Friday, March 5, 2010

Pokemon Ranger: Tracks of Light

Written by pikaby

No less than three Pokemon games will be released in the month of March. There's Pokemon Heart Gold and Pokemon Soul Silver bound for the US on March 26, but there's another Pokemon game coming out for Japan two weeks earlier, and surprise- it's a spinoff, and it's name is Pokemon Ranger: Tracks of Light! (or Pokemon Ranger: Hikari no Kiseki in Japanese). Bet no one expected this.




The news appeared in CoroCoro magazine scans last month, popping out of nowhere. Here I have one of the scans.


Pokemon Ranger 3 brings in the same 'capture Pokemon in a loop' gameplay perfected in Shadows of Almia(introducing a HP bar for Pokemon), but from what I've seen, it has many new features to set it apart from its prequels.

A video from Pokemon Sunday previews Pokemon Ranger: Tracks of Light. Go see it in motion!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-kJ7cinYa4

The story this time is set in the new land of Oblivia, and the evil team in your way this time are called the Pokemon Nappers, which is a much better name than Team Dim Sum....er...Sun, from Ranger 2. Generically their main aim is kidnapping Pokemon, that much I know. In the opening cutscene they're seen chasing a Latios and you as a Ranger gets in hot pursuit, dodging their bullets and giving them a hard time. It's great to look at.

Your partner Pokemon is another Pichu, this time holding a ukelele, and its PokeAssist is using that instrument to...do something. I won't know yet till I get the game for real. Hopefully it stuns or does damage, like Plusle/Minun in Ranger 1. Partner PokeAssists should be exclusive to them, not like in Ranger 2 where every partner you could use has the same PokeAssist as all the regular field Pokemon.Well these past 2 years have been full of Pichus, first the Pikachu-colored Pichu, then the Spiky-Eared Pichu from the movie, and now this.

Ahem...back to the game. Graphics are much improved and given a semi-3D look akin to Pokemon Diamond/Pearl, which is nice. New gameplay mechanics have been added, such as being able to summon Pokemon with touch-screen commands called 'Ranger Signs'. Now this sounds very cool on paper, I can't wait to try it out for real! (You can see the Ranger Signs to the left of the magazine scan and in the video. The ones in the scan summon Eevee and Croagunk).

For the first time multiplayer modes are introduced to a Pokemon Ranger game, which are co-op affairs and have up to four players helping out in missions and capturing Pokemon together. I'm not a big multiplayer fan but if this turns out to be good, I'm excited. Oh, and Wi-Fi missions involving legendary Pokemon have been announced too, even before the game's release date! First one should be a Deoxys mission. It's transferable to the main Pokemon games......if there's a Manaphy mission again I'll be damned. I love Manaphy.

The release date for Pokemon Ranger: Tracks of Light is....tomorrow! March 6th, 2010! Import feature by me soon, when I get a hands-on! Can't wait...
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2 comments:

  1. Don't worry, Pikaby. There's another Manaphy mission with your name on it.

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  2. Yeah I found out. But I can't play it until I get past the underwater mission(which I should get by very quickly)

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