The day has finally come, it may have taken weeks, nay, months to finally finish and review this game. But the day has finally come. Everything here is moving a bit slower due to work and the looming shadow of Christmas on the very near horizon. So strap in this will probably be a long one, sorry, well I’m not really that sorry.
Pokemon Colosseum for me is still a childhood favourite, I’d even go as far as to say it’s my favourite Gamecube game, and that still holds even after replaying this past week.
This game does many of the same things as any other Pokemon game, but it does differ majorly as soon as you get to your first battle in Outskirt Stand in the Orre region which is only used in this game and XD Gale of Darkness. For starters this game all battles are double battles.
You don’t get to pick your starter Pokemon this time round, you start with a level 25 Espeon and 26 Umbreon. With the former being your best friend throughout this game. When you hit that sweet level 36 and unlock psybeam, life will truly become good.
Throughout the battles, as the area zooms in giving the world a bigger feel, and the battle seemingly more epic., the animations on the pokemon themselves are what really shine. Some of the moves still hold up animation wise, others not so much. But the movement leading up to the attack and the ragdoll on impact real sell the fight.
The game officially starts when you reach the first proper city, Phenac city. As you meet up with Yuki as I named her from the list but canonically known as Rui and you as Wes. Where you are informed she can see strange shadows coming off pokemon. Which leads onto runnig into the villians of the game. After a brief cutscene with Miror B and fighting his Peons. It gives way to the coolest feature of this game, Pokemon snagging. As there is no open/wild areas in this game your Pokemon party will be packed out by stealing others. As in a twist from the opening scene it turns out you stole the Snag machine from team Snagem and you use to be a member of them. What a twist, right? The snag machine turns a normal pokeball into a thieving type ball, this works on all the different variations that unlock as the game goes on.
I’d love to put in some vids here but alas, at my websites current level I cannot, but one day soon I shall be able too and who knows I may return to add them in, but probably not. Anyhow, the game furthers parts of the story through news updates on the flashing Tv’s which helps along the plot and what’s what. Another part what differs massively from the usual Pokemon formula is that this game is slightly more realistic and dark. The world is more detailed then usual and the fact is Shadow pokemon are artificially created when they close of the pokemons heart which allows them to attack people. And on top of that you just dead-ass steal other people’s pokemon mid battle.
This brings up a point i’ve never understood, it’s that you fight other trainers and the pay you for winning, fair enough. But the bad guys of each region also pay you when you beat them and foil their plan, it’s an odd morale compass the villians of the pokemon world have. But here they pay you after stealing their pokemon also, and their like, ‘oh well better luck next time.’ The fuck?. Not to mention the casual breaking and entering of all the homes you do and if you are lucky enough the owners are home and they reward you for trespassing. Truly weird.
Anyways shadow pokemon work differently in battle they don’t have an exp bar to begin with but they have a shadow count down bar or doorsto it’s heart. This depletes over time from walking,battling, and when they enter hyper-mode and you call them to snap them out of it,dropping a big chunk off.
Hyper mode here is fundamentally useless. All shadow pokemon start with one move shadow rush, standard damage but recoil damage on the user. Hyper-mode just makes it harder to hit but increases critical hit chance of it. You can only properly heal (purify) shadow pokemon in one of two ways. The first in Agate village once all the doors have been unlocked you can cure them and then they remember a new move, replacing shadow rush. They they then work/level up as normal, even evolving. Or number two use one of three in game time flutes which summon the mythical creature Celebi to purify any shadow pokemon regardless of their status. I’d recommend using them on the three legendary Beasts; Entei, Raikou and Suicune.
Now for the drawbacks, graphically not many I’d say. The walking/runninng animations are a bit wooden. People and stuff are oddly pointy but that’s more stylistic i’d assume. Gives it a more Manga style to the characters. Some of the pokemon look funky as anything, I’m looking at you Machop.
The Biggest and by far the worst is the lack of any wild area. Every town or village you go to is generally trainer heavy to make up for that which makes sense. And all the battling I’m fine with but what is a problem is there is only 48 shadow pokemon to steal, some of which are an odd choice, and level locked until they are purified which doesn’t happen for over a third of the game. Meaning more often then not your team even if a good team are trash as every boss battle you reach they are likely 4/5 levels higher and will fuck up most your team most the time. Meaning you need to be well stocked up on health items. So you spend alot which is wank with the amount you tend to win form battles. Then comes, you can only save at PC which are at PC centres and sparringly dotted about, which is anoying paired with the item limit you can carry. So you need to swap stuff around from time to time. And the absolute worst is the snag/catch rates. My good God sometimes they are utter shit. You will sometimes have your team wiped trying to catch a Yanma, Stantler or even a Delibird so nothing even worth your time, and it will be sleeping and with 1 health and 5 ultra balls later it still won’t catch.
Level grinding is hard as well, as there is only one Exp share to be found in the game, and only a few rare candies. With the low exp you win from the same trainers over and over being underlevelled without random battles as normal makes for a bad time. The best place to do this though is Mt Battle which is 100 levels of trainers and if you are willing to purify all 48 shadow pokemon in game and reach the top you get the opportunity to catch Ho-oh. Which obviously cool being the second best Legendary behind Rayquaza, is pointless as by the point you’ve done everything in the game. Other then trading to one of the GBA pokemon titles it bears no real purpose.
Whilst probably still sitting as my favourite Gamecube still, and unlikely to be dethroned at any point it pains me to give this only a 7/10. So still certified Positively Tasty. For good animations, incredibly cool snag feature. Fun and varied battling in every area, admittedly sometimes hard but engaging boss battles. But ultimately drawn back at being needlessly level locked for a good chunk of the game,lack of pokemon, and hard level grinding due to lack of wild areas and I prefer the earlier games before all party members got battle Exp like in the newer games.
Nintendo Gamecube.
May 14th 2004
TastyRetroGaming 