IIRC, the recruitment system was just two radial quests (from the same pool as when they get captured, the dialogue didn’t even change) to recruit someone?
Grain of salt, as i havent played the mystery dungeon games or Colosseum, but Platinum had a great amount of story, and a decent amount of post-game content that wasn’t just min-maxing to win.
Everything post-B2/W2 is just too hand-holdy to me.
Don’t knock the Ranger games either, they were fun adventures.