The worst game I've ever played. I want my 7 pounds back!
Before you say "but it's only 7 pounds (10 dollars in the US)!", let me tell you about a few other games that I've purchased for less than 7 pounds over the years. Castle of the Winds cost me all of 3 pounds when I was about 14, and although it has the most basic graphics ever, I think I must have spent about 70 hours playing that game, in total. Spore Creature Creator, which I recently purchased for just 5 pounds remains at least five-hundred times as interesting as Pokemon Ranch. Morrowind, which I bought for the PC at just 5 pounds (sold out software addition), is one of the largest in-game worlds I've ever seen, with more things to do than you can imagine. And then there's River City Ransom (Street Gangs) the NES game I bought on the Wii for only 500 points (3 pounds and 50 pence), which must be one of the best games ever made, without exception.
My Pokemon Ranch isn't even worth as much as I paid for Soldat for the PC (which, incidentally, is free).
The graphics on Pokemon Ranch are so badly done that I feel like my eyes are hurting every time I look at the screen. Instead of the mighty dragon-pokemon Gyarados, which ordinarily would be about ten times as big as a human being, we get ... a tiny ball headed creature with an even smaller snake-like body. Instead of Ponyta, the beautiful fire horse pokemon, what do we see on our Wii? My Little Pony's deformed blocky baby child.
Cute? No it's not. The original pokemon were cute. This is cheap.
And does Gyarados or Ponyta make real pokemon sounds when you interact with them? No. There's no "squirtle, squirtle" when you pick up a squirtle, nor a "Pika-PIKAAAAA" when you slap Pikachu upside the head for looking so crappy. There's something that would be best described in onomatopoeia representation as an electronic "gluuuu ... sqoiunk", the likes of which the original Gameboy would be ashamed to voice.
But still, at least you can walk around as your Mii and actually interact with the pokemon by feeding them, petting them, and playing games with them right? WRONG! Your protagonist in this game is a camera. A camera you only get to control after about 3 days of playing the game. And even then all you can do to your Pokemon is pick them up, or take pictures of them.
To list some other flaws without wasting any more of my valuable time with this game: the music is annoying, the options are extremely limited, the ranch is obscenely boring, the special super secret pose events are lame, and you can't murder the ranch owner in cold blood.
If only. IF ONLY!