While the idea sounds a bit interesting it just gets repititive too quick and too simplistic.
The pokemon tournament has just started and your Pickachu is ready to compete in the different cups and tracks against other pokemon like Torchic, Meowth, etc. Pickachu must make his goal through 1st place on all of the different cups and become the ultimate pokemon racing champion. Pokemon Dash does not really deliver an actual continuing story with events, is just like most racing games, making your way to become champion.
Pokemon Dash does offer a simple unique idea for racing games with overhead view by letting you guide Pickachu on the touch screen through each checkpoint on the courses. However these checkpoints must be followed in the exact order that the game tells. Which is a problem because most checkpoints are far away then others, making you get confuse a lot. You control Pickachu by constantly touching Pickachu to the right direction you want to take, is actually great this way instead of controlling with the D-Pad. While controlling is nice with touch screen, it can get really tiresome, because you are constantly rubbing the touch screen on many directions. Sure everything sounds original, but not quite mainly because the game is not really challenging. The opponents are very easy, mainly because even if you are in last place you can hurry up and catch them all and win the race, unless you are playing the hard courses. The dual screen is weak, the top screen shows a weak map of the stuff near by you, but is not exact all the times. In the touch screen is where you see the whole racing action.
The game also let’s you fly in an air balloon to reach checkpoints that cannot be gone through on foot. In this part you will get a map of the whole course with all of the checkpoints. The problem here is that the game does not tell what checkpoint you have to go next. After you decide where to land, Pickachu will be landing with 2 balloons. You have to make sure Pickachu doesn’t fall on very solid ground or trees, otherwise the game will take you to the air balloon again, and le you try landing on soft ground.
Despite that the gameplay is not really sweet in some areas is still an easy simple experience for kids, and it doe quite offer a lot of different courses to keep the player coming for more, that if you actually like the game. Kids might actually get trouble sometimes trying the hard mode mainly because the AI is intelligent and knows the location perfectly of all checkpoints. Despite not being a great experience Pokemon Dash does still offer a bit of strategy, when you actually find items that give you more speed in specific terrain, but you can only 1 item at a time.
Pokemon Dash is not truly what the title says. The game does feature some pokemon to race against, but you can only play as the cuddly Pickachu. Truly is a miss of opportunity that will affect pokemon fans that could like to play as Torchic, Meowth or any other pokemon in the game. The problem also is the variety, they are different pokemon’s to race against but all of them race exactly the same with no different speed or ability. The game could have also let you shoot powers, making each pokemon have their own unique abilities.
The graphics are pretty much average with the backgrounds. Expect grass lands, snow lands, forest, swamps, lava, etc. While it seems like a lot of environments they are actually repetitive since most of the time the courses contain a bit of all of those. The backgrounds and sprites get totally pixelated when up-close or far away. The animations on the characters don’t really feel fluid as they should be and practically a bit slow. The environments are bland, no real ambience of each place to make you feel really the experience. The only real graphic potential is the 3-D Pickachu in the main menu, in which you can goof around with by holding his ears, paws, etc. The developers really needed to take more time by adding more variety in the whole graphic engine.
The soundtrack is soft and very happy on each course, yet it also doesn’t feel very varied on each course. Yet the happy soundtrack fits nice with the gameplay you get. There is not much pokemon language except for the cute Pickachu with his pika pika. They are no real sound effects that you can find, mainly because of no true special effects. There is no big complain in terms of sound, but the sound effects and soundtrack can get repetitive at times.
The multiplayer wireless might be of some interest for pokemon fans going against each other. The bad news is that you still have to use Pickachu only. The game also delivers a special mode that if you put a GBA pokemon game, it will download your main party you have in the game right now, then with those pokemon’s, Pokemon Dash makes different courses dedicated to each pokemon you have, in those courses you must find all of the hidden checkpoints. While it is technically a great idea, it doesn’t really juice up completely the experience.
Pokemon Dash is another of those Non RPG pokemon games that try to do something new, but don’t quite cut it as they should be. The idea is certainly unique, but is not well establish in the whole game. The developers did not take their time to deliver a lot of variety in the whole package. This game is best for pokemon fans to rent only, if you do not know about pokemon or never like it, don’t try renting this game.