Pokemon Ranch Comes to Europe

Nintendo is bringing one of its most important WiiWare releases, Pokemon Ranch, to the European market, after it was launched in Japan and in North America. The game, developed by Ambrella, is designed to offer you a chance to play around with your favorite Pokemon characters.

The main idea is that you can import Pokemons that you have already developed in games like Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl and then play with them in the virtual ranch that the game creates. If you do not own a DS game with a Pokemon theme then the WiiWare title will let you play with another creature with each passing day. The developers describe the game as being "a place where Pokémon and people love living together" and with the thousands of Pokemon fans out there it seems that the game is destined to be a success.

Pokemon Ranch borrows most gameplay mechanics from titles such as Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon, which also focus on mundane tasks and on intricate storytelling techniques. Its appeal is mainly aimed at those players who are already interested in the Pokemon universe. The game is available for download for all Nintendo Wii users for the price of 10 Euros or 1000 Wii Points.

Nintendo is also offering Pop on the European branch of WiiWare. The game is very simple as it focuses on the rapid popping, with the Wiimote, of bubbles that come up on the screen connected to the Nintendo Wii. The game only cost 7 Euros and it's addictive enough to make the hours pass by without you knowing it.

Nintendo is not offering any new games for its Virtual Console service this week, but next week it seems that two classic console games will be making an appearance, along with a new offering on WiiWare.