I think the spritework and animations in this game are very well-done, but the core gameplay loop's simplicity doesn't justify the length of this game. I didn't get far into it before it became really obvious that they didn't have many ideas of how to progress the plotline.

I dunno. I do think that the sheer existence of this spinoff's premise adds a lot to the Pokemon universe, and that that's great- but as a whole, it just feels kinda half-baked.

Also fuck whoever thought to make the unskippable tutorial sequences span that much of the game. I figured everything out before I was told about any of it, why do minutes of my time need to be wasted explaining every minute detail? I get they make these for kids, but no kid is THAT dense, sheesh.

A ver, por dónde empiezo. El juego es claramente para usar la gimmick de la pantalla táctil de ds, y además es super antiguo (no hay nada de cuarta generación), pero el juego tiene un montón de problemas que me impiden decir 'nah, ha envejecido mal'. Para empezar, el juego es de puzles, supongo, porque aunque tiene sistema de nivel, este es ajeno a la progresión y completamente innecesario, solo te permite hacerte el juego más fácil si no te saltas enfrentamientos, lo cual es estúpido, porque al ser un juego enteramente skill-based a veces se dan las condiciones para que captures un Entei en 5 segundos, pero si tienes mala suerte con los ataques se te dificulta cualquier otro pokémon sencillo. La mayoría del juego es moverte de un lado a otro, sin botón de correr y guiándote con un minimapa inútil que no te marca las paredes, así que solo tiene 4 iconos tontos horribles. Lo peor de todo es la historia, que aparte de estar localizada por completo (haciendo que me tenga que tomar en serio a personajes como 'Emilio', 'Carlos' y 'Eustaquio'), tiene el equipo de villanos menos carismático que he visto en ningún juego de pokémon. Son literalmente una banda de música y su padre, dicen una catchphrase de mierda como 'Pokemon a gogo' (se llaman equipo go-rock), se pasan todo el juego vacilándote y tú les haces caso porque no te queda otra. La pokédex del juego está cursed de cojones y se inventa el orden. Aunque he de decir que el juego se ve bastante bien y los sprites de los pokémon están chulos, la música es goofy de cojones y suena terrible (https://youtu.be/MqmyGx8Kavs). Debo jugar las secuelas porque las recuerdo mejores.

Cute attempt at showing off the prowess of the Nintendo DS as a gaming device, with some smoke and mirrors to hide its limitations. The core of the game revolves around the adaptation of the Pokémon mainline gameplay loop in order to accomodate the introduction of the touch screen and stylus. The gameplay loop revolves around monster capturing, an offshoot of monster collecting from the main series. Pokémon are captured with the only intention of temporarily using their abilities to remove obstacles and then releasing them back to freedom.

What Ranger shines in is putting Pokémon at the center of the game. I think the mainline games have always made some mistakes in how they create an experience centered around Pokèmons, for example the exclusivity of starters leading to them having way too much staying power on your team and thus heavily affecting team composition in absence of incentives to rotate team members, or how Pokémon are observable only in tall grass. These things have been worked on slowly through generations, but Ranger took and reworked them immediately in a pleasant and rational way. Pokémon are now visible on screen during travels and a capture starts on touch; no more tall grass. The gameplay only involves player vs pokemon through the stylus, pokémon do not and cannot fight each other here. Pokémon are modelled and animated through splendid sprite work, and all have curious and neat individual animations. Pokémon are also coherent with their descriptions and stated behaviours and thus feel like proper and diverse living beings. Always a big fan of letting creatures be creatures.

In general though this level of precision in Pokémon interaction comes at the expense of most other things affecting the game. This is a small game. The main story can be finished in roughly 10 hours, while total completion of the regional pokédex might take 15 hours. The world of the game in particular is quite small. There are just 4 cities and only an handful of other locations. There are little tricks that make the game seem slightly larger than it is: for example, the camera is oddly centered on and close by the player character to create an illusory sense of breatdh of environment. Although cities are just an handful of houses and exploration involves three or four screens of walking at best, this give the illusion that exploration takes just a couple seconds longer than expected and hides, best it can, the map's general weakness. Pokémon capture sessions also take place in rather uninspired stages, which also feel comically small because the Pokémon you are trying to capture can and will run past the borders of the screen, where you cannot reach them. From a gameplay perspective, this is a fine concession to the cpu in order to even the odds against your capture possibilities, but from an experience perspective, this all leads to the game being played as if looking through a microscope. That same microscope is used for the plot of the game, a sufficiently competent work decorated with mildly entertaining and goofy characters, but nothing to write home about.

Post Edit: One thing I completely forgot to mention with respect to gameplay choices and tricks that try to manipulate your perception of the breatdh of the game: you cannot run in this game. This is small, but it's also been seriously bugging me during the whole 10 hours of gameplay I had. Running and faster-than-walking travel is somewhat of a staple in Pokémon games, through the running shoes and the bicycles. Here you get nothing of the sort. Although your walking speed is solid and brisk, it seems tailored to the small enviornments I've talked about. I don't know if I should have a legitimate expectation of being able to run in any RPG Pokémon game (take for example the Mystery Dungeon games), but I can't deny I had a few moments where I really wished I was faster. And in relation to the little world of the game, I realize if I were going any faster the game would undeniably become excessively short and unsatisftying.

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.

NOTA: 7,5

CONSOLA: Nintendo DSi

SPANISH / No me esperaba que fuera a ser tan divertido. Había momentos en que me cagaba en todo, sobre todo con el Steelix.
Aún así, me lo pasé bien y para los siguientes que voy :)

ENGLISH / I wasn't expecting it to be so fun. There were moments where I was getting furious, especially with Steelix.
Other than that, I still had a great time and I´ll eventually get to the other two games :)