Review No. 43 Pokémon Link! - DS (3+)

Strong Points:

All right storyline

Challenging

Nice gameplay mechanics

Good art style
Nice sprites

Addictive

Lots of modes
Cool Music

Weak Points:

Difficulty spikes

Some modes are not as good as the others

Frustrating

Repetitive

In-depth Review:

Release Dates:
Japan: October 20, 2005
North America: March 6, 2006
Australia: March 30, 2006
Europe: May 5, 2006

Controls:
Swipe stylus to match four or more Pokémon

This game is a different take on the game Tetris involving the world of Pokémon and is also one of the better spin-offs. You have to link 4 or more (3 or 2 Pokémon when you have a combo) of the same Pokémon together by moving the rows left, right or down. You can also move the Pokémon up but it will fall immediately down again if a match is not made. This game has four modes: Pokédex, Endless, Forever and Adventure with Adventure having another 4 modes (Research, Storage, Phobos Mobile and Mr Who's Den).

The story is that the Phobos Batallion has stolen lots of Pokéballs in order to powerup their secret weapon and it is your job to release them. You control Lucy Fleetfoot and with your Link Beam and top agent Professor P of SOL, you have to go through storages capturing a certain number of Pokémon and battle the evil Phobos generals.

Adventure mode is fun and will take you a long time to complete and combined with endless and forever modes this game sure isn't lacking in content. However, some of the levels are just repeats of older ones with added difficulty and the game isn't that original. However, the challenge is brilliant on this game although it will leave casual and hardcore gamers alike frustrated with its insane difficulty in later levels.

Also, the endless mode only lets you start again in a unit of five so if you got to level 99 and died, you would have to start again at level 95. It doesn't sound too bad but the levels themselves are quite long and quickly get repetitive until you break through that level.

The Phobos generals all have powers which hinder you although mostly annoy you to the point of turning the game off for a few hours. But then you will go back on it because of how insanely addictive this game is.

Conclusion: overall one of the better Pokémon spin-offs with a great pick up and play a thousand times gameplay.

Rating: 78%

Thanks for reading, Satamer.