Platform: GameCube
Genre: Fighting, RPG

When I heard a new Pokemon game was going to be released titled Pokemon Colosseum, I immediately thought “STADIUM 3 STADIUM 3 STADIUM 3! Time to bust out those Ruby/Sapphire Pokemon in 3D in Pokemon Stadium 3!” Turns out that “Pokemon Stadium 3” is only half the game. In that half, you send out Pokemon from Story Mode (below) or Ruby/Sapphire and try to win tournaments, or just battle your friends on your big-screen Plasma TV instead of on the small-screen Gameboy Advance. For more details on these kinds of battles, see my Pokemon Stadium/Poke’mon Stadium 2 comparison.

The other half of the game is actually an RPG-type game (in 3D, of course) where a trainer who starts out with Espeon and Umbreon sets out for the world on his motorcycle to capture the 50 or so “Shadow” Pokemon that a pair of evil Team Rocket-type gangs, Team Snagem and Team Cipher, have snatched using their special balls and turned evil. Once he has obtained Shadow Pokemon, he must return them to their nice state and restore peace to the world.

So in a nutshell, I expected Pokemon Colosseum to be, basically, Pokemon Stadium 3, but with a side order of bacon, eggs, and Paradise Pancakes.

Ratings are based on the usual 1-10 scale. Does Pokemon Colosseum live up to the expectations of a 128-bit Stadium sequel, or not? Read on to find out!

Graphics: 7/10

The worlds in Story Mode, the colosseum, and of course, the Pokemon all look awesome. However, there are quite a few other games I can think of on the three big 128-bit systems (PS2, Xbox, and of course, the GameCube) with better graphics than this.

What makes me say this? Let’s take a look. The attacks are my biggest complaint- they just don’t look like they do on the TV show or in the two Pokemon Stadiums. Is a simple move like Taunt or Confuse Ray supposed to look so overly magical? If yes, then lots of people are wrong in saying that this game looks better than the two Stadiums. If no, the attacks are poorly designed. Also, some of the attacks look just wrong. For example. when a Pokemon uses Fly, it usually only goes up maybe five or six feet into the air (as opposed to like 50 or 60 feet in the Pokemon Stadiums, and even more in the show). Most attacks would probably still hit it if it were flying only a few feet above ground...

But wait, the score of this category is 7/10. That means something is right about the graphics, doesn’t it? Yes; overall, I’d say the graphics of Story Mode are pretty good, just not as good as some of the other games I’ve played.

Music/Sound: 6/10

Basically the tunes from Ruby/Sapphire “Colosseum style” with several new tunes added, the music here is decent. The reason I took off some is because some of the battle themes can get annoying. The music used in most trainer battles in Story Mode, and battles 11-30 in the Mt. Battle challenge is the same (a pretty annoying tune, too), and by battle 25 or so, it REALLY starts to get on my nerves. I can hear some people humming the songs from Battle Mode during long hours in school, though.

Gameplay: 3/10

Surprised by the low score? So am I. Nintendo really made a good effort with this game, but they made a BIG mistake with Battle Mode. Battle Mode is basically Pokemon Stadium, but with two huge differences. One, you can now use Pokemon in Ruby/Sapphire, a HUGE upgrade from the Stadiums. I was looking forward to busting out my Gameboy Advance and using all those new Pokemon in 3D… but, there is also a huge downgrade as well. With Colosseum, there are no rental Pokemon! This means that if you have a level advantage or disadvantage against one of your friends (as I do), you’re out of luck. This automatically made the game less enjoyable.

The removal of rental Pokemon hurts Battle Mode in other aspects, too. It also cuts into the other ratings of the game, such as Difficulty and Replay Value (see below). One might argue that the rental Pokemon from the two Pokemon Stadiums were horrible and a waste of space, but my argument is a different one. If your Pokemon were at too high or too low a level to compete in a tournament, you’d be able to rent and still enter. Not in this game! That means the tournaments are hard to enter, let alone win. And that Mt. Battle 100-trainer challenge? That thing takes FOREVER to get through, and then Trainer #100 has a Kyogre, who’s so tough to beat that many will lose all their continues and have to start the WHOLE SHEBANG OVER. I mean, I could understand, if it was, say 50 trainers. But 100? Gosh, that’s like three times as much as the Gym Leader Castle! And you can’t even save (without deleting your save data when you resume)?

So that pretty much makes Story Mode the heart and soul of the game, and Battle Mode just a fun extra… fun being taken loosely. So what’s wrong with Story Mode? Well, I don’t like how this girl (you name her when you meet her) is always following your character around. I didn’t really mind this in Paper Mario, but something about it here… oh, and ALL of the battles in Story Mode are Double Battles (2 vs 2). I’m not saying this isn’t good, but of course more Single Battles would give it more variety. Also, confusion can be a pretty big problem in terms of gameplay (see Difficulty below).

I was, however, thrilled by a new addition to Story Mode. In Story Mode, you can actually steal Trainers’ Pokemon in the middle of battles (called “snagging”)! I mean, how cool is that? In all the previous Pokemon RPGs, if you threw a ball in the middle of a trainer battle, the trainer would block it (unless you had Gameshark). There are limits as to which Pokemon can be snagged, however. For example, they are usually Shadow Pokemon that you have to help anyway. Still, it’s better than having the trainer block your balls all the time!

Also, despite the annoyance of having the female character who points out Shadow Pokemon to you tagging along, she isn’t annoying all the time. It’s pretty funny to see her sometimes screaming in terror (as if on a roller coaster or something) during the video that plays when your character rides his motorcycle (at like 300 mph) to another town through the desert around huge boulders like some pod racer on wheels from Star Wars Episode 1 going through the Boonta Classic. I don’t know if this is funny to too many other people like it is to me, though, so I won’t raise the score too much because of this.

Replay Value: 4/10

I really hate to be giving this game so many low scores, considering how big a Pokemon fan I am, but here’s the problem. After you’ve beaten the head of Cipher, Evice, there really isn’t much left to do, since you’ll probably have most of the Shadow Pokemon by then. If you want to play it over again, you’ll have to trash your save file- just like the Pokemon games, Story Mode has only one save file. And as you’ve read above, Story Mode is the main part of this game. Battle Mode is where the replay comes in, and since the tournaments can only be entered with your own Pokemon, either from Story Mode or Ruby/Sapphire, it’s kinda hard to replay this game. Sure, veterans of Story Mode or Ruby/Sapphire will be replaying the tournaments even after they’ve become champions in all of them, but I’m setting this score to 4/10 whether my reason makes sense or not.

Difficulty:
Battle Mode: 10/10
Story Mode: 6/10

Arrrrrgh!!! I don’t hate this game, but I’ve got to tell the truth. Battle Mode is impossible. Period. No Rental Pokemon means you have to use your own Pokemon, all the time. This means that, as I’ve stated in Gameplay, first you have to go through the challenge of raising your Pokemon to Level 50, or even Level 100, just to be able to enter. And then, should you somehow be able to enter a tournament, you have to actually win it. Once you’ve entered, you ACTUALLY HAVE TO BEAT YOUR CHEATING COMPUTER OPPONENTS. Eight of them total, just like in Stadium. Single Battle and Double Battle. Lose with no continues and you start all over. There are two ????? tournaments to be unlocked, but I don’t know what they are, and I doubt I ever will. The only tournaments I’ve had a legitimate shot at are the Lv50 ones. The Lv100 Colosseums are nigh-unbeatable. As for the dreaded “Round 2” from the two Pokemon Stadiums, if it exists, I severely doubt I’ll ever unlock it. Ah well. It’ll be fun to hear about it, if someone really does unlock it.

As for Story Mode… lately I’ve been giving out high scores in difficulty, but Story Mode really isn’t that hard. Sure it’s hard, as it took me nearly forever to build up enough to face Cipher Admin Dakim. But really, Story Mode isn’t as hard as it is confusing. The game can really leave you clueless as to what to do in a lot of different places (kinda like Paper Mario and Super Mario RPG). But I’m not telling where those places are!

Size: 10/10

This is, if you think about it, one of the largest games on the GameCube. In fact, I’m afraid the reason there are no rental Pokemon is because there just wasn’t enough room for them! Story Mode alone takes up almost all of the available disk space, and Battle Mode’s tournaments and 100-trainer challenge seem to take up the rest. It’s pretty easy to feel overwhelmed when playing this game.

Fun Factor!: 5/10

Yikes. This is one thing Pokemon Colosseum falls short in, that prevents it from being one of the greatest. Story Mode is very cool, but I didn’t really find it as fun as Ruby/Sapphire, and of course Battle Mode is not much fun unless you’ve got Sharked Pokemon, and even then, you probably won’t beat your opponents (at least I couldn’t).

Recommendation: 8/10

Although I believe Pokemon Colosseum fails as the near-perfect sequel to the two Pokemon Stadiums, there are quite a few games out there that are not quite that good, but still present a great playing experience. This is where Pokemon Colosseum stands, and, despite the complaints I’ve listed in the above categories, if you played Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire and enjoyed it (and if you didn’t, there’s something wrong with you), I’d say you have a lot of explaining to do if you don’t go out and get this game right away. If you’re looking for the ultimate GameCube game to spend your $50 on, this game is not quite it, but if you’re a fan of Pokemon, by all means, you should add this game to your collection.

Overall: 7/10

This game is very cool in that it is almost like being two games in one, but it comes up short in the end. Two things stopped it from getting a perfect score: the Battle Mode fiasco, and confusion/boredom in Story Mode. But still, the game’s good. I’m trying to say the game is good except for those two things. If they hadn’t messed up Battle Mode like they did, this game would’ve definitely gotten a 10/10.

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