First things first, my Xbox did not bite the bust. This new segment is my “Ranting Reviews of Doom”. The reasoning behind the name is complex at best, and as such I couldn’t be bothered explaining it, at least not here. Anyway, the first Review of Doom is for the most recent of the Pokémon spinoff titles – Ranger 2: Shadows of Almia.

So Ranger 2. Yes, it’s a sequel of Ranger 1. No bonuses for getting that right. Once again, you are thrust right into another new region, this time known as Almia (hence the title). You start off as a student in the area’s Ranger School learning the ways of a Ranger with your wimpy School Styler (that thingy they use to “capture Pokémon with). Note that capturing in this sense means it follows you around until you decide to use it – and by use that means… well whatever it can do, be it tackle something, fly you somewhere, give you a ride down a river or the funniest one of all, stink out a room of bad guys so that you can pass through unhindered. I like that bit

To save all the boring details, you graduate, become an official Ranger, start kicking the asses of the bad guys “Team Dim Sun”, become a Top Ranger, get to use the fancy Vatonage Styler like in the anime, save the world, yadda yadda yadda…

To the nitty gritty details. The gameplay is basically the same as before, you need to use the stylus to draw loops around Pokémon to capture them. Unlike before, where you had to circle them a set number of times without stopping or having the line break, by hitting the Pokémon or a hazard, or being hit by an attack; this time each Pokémon has a sort of a HP bar, and with each loop, you do “damage” to them. Fill up the bar and it’s captured. This means you don’t have to circle endlessly (I remember playing the original Ranger, and circling that Rayquaza 13 times was practically impossible – I had to enable the 1 loop cheat to get it…) to get the bosses, some of whom can take over 100 loops even if you have a really high level!

One thing that the game seems to have problems with is trying to decide which genre to be in. There are several cases where it seems to take on a Mario-esque behaviour by making you dodge things that are flying around while you move from one place to another, because getting hit deals damage to your Styler’s energy… And given that you have to repeatedly do those bits, wteher it be because you made a 1-pixel error judgement that forced you to start again, or because you have to go through the place on new Quests makes them very annoying indeed…

Oh, I forogt to mention the side quests. Well, they’re side quests. Doing them all gives you the opportunity to get new partners and also earns you bonuses for your Styler that reduces the damage you take from certain types of attacks, and a couple of other effects. Oh, and your choice of partner isn’t restricted to the Pikachu wannabes Plusle or Minun. Instead you can have a choice of 17 partners, one for each type, although you only unlock three during the main storyline – you need to do the quests for the other 14.

Another big problem with the game is the fact that it does kinda end. A Pokémon game that has an ending fails. In Ranger 2, there is sort of a limit to what you can do. You can complete the storyline missions, then complete all sixty side quests, and then register all 267 available Pokémon in your Ranger Browser by capturing them all. While it may seem like a lot, it’s actually quite short, as shown by how long it took me:

Completed all storyline missions: 19 hours, 11 minutes
Completed all side Quests: 25 hours, 1 minute
Caught all 267 Pokémon in the Browser: Eh, I’ll get it done eventually, but let’s say around 25 hours, 52 minutes

By that I mean, I’m at the big boss fight for the final boss Pokémon, Regigigas. I’ve only tried to beat him once, but he’s fucking tough! When a boss can deal 18 damage to you just by walking (and when you have 97 hit points…) things are going to to be tough… All I know is my play time at my last save point (just a bit before him) was at 25:40, and I don’t expect it to take longer than 20 minutes…

UPDATE @ some point… : 25:48 was the total final time. He actually wasn’t that much of a bitch as he could have been. 84 seconds of partner Gible’s Draco Meteor assist, followed by the Electrifying from a Magnezone couple with some very fast looping took him down

With that, when you actually do complete the browser, you get a cutscene where you have everyone gathered around you on the roof of the Ranger Union just to congratulate you on completing the Browser, at which point your pause screen displays a little Pikachu head symbol to denote so. Then the game is officially DONE. There is nothing else worthwhile to do afterwards

So in brief, you run around, make Pokémon act as slaves, finish the entire game quickly, transfer the free Manaphy Egg, Riolu and Darkrai to your copy of Diamond, Pearl or Platinum (and thanks to the miracle of save backups, I could possibly transfer one of each to my legit Diamond, my Pearl I haven’t played in ages, AND my Jap. Platinum )

Ranting Review Score

Gameplay: 7/10. The story is quite good, but the sudden changes from… whatever genre Pokémon is in, to Mario style gameplay detracts from it…
Replayability: 2/10. Once you finish the game, that’s it. Unless you want to run around catching Pokémon for the fun of it. Or do the Capture Arena or Wi-Fi missions.
Engrossness: 9/10. I only wanted to play another game once during the whole 26 hours of it. Pretty good, then

Total Score: 18/30. Not bad, but still has flaws…