[DS] Pokemon Ranger: A fresh new direction "Discussion Thread"

This game flew under a lot of people's radar. It is just another spin-off in the main Pokemon saga, but dang it's a very good one! A combination of action, adventure, RPG and "stylus-slashing" makes this one real fresh piece of work. I'm no Pokemon fanatic, and surprisingly I can wholly recommend this to anyone looking for something new, interesting and somewhat challenging. Btw, it's developed by HAL Labs too

Feel free to ask questions, discuss thoughts, share inspiration, anything regarding this great new addition to both the Pokemon franchise and the NDS.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Yeah you don't own the pokemon you capture, but so what? Unless you're a die-hard fan, you won't be disappointed. You can only use their abilities once (in battle or outside) and then they're free again, but it's easy to recapture them again and it adds to strategically managing a sound team. Use of abilities is akin to Castlevania: Sorrow games. Maybe that's why I like this game so?

The aim of the game is to complete certain missions set by your superiors or otherwise. This involves helping out the townsfolk with their problems to investigating the cause of earthquakes etc etc. You capture your pokemon in the battle phases by drawing loops (but it's more complex than you think trust me) and in the field you use their abilities to overcome obstacles to make progress. Along the way their are parts where you'll have to navigate tricky sections or solve simple puzzles; typical pokemon/rpg fare here. The game is very linear, and clocks in at around 10 hours. Only one save file, so it is a bugger to replay, plus there isn't that much to do once you're done. But it still is a good game that people should try. After all, PWAA sucks to replay, but is still a good game worth playing, and consequently was the first game ie. reason I 'had' to get a DS.

There's nowhere I can't reach.