Pokemon Ranger series

[HeroLinik]

A rather different spinoff from the main series. Rather than becoming a Pokemon Trainer, your goal here is to become a Pokemon Ranger, to defend the environment. You're armed with a partner, and you have to call upon Pokemon in the environment to help you with your goal. Capturing is different as well, and many a DS touch screen has been broken by the frantic circling that one has to do on their screen, especially in difficult captures.

But nonetheless, it was a great series and I'm quite sad to see it discontinued after Guardian Signs. What are your thoughts on this series?

 

[User Anon 1848]

I never touched them myself since the gameplay didn't look fun to me but I was considering it just for the Manaphy egg. I've never played a Pokemon spinoff that I didn't end up enjoying so I wish I gave the Ranger games a shot. They were well received too iirc.

 

[Nekodatta]

Played all of them and loved them, they were something different and some areas required a bit of strategic thinking in selecting which Pokemon to lug around with you to use their abilities.
The second game that gave you a partner for each type was pretty cool and probably my favourite one.

In general I love how wild and bright everything looked, and the various Pokemon following you around. I had fun catching some big Pokemon and then watch them fill half the screen running after me.

 

[Sheep]

Never played them since I never was too interested in the concept as a kid. Thinking of trying at some point, but if I were to play more spinoffs it'd probably be Mystery Dungeon or another go at Conquest. Watching gameplay footage is probably as close as I'll get to experiencing this for now. Would like to know why some people like it so much!

 

[colours]

Unfortunately, I've never been too interested in the Ranger series. Also, this might've just been me, but I feel like the Ranger series was somewhat competing with the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series, because (unless it's just my imagination), they've usually been pretty close in release date in each game? And after every Ranger release, I've always had myself drawn to whatever the newest Mystery Dungeon game is at the time since that would be more interesting to me. u.u

 

[Percy]

oh, I love the ranger series. never managed to play the third game but the first two games are fire. the story and music was excellent. if capturing pokemon weren't so frustrating sometimes, I would replay 'em once a year

 

[DigitalMewtwo]

Never was into it back when the game first came out, but I got a chance to play it recently and I really like it so far.

 

[Palamon]

I loved Pokemon Ranger! I played all three of them, actually! If I'm being honest, the best one is the third one. It had more to do than just capturing wild Pokemon when the story was over. There was an area of the game where you could complete temple missions, although, I never beat the Electric Temple, rip, since you need two players to complete that one.

I wasn't a huge fan of Shadows Of Almia at first, but that one had a better story than I thought upon replaying it. The first one was okay, too, I just didn't really think it's as good, gameplay wise since you needed to bring the counter down with a lot of spins in order to capture a Pokemon. That was annoying, especially since Pokemon like Flygon are horrible in this game.

I think, the main problem with Pokemon Ranger, though, is definitely the capture system itself. My DS screen got so scratched up because of it.

I did manage to complete the browser in all three Ranger games, though, and I'm really proud of myself for that. These are the only spin-off games where I've completed the entire game. Like, in Mystery Dungeon, I got stuck at the extremely hard Zero Isle Dungeons... But in the Pokemon Ranger Games, I actually completely completed them, and I'm happy.