In Review: My Pokémon Ranch

[Neo Emolga]

Dang, you definitely went into lots of detail with this one! Though I did hear about it, I honestly didn't even know all that much about this game, but your article definitely explained everything really well.

To me, it's a cute idea, but I've never really been big on collecting huge heaps of Pokemon. I'm usually the type that goes for my favorites and Pokemon that look cool and seem like fun to use, beat the game, and that's essentially it. I maybe do a few of the side extras if they look like fun, but more often than not, I kind of just pass them up if it looks like they require lots of time and effort to make progress in.

Normally I'm not one to complain about graphics, but I don't get why the graphics for this seemed like such a downgrade, and this was for the Wii no less. The polygon count for these Pokemon just seems unusually low, like even lower than N64-era graphics, and yet the 3D models from Pokemon Stadium and Snap had more going for them than these. With some of these Pokemon, the heads and ears aren't even attached to the rest of the body, and I kind of just find that a bit weird. Personally, I'd WAY rather take nice-looking sprites or vector art over meh 3D models if hardware limitations were the issue here (which seems hard to believe considering other games that came out for the Wii).

If they were to do something like this again, I think it would be better to let the player customize it a lot more. Sure, a ranch could be one option, but let the player decide if they'd like it to be something like a jungle, a fantasy forest, have an urban setting like a basketball court, something like a science fiction starship, or things like that. But I think it would be a good idea to have more of a game feeling to it. Give it some story, some missions/quests, and things of that nature to give it that full experience.