Review No. 40 My Pokémon Ranch - WiiWare (3+)

Strong Points:

Great storage for your Pokémon

Lots of upgrades and Pokémon allowed

Exclusive legendries available

Nice graphics style

Good music

Weak Points: 

You can only take 20 pictures

You can't return to club look see members

Only Pokémon Diamond and Pearl are compatible

In-depth Review:

Release Dates:
Japan: March 25, 2008
North America: June 9, 2008
Europe: July 4, 2008
Australia: July 4, 2008

Controls:

Not much of a game as you normally just look. Controls in-game

Yet another add-on to the Pokémon world and this one is basically a glorified storage box. But it's a storage box with some added bonuses. In it you play... OK you don't really play the game/storage box than watch what's going on with a few interactions such as grabbing and throwing a Pokémon/toy/fellow ranch member.

Besides the Pokémon that inhabit the ranch there is Haley, the previous owner turned supervisor, who gives you Pokémon every day as well as you and a few other Mii's you can recruit to help out.

The ranch is upgradable by getting a certain amount of Pokémon and then waiting for the extension to be built. Well it's not Animal Crossing customisation but still. Other things that happen when you get enough Pokémon is an update in the amount of toys that the Pokémon can play with. After upgrading your ranch to the highest levels, you get Mew and Phinone to join you ranch ...

Club Look See involves random NPC's coming to your ranch for no apparent reason than to show off their ranches/Bidoof collections. One problem with (in the European game at least) is that you cannot return to the Club Look See Ranches after going to them.

In order to get Pokémon to inhabit your ranch, you either have to wait for Haley to give you a daily Pokémon or migrate Pokémon from your Diamond and Pearl games. Once migrated you can trade them back but you cannot migrate Haley's Pokémon to your game.

Conclusion: overall this is just a glorified Pokémon PC box that needs an update in order to be combative with newer games.

Rating: 30%

Goodbye for now, Harry