Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2880 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Nintendo
• Model: 045496737351
• Released on: 2007-04-13
• Rating: To Be Announced
• ESRB Rating: Everyone
• Platform: Nintendo DS
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .75" h x 5.50" w x 4.50" l, .25 pounds

Manufacturer's Description:
For the first time ever, fans finally get the chance to fill the coveted role of a Ranger, an elite task force who protect Pokémon. Players can become a fully-fledged Pokémon Ranger by being invited to Fall City to learn from Spenser, one of the top Ranger leaders. As they embark on the life of a licensed Ranger, players will learn to use the powers of captured wild Pokémon to solve problems, help people and protect nature from adverse effects.

As a player begins the adventure they select either Lunick (male) or Solana (female) as their chosen character. They are then transported to the Rangers Base where they will receive a series of exciting and challenging missions to complete. As experience is gained, the missions increase in importance. The Ranger is pitted against the Go-Rock Squad in an attempt to recover Professor Hastings’ stolen Super Styler – the newly developed version of the Capture Styler used to hold wild Pokémon.

The Rangers don’t embark on their epic journey alone. To help them along their way they are also accompanied by a single partner Pokémon. This helpful friend will remain with them at all times aiding the all important relationship between the Ranger and captured wild Pokémon, whose power they will need to harness in the challenges ahead of them.

For the first time in a Pokémon game, players can control the Pokémon Ranger using only the Nintendo DS touch screen. To capture a valuable wild Pokémon the player must draw circles round their target with the stylus, though this challenge varies depending on the size and power of the Pokémon. Once captured, the Ranger’s partner Pokémon facilitates the use of the wild Pokémon’s powers to solve problems and clear obstacles that they might encounter.

A wild Pokémon’s powers aren’t available forever though. The player must choose the right moment to use the power because once used, the Pokémon is released back into the wild. A captured Pokémon can help a player by providing either a Poké Assist or a Field Move. In a Poké Assist a player can use an already captured Pokémon to capture another. In Field Move the Pokémon is used to clear an obstacle in the new Ranger’s path.

As the game progresses, the Ranger’s Capture Styler, used to hold the wild Pokémon, becomes more powerful. This provides more energy (Meter) allowing more Pokémon to be held with them at any one time. The wild Pokémon captured all provide different powers, depending on the group they belong to. Groups available include Grass, Fire, Electric, along with many more. As the game progresses, the challenge of capturing the correct Pokémon becomes increasingly strategic with various group match-up advantages and disadvantages influencing their assistance to the player.

The fun doesn’t end with the main mission either, with numerous sub-quests available giving players the opportunity to meet and capture legendary Pokémon like Kyogre, Groudon and Rayquaza. With these and over 200 other Pokémon waiting to be caught, completing your Browser will be no easy task. Do you have what it takes to ‘Catch em all’ and earn the Certificate of Completion.

Customer Reviews

Good If You Are A Fan
Pokemon Ranger is another spinoff for the Pokemon Franchise. This might be good for hardcore Pokemon fans but for many gamers, spin offs are usually not a good thing (as we saw with the Mystery Dungeon games) but every now and then they do turn out to be pretty well done (as we saw with Final Fantasy Tactics). Pokemon Ranger falls somewhere in between. The gameplay is certainly interesting, but it feels as though its missing something.

The story involves you becoming a Pokemon Ranger and going up against Team Go-Go. As usual for every Pokemon Game the story is simple, and in many ways very charming. This is something that as a whole I've always admired about Pokemon's kid friendly approach. There's nothing about the story so complex a kid couldn't understand it. It's simple, and that's how the story of a Pokemon game should be.

Pokemon Ranger puts a different spin on Pokemon alright. No big trainer battles, or catching pokemon in the wild (at least by traditional means). Instead, your character, whether you chose male or female, has something called a Styler which is used to capture Pokemon and utilize their abilities. You'll use your stylus in battle to draw circles around the Pokemon in questin. The stronger the pokemon, the longer it'll take for you to capture it. When you do you'll have access to their unique abilities. Once you've used a Pokemon however, that's it. They're released back into the wild. At first this wasn't so bad, but it made the game become repetative. Almost to the point of boredom.

Mostly, though, there are puzzles you'll have to solve by capturing a certain Pokemon and then making him do a certain task. Most puzzles are no challenge at all, and in most cases, the Pokemon is right there for you to capture. A lot of the puzzles are overly simplistic with obvious solutions, however. So don't expect a vast amount of challenge to these puzzles.

What hurts the game the most however is that it's entirely too linear. You just about can't stray off the beaten path at all. There's little or no time to do so in most spots. The game also isn't very long. It'll definitely take you less than 20 hours to complete. Also to the games demise is how long the intro takes. The tutorial is just too long. It'll take a couple of hours just to get through the tutorial alone.

As far as the game looks, it's not up to DS standards at all. Much like Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, it looks like a late generation GBA game. It's really colorful, though, but it just doesn't look all that great when stacked up against other DS games out there. The music and sound effects are worse. The music isn't all that great, and the sound effects are all straight from the original Gameboy Pokemon Red and Blue that were released years ago.

Pokemon Ranger isn't bad, it just feels incomplete. The gameplay mechanics are interesting, but they wear thin all too soon. Huge Pokemon fans will love this game, but it could've been so much better. Anyway this is the last pokemon spin off before diamond and pearl come out and should tie pokemon fans over untill then.

Power Ranger... CAPTURE ON!!
This new departure for Pokemon games is a hybrid. A lot of the non-Trainer based trading games involve a variation on the Catch Em All theme, but mainly just to acknowledge you've encountered them and have limited use beyond that, as none of them are compatible for transfer to the mainstream collecting series. This is a vexation for many die-hard fans. On that front, Pokemon Ranger is very much in this family, with the main exception of the game's hidden bonus. More on this later...

The game itself, as explained in other reviews, revolves around the player using the Nintendo DS Stylus interface to "capture" pokemon by encircling them in a continuous loop until they are bound in an energy sphere. The system shows how many loops are needed and give a countdown on each completed loop. As with the general Trainer themed storylines, it involves an evil criminal gang (The Go-Rock Squad in this incarnation) believing that corrupting pokemon to evil ends will allow them to dominate the world. Your job, more critically as a Ranger, is to rescue pokemon by recruiting wild ones to use their special abilities to help you.

The game is very good, though it does have its drawbacks, which is why I can't give it a 5. The main gameplay is clearly aimed at a 9 yr old being able to draw circles, as missions are quite easily completed for the first half of the game. Encountering "boss" rescues however, such as the dragon types Charizard and Salamence, and the Legendary Dogs, all seem to exceed the capabilities a 9 yr old would have. Drawing 15 circles or 21 circles continuously sounds easy, but the problem is that the dragons fight back and wander off screen, making it very easy to spend 1/2 hour trying to draw circles and avoid losing health. Given that until this point most pokemon need 3-4 loops or in rarer cases 8, this sudden leap is significant. This is unlike Pokemon Link, which has a much more reasonable learning curve.

I mentioned the Bonus. I happened to buy this game first and then proceeded to hear more about the bonus after getting halfway through the game. Once the game is completed, bonus missions are unlocked. One of these is hidden and requires a special password and access technique found easily on the internet. Upon completing this mission, you receive a mystery egg which can be transferred to the Pokemon Pearl and Diamond games, once they're eventually released. The Good News? This pokemon is ONLY available with this game in the current series and can be traded to either Pearl or Diamond using another DS. The Bad News? Nintendo have restricted it to being ONLY one egg per cartridge. Restarting the game seems to have no effect, so it is reported. Therefore, you need to be careful when this pokemon has been traded to the Trainer Cartridge games, as once its lost, its gone and you'll need a new Pokemon Ranger Cartridge. Please note, Ditto creates a hybrid with the new pokemon, Manaphy, so it doesn't clone it like usual either, so you can't try that route either. People wanting to complete Pokedexes need this game!

Good but much too short!
I got this game for christmas and wasn't 100% sure what to expect. I tried it out and it started really well. You are a new type of pokemon trainer called a Ranger and instead of training pokemon up to fight other trainers, you are a ranger who captures pokemon in order to use there abilities and then letting them go.

The way you do it is using the styler to circle the pokemon and when you have circled it a number of times without one of its attacks hitting your line, it is caught. The pokemon, unlike other pokemon games, walk around in full view and will charge if they see you (or run a way)! This is a whole new way of looking at pokemon, original, exciting and fun!

You start in a small town, doing small tasks to help the locals, eventually you go on to travel to the other four towns and stop some baddies (as you do). However, then it gets a bit boring.

The whole adventure took me no more than a week, and while the missions were challenging and fun to do, it could have done with being much longer! After defeating the last evil maniac from taking over the world and the credits rolling, I thought there might be other tasks to do. However, after going from one end of the map to the other, there was nothing left to do!

There are a few legendary levels on the start menu but after that, where to go? I was very dissappointed since the rest of the game had been very good and it was a big let down to think that all there was to do was walk around or do it all again. I have now sold it on and bought Pokemon Pearl which is heaps better and much longer!

I would not reccomend this game but if Nintendo made a longer one then I would deffiantly buy it, until then buy 'Super Mario Bros.', its awesome!!!