I've had this game ever since I was a child, and I have beaten it on multiple occasions, but since I recently played a Mystery Dungeon game, I wanted to revisit Pokemon Ranger. And how the hell did i beat it.
Pokemon Ranger is definitely the groundwork of the ideas that its sequels would build upon. How the loops work while at times fine, eventually gets frustrating when you'll need to consecutively loop a pokemon 20 or so times, without error. Though I was emulating it this time around, so having to use a mouse for the bottom screen was a noticeable disadvantage. For the most part Pokemon seem to typically have around 5-8 loops needed which is managable, unless there are multiple pokemon on the screen, and at times it's hard to multitask. There are some fun environmental puzzles, and interesting abilities that Pokemon can do while in battle, but they feel generally underbaked. And in the case of the combat abilities, you so rarely need them, that when you do, you never think about it.
Ultimately what spoiled my experience with this game were the bosses. A majority of them were really fun, however a select few made a potential 4 star into a 3 star. Those bosses being Charizard, Steelix, and the Final Boss. All three of them have these weird gimmicks to them that no other fight does. And with how iffy the regular gameplay is, these 3 bosses turn from challenging, to just plain out frustrating.
I still can't say I hate this game, however. I hold a lot of love for it even now, and even though I have my frustrations with certain moments, they're still only one part of the whole game. I definitely at least want to try to play the other ranger games sometime soon, as I know they mechanically improve.

replayed this for the first time in years - the pokémon ranger games are very fun in concept, but this first entry into the series feels very primitive when compared to its sequels. theres nothing to do but follow the main story plot of "evil team is trying to take over the world and you have to stop them!". nothing groundbreaking but hey, it's a pokémon game. the characters are fun enough, and the character design has all the charm of the mainline gen 3 designs.

after you finish the game you unlock some postgame missions featuring mythical pokémon, but that's about all there is to do in the flagship title of the ranger series. (and collect the manaphy egg for your gen 4 games, if you have a mint copy or... a less physical copy of the game.)

it's a fun, quick romp through a new and different take on what it means to live in a world inhabited by pokémon. the bosses are mostly trivial - as long as you have a pokémon with you that has a good assist ability, even the final boss gauntlet can be finished with ease. overall it's a fun little distraction, but is overshadowed by its successors. suppose i'll have to replay Shadows of Almia again next, since i find myself thinking about the updated features that game introduced.

This game is fucking sick if you've ever wanted to draw circles and grind your touch screen to dust. Been many years since I played this but the plot was basically some people start shredding guitar and you have to hire wild Pokemon to cut down trees so you can stop them from doing that. I can't stress enough that the gameplay entirely consists of drawing circles. This game was fine when I was very young but nowadays I can't say much good about it. I guess the pixel art is nice. Play Mystery Dungeon or Conquest if you want a Pokemon spinoff that doesn't suck ass.