Pokemon is one of the franchises that made the Game Boy a heavy hitter in the world of video games. From seven full-out RPG style games, to spin-offs such as Pokemon Pinball: Ruby/Sapphire, the Game Boy system pretty much received the brunt of the titles. What about the home console world? Well, Pokemon fans have been pretty much been given the shaft here. The entire line-up consists of Pokemon Stadium and Stadium 2, which were little more than prettied up battle arenas for the N64. You’re charging me $60 just to see Pokemon duke it out in 3D? No, thank you. Pokemon Snap was just taking pictures of Pokemon while riding on a rail, which can barely be classified as a game. Then there was Pokemon Channel which was more of an insult to fans than a real game.
So, when do the console owners get to see their favorite Pokemon in the next generation world without having to purchase half-games? Well, Pokemon Colosseum is your animal.
Initially, I suspected Pokemon Colosseum was going to be little more than the GameCube version of Pokemon Stadium; a really expensive way to watch an animated version of your Pokemon fight. So, when the first videos began to trickle out and I saw a character moving about in a world, my hopes elevated ever so slightly. I was still expecting some slapped on addition to make it feel like there was more of a game than just battling through arenas. I still bit the bait and made the purchase. 30 hours later, I was ever so surprised. Not only is Pokemon Colosseum not just some spruced up version of Pokemon Stadium, it sports a full-on RPG experience.
Pokemon Colosseum is similar to the previous Pokemon games. You’re given a character which you maneuver around the world, speak with characters, and initiate battles; anyone who has played the previous titles will get into this one quickly. The main issue in actual navigation is the introduction of a camera. The other RPG style titles were entirely top-down formats, but Pokemon Colosseum has an uncontrolled camera that follows its own path. Mostly this cuts down on the irritant of trying to find the right camera angle, but in many locations the preset angle is poor. A good example is in Agate Village, where there is a path that leads behind a house to get to an item. While the character himself can see the path plain as day, the player cannot as the camera angles have hidden it from view. I stumbled over it purely by accident.
At the beginning of the game you meet up with this girl who is capable of seeing the black aura that identifies Shadow Pokemon (more on this later). After getting this character, she proceeds to follow you around for the rest of the game. There is a slight problem with this, not in terms of getting stuck, which hardly matters as events still happen if she gets hung up on something and will appear behind you between areas, but the issue is that characters are solid. While this is not an issue with other NPC characters who are well placed so you can navigate around them with ease, the tag-along tends to become a nuisance. As she follows within a character step length behind you, this leaves little room for error. There are a few corners and dead ends in the game. If you go down one, well, now you have to get out. The problem is, you speed is halved while you attempt to shove this girl back down the entire corridor. Same goes with getting out of rooms you did not intend to go into as well as stairwells. Some small rooms are even more of an issue as you can get her hung up on things when shoving and have to start the process over again.
The battles are little different than the Game Boy versions. The Orre region apparently only allows 2 on 2 battles as I’ve never once come across a 1 on 1. You meet face to face with the opponent, chose your two Pokemon, and then duke it out. Colosseum is still turn based, with initiative determined by Pokemon speed and any held items that may affect initiative, such as the Macho Brace or Quick Claw. You still select one of four moves and watch the fun ensue. A major difference, though, is the Call feature. When Pokemon fall asleep or go into Hyper Mode (I’ll get into this later as well) all you have to do is call them to snap them out of it. This kind of destroys the power of the Sleep ability which can easily be counteracted on the next round and is little more effective than stopping the opposing Pokemon for one or two rounds, depending on if it is faster than yours or not. This is really ironic as you can still buy Awakening, which would help only if the Pokemon you want to waste the action turn on happens to be the one that is not asleep. The entire run feature has been removed, but the punishment for losing is pretty much gone. The Pokemon fan will remember that if you lose, you white out and lose half your current funds. Colosseum doesn’t punish you for losing, as I’ve not lost any money from a loss.
The world navigation between areas is delegated to a checkpoint system. This is kind of troubling to me to see more and more RPG titles move to the checkpoint system away from the traditional overworld. It removes the ability to hide in little extras and destroys the feeling that you are in control. So, you select a waypoint and watch the cut scene of you on your kickin’ V8 motorcycle thing and then arrive at the new town. I’m sure you’re wondering how to catch Pokemon at this point. There is no overworld, no tall grass or oceans to wander about waiting for random battles. This is where the whole game takes another twist. Your character is a former member of a group of thugs called Team Snagem. They have developed a Snag Machine that allows Pokeballs to catch other trainers’ Pokemon. Your character, either not liking what they are up to or after the glory himself, busts in and steals the only prototype and destroys all research in the process. Colosseum delegates you to a position of basically stealing Pokemon from enemy trainers. Unfortunately, you have your girlfriend following you around (the one that sees the Shadow Pokemon); she acts as your conscience and holds you back from stealing non-Shadow Pokemon. So, you have to find the right trainers then take the right Pokemon, which severely limits how many critters you can obtain. It also limits your training options to battling in some arenas or taking the Battle Mountain challenge to train your Pokemon to new heights.
The story behind Pokemon Colosseum is far deeper than any Game Boy incarnation. That doesn’t really say much as the Game Boy versions are little more than you building yourself up to be the region’s Pokemon Master with a little world-saving tossed in as an afterthought. You aren’t even interested in becoming some regional master in Pokemon Colosseum. Your job now is still saving the world, but doing it by capturing Shadow Pokemon (which were basically tortured) cleansing them back to regular guys, and THEN using them to take down the big evil. It still follows a gym leader style progression by battling tougher and tougher Cypher Administrators (sort of officers of the evil group) building up to the final boss, but the trip there is a bit more interesting. I’m not going to give any more away; the rest is up to you.
Visuals range from very impressive to just plain average. The Pokemon models are very well designed. They have impressive animation and the poly count is impressive as well. The range of animations is a bit limited though. Each one has its hit animation, rebound animation, physical attack animation, faint animation, and non-physical attack animation. There is little variation between them even with different attacks. Hariyama’s animation for a Cross Chop and Seismic Toss both look like a sumo charge. Though you can understand the lack of animation for each Pokemon when you realize they had to do this for around 260 different Pokemon. 200 from Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire, the bonus Pokemon Jirachi you can get from the pre-order disk, and another 60 or so that are in the Colosseum game itself. All told, you are looking at around 1,300 separate animations for Pokemon attacks. I don’t know of any other game on the market that can even say they have that many different animations. The most impressive part of the visuals are the attack effects. The GameCube’s full power was really tapped here. Water, fire, psychic, and many other attacks are just impressive to see. The effect Sunny Day puts the battlefield through a nice heat wave effect. Rain Dance brings down a storm that looks quite real.
The other visuals in the game need a lot of work though. Texture work is very limited in scope and the human models are pathetic in comparison to the Pokemon models. Human models are blocky and have weak and jerky movement animations of their own. Overworld dust and water effects are very impressive though, so are the few instances of lighting.
The sound department is a half-and-half effort. The music is rather well done, with re-mixed renditions of identifiable tunes such as the PokeCenter tune and the healing tune, plus a few new ones. The battle effects are also quite impressive. The weakness comes in the form of the Pokemon noises. They designers simply dragged the sound file from the Ruby/Sapphire and called it a day. In their defense, putting together another 260 or so new sounds would have been hard indeed, but hearing a Game Boy-quality sound pop out of my well rendered Pokemon model is not good business.
The main game will take up about 30 hours of your time. There is also the Colosseum mode that allows you to import your team over from Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire and play against friends or compete in one of the various arenas they have set up, such as the Battle Mountain Challenge which pits you against 100 consecutive trainers or level based challenges.
Overall, Pokemon Colosseum was a bit of a surprise, since the expectation was little more than Pokemon Stadium: GameCube. While it is a little rough in the sound department, a few of the visuals are off, and it has slight limitations on how you can obtain your Pokemon, Colosseum is a worthy of a Pokemon fan’s time. This is the full-on console RPG many Pokemon fans have been clamoring for.
