I love the Ranger series. It’s my favorite spinoff, even beating Mystery Dungeon. That said, the first is the worst. You can tell they were just testing the waters for just about everything. Parts of the game feel like a tech demo. I know that mainline Pokémon games don’t have fantastic dialogue, but the dialogue in this one is another level of bad. This game was clearly meant for kids, so duh, but playing it again as an adult just makes it so obvious. They don’t capture the villain because “we don’t capture humans, he will see what he did was wrong”. THAT GUY TRIED DESTROYING THE WORLD!!! PUT HIM IN PRISON!!! ARE RANGERS NOT POLICE??? ARE THSY JUST ANIMAL CONTROL?!?!?!? That said, still has its charm and sets the stage for two much better games (from what I remember, fingers crossed).

I really liked the gameplay, but it’s one of those games I wouldn’t recommend to a friend, especially one who loved BotW or TotK. That being said, I still loved the story. It was interesting to see how the events before BotW (possiblysortanotexactlybutinaroundaboutway) played out. Seeing the old champions interact with the new champions was charming. Getting more characterization for the old champions was really the highlight for me as they didn’t have a lot in BotW. Great game, niche game, acquired taste, not for everyone.