Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia (DS)
Games in the Pokémon series aren’t often known for their writing. The narratives on show mostly exist as a means to structure the journey to catch and battle the powerful and diverse creatures known as Pokémon and little else. Some exceptions do exist with some attempts to a explore a character or create a more layered plot, but rarely could any of them be called a comedy. Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia isn’t the only time Pokémon has tried to be funny of course and it’s not trying to provide a laugh-a-minute experience either, but the story of this sequel to the original Pokémon Ranger is written with a lot more attention given to goofy and amusing moments that end up being the most charming thing this game has to offer.
When you begin playing Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia though, it might not seem like it’s going to be all that silly. The adventure kicks off with you training at a school to become a Pokémon Ranger. Rangers befriend and utilize nearby Pokémon to respond to issues in the world, helping to do things like clear roads of debris, put out forest fires, and even quash any criminal activity that arises. The greater narrative of this title does focus primarily on such activities, particularly when a criminal organization known as Team Dim Sun appears that uses specialized devices to disorient or outright control nearby Pokémon for nefarious purposes. However, the “dim” in Dim Sun seems to apply to most of their members, almost anyone who isn’t a high ranking member mildly incompetent and sometimes outright goofy. When you foil their plans to capture the absolutely massive whale Pokémon Wailord for use as a battleship, they instead capture the more human-sized whale Wailmer and try to pass it off as a Wailord Mini, many members believing the ruse until it finally makes it way up the chain to someone competent. While they do usually understand they should whip out a device to have local Pokémon attack you so you don’t interfere with their plans, they often don’t have their heart in it or might tell terrible fibs to try and make you go easy on them or ignore very blatant criminal actions.
The sillier encounters are certainly not omnipresent, but even the choice of which creatures a Team Dim Sun member uses on you sometimes are jokes in themselves. There are a fair few who focus more on doing their work or immediately providing a battle without much lead-in, Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia not trying to consistently be funny but still adding it in regularly enough that it keeps a fairly long game rather jovial. In fact, having more practical moments of dialogue as often as it does helps to let certain things catch you by surprise more like a girl who introduces herself simply as “Female Student” or a Team Dim Sun Admin complaining how he doesn’t even have a name. Insistent terminology and emphasizing small odd things ends up a frequent source of amusement as well, such as a kid named Ponte who is called a “conflicted marshmallow boy” often enough he even explains his own behavior away by invoking the title later down the line. An even sillier phrase emerges whenever the game wants to show someone being tough to an enemy or prisoner, the game not wanting to stray into real violence at all and thus people end up tied in ropes that everyone makes sure to note are a “smidgen on the tight side”. The peculiarities can help certain characters who are otherwise fairly dry endear themselves a bit better like a character who detests people running through hallways so much he seemingly wrote an actual book on how to prevent it, but on the other hand a few attempts do fall flat like an old man who constantly mistakes what people are talking about but it doesn’t lead to funny misunderstandings so much as just more time spent talking with him. Some of the humorous writing can even bleed into the structure of various missions and side quests, many seemingly mundane but one involving simply showing a large-nosed Pokémon called Nosepass to a man results in a Team Dim Sun member appearing from nowhere to admonish him for making fun of the creature.
Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia does feel like it needs that extra layer of charm, since while its story does find reasons to take you to new locations like a desert, volcanic island, and even underwater, the things you do there aren’t always that compelling. A Pokémon Ranger does not directly fight any of the powerful elemental creatures that inhabit the region of Almia, instead utilizing a device called a Styler to recruit the assistance of wild Pokémon for a brief time. The game does frame this process as sending it feelings of friendship to try and differentiate it from the way Team Dim Sun forces Pokémon to do their bidding, and when you have used a Pokémon to do a small job or assist in capturing another creature then they’ll depart amicably. There are Partner Pokémon who will stay by your side permanently though, the player only able to have one partner at a time and they can only help during a capture attempt rather than in any of the many Ranger tasks out in the world.
Much of your path forward will require you to find and utilize specific abilities from nearby Pokémon to navigate the world. You might need to smash a rock to get it out of your way, douse a fire, cut down a vine so you can climb up it, destroy an advanced Team Dim Sun device, or even do more unique actions like ride across lava and fly across large gaps. Most every wild Pokémon has a single ability of varying strength that can assist with these tasks. Gathering a small posse of Pokémon following behind you to potentially respond to whatever lies ahead becomes the main point of capturing new creatures and you’ll only know what they can do after you’ve successfully captured one before, but even later in the game you can only have a handful following you at once so you won’t be trying to recruit every monster you see. On the other hand, every successful capture does give you more experience, the player leveling up and gaining increases to how easily they can capture Pokémon and how well they can survive their counter attacks.
When you do want to recruit a helper, you will run into the Pokémon as it wanders about in the open. Some are more aggressive, trying to attack before you reach them or leaving behind dangerous trails you’ll need to work around to reach them, but whatever they happen to be, they’ll appear on your bottom screen for capture time. Using the DS’s stylus you need to draw circles around them to gradually wear them down, but if the Pokémon or an attack touches the line as you draw it, it will break, sometimes even dealing damage to you depending on how the monster did it. Lose too much health and you will be thrown back to your last save point, but if you play too carefully and don’t make circles often enough, the stamina they’ve lost will gradually recover. A capture ends up being about seizing on the opportunities you have to draw rapid circles around your target and taking a break when they’re using some technique that could hurt or interrupt you, and while there are a very wide range of these, many of the over 250 featured Pokémon even having a unique approach to how they use their attacks, they don’t often push the boundaries of how things unfold. Some might leave a lingering attack you need to make sure you don’t touch with your stylus, others may teleport around a lot, but mostly it’s going to be about looping around the Pokémon over and over, briefly breaking when the exclamation mark appears over their head that signals an upcoming attack, and then continuing when the attack is done.
Capturing Pokémon in the wild is different than how you handle Team Dim Sun’s attacks though. You won’t be able to recruit the Pokémon they turn against you with their devices, but you do need to pacify them with a slightly different version of the usual capture mechanics. The main difference is Team Dim Sun will throw multiple monsters at you at once, it much harder to draw a circle when there’s multiple bodies in play that could break that line. The circle has a maximum width before it becomes ineffective as well so you can’t always wear down the entire group at once, but even these group fights are mostly longer and not harder in a very interesting way. You do need to be more careful, but it is just a group of the same kinds of things you fight elsewhere and they don’t bring any particularly special attacks to spice things up. Boss Pokémon are a little more bold at times, longer fights and trickier techniques making them a touch more interesting, but you do have a few more ways you can contribute to a fight or capture than just drawing circles.
Later upgrades will give you the ability to hold down the stylus for a while to build up power for stronger loops, but the more impactful way you can help yourself out against the tougher groups or boss creatures is with that little band of Pokémon that’s following you around. Assist moves will let you gain specific edges in a capture situation. While some of these can deal a bit of direct damage these are mostly about having a period of time where you can use your drawn lines to inflict statuses on your target. Slowing them down or briefly disabling their attacks can give you openings for easy encircling, your Partner mostly useful here since they will recharge their Assist move gradually and don’t depart after using it either. Most captures aren’t demanding enough to really draw this out though and you might want to hold onto your allies for their practical use in clearing obstructions, but usually an area will have an appropriate Pokémon near to any blockade so you won’t spend too much time replacing one if they’re absolutely needed. Side quests break from this some though, many requiring longer treks to find the right creatures to help, and while the rewards for completing them are usually fairly helpful boosts like boosts to your drawn lines or more resistances against specific incoming attacks, a few too many are rather dry and just ask you to retread previously visited areas. You can run from any battle with a wild Pokémon so that crossing old ground is a bit easier thanks to that, but a lot of the early novelty fades off thanks to lack of true changes to how captures unfold or what they ask of the player.
THE VERDICT: The amusing and sometimes goofy writing that crops up with enough regularity in Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia keeps its fairly long adventure mildly interesting after its capture system has settled into a fairly basic formula. Some bosses and enemy groups can still provide tense capturing scenarios, but mostly the process is a bit too straightforward as it alternates between rapid loop drawing and periodic small breaks to wait out attacks. It’s not an outright brainless process though, and the swapping between clearing your way ahead with your allied Pokémon and actually capturing them means you’re spared the kind of overexposure to the simple line drawing that would really wear down the adventure. A lightly comedic romp with some energy coming from finding new creatures and reading unexpected jokes, this Pokémon spin-off mostly feels a bit too long for the small amount of variation found in the actual mechanics.
And so, I give Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia for Nintendo DS…
An OKAY rating. The amusing writing perhaps does stand out better than it might otherwise have since it stands beside gameplay concepts that rarely try to surprise. It is interesting to enter a new area and figure out what the Pokémon who inhabit that place can do and what you’ll need to do to get around. In a similar way, seeing how they fight is made a touch less repetitive by their behavior in a battle being just distinct enough, even ones with the same attacks maybe attacking with different regularity or less warning. However, it feels like a lot of reshuffling of similar ideas while the jokes in the story are either going to be fresh and unexpected or amusing because they keep returning to the same well for some fascinatingly inexplicable reason. The captures, both when presented as recruiting wildlife to help or battling against mind-controlled monsters, are sound at their basic level, and the kinetic challenge of trying to rapidly get in as many loops as you can before the next attack comes in makes the battles with a bit more difficulty to them still slightly entertaining though. Assists are perhaps too tame and costly however, it hard to justify using something besides a partner even if an exact replacement for a Pokémon is nearby because capturing can sometimes feel more a process than an engaging task. Managing your little pack of followers as you explore through a new scenario gives the action some life though, so even if the humor is perhaps too silly for you it’s not like it has to click for a player to still find something decent enough to latch onto.
Pokémon Ranger: Shadows of Almia manages to delight a little by wielding its writing pen with some care, but your stylus use can feel a bit basic as you swirl it around without too much complexity to your mid-capture choices. It likely doesn’t qualify as a comedy since it does spend about as much time trying to establish some serious elements like the stakes or your rise through Ranger ranks, but mostly the area the game succeeds at best is keeping some interest alive in the player with aesthetic novelty. New areas, new Pokémon, and new jokes are a good way to offset some tedium or plainness, but it will likely be a hard sell to those uninterested in the brand and it isn’t strong enough in any one area to justify any special interest.