Pokemon Stadium suffered a transformation when it moved to next-gen systems where they took things a different direction. Pokemon Colosseum the name makes sense as a name of the follow up, a bigger Stadium title. XD Gale of Darkness and Battle Revolution not as much but they’re all by the same developer even if they changed directions. In a way they are a step forward while taking two steps back. They are great at what they do but lack features that they needed. Let’s me walk you through.
Pokemon Colosseum
The name would imply it’d be a Stadium sequel perhaps bigger, when they revealed it would have a story mode eveyrone seemed very excited. That is until it was let known that it wouldn’t include the other extras you came to like from Stadium. You’d still be able to battle with your GBA monsters but no bells and whistles. The main selling point was the story, gone were all the other features from the original game. Opinions were mixed but it fels like a decent trade off. It was billed as a more mature story and it was a new way to take a look at the Pokemon world. I preordered my copy from Pokemon Centery NY and got the Jirachi bonus disc and an exclusive T-Shirt.
Another reason why the game existed was so you could complete the national Pokedex. Generation 3 was not compatible with the previous 2 so the only way to get some of the missing Gen 2 Pokemon would be through this game. That’s the whole reason shadow Pokemon existed and could be caught. Overall the actual game has its ups and downs, it does feel different from your typical Pokemon mainline entry but the fact that there are no wild areas it mostly feels like just going from town to town and battling people in between. The lack of adventures in between to break that makes it feel a bit monotonous. Even then, it provided a fun adventure while also allowing you to see your game boy Pocket Monsters in 3D.
Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness
Near the end of the Gamecube’s life we got another entry, but there’s a reason almost no one bought it. By this point Gen 3 had already been out for a long time and you could already capture all the Nationaldex Pokemon and had Colosseum to play in 3D. And yet this entry was still made by offering a new story mode. This time the 3D battle mode at least has some options even if not cups exactly. In the game you still go through the different Colosseums since it takes place in the same region of Orre. XD stood for Extra Dimension and the big selling point was Shadow Lugia, sadly if you purified him he’d become a normal Lugia, I think we all wanted to keep him evil. At least we got a cool TCG promo card for it.
The story mode is much improved as is the adventure so it makes it interesting to go through even if the characters are not as iconic as the first entry. It still gave you an interesting selection that if you had missed say the Gen 1 remakes you could get some of those through here. It felt less needed of an entry but you do get the opportunity to interact first with some Gen 4 Pokemon Bonsly and Snorlax which actually felt really cool. Oh an Deoxys had forms now.
Pokemon Battle Revolution
For Generation 4 we did get a new entry now on the Wii, first announced by a really cool CG teaser that made expectations way too high, especially with what happened. It got a new title, and a generic one at that. Yet this game uses the theme of Colosseums far more than the previous two titles did. They were quick to say that it would no longer include a story mode which was a sad loss but if we could return to the glory of the Stadiujm days it could be but alas that didn’t came to be either even if it did feel like it was trying to.
We finally have structured cups again in a 3D home console Pokemon game, this was a big win after the bare modes in the previous two games. Not only that but after not having an announcer in battles, we get one back. All the new Pokemon look great while some of the older ones are just recycling models for the most part either from the Gen 3 games or even Gen 2 and Gen 1 Stadium from 1995, yikes. It’s somehow not bad though. You also for the first time get to customize your Pokemon trainer and buy items for it, not only that but you get to see your actual trainer in fights now which is something fans had wanted since the original games.
You now go through Colosseums and fight the Colosseum leaders, Masters until you reach the Master of them all. It all sounds good except that this only feels like one small part of Stadium, it doesn’t have anything else to offer, no story mode, no mini games, no Gym leader castle, etc. It really feels barebones. Since it never got an update later forms that were created can’t show up here properly though at least all Gen 4 games are able to be used. For all the things it does right, it just feels like a hollow victory with the stuff it had to leave behind.
Now I did promise some lore, we were told Orre was this far away land which is why it’s nothing like the other Pokemon games. This region was meant to be canon at the time. Both Colosseum and XD take place in Orre and share most of the same map. Battle Revolution takes place in Pokétopia an island for battling, however the main theme of Orre actually plays when you battle the Colosseum Master who is the final boss. There’s a clear coast line in Orre so I believe Poketopia is an island next to Orre.
While storage ended up in separate apps over the years, we got some other games that had mini games, it wasn’t the same. After this trilogy we got nothing for Generation 5, in general the fandom wasn’t very big so it was few of us asking for a 3D Pokemon game for consoles where we could battle it out. With Generation 6 and above they said since the games were already 3D it wasn’t necessary but that was wrong, it was also about seeing your Pokemon on the big screen. With Generation 8 finally bringing portable Pokemon games to the big screen it finally felt like it was no longer needed. But now we have a new spiritual successor with Pokemon Champions but that is its own thing.