In its 24 years as a flagship Nintendo property, Pokemon has produced a dozen spin-off games in all manner of genres. Pokemon Conquest was a tactical RPG a la Final Fantasy Tactics that crossed over with the Nobunaga's Ambition series, Pokemon Trozei! was a puzzle matching game that spawned its own franchise culminating in the mobile game Pokemon Shuffle, Pokemon Pinball was exactly as it sounds, and the Nintendo 64's Pokemon Snap was a fantastic game for a laidback afternoon. There's plenty that could return in the wake of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX, but a bygone series that could also use the spotlight most is Pokemon Ranger.
The original Pokemon Ranger was a 2006 DS title in which players took the role of Lunick or Solana, who moves to the seasonal-themed Fiore Region and becomes a member of the titular Pokemon Rangers — something of a cross between National Park Service rangers, ecological conservationists, and the trainer class they originated as in Ruby and Sapphire. The game was co-produced by HAL Laboratory, best known for spearheading Kirby and Super Smash Bros., and Creatures Inc, a subsidiary removed from The Pokemon Company's list of partners last December.
What made Ranger and its two sequels stand out was the radical shift from its main series' tried-and-true creature-collecting RPG formula into an action puzzler. Players would use their Capture Styler (not-so-subtly referencing the DS stylus) to draw loops around a variety of Pokemon in a mini game meant to calm and befriend them. Those befriended creatures could then provide their services to solve environmental puzzles or help the player catch more powerful Pokemon to complete complex tasks.
The last game to use this spin-off formula was 2010's Pokemon Ranger: Guardian Signs, which introduced the world to the criminally underrated Ukulele Pichu. Ten years later, it's a better time than ever to revive the series, especially with a cloud-based storage service like Pokemon Home available on Nintendo's latest system to help connect it with Sword and Shield.
Pokemon Ranger on the Switch
The Wii U might have been a great console to house a remake of Pokemon Ranger, as the dual screen support of the Wii U Gamepad would have been an analog for the top and bottom screens of the original DS. However, the Wii U wasn't exactly a success for Nintendo, especially considering the Nintendo Switch's sales numbers. Putting the game out on that console may have been a waste of resources — and chances are it would have been re-released for the next piece of hardware anyway.
Any game for the Nintendo Switch should make gangbusters because of how popular the hybrid handheld console has been, but that is especially true for Pokemon games. The latest mainline titles, Pokemon Sword and Shield, sold over 16 million units in two months after being released in November 2019.
The Switch does have a few advantages that would be perfect for a remake of Pokemon Ranger. For one, the ability to use it in handheld mode would more accurately recapture the experience of the original game, which is important because Ranger was truncated into smaller missions to facilitate playing in bursts on the go. In handheld mode, players could play similarly to the DS by using a stylus a la level designing in Super Mario Maker 2; meanwhile in TV docked mode, the game could work like a Wii title, facilitating actual mid-air circle drawing with Joy Cons to mimic the action in-game.
A Mythical Tie-In
When Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee came out in 2018, one of its major selling points was that players could get access to Mew by purchasing a Pokeball Plus peripheral. A Ranger remake could offer the same marketing potential for another rare Mythical Pokemon: Manaphy.
The Water-type "Prince of the Sea" was first introduced via a side quest in Pokemon Ranger where players had to protect its special egg. That egg could then be transferred to the mainline titles Diamond and Pearl that released a few months later, making Manaphy one of many Mythical Pokemon the Sinnoh Region specialized in featuring. Manaphy's connection to this particular spin-off is so ingrained in its existence that the monster's corresponding anime movie from 2006 was called Pokemon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea.
For a corporation that has a ton of crossover merchandise like the aforementioned Pokeball Plus accessory and an interactive Z-Ring to advertise Sun and Moon, no doubt The Pokemon Company would be chomping at the bit to release a special Capture Styler-themed stylus for the Switch that includes a Manaphy giveaway. Many Pokemon fans would also probably be chomping at the bit to buy one.
What about the sequels?
While the original Pokemon Ranger had some stand-out moments, the fact that players go between locations called Fall City, Summerland, and Wintown should be proof that gameplay was prioritized over story. Its sequel Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia could be a better game to re-introduce the series, much like how the Mario & Luigi RPG remakes skipped from Superstar Saga to Bowser's Inside Story before developer AlphaDream filed for bankruptcy.
In Shadows of Almia, the player starts off in a Ranger school to more naturally introduce the mechanics and interrelationships between characters. Then they are sent off on a region-spanning adventure to stop the villainous Team Dim Sun from using the Mythical Pokemon Darkrai to destroy the world. It's a generic and well-worn plot to say the least, but one with a more satisfying narrative, more compelling characters to follow, and more choices for a starting Pokemon partner. Plus, it gave Darkrai its time to shine well before being added as a fighter in Pokken Tournament.
Ultimately, the important part is re-introducing a unique take on Pokemon partnerships and gameplay to a modern audience, no matter which title in the Ranger series is given the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX treatment. With a playerbase used to going out of their way to wander the Earth looking for Legendary monsters in Pokemon GO, why not throw out a positive ecological message too? Maybe Game Freak can grace its fans with a Pokemon Conquest remake after that.
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX is out now for Switch.