Pokémon Dash! Review

Now, I know that some may like that kind of gameplay, but frankly I had to force myself to finish this game to write the review as it became boring really fast. Running around with the touch screen is fun for the first few races, but afterwards it becomes repetitive and you find out it’s not as revolutionary as you thought.

It’s kind of sad because I thought they could have done so much more. Why is it that you can only control Pikachu? There are 351 Pokémon, why not use them and give them all different abilities so you could use different Pokémon in different races? You could have unlocked them in some way or another by winning races or maybe there could have been some kind of Pokémon store where you could have spent points to get new ones. One of the few things that’s impressive is that you can plug in your GBA cart of any of the GBA Pokémon titles and upload 6 of them on Pokémon Dash! What it does is that it creates maps in the shapes of your Pokémon, so that means you can race around on an island that has the shape of Mewtwo, for example. If that’s possible, then why didn’t they make it possible to also race as those Pokémon?

There are 3 different circuits, each being different than the other and adding new terrains that you haven’t previously raced on, but it isn’t enough to keep you interested in the game. There’s a multiplayer mode, but like the single player, it’s only fun for a few minutes but it does offer a better challenge. They could have added some Pokémon themed mini-games like Nintendo did in Mario 64 DS or Pokémon Stadium. Again, so much to work with, but very little results.

The visuals of this game are somewhat passable, but far from being jaw dropping. It looks like a Super Nintendo game, nothing more, nothing less. Character animation is poorly executed with each Pokémon having 2 or 3 frames of animation, the worlds seem dead with nothing going on in them, and worst of all, none of the maps are from already known locations in the Pokémon universe! They could have re-created areas from older Pokémon games or from the TV show but instead they’ve created some uninteresting maps that all look the same. And with the space available on the DS cartridges, maybe they could have added a few minutes of video from the show or from the movies to make for a better presentation and more impressive game overall.

And I hope you are ready to listen to the 4 or 5 tunes in this game as they are not only bad, but none of them are remixes from other Pokémon games! I mean, if you make a Pokémon game, you use as much content from the other games as possible to re-create the universe and make people feel right at home. There’s a reason why Nintendo always uses the same music for Mario and Zelda games: because it’s good! The same thing applies to Pokémon and I can’t see why it wasn’t done. There were some catchy tunes composed for Pokémon games in the past so I don’t understand why they weren’t remixed or at least available in the game. There aren’t that many sound effects and I guess they do their job, but it’s nothing incredibly spectacular.

So in the end, we get something that might have had some potential, but that was rushed to market just to make a quick buck. Frankly, I’m disappointed to see a Nintendo product like this being released as I’m used to their titles being polished, but this one isn’t worth your money. If you are a diehard Pokémon fan you might want to check it out, but I consider myself one and I’m sorry I bought this game. At least both Pokémon Diamond and Pearl are coming later this year, and they will probably be great games so I’d suggest waiting for those.