DS Review – Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia
By Ducky Von Karma
Hello, people of the Internet. This is Ducky von Karma, coming to you live from the basement I am currently trapped in. Since I can think of no better thing to do while I slowly run out of oxygen, I am presenting the lot of you with my review of Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia.
Having played the first game and finding it acceptable, I decided to treat myself to another new game and splurged on Shadows of Almia. I heard the story is better (not a difficult feat) and that the wrist-shattering gameplay is toned down a few notches. I have to agree; the gameplay is wrist-ABUSING, but certainly lacking the devastating qualities of its predecessor.
The plot is extremely linear. You run around doing essentially nothing until you learn about the “Ultimate Evil,” then you run around doing more nothing until you learn that the Ultimate Evil can be stopped with three giant colored rocks. This is when the plot begins…three hours into the game. The antagonists are a bunch of bumbling black-clad simpletons who have no idea what they’re doing half the time and, when they actually figure out which way is up, screw up their own plans so completely and awfully that there is no chance of redeeming themselves.
Long story short, you get the three rocks, make an obnoxiously long crawl to the top of a tower where the Ultimate Evil is located. After battling a few Bidoofs (seriously), you get to fight Darkrai in what is possibly the most anticlimactic boss battle in the entire game, and possibly any game ever made. Come on, Darkrai is one of the most intimidating Pokémon ever created, and it seems like the game designers had a little conference and said, “Y’know, we’re probably going to get, like, eight sales from this game. We might as well slash the programming budget at the last minute to save some money.” Then the programmers, in an act of defiance, made the worst boss battle they possibly could.
The gameplay’s motto is, He who hath the worst carpal-tunnel syndrome shall be the Master of Pokémon. As I said before, it’s not quite as awful as the first Ranger game, but it’s close. If you’re not familiar, the entire capture system revolves around drawing circles around the brightly-colored animal that you are trying to enslav… I mean “befriend”. With Pokéassists, you can zap your opponent with electricity, fling rocks at them, or douse them in poisonous acid to increase their “Friendship Level.” I doubt this would work well in real life:
“Hey, Ducky!”
“Hey, Glitch.”
“Dude, you’re, like, my best friend.”
“Yeah, man, but I think we could be even better friends.” *SPLASH*
“OH GOD MY SKIN MY EYES THEY BURN!!!”
“So, wanna go get a burger?”
***************************
This game’s sole redeeming feature is the Ranger Net, where you can go on Wi-Fi and download special missions to either befriend extremely rare Pokémon or acquire exceedingly rare ones that are transferable to your Diamond/Pearl cartridge. The three Pokémon that you can send over are Manaphy, a Riolu that knows Aura Sphere and Darkrai. Yes, there is now a legitimate way to get Darkrai if you missed the event so very long ago. If there is any reason to buy this game, it is to get Darkrai. And if you’re fond of poor gameplay and linear plots, I guess you have two reasons.
I beat the game 100% 2 weeks ago and I enjoyed playing it.Never played the other two though.
MY EYES STILL BURN.
Why did you have to do that? Oh well, at least you didn-
*Is hit by lightning*
first 2? as in 3 total?
wow-poor glitchy
nce review
a very good review. it was very funny and (for the most part) informative.
nice review!
Nice review! I like your use of humor!
I liked the humor in the review. Can’t wait to get darkrai.
Amazing review! =]
We got that game for my cousin for christmas, now fourtunately he is 10. So he doesn’t mind linear plots…
Good review.
Definitely a great review. Your writing style really adds to the reading value. Are you planning for more reviews in the future?
Great review. Nice use of humor. Although i think i enjoyed the game a lot more than u did.
Great Review Ducky! You should write more articles in the future!
Thank you.
I now have almost absolutely no reason to buy this game.
So this is what you’ve been stalking Jowy about, Ducky. Haha, nice job.
it was very great ducky. nice job you should do this more often
We need more reviews like this. *plots to take down nintendo power*
yeah i had like 5 friends that bought the first one of these games, and they all said that they ONLY bought it and played it for manaphy… but thanks for reviewing this dude!
I played a demo of this game at wal mart and since i owned the first one i decided to get it because it was a better game play.
i got darkrai of that game
Nice review, came in handy when I was writing mine.