The first Pokemon game for the Nintendo DS was released late last year for both the Gameboy Advance and the DS. Because of this, the title known as Mysterious Dungeon or Fushigi no Dungeon, didn’t take advantage of the DS’ unique capabilities. This time around in Pokemon Ranger the wizards at Nintendo’s HAL Laboratories have pulled out all the stops and whistles of touch screen gameplay and have integrated them into one of the best Pokemon games to date. Though it’s tough to call this outing a true Pokemon RPG, fans of Action RPGs and the series should definitely take a look.

In Pokemon Ranger there are no one-on-one turn-based Pokemon fights. Instead you have one little boy or girl Pokemon, depending on the gender of the trainer you picked, which stays by your side at all times and a few empty slots for captured Pokemon. As you wander about you’ll see wild Pokemon roaming around in the field. If you go over and touch them you’ll then be thrown into the game’s main battle system where your goal is to subdue and capture the Pokemon. To do this you circle your special wand, the stylus, around the Pokemon on the touch screen. Depending on how tough the Pokemon is you’ll have to draw a continuous shape around it between one and upwards of 10+ times.

That may sound easy but most Pokemon don’t go willingly. They have a wide range of attacks and movement patterns all designed at throwing your circling action off. If your wand’s path, as shown on the touch battle screen, comes into contact with a Pokemon, its attacks, or anything else hazardous you’ll loose some health and have to start your circling all over again. While most of the time regular Pokemon roaming the wild are pretty easy to capture, some of the bosses take some serious stylus maneuvering to take out. Just imagine circling the stylus as fast as you can to get to ten complete circles only to get your wand path broken by the boss’ attack that happens every five seconds, then what is a trainer to do?

Well to add more depth to the combat in tough situations you can use the skills of your buddy Pokemon and all other Pokemon you currently have following you. The Pokemon you have recently captured can only do their special abilities once per fight but your special buddy Pokemon can execute his or her basic attack all throughout the fight as long as his or her attack meter is filled to at least one bar. To fill that attack bar you can circle the enemy Pokemon a few times, which puts them in a temporary bubble that breaks after a few seconds. Special attacks take great advantage of the touch screen and include things like bubbles that you throw at your enemy to stun them, walls of fire and trees that you can draw that trap them, and there are even some specials that, while they’re available, reduce the amount of circles needed to capture the current Pokemon.