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Apparently, we’ve been spelling “coliseum” wrong all these years.
When it comes to the Pokemon franchise, Nintendo has been treating the Game Boy owners very pleasantly while giving console owners bits and pieces. The Game Boy has seen three full-fledged “chapters” in the Pokemon series. These have been complete with Pokemon raising, capturing and everything else that makes a Pokemon game a, well, Pokemon game. On the other hand, console owners were given 3D battling games, a picture-taking safari, and some personal time with the infamous Pikachu. Pokemon Colosseum attempts to remedy this by giving us the first true 3D Pokemon game. But does it deliver on its promise?
The gameplay of Colosseum differs from the typical stories of the GBA games in a number of ways. For one, instead of starting out as a new trainer, you take control of an experienced trainer. Second, you won’t find random battles with wild Pokemon that you can catch. Instead, you’ll have to essentially steal Shadow Pokemon from other trainers. You see, you play as someone who has discovered that Team Snagem is using techniques to close the hearts of Pokemon in order to make them more powerful. You set out, with the help of a friend, to stop Team Snagem’s plan and unlock the hearts of these abused Pokemon.
The game’s single-player portion is based on catching these Shadow Pokemon then purifying them, so you can in turn catch more Shadow Pokemon. To purify the hearts of the Shadow Pokemon, you’ll need to battle with them. Instead of gaining experience, you’ll slowly open their hearts. Once you fully open their heart, they will gain experience, and get stronger allowing you to snag stronger Shadow Pokemon.
You’ll get a good twenty or so hours of playing the game and capturing the various Pokemon you can find. As Pokemon fans know, you can’t trade Pokemon from the GB/GBC editions (Red/Blue/Yellow, Gold/Silver/Crystal) with Sapphire or Ruby. Most of the Pokemon found in Colosseum are from Gold/Silver/Crystal which means you can then trade them into your GBA version of Sapphire or Ruby, thereby expanding your Pokedex.
For fans of the Nintendo 64 Stadium games, Nintendo included a Battle Mode. Here, you’ll take your new, unlocked Pokemon, or those from the GBA version you can link up to, and battle with them. You can also face up to three human opponents in the Battle Mode. The only problem is that they need to play with their GBA, a copy of either Ruby or Sapphire and a link cable. And even when they have all that, they’ll be limited since the console player can have the game display much more information than the GBA players can.
When it comes to graphics, the game fails a bit. The Pokemon models aren’t particularly well-modeled and strongly resemble those of the Nintendo 64 Stadium titles. Even though the models aren’t that great, they do suffice and are animated very well. Nintendo went ahead and gave the attacks a bunch of new effects to make sure we know this is a Gamecube game. Nonetheless, they cheat a little since you’ll never see the Pokemon actually touch each other. When it comes to the overall art style though, Colosseum does an excellent job. The various places you’ll visit in the game are very varied and show much creativity on Nintendo’s part.
Colosseum’s orchestra-sounding background music fits the game’s style very well. The sound package falters when you hear the rudimentary voice samples that the Pokemon are given. Instead of hearing the Pokemon speak their name, (like Pikachu’s famous Pika! Pika!), you’ll hear some mumbled 8-bit sample. It’s quite disappointing since there is probably tons of space left in the Gamecube disc and a good number of the samples could have been pulled from the cartoon series.
Colosseum is definitely the best 3D Pokemon game we have played. Nonetheless, you can’t shake the feeling that this isn’t a true Pokemon game. Battling is only a fraction of what makes the Game Boy games special, and although Colosseum expands on this, it doesn’t do the Game Boy games justice. The lack of an overworld and the random battles subtract from the Pokemon experience. Still, Pokémon Colosseum shows that Nintendo can make a great 3D Pokemon game. For the next game all Nintendo needs to add some of that exploration and maybe some better production battles, and they will possibly make the best Pokemon game.
BradyGames Guide Available -- Jose Liz, PGNx Media
---- Apr 12, 2004
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