Abe, meet Pikachu
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 at 9:42am by Naomi
At the end of the day, there were two requests to review “Dr. Mario” and four for “Everybody’s Pokémon Ranch” — so I’ve decided everybody wins! Tonight I picked up the Pokémon title, and tomorrow I’ll be looking at Dr. Mario.
To be honest, though — even though I too was more curious about the Pokémon title than any other, I have to concede that its definitely a rather shallow “game.”
Let me say first however, that buying the game was a breeze. It took no more time to download than any other VC title or updated Wii channel, and as I mentioned before, buying Wii points on my cellphone made the whole process even faster than inputing a credit card number (and billing address, etc.).
Once you boot up Pokémon Ranch, you’re introduced to Yukari, the girl who “created the ranch,” and dreams one day of filling it with Pokémon to live and play with — no doubt a dream she needs your help with. She then transforms into a Mii and enters the ranch, explaining how the game works.
Basically every day you access the channel, Yukari will bring a new Pokémon in. That’s how she wants you to help? Access the channel? Well… okay — the Wii shop description for the game did have a disclaimer: “…this game does not involve catching, raising, or battling Pokémon.” In addition, you can import your Pokémon from Diamond and Pearl into the ranch, but since I accidentally left my DS in LA (d’oh!) I couldn’t test this feature (I will later though).
One important thing about this title is that you DO NOT need Diamond or Pearl to play, the game starts you out with six Pokémon and as I mention you get a new one every day as long as you pop-in for a visit.
You have the option of putting up to five of your Miis into the ranch (Yukari is also always there too), and it’s cute to see them all in farmer-garb. Then, you can uhmm… watch? That’s right, the game “supports” the Wii remote and nunchuck (you don’t need the nunchuck though), but you can’t control your Mii, Yukari, the Pokémon, or the camera. All you can do is focus in on Mii or Pokémon by clicking on them, or selecting them from a list (if they are outside of view). You can’t pan or zoom, but you can press a “come hither” button, that makes the Pokémon or Mii look your way.
The main feature of the channel is that you can take photos to save on your SD card, or send to friends. But as I mentioned the game gives you very little control, so taking good photos is more of a chance game, and that can be fun, but also frustrating if you want a more specific shot. You can also parade the Pokémon that you have in your Ranch (and apply filters based on the trainer that brought them in), and check the Pokémon Wanted billboard, where Yukari will give you advice on catching new Pokémon based on who you already have in your Diamond and Pearl game.
If you let the game sit for a while, the Pokémon and Miis will interact with each other, and the game offers some brief text narratives. Then once and a while, every one will pose indefinitely, during which time you can take some photos, or tell them to quit it.
The graphics of the game are really simple: the backgrounds textures are visibly low rez, and all of the Pokémon’s shapes have been drastically simplified, quite a step back from how they looked even in Pokémon Stadium on the 64.
Overall I was pretty disappointed that Pokémon Ranch didn’t include any fun mini-games I could play with the Pokémon, it’s just a very passive experience. This isn’t to say that the game isn’t fun, I enjoyed taking odd photos of Abraham Lincoln and Pikachu, and it’s always a treat to see Growlith take on J.K. Rowling (Growlith set her on fire, for the record). But in the long run, it feels like the channel’s features could’ve been simply added to the standard Mii channel (maybe for 500 yen instead of 1000?) instead of having a completely separate experience.
Even if you’ve got lots of Pokémon on your Diamond and Pearl cart, and are really anxious to swap pictures of them and your Miis, the lack of game-play included in the title might make you feel like you’ve wasted your money. However, if you are the type that likes to sit and watch screen-savers or games that play themselves, you might not mind the passive nature of the title. It does have some soothing background music, after all.
One more note: The game obviously uses your system clock to add Pokémon, and constantly has the date and time in the corner of the screen, but the game changes from night to day completely arbitrarily — why overlook such and obvious feature??
March 26th, 2008 at 9:45 am
That seems pretty… lame, to be honest. Especially for 8 bucks. I don’t really think I’ll be patronizing Wii Ware much when it comes to America.
March 26th, 2008 at 10:13 am
You aren’t going to invest in any WiiWare games because the first batch sucked…?
I wouldn’t jump the gun too quicky here. This is a new experience for Nintendo and I’ll take a wait and see attitude. The only ones that look appealing to me currently are Dr. Mario and FF CC: MLaaK. Although the DLC for lame content that should have been included in the first place in FF CC is not too appealing. The gameplay did look intriguing though (saw some vids on GameTrailers).
March 26th, 2008 at 10:42 am
I was hoping for something like the Chao Garden from Sonic Adventure, this is kinda disappointing. It’s nice that they’re using miis and ds connectivity, but besides that theres nothing attractive about it to me.
March 26th, 2008 at 11:29 am
You can control the camera and the people, just not right away.
The more time you spend with the game, the more control you get, the more features you unlock.
March 26th, 2008 at 11:55 am
It sounds like a screen-saver version of Pokémon Snap!
I would go for it, if the models of the Pokémon were a little truer to the games… But as it is, I’ll have to think about it.
March 26th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
OK, I think I get the joke now: these are Mii versions of our beloved Pokémons! I think I like that…
It would be a nice break from collecting them the old-fashioned way, too… This online comic strip illustrates perfectly how I’ve been feeling about the games lately:
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=262
March 26th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
In the days of the GBA Pokemon games, there was a GameCube “game” called Pokemon Box. It was only available for order from pokemon.com for $20 and came with a disc and a GBA to GC cable.
All in all, it was a simple storage device that allowed you to efficiently sort and rearrange pokemon, mainly if you had multiple games.
Honestly, I never considered Ranch to be anything but a DS successor to it.
And if you are wondering who on Earth would need such a thing, I had to stop using pal park to bring pokemon from my GBA cartridges because I ran out of room on Pokemon Pearl. (I soon retrieved a copy of Pokemon Diamond.)
March 26th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Wait, so it does store the Pokemon though? has that been said?
March 26th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Let’s see…
http://serebii.net/ranch/
Up to 1000, it would seem.
March 26th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
So Wii Ware games were supposed to be “superior” to X-box live arcade games, eh? Both Developers and Nintendo themselves suggesting that Live Arcade is full of sh!t games. This is true of most Live arcade games, to be honest MOST ARE sH!T. But the SO CALLED GAMES that has come out on Wii Ware are just as bad, only it COSTS MORE than the Sh!it that is on X-box live.
If your going to toss out the Gauntlet and say that Wii Ware will have superior games than X-box Live arcade, than you BETTER release superior games on its launch. Or look like fools. So far, I will stick with the less expensive ” crap” games on Arcade, than the more expensive, ” Crap” games on Wii Ware.
Hopefully better games will come, but they look like fools launching week ass titles at higher prices when they disrespected X-box Live arcade only a few weeks ago saying how poor the titles are for it. I was expecting much more for these prices.
March 26th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
So Wii Ware games were supposed to be superior to X-box live arcade games, eh? Developers and Nintendo themselves suggesting that Live Arcade is full of sh!t games. This is true of most Live arcade games, to be honest they ARE poor. But the games that have come out on Wii Ware are just as bad, only it COSTS MORE than the Sh!it that is on X-box live.
If your going to toss out the Gauntlet and say that Wii Ware will have superior games than X-box Live arcade, than you BETTER release superior games on its launch. Or look like fools. So far, I will stick with the less expensive ” crap” games on Arcade, than the more expensive, ” Crap” games on Wii Ware.
Hopefully better games will come, but they look like fools launching week ass titles at higher prices when they disrespected X-box Live arcade only a few weeks ago. I was expecting much more for these prices. Oh well, the games can only get better fro now on.. who knows it might actually turn out to be good fun in the future.
March 26th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
WAIT A MINUTE…
Is it really a storage device for your Pokémon?? Can you retrieve them from it??
March 26th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Yes. You can add Pokemon from 8 different versions of the DS game. The added Pokemon will only return to the version it came from, though.
March 26th, 2008 at 7:08 pm
that’s got my buy then, I have pokémon diamond. if I can transfer all my pokémon to that then do the same for pearl I’m sold. I got pokémon box for free from nintendovip.co.uk and I used it a lot. I mostly used it as a mass trading tool. like I based my attempt to fill my pokédex on leaf green. I could then transfer like 50 pokémon at a time from my other games to leaf green. makes it a lot easier to culminate all your efforts into one game. the ability to take photos is just an add-on to a great game.
March 26th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
@jamie,
I’m not sure you can trade between version in the ranch.
I’m pretty sure I read that the Pokemon you put in only return to the version they came from. Mass trading doesn’t seem like it is going to work.