For those of you who expect a standard Pokemon RPG- leave. For everyone else- Welcome to the club!
Pokemon Ranger incorporates an idea not yet heard of in Action RPGs.
The idea that you could actually snag a Pokemon YOURSELF with your own skill, rather than commanding Pokemon to do it for you is just one of those differences between this and regular Pokemon RPGs.
Interesting thing to note, is that there are no items in the game at all.
Nada, zero, zilch.
This means you'll never have to worry about those "open the door using a key" scenarios.
Instead, you have to use your own thinking with Pokemon you acquire yourself along the way.
In order to do this, you have a special item called a "STYLER" that you use to circle Pokemon many times and tame them.
After doing so sucessfully, you can use whatever power they have, like smashing rocks, using vine whip to cross water, and other such things.
The story itself involves you becoming a Pokemon Ranger (either male or female) and going up against Team Go-Go, the evil musician masterminds (okay, so it sounds cheesy, but it's actually quite interesting how it turns out).
The positive things about the game itself is that there's somewhat of a challenge in the game. It's not the frustrating kind of hard, either. It's actually the challenge from the Pokemon you encounter.
It took me literally five tries to get a good strategy for Entei.
Also, the game has a certain charm that other Pokemon games don't seem to have. The Pokemon seem to have a little bit of personality, and this is perhaps because their powers are so varied within the game, and also the fact that they don't appear randomly (you can actually see all of them on the field, and they do attack you).
A few negative things about this game would be that it's rather short (shouldn't take anyone longer than 15 hours to beat).
It's also the fact that there's not much else to do after you actually go back and catch every single Pokemon at the very end of the game.
The graphics aren't that much different from what you would see from a GBA game, but there are a few things that make it look more advanced (the very large Pokemon, for example).
As far as the BGM and music goes, it doesn't have the charm that other Pokemon games seem to have. It's still nice, but not something I would hum to.
However, everything in-between will captivate your interest for at least a week, and that's definitely worth something, especially considering how addictive the game is.
Excellent game if you're a Pokemon fan, and even if you aren't, it'll still be a fun time.