Product Description

In Pokmon Ranger: Shadows of Almia, you once again play as a Pokmon Ranger, working to help people, Pokmon and nature in a new area called the Almia Region. Starting out as a Student Ranger, you quickly earn the title of a full-fledged Pokmon Ranger. As you succeed in more and more missions, you will aspire to become the highest Ranger rank: Top Ranger. Along the way you meet and capture all kinds of different Pokmon.

Gameplay
Capture wild Pokmon and create a team to clear obstacles and solve puzzles encountered along the way. After players use a Pokmon's ability, it will leave the player's team; however, you will have a Partner Pokmon that will always stay by your side. As you progress through Missions and Quests, your Capture Styler becomes more powerful, giving your Styler more Energy and eventually advancing you to the level of Top Ranger.

Characters
Harness the power of hundreds of different Pokmon. In addition, players can choose to be a boy or girl Pokmon Ranger.

Key Game Features

• Pokmon Ranger is a unique action-adventure series that features a fun, different way to capture Pokmon with the Nintendo DS stylus, which controls an item called the Capture Styler in the game. Players circle the Pokmon they want to catch by drawing circles around them on the touch screen. When you complete certain Quests, the Ranger Union awards you with power-ups, which add new upgrades and functions to your Capture Styler, allowing you to advance as you work to eventually become a Top Ranger (the most revered Ranger of all).
• Now you can partner with a variety of different Pokmon of each type to complete Missions-giving you many options on how to approach different challenges. Every Pokmon is different, and capturing a Pokmon allows you to use its abilities to overcome various obstacles and challenges you will face alo

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #941 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Nintendo
• Model: NTRPYP2E
• Published on: 2008-11
• Released on: 2008-11-21
• ESRB Rating: Everyone
• Platform: Nintendo DS
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .63" h x 5.01" w x 5.74" l, .25 pounds

Manufacturer's Description
Amazon.co.uk

In Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia, you once again play as a Pokémon Ranger, working to help people, Pokémon and nature in a new area called the Almia Region. Starting out as a Student Ranger, you quickly earn the title of a full-fledged Pokémon Ranger. As you succeed in more and more missions, you will aspire to become the highest Ranger rank: Top Ranger. Along the way you meet and capture all kinds of different Pokémon.

A new way to play Pokémon

Use your stylus to Capture Pokémon. View larger.

Play as a boy or girl ranger. View larger.

Pokémon follow your lead. View larger.

Gameplay
Capture wild Pokémon and create a team to clear obstacles and solve puzzles encountered along the way. After players use a Pokémon's ability, it will leave the player's team; however, you will have a Partner Pokémon that will always stay by your side. As you progress through Missions and Quests, your Capture Styler becomes more powerful, giving your Styler more Energy and eventually advancing you to the level of Top Ranger.

Characters
Harness the power of hundreds of different Pokémon. In addition, players can choose to be a boy or girl Pokémon Ranger.

Key Game Features

• Pokémon Ranger is a unique action-adventure series that features a fun, different way to capture Pokémon with the Nintendo DS stylus, which controls an item called the Capture Styler in the game. Players circle the Pokémon they want to catch by drawing circles around them on the touch screen. When you complete certain Quests, the Ranger Union awards you with power-ups, which add new upgrades and functions to your Capture Styler, allowing you to advance as you work to eventually become a Top Ranger (the most revered Ranger of all).
• Now you can partner with a variety of different Pokémon of each type to complete Missions-giving you many options on how to approach different challenges. Every Pokémon is different, and capturing a Pokémon allows you to use its abilities to overcome various obstacles and challenges you will face along the way. The job of a Pokémon Ranger is never done: your duties will include fighting wildfires, rescuing people or even delivering an important package.
• Your journey to become a Top Ranger takes you to the new region of Almia. This game has a larger world, more Missions, more adventure and more to do than the previous Pokémon Ranger games. It has a storyline full of adventure and the ability to travel to and explore many exciting new areas in Almia, including oceans, forests, deserts and more with the help of your Partner Pokémon.
• This is the first game in the Pokémon Ranger series to feature Pokémon from Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl.

Special Powers, Weapons, Moves & Features
Use the Capture Styler to capture wild Pokémon. Once they are captured, wild Pokémon will follow the player around until their powers are used (either in a Poké Assist or a Field Move).

• A Poké Assist is when the player uses an already captured Pokémon to help capture another wild Pokémon.
• A Field Move is when the player uses a captured Pokémon's power to clear an obstacle that blocks his way or perform any another helpful function with it.

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Customer Reviews

The next step for Pokemon Rangers
My 7 yr old is a big fan of both Pokemon Pearl and Diamond games as well as the previous Ranger Games. I admit to enjoying them too!
This is definitely an improvement on the previous Ranger games - bigger, better, wider range of Pokemon all means more play time and plenty to occupy any pokemon loving gamers.
Some will say that this game is nothing new and just a rehash of previous Ranger games. While they have a point - it has the same game play style and same aims, there is plenty of reasons to purchase this game if you already own the previous ranger ones. The new arenas, wider range of pokemons not previously seen in the Ranger games (nice to see some of my personal favourites from Pearl make a reappearance), and plenty of different skills to use, make it a more interesting and varied game. It has a similar level of difficulty as the previous Ranger games and is suitable for age 5/6 yrs upwards. It is certainly keeping my 7 yr old occupied! She has played it more than any of the previous ranger games. In the past she has always enjoyed the ranger games but insisted that Pearl and Diamond are her top games. This is sharing the top spot right now - high praise indeed from my fussy daughter!
You do not need to have played the previous games to enjoy this alone and equally, it is ok if you have played the others - both new and old pokemon fans should find plenty to keep them happy in this addition to the Pokemon family.

Just too good
I just finished this game about a minute ago. And my goodness was it fantastic! Gameplay is greatly improved. The main aspect that was improved is the capture method. Although pretty much the same as the old game, to capture a pokemon you don't have to continuely loop it, you can take a break from looping. The 'friendship feelings' will stay with the pokemon for a while, allowing you a short break while the pokemon attacks. This meant that really, poke assists were a bit useless, but that was fine by me.
The addition of being able to swim under water, ride on floatzel, mantine, empoleon, torkoal etc was also pretty cool. I mean, there is nothing more awesome the surfing on lava!
You can catch Staraptor and fly on them, or ride doduo to get around a bit faster. There is a better variety of pokemon this time too. The only problem was the lack of save points. Luckily my styler only broke twice in the game, but at certain points, I could imagine how awful it would be for it to break, when you hadn't been to a save point in over 30 minutes.

Get this game before the end of February '09 to download the special missions from Ranger Net!

I couldn't put this game down, my poor DS is worn out. I think it deserves a rest now, but only once I have completed the extra missions!

If you are a pokemon fan or not, get this game.

An additional note, don't get put off by the first hour or two of this game. It was very slow to begin with, but persevere, because it just keeps getting better!

Original Pokemon Ranger +
Well, exactly as the title suggests, it's pretty similar to the last Ranger game but it has a few more perks. The quests available are really good side tracks when you don't want to do mission after mission (and are a great way to buil up your styler's power as each quest clear boosts your defences), you end up with a farm of partner pokemon you can swap about with which is handy when going to different locations, the story line is more proggressive than previous and you can use more than one loop-chain to catch pokemon which is REALLY handy considering I spent a good 15 mins trying to catch the previous game's steelix :S.

The game play is a tad slow to start but it's a great way to get back into the hang of things or learn the tricks of the trade if you havn't played the last one. The variability of Pokemon is much greater and your captures are graded (C,B,A,S) since you can use more than one loop set now.

Even once the game is complete you have heaps more missions and areas available to you, not to mention that 'Boss' Pokemon are scattered around previous locations from earlier missions.

The one thing that does get annoying is the Move Assists such as Drifloon's airlift, in some places you ahve to use a multitude of Pokemoves to cover a very small distance which rapidly looses appeal after the second visit or so.

Over all though, it's a definite buy wether you've played the last one before. Just be ready to do the first aspect (1 1/2 to 2 hours)of it in a oner so you can get onto the better stuff sooner.