t didn't take me very long to figure out that My Pokemon Ranch isn't actually a game. What 1,000 Wii Points will get you is a fancy screensaver where you can watch your Nintendo Miis and Pokemon interact with each other. It is absolutely adorable, until five minutes have passed and you start to wonder what is left to do other than passively watch the television screen.
Let me begin by stating that I adore casual games. Give me Animal Crossing, the Sims and Harvest Moon any day of the week and I can turn it into a hardcore game. What's meant to be played for small slots of time, I can stretch into infinity building houses, visiting fuzzy neighbors and harvesting crops. What I can't stand is having something presented to me that looks fun, bright and promising and then be told that I can't interact with it the way I want to. That's exactly what you get with My Pokemon Ranch, a new title offered by Nintendo's WiiWare.
What's meant to be played for small slots of time, I can stretch into infinity.Fellow Game and Player contributor Philip Harris and I have put an awfully lot of time invested in something with extremely limited "gameplay." Once you get MPR started, an anime-style teenage girl named Hayley immediately greets you and gives you the basic tutorial of the ranch. She'll ask you if you have Pokemon Diamond or Pearl, and for your sake I really hope you do otherwise you're going to really hate MPR. Hayley will even give you tips on how to expand your Pokedex, which is pretty cool.
You don't fight Pokemon or contribute to their lives, even though MPR appears to be a type of sim-game. Instead, you watch them interact with each other, toys and other Miis. Hayley starts off your ranch with six of her own Pokemon and promises to bring a new one for you every day. Before quitting the game, Hayley will ask you a set of questions. These questions have to do with what type of Pokemon she'll be bringing to your ranch the next day; questions such as, "Is a blue Pokemon okay for tomorrow?" This is one of the very few opportunities for real participation in MPR, but even if you tell her No, she will bring whatever Pokemon she wants anyway. The number of Pokemon and Miis you can have on your ranch expands as time passes, but this is nothing to get excited about since there is a large chance that Hayley will bring you Pokemon you've already got.
Phil and I have been playing MPR for a solid week and a half. We have about thirty Pokemon all together, but about six of them are duplicates. There are 490 Pokemon altogether, why are we getting repeats so early in the game?
Every now and then your Pokemon and your Miis will engage in one singular activity, such as stacking themselves up into a totem pole or stare creepily at you for absolutely no reason. These activities are displayed as cutscenes of some sort. While I admit watching all of our Pokemon stacking themselves into a totem pole is amusing, I can't say the same for "attention." Call me crazy, but having a staring contest with my Pokemon and Miis doesn't constitute as much fun.
Sure, it looks exciting.You can connect your DS and toss in your own Pokemon for good measure and take pride as they walk around the ranch in 3D-form. In all honesty, I haven't been this bored with a Pokemon game since the first Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, but at least that game had objectives and a point.
Another disturbing part of MPR is something called Club Look-See. Every so often when you log onto MPR a visitor from an organization called Club Look-See will greet you. These club members invite you to come look at their ranch, which they claim they are really proud of even though they only have one type of Pokemon wandering around. Whatever.
This evening Phil and I were greeted by another member from Club Look-See, and asked us to "Guess which Pokemon is my favorite?" These club members often share similar faces to that of the Pokemon they keep on their ranch. Cute? No, it's actually more frightening than anything else, especially when a Wobbuffet-faced woman named Wanda comes calling. Had they allowed other features such as adding decorations, breeding and social interaction within the ranch it would have been all right. Instead, you get to watch a bunch of Pokemon that look like they leapt straight off of the Nintendo 64 interact with each other on a very minimal level.
Spend those 1,000 Wii Points at your own risk. While my pet parrotlet adores the music and colors, homo sapiens might find this to be a huge disappointment. Tread lightly, even if you are a huge Pokemon fan.
