Pokemon battles come to GameCube with an all-new story mode.
Review by Mike Sklens
Nintendo’s been firing on all cylinders with tons of Pokémon releases. Last year came the main series installments of Ruby and Sapphire. In Japan, two new GBA games have been released complete with wireless link. On the GameCube there’s Pokémon Channel and now Pokémon Colosseum.
Colosseum is the evolution of the popular Pokémon Stadium games from the Nintendo 64. The title lets you take your Pokémon captured and raised in the Game Boy Advance game and transfer them over to fight in fantastic stadiums on GameCube. However, unlike the N64 titles, which required a special transfer pak, Colosseum takes advantage of the simpler GameCube-Game Boy Advance link cable.
Pokémon Colosseum has two main modes. First is the standard Colosseum mode. Here players can fight with Pokémon (either their own, transferred from a GBA, or provided ones) against the computer or each other. For single players, there are colosseum battles and the Mt. 100 battle challenge which consists of fighting 100 trainers. Multiple players (up to four) can all jump into a Colosseum battle and fight each other. Sadly, there aren’t any four-way Pokémon brawls. If four players are involved, there will be a two on two fight with each player controlling his or her Pokémon.
Battles between Pokémon look really fantastic. Each of the little critters is modeled in 3D very well. While the dueling monsters never actually touch each other (think of the collision detection nightmares) the camera and attack animations are used in such a way to mask this. Each Pokémon is quite detailed and modeled with a nice number of polygons. Their attacks are all beautifully animated with tons of light and color. Sadly, this much effort was not put into the sound department. Pokémon support their standard GBA “growl” sound effects. Honestly, this is unacceptable. Pokémon fans have seen the television show, and they know that Pokémon scream their names. We’re not on cartridges anymore folks; there is plenty of room for all those Pokémon scream sound effects on a GameCube disc.
What sets Colosseum apart from its previous iterations is the brand new story mode. It offers a brand new, slightly edgier adventure for players. At the start of the story it is learned that the player’s character is an ex-member of the evil “Team Snag-em.” In this region of the world there are no wild Pokémon. So, team Snag-em has developed a way to steal, or “snag,” Pokémon from other trainers in battle. At the start of the game, the player character breaks into Team Snag-em’s base and steals their portable snagging machine. There’s more trouble in this world than Team Snag-em though. An evil organization has launched a plan to turn Pokémon against their masters. They’ve devised a way to “close the door to a Pokémon’s heart” (yes, that’s a direct quote from the game) thus turning them into Shadow Pokémon that will attack people as well as other Pokémon.
The Shadow Pokémon and Snag mechanics are tied together via the story. The lead character meets a girl early on who can detect the auras of Pokémon and see if they are Shadow Pokémon or not. It’s up to the two of them to find all the Shadow Pokémon and snag them to save the world.
Now, for Pokémon, this is quite a story. Players must go from town to town uncovering the mystery of the evil organization and their plans and put a stop to them. All battles in the story mode of Pokémon Colosseum are two on two battles. This changes the strategy compared to the GBA games, where team battles were not very frequent. A few other things are thrown into the mix as well. Shadow Pokémon will sometimes enter “hyper mode” which cranks their emotions to a fever pitch. While in hyper mode they will hit critically more often, but there is also the risk that they will not obey orders. Thankfully, use of the new “Call” command will snap them out of it. Fighting with snagged Shadow Pokémon will gradually “open the door to their heart” and set them free. Until this happens they won’t be able to gain experience.
While it might all sound like quite an advancement for Pokémon, with the expanded story and changed up battle mechanics, it really isn’t. It’s kind of sad really that the Story Mode is nothing more than a fancy dressing on the Colosseum mode. Both consist of a series of fights against trainers. Without the ability to catch wild Pokémon in the story mode, the drive to explore all but vanishes. The snag mechanic tries to make up for this, but it’s just not enough. There’s no journeying between towns either. Travel is accomplished via a map and a quick cinematic. It’s nothing more than trainer battle after trainer battle. Occasionally there is a Shadow Pokémon to snag, but this is the only major gameplay difference between the Story and Colosseum modes.
Pokémon Colosseum is the next step in the Stadium series. It takes everything that was good about the Stadium games and adds more to them. Anybody looking for a way to play with Pokémon on their GameCube will most certainly enjoy this aspect. The story mode is a nice inclusion as well. However, what starts out as a fresh Pokémon experience quickly turns into a boring repetition of trainer battles. Players new to Pokémon and hungry for a story should check out the GBA games first. Veterans looking for a way to increase the life of their Pokémon games will find it with Pokémon Colosseum.
Pros:
Pokémon look great in 3D.
Story mode has a slightly edgier story.
Unlockables
Cons:
Story mode is highly repetitive.
Pokémon screams are ripped from the GBA.
48 blocks to save!? WOAH!
Graphics: 8.0
All the Pokémon are beautifully modeled in 3D. Animations are very bright and colorful, and all of this comes together to make the battle sequences look absolutely fantastic.
Sound: 4.0
The music has all been redone and it’s very good. What sucks is the Pokémon screams. They’re all torn straight from the GBA games.
Control: 10
Everything’s cool here. It’s mostly menu driven, which is pretty hard to screw up.
Gameplay: 6.5
Colosseum mode offers a way to extend the Gameplay of the GBA games. The story mode is a fantastic idea, but is far too shallow and repetitive.
Lastability: 9.0
Pokémon fanatics will no doubt play this game forever. There is quite a lot to do and unlock between the two different modes. The story mode helps in extending the life of the game also.
Final Score (not an average): 6.5
What could have been a really fantastic Pokémon game is botched by a monotonous story mode. Pokémon fans will no doubt love it for the Colosseum mode and the ability to see the little critters in three beautiful dimensions.
Topic: Pokemon Colosseum Review (Read 3370 times)
