beating Mystery Dungeon. That said, the first is the worst. You can tell they were just testing the waters for just about everything. Parts of the game feel like a tech demo. I know that mainline Pokémon games don’t have fantastic dialogue, but the dialogue in this one is another level of bad. This game was clearly meant for kids, so duh, but playing it again as an adult just makes it so obvious. They don’t capture the villain because “we don’t capture humans, he will see what he did was wrong”. THAT GUY TRIED DESTROYING THE WORLD!!! PUT HIM IN PRISON!!! ARE RANGERS NOT POLICE??? ARE THSY JUST ANIMAL CONTROL?!?!?!? That said, still has its charm and sets the stage for two much better games (from what I remember, fingers crossed).