[How to Ruin Your Resale Value and Give Yourself Carpal Tunnel All in Three Hours]

A small anecdote: I was out garage sale-ing one June weekend afternoon, looking for that one house that might be selling rare video games to add to my collection. I stumbled across a house that said they had video games but that all but a couple things had been bought up an hour ago. Disappointed that I missed the big haul, I still asked to see what they had. What was presented to me was a Nintendo DS with one of the most scratched up screens I had seen in my life, all right up the middle of the bottom screen. It appeared as though they had scratched at the screen so hard that they had somehow damaged the bottom screen. I asked if they would turn it on, and the bottom screen had multiple dead pixels, a clear giveaway that they were trying to just "get rid of the thing". They said there was a game in the system, and when I popped it out, which was in the slot? That's right: Pokemon Dash. Someone had played this game so much that they ended up destroying their console. I passed on both console and cartridge, already owning both.

Pokemon Dash remains a nostalgic title for me given that it was a launch title for the Nintendo DS and fell into the era of 3rd Gen Pokémon Spinoffs which are real good times for elementary school kids. I recall playing this game on a friend's DS and nearly ripping through the screen protector they had put on the bottom screen (and speaking of that, I distinctly recall that screen protector looking incredibly fucked up to the point where the friend also had Pokemon Pearl and didn't even bother with the Poketch because they couldn't see the screen well). Since those days of loading in maps based on the Pokemon in your copy Pokemon Emerald, I find myself having less and less interest in the game; the last time I attempted to destroy my DS playing the game I ended up getting a cramp in my wrist.

It's not like this game plays that better on any kind of emulation systems, given that it controls ENTIRELY with the touch screen. I have to ponder that this game was ahead of its time and that as a mobile game with your finger as the "control", this game would've been huge. But alas, it appears to have been released 8-10 years too soon, and unlike other games ahead of their times like Wario Ware Inc. on the Gameboy Advance, Pokemon Dash fails to be captivating in its present context. The levels are very basic, disjointed and fundamentally confusing; half the game requires you to be able to identify landmarks from way up in the air, but given the small size of the DS screen and poor resolution, you end up just making a poor decision and Pikachu goes plummeting to earth where you have to destroy your bottom screen again to get Pikachu back into racing form. It also is a shame that you can't play as anyone BUT Pikachu, making what could be an interesting development on racer choice (perhaps giving them inherent advantages on specific terrains, for example) into something so bog standard it hurts. furthermore, the other racers have incredible rubber-banding, so by the final cups if you're making even a single mistake, BAM MEOWTH OUT OF NOWHERE WITH THE STEEL CHAIR. You'd think that with five cups with five levels each not to mention over 400 custom cups based on Pokemon sprites, that there would be a meaningful and in-depth gaming experience to be had. Sure, there is no shortage of courses, but many of them aren't worth playing due to their inconsistency in difficult and design, and the fact that the computer is a cheating bastard.

It's too bad really, a Pokemon racing game is a really neat idea in concept and the Pikachu play area on the title screen is a fun little tech demo, but I can't score Pokemon dash beyond like a 33. I want to like it, but I like having working wrists and a working DS more.

Rating: [33]