Pokémon Dash (Nintendo DS) Review

Considering this is a first generation title for the Nintendo DS, perhaps you would not be expecting too much in the way of extravagant visuals. However, with many other first-time efforts on the DS being so impressive, especially Nintendo's own Super Mario 64 DS, a little more could have gone into Dash. Instead all we have is a distant overhead view of small characters whizzing around courses with barely any interesting detail dotted around. There is nothing exactly bad about what is on show, but on a system more powerful than the N64 a little effort would have been appreciated. Under-performer in this department, unfortunately, especially with the confusion in judging distances when floating up in the sky...

The sound aspect of Pokémon Dash is not quite as bad, with some very nice speech popping up here and there (although if you cannot stand incessant ‘Pika Pika’s then you should turn the volume down, definitely). As for the music, it is all very twee – chirpy, plinky-plonky tunes that smaller children may love. But most of the music will likely fade into the background as the annoying yellow rat screams out at you every five or so seconds. Not awful, but as with the graphics, and the game as a whole in all honesty, slightly disappointing.

Ambrella is a company started up by Nintendo, and brought the world the rather terrible voice recognition game Hey You, Pikachu! for the Nintendo 64. This is the company’s second attempt at a Pokémon game and boy does it disappoint again. The basis of the title is that of a racing game. Now, whilst this might sound like a winning formula, considering the antics of Mario and company in the Mario Kart series, it could barely be worse than it is. Instead of the behind-vehicle viewpoint, proceedings take place in a top-down orientation instead, as if the player is actually positioned over the bunch of little Pocket Monsters lingering around the starting line.

Control is via the stylus, although whilst this turns out to be a very unique experience, it certainly is not a pleasurable one. The touch-screen is used as a large analogue pad, akin to in Super Mario 64 DS, but rather than fine movements throughout, the whole thing is reduced to frantic brushes in various directions all over the touch-screen. But it is not even as if the speed at which you move the stylus really makes that much difference either, as the maximum speed can actually be attained by rhythmically moving around in the desired direction. It is amazing how boring this can get in a short time...

There are various types of terrain that must be crossed, such as sand, heavy grass or slippery ice. Each one will affect your movement and speed accordingly, unless you cross a special ground-pad that gives you the power to speed-up over a specific land-type. Basically you will run around the tracks, trying to avoid obstacles and hazards, all the time attempting to stay ahead of the pack. To try and add some variety to this racer, Ambrella has thrown in a balloon twist. However, this backfires terribly. Whereas you can just about use the little on-screen map to guide yourself around with the restricted viewpoint, once you collect balloons and rub the side of the screen and shoot up to the sky. Here you have not got a clue where the hell you are going, movingly around randomly in the hope of spotting the other racers. Once time has been wasted doing this, you can rub 'Dive' at the side to float slowly down. Or you can simply tap on Pika's two balloons and make him plummet, more often than not ending with a *splat*, followed by a frustrating wait till he gets up again.

And that is it...