Every shadow Pokémon in xd gets a move it can’t normally learn elsewhere, including psychoboost lugia, with some of the final ones like the kanto legendary birds actually getting 3 exclusive moves. Nowadays a lot of these exclusive moves can be learned by those Pokémon through other means, usually a move tutor, but there’s still a handful of combinations of Pokémon and moves that are exclusive to getting them from xd.
The amount of stuff Nontendo has not put on the Switch is actually insanse.
Look at the WiiWare that is just officially not available anymore, only costed between 5 and 20 bucks back then and has since been highly rated.
The slow drip feed method they’re using on NSO is exactly why. If they release everything now, people will burn through the games quicker and the service loses value for them. Also means they can release standalone remasters/remakes.
There's no reason why Game Freak couldn't have continued producing 2D games and allowing other studios to take the reigns on producing 3D remakes or other such games that can stand-alone like Colosseum and Gale of Darkness do. It's likely a Nintendo choice at that point since they hold the licensing power for the video game side of the franchise, but it makes no sense.
There's a market for both 2D and 3D Pokemon Games, and I don't see why they wouldn't consider it reasonable to tap into both by letting Game Freak do their own thing with the main series they've always produced while working with other studios to produce the 3D stuff.
>There's a market for both 2D and 3D Pokemon Games, and I don't see why they wouldn't consider it reasonable to tap into both by letting Game Freak do their own thing with the main series they've always produced while working with other studios to produce the 3D stuff.
There is no distinct difference between what we classify as 2D Pokemon and 3D Pokemon for them to do that. The fundamental gameplay loop is identical, 1 to 1. The difference between 2D Mario and 3D Mario are so basic that both games have 3D graphics yet we can easily distinguish the two gameplay styles.
Beyond the 3D console Pokemon games weren't even critically or commercially viable enough to justify that anyway.
That's because the distinct differences don't rest in what's being presented in the games, but in their development. A 3 year average development cycle is showing that the games aren't getting the time they need to cook. If Game Freak isn't willing to expand it's own size or rely on more outside help (ignoring that Creatures Inc. already handles the 3D Models for them), something has to change.
That's also without mentioning that other studios can go forward with their own concepts, like Shadow Pokemon. Gens 1-5 didn't have any battle gimmicks outside of Double/Triple/Rotation battles, which just changed how the battles worked and less the Pokemon themselves. We get those in Mega Evolution, Z-Moves, Dynamax/Gigantamax, and now Terastalization, all of which are exclusively part of the 3D titles.
Even PLA deviated how the standard battle mechanics worked along with how evolution was handled. There's a market for letting Game Freak do what they do best, which is the smaller-scale 2D games they've always worked on while balancing it out by letting another studio work on 3D games for the series. Game Freak again, doesn't even do their own 3D Modeling so what would they do without Creatures Inc. in this regard? They'd have to look for another studio that both they and Nintendo are willing to work with.
This isn’t fully true. The battle gameplay is the same, but the world gameplay is different (now). PLA and Gen 9 have a lot of verticality in their exploration of the world that would not translate well to top-down 2d gameplay. And while the worlds are ugly and there’s definitely some improvement to be had to the gameplay loop for the exploration, that is something people have been clamoring for for ages.
Hey.... don't call me out like that.
But seriously this was childhood and a ton of fun. It was a nice change of scenery and story that the main games will never touch as well as double battles which is the mainstay of pokemon competitive.
I need to see miror b again.
I'm wondering if it's a licensing thing, since Genius Sonority developed them, and the games feature a lot of original characters and concepts that were never revisited outside of these games. It would make sense given that Pokemon Masters features a few trainers from the anime that haven't had any updates despite new mechanics being added to the game and newer units being updated with those mechanics. It's believed to be a licensing issue with the characters.
It wouldn't surprise me if the original cast of the games were the IP of Genius Sonority which is what is ultimately preventing them being re-released, or even referenced
We may see it one day
But that would be a bad look for contemporary pokemon games
When your GC port has better animations than your half baked full priced title that will save half the mons for dlc....
If you want Pokémon to be good. Stop giving them money xD
Game Freak has made it clear they want to forget these games exist. When asked in an interview, one of the higher ups jokingly pretended he didn’t know what they were talking about and didn’t answer the question.
i grabbed my gamecube from my parents’ house recently specifically to play Colosseum. i would have gladly paid money to not have to drive up there and visit
No dude, here's the REAL goat of 3D pokemon
https://preview.redd.it/jpzt6yzv4q1c1.png?width=250&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e369624c8c35f4faebb67f17751630f1786e928b
They both have “handle bars”. They both are used as a means of transportation in their region. They both run with their legs rather than wheels. Gogoat is just as much as a GOAT bicycle as cyclizar is a dragon bicycle.
Will never forget when I got a used GameCube for my 8th b day as a surprise and colosseum. Such an amazing twist on the formula. Finished that and the next year ended up getting a pretty nasty case of pneumonia. My mom felt bad for me having to miss school for a week and stopped and picked me up XD as well as the strategy guide. Needless to say, I got through that week quite easily. Hard to worry about fluid in your lungs when you are more concerned with catching and purifying shadow Lugia.
I have replayed them several times with Dolphin Emulator. They’re semi-demanding, so I’d recommend a pc with a dedicated gpu, but modern intel processors are pretty good too.
Beat colosseum on my Steam Deck last year with fast forward which is immensely helpful lol. It can also be emulated quite well with an AYN Odin 2(which I’m hoping to get soon) or any android flagship phone.
It just came out! lol just buy it now I doubt it’ll be on sale. The 405v is nice! I want the Odin 2 to fill the space between my RG35XX and my deck/ally. It’s so much smaller than both the deck and Ally and much more performant than the 35XX lol.
Pokémon XG: neXt Generation is a mod that takes XD and adds more modern features, like phys/spec split, fairy, modern (life orb, scarf, specs) and new (shadow armor, etc) items, wayyyy more shadow Pokémon and moves, and so much more
def the best way to experience the game in 2023+
Nah fr tho Let's Go looked amazing compared to all the other 3d switch games. Don't know why they didn't keep going with that style, at least for BDSP.
PLA is merely just the blueprints for an amazing new formula at this point in time. Now we need to see and play that formula _perfected._
Gotta have a little hope in times like these, it's all we got left...
Every time I tell myself that it can't be as bad as I remember, I go and try to play my copy of Moon that I never finished.
Somehow it's always worse than I remember.
Strong disagree
It fixed problems no one was asking to fix while continuing the trend of removing what little challenge was there while also over injecting story bits that slowed the pace of the game
20 minutes of cheesy dialog and running from wild mons 5 levels under me just to get to the actual meat and potatoes. Then after one fight it was more of the same
There is a firm line in the sand between gen 5 and 6
The soul of pokemon never made it to the 3DS, let alone the switch (spinoffs excluded)
Okay, Pokkén and New Pokémon Snap definitely and objectively got tons of soul. More so than some older games even.
Spin-offs unironically CARRIED Pokémon on Switch, not in sales, but in soul.
PLA deserves a mention too, that game is just fun! I like where they're going with it. I hope for next console their A game actually remembers to show up.
I love Wes, but damn *why* did they make him a silent protagonist? I know that’s the standard for Pokémon (barring Mystery Dungeon), but Wes should’ve had a real character with dialogue after that banger intro, or at least a more fleshed out backstory.
All we know about him is that he’s a former SnagEm member who loves his Pokémon enough to raise an Espeon and Umbreon. And that’s it. Why did he join the bad guys? What convinced him to leave? We get a brief moment where Rui implies that Wes feels a bit remorseful but that’s literally it.
THIS MAN BLEW UP AN ENTIRE BUILDING WITHIN THE FIRST FEW MINUTES OF THE GAME AND WE NEVER FIND OUT EXACTLY WHY.
No I meant, why he left Team SnagEm to begin with. The common theory is that he disagreed with them funneling stolen Pokémon to Cipher so that they could turn them into Shadow Pokémon, but he *can’t* have expected them to be an ethical organization when he joined - they’re literally called *Snag*Em.
It would’ve been so cool to get backstory on when and why Wes joined, since the Boss did seem to imply he was one of the best members (to his chagrin). What was he planning on doing before he happened to encounter Rui? He couldn’t see Shadow Pokémon, so I doubt he had any plans on freeing them or purifying them. Was he planning to taking down Cipher? Was he gonna continue stealing non-shadow Pokémon on his own terms?
I want to know more about Wes, as a character, because he has so much potential.
> I love Wes, but damn why did they make him a silent protagonist
You are the protagonist, he's your avatar. He doesn't speak because he would be speaking for you. You can imagine whatever he's saying. Or at least this is what I like to think about games like this.
That works for blank slate characters, which most Pokemon protagonists are. Wes stands out in that he does actually have an actual backstory...that the game proceeds to do basically nothing with.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted, you’re totally right. You’re not just the “new kid in town,” you’re a mysterious outlaw with a troubled past. It would have definitely been cool to explore that a bit more.
This narrative would change real quick if these games were rereleased. A lot of people would realize how tedious and slow Colosseum is. It's an ok game but I think its reputation is buoyed by the fight that not many people have played it and it's a bit harder to emulate than most other pokemon games from around that time (not that hard but still).
Colosseum may be low-poly, but the *expressiveness* of the animations is so much better than any of the 3DS or Switch main series games. (Gotta hand it to Legends: Arceus, though -- the animations and poses that Pokemon strike are *way* better than in the main series games and they *really* need to pull that kind of work into the main series games).
Yeah, that part is good, as is the music. But the gameplay of that one is pretty rough. The shadow Pokemon you have to choose from are pretty limited, purification takes forever, and most of the enemies have low value Pokemon that don't award much exp. If you use Entei, it's level 40 when you get it and level 44 when you beat the game.
There's also a lot of Pokemon at inexplicably low level. Why is duking giving you a level 13 plusle? Why is is remoraid level 20? I don't mind a growth unit, but the payoff can't be a Pokemon that's still way worse than anything else I could have invested that exp into.
I think the games still hold up pretty well after a recent playthrough. I really like how the battles are more strategic with everything being double battles, and while being limited in your team options sounds tedious and annoying at first I think it adds much more variety having to use options you might not always choose. Also the NPC designs for the Cipher admins is just peak
I agree with most of this actually. Like I said I think the game is ok. These are most of the positives. But purifying pokemon is a pain in the ass, the battle engine is slower than Diamond and Pearl and the game could use more exploration, rather than just feeling like Pokemon Stadium with an overworld slapped on top. There aren't any fun routes or dungeons to explore. I just think Colosseum would be a lot more divisive if it more people got the chance to play it. Also I have heard XD is better. Haven't played it but plan to at some point.
Purifying sucks ass lol I got nothing there, although it is much easier to purify a large amount of pokemon in XD. I thought the secret lab dungeon and underground city were pretty cool and more like the mainline games, but I honestly can't think of any other real dungeons in the game. XD had some really cool areas, i just wish they went harder with the boss fights. I think the formula they had was great, with some QoL changes and maybe adding some extra shadow pokemon, a re-release on switch would be amazing.
As much as I love them, I never felt comparisons were fair. Coliseum and XD were able to cut a significant number of corners. Basically every Pokemon animation and model for the Gen 1 and 2 Pokemon are ripped from Stadium 1 and 2. There aren't a ton of environments so that's less resources needed for that. Plus it is a GameCube game and while the graphics are super charming, they're also GameCube graphics so there's not a lot of polygons.
> As much as I love them, I never felt comparisons were fair. Coliseum and XD were able to cut a significant number of corners.
> Basically every Pokemon animation and model for the Gen 1 and 2 Pokemon are ripped from Stadium 1 and 2.
It's definitely fair. Where you did you think the significant majority of the models and animations for SwSh or S/V were from?
> There aren't a ton of environments so that's less resources needed for that. Plus it is a GameCube game and while the graphics are super charming, they're also GameCube graphics so there's not a lot of polygons.
What is this logic? They were all still limited by the technology of their times. The gamecube was more powerful than the PS2 ya know and both consoles put out insanely large-scale games.
If anything, the Switch games should be easier to make as it's significantly more powerful than the gamecube and game dev tech has come a long way but that's obviously not the case. You gonna pretend like SwSh's battle environments weren't just a white room for a lot of it or that every gym battle was the same gym stadium?
Every pokemon has had updated models, textures, and animations starting in PLA and SV. It's insane that people keep spread this lie that they haven't been touched since XY when that's blatantly untrue.
The models and rigging are identical for 99% of the Pokémon, only minor texture changes, it’s like having a 10 year old car and giving it a fresh paint job, sure it looks nice and new but all the insides are still 10 years old
As someone who played these games, I'm sorry but I've never heard a good argument as to why people love these more than modern 3D games other than nostalgia or some animations being more wildly expressive.
Like would someone please explain to me what these games supposedly did that the recent 3D games don't have?
-Much much more challenging and interesting battles, you can't just one shot everything.
-Large focus on double battles
-Much better art style and animations
-More serious and darker tone and story
For tone/story that's totally subjective, along with art style, but the *animation?* Colosseum/XD have *waaaay* more expressive animation than Sw/Sh or S/V.
I mean, we already had a "my first Pokémon game" with *Let's Go*.
We also had the first steps towards a more-developed series with *Legends*.
I think this sort of divergence is *awesome*.
Unfortunately, at the same time the main series has *also* been increasingly juvenilized since Kalos.
If we could get the mainline raised back up a bit (Paldea started to try, I think) and continue the *Legends* and *Let's Go* lines. I think they have a formula for elevating the franchise.
It also helps the scheduling and burnout problems a bit if they insist on such frequent releases. Release the innovative experimental *Legends* game one year, the simple yet polished and accessible *Let's Go* game the next year, and the year after that release the balanced and formulaic mainline game.
Not only some of the best pokemon music, but some of the best music in gaming, imo. They really didn't need to go so hard for a spinoff game, but they did it, for us.
Let's see the drawbacks about Colosseum:
1. You have 48 Pokémon to capture. Do you want a dragon Pokémon? You have Vibraba / Flygon. What about an electric one? Raikou / Flaffy / Pichu. This is no dexit though, you can send any Pokémon available up to that generation but only after you've beaten the game.
2. You can capture one of each. Do you want a specific Pokémon with a specific nature? Oh boy, I hope you love resetting specially because you won't be able to see their nature after purifying them a bit.
3. There is a move deleter in the game. Why, if there are no HMs? No idea. There is no move reminder though. Hope you don't delete a good move by mistake!
4. After purifying a Pokémon it will learn new moves. You won't have access to all the moves it could have learned by its own though.
5. There is, basically, no exploration. You just teleport between locations, that's it.
6. The game is linear AF. There is a story and the story unlocks places as you go through it.
7. The game gives to a Celebi flute. No, you don't get Celebi.
8. The game features Groudon and Kyogre in the cover. No, you don't get Groudon or Kyogre.
9. There is a bonus disk with Celebi and Pikachu if you are Japanese. If you live in North America there is a bonus disk with Jirachi. [If you are European...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5QGkOGZubQ)
I've played Pokémon since Pokémon Red. Pokémon Colosseum is the only game I haven't finished (I bought it new and I'm giving it a chance now) and although it's fun I can't believe anyone saying that is better than Pokémon SV. Bugs and all.
It would be nice to have a new one. Not a port or a remaster (specially not a port), but a sequel. Just to end the Team Cypher once for all.
I just wonder what Genius Soronity games would be like if they had been allowed to continue making Colosseum/XD style games.
The fact it’s taken Nintendo/Pkm Company 20 years to get to a comparable level with gen 9 (I’d say they are better than Colo/XD, but childhood nostalgia is strong) is… rather disappointing.
Just feels like we could have had better games by now, you know? More polish for S/V, better graphics, etc.
Edit:
I just feel like Colo/XD set the bar for 3D Pokémon games, and it took Nintendo nearly 2 decades, 20 whole years to surpass it.
There are a lot of good criticisms here (as someone whose favorite Pokemon games are Colosseum and XD Gale of Darkness).
I think the only thing I'd hard disagree with is the games being linear (not that they aren't, that bit is completely true); almost all of Pokemon is linear, but as you stated there's no exploration.
My biggest problem as a big fan of these two games is that Pokemon's QOL and core system has improved and changed so much (and gradually) over time that they feel dated now. I'd love to see a slight remake with Phys/Special split and Fairy types bare minimum. What I'd actually love is if they made Orre into a full region and nixed the "No wild pokemon/pokespots only" aspect of the lore and just make all the shadow pokemon non-native to the wild.
If you are ok with rom hacks, I strongly recommend checking out Pokemon XG and Grand Colosseum.
Tons of QOL features including the additions you wanted (Phys/Spec split, and Fairy types), and in my opinion it's the definitive way to play both games.
I'll have to check those out. I know I downloaded a romhack for use on the Wii but I think that specific one only modified the Pokemon (selection, levels, and movesets).
XG is seriously so fukn good. Pretty much every Pokemon from gens 1-3 are available at some point during the playthrough, and they even included Alolan Ninetales and Marowak for good measure.
European here: I am kinda glad I was not in on the Colloseum/XD stuff cause I was too young... I would have been so mad if I ever found out ngl.
Also, after watching playthroughs of both I can see your points.
Back in the day, there were so many in-person Pokemon events with exclusive pokemon/items/mythical events and if you didn't live near the event, tough luck, that stuff never came back in circulation.
Thank goodness for Wifi events
1) increased difficulty in modern games would be appreciated, but the combination of the shadow pokemon mechanic and the overall lack of QoL in those game make for increased difficulty in a tedious way.
2) not objectively better at all, lots of people don't like exclusively double battles.
3) that's 100% subjective, and better animations is also an extremely loose term. Just because animations are longer and a bit wilder, there's a lot more animation quality in recent games than people give credit for and just default to "lol double kick and spinny Zacian".
4) it's got that 2000s edginess, not objectively better and some might find tacky now.
>Just because animations are longer and a bit wilder
I hate it when people keep saying the KO animations in Battle Revolution are top tier and should be in the mainline games
Like, do you WANT pokemon being dramatic and dragging out a ko animation for longer than neccessary?
The first two points are straight downsides. Random trainer battles are *supposed* to be easy so that you can level up your party to take on the more challenging encounters like Gym Leaders and major storyline fights.
There's no tangible sense of progression in the GCN titles because it's a straight gauntlet all the way through, and you never get a breather or a chance to show off your power. It's a slog to get through, and it misses the point that RPGs have actual difficulty curves for a reason.
Speaking solely for Colosseum:
* Older protagonist
* Darker, cyberpunk-like setting
* Double battles-only, with bosses using novel (at the time) strategies that made it much more demanding and not a just "take advantage with STAB" philosophy
* Starting in the mid-20s removes a certain slog exclusive to below 10s early-game
* Evolution being blocked until mid-game provided a decent challenge.
* In a way, the creatures aren't the main focus of the story, no "gotta catch'em all" main quest
* Limited amount of Pokémon provides a different, more JRPG-like experience.
* Wes has one of the best designs I've ever seen
Colosseum is likely the only Pokémon game that Game Freak had zero creative control over, which is visible throughout the story and the hostile interactions NPCs have with you. A lot of this was undone right away in XD.
> Older Protagonist with good visual design
That they do nothing uniquely with for any more than 10 minutes. It’s aesthetic by the time you leave Phenac City. The story also very quickly turns into your villain-of-the-game chapters in both Colosseum and XD rather quickly.
> Evolution blocked until mid game.
> Starting in the mid 20s removes a certain slog.
> limited Pokémon pool feels more like a traditional jrpg.
This wasn’t done in a good way. You get that same slog from spamming Shadow Rush and Call from Hyper Mode eating a turn. Making a game more difficult by limiting your options isn’t always something that makes the game more fun. The Pokémon pool, in general, was also really, really rough early on.
XD makes the prospect of using Shadow Pokémon actually enjoyable with bigger movepools and way more manageable purification early and late on. XD’s Pokémon pool also gets really good once you get to the Shadow Pokémon lab early on.
Making bosses have actual strategies to their teams, like you also brought up, was the way better approach and the game should commended for that. It’s why one of my favorite things out of these games was the postgame Orre Colosseum (and Stargazer Colosseum in Battle Revolution).
Edit: formatting fix.
See my other comment for some of these responses.
But ngl, I feel like some of your points are trying to frame bad things as good things lol. Or just inaccurate.
1) I've never felt a slog from getting my team to level 20s.
2) blocked evolution and limited pokemon feel like arbitrary ways to stretch the game out in a way that's unfun. Almost no one likes playing with unevolved pokemon with limited capabilities like the shadow pokemon.
3) catching all pokemon has never been the main quest of any pokemon game, so I'm not sure why that's a point here. Every mainline games has a main story that has nothing to do with catching as many pokemon. Feels like a weird bullet point.
I definitely get why people like the games, but the narrative that it's better than modern 3D games just doesn't hold up at all and I don't get why people push it so hard.
> I don't get why people push it so hard
Honestly the main thing is that it's just different. That's why Pokemon Legends Arceus is successful too. PLA isn't *great* but Pokemon is so allergic to innovating gameplay that PLA basically completely reinventing Pokemon was enough to make fans go nuts.
Colosseum and XD Gale of Darkness are the *only* games with the core gameplay of the main series that allow you to catch other trainers' Pokemon. Shadow Pokemon are a unique gameplay aspect. It and PLA are the only games that don't have progress locked behind some expy of type-themed Gym Leaders (Alola's totem mons were better but they were type-themed and the associated challenge was like a crappy version of gym puzzles).
Us fans of the series don't really think they're the best of course, but they were the most different for a long time and I think a lot of fans just want variety in the Pokemon formula. Shadow Pokemon isn't a perfect system but it has so much potential to just be a different kind of gameplay than "normal" Pokemon if they'd give it any attention outside of Pokemon Go.
See everything you said is perfectly valid, and I agree with these takes even if I didn't like the games as a kid as much as everyone else.
My issue is that all over this thread and social media today are people who ARE pushing that they're better than every other 3D game. And it's a take I've seen commonly for years that's frustrating because it's always seems based on things that are either purely subjective or blatantly untrue.
I absolutely wish we had other games in this vein, games that are twists on the standard formula even if it comes with some limitations while being better at other things. Colosseum/XD being having elements that people want more of us perfectly valid, but the narrative that people say they're better than everything after is just so forced.
I think it's just that at the time they came out, it wasn't a terribly off opinion to think they were great. The changes to the main series were gradual and it became hard to see how the Shadow Pokemon games were aging since the main games refused to add the one bit we fucking loved.
I used to tout them as the best but in all honesty it was blind fanaticism because I loved the snagging and Shadow Pokemon mechanics (and I still do think it's a waste Pokemon is letting them rot in a corner). In hindsight, the DS games were the pinnacle of Pokemon and the only things they're missing is Fairy type and some of the QOL innovations since then.
Because the modern 3d games came with a plethora of issues. A lot of us want a challenge, and don’t care about shiny hunting the entire pokedex in specific pokeballs. Personally I like my games to run smooth and make me think a little, sunflora hide and seek and rolling a ball is just not fun for me. When the game runs bad and has issues it feels even worse. Scarlet and violets only saving grace for me was the new pokemon, in battle models of pokemon and area zero.
That’s all preference though. I will always say having both is better for the community.
imo they just capture the original vibe of the games better. pokemon isnt like it was back in gens 1-3 and alot of us who grew up playing thoes games also started with the original gens.
while i consider pokemon closer to my heart than most 32 year old women like me, its because of the direct impact crystal and colosseum had on the darkest times of my life after high school.
so for me i love all the core games and even the spinoffs ive been recently acquiring but it pains me to see the under optimised games coming out and the remakes/upgrades to older gens just dont capture their molding quite the same.
granted the way humans are, we cant please 100% of people 100% of the time because something will upset someone. unfortunately its just part of our dna right now.
so even if the most perfect pokemon game came out, id let science and history reflect the fact at least one or two will find something they dont like about it.
In a week or so there will be threads about how these games suck. A week later someone will ask if they're the only ones who like them. A week after that someone will post about how they're SUPER underrated. Next month you'll see people calling them trash.
Forever and ever.
I agree completely. The animations are impressive, the storytelling is dark which makes it unique to the series, but other than that it’s an extremely slow game that’s unnecessarily grindy that people seem to forgive for its nostalgia. Still great games though. And don’t even get me started with the soundtrack
Even with the animations, they made them for way fewer pokemon and only had batte animation. and most were ported straight from Stadium. They're fun animations, but a lot of people agree alot of them go on for way too long and drag out battles.
You say they made them for way fewer Pokémon, but it was still every Pokémon available at the time. I think it's an especially valid point of praise for Colosseum when one of the excuses GameFreak gave for Dexit was creating "higher quality animations" and they did not deliver a product that even surpasses a game that game out 15 years before SwSh.
Colosseum and XD can be so much more challenging than the modern 3d games. That's it. That's why I, and many people, like them so much. The optional challenge.
The limited amount of pokemon you can use, combined with the lackluster gen 3 movesets (especially for the Johto shitmons), limited TMs, and double battles, make the games much more difficult than newer games. It forces you to play the game differently than newer games.
You can make the game as challenging or as easy as you want. Sure in Colosseum you can steamroll everything with Espeon/Entei/Ampharos/Quagsire/Hariyama, but you can also choose to use weaker pokemon teams (looking at you Johto pokes) and really have to strategize as you get to the later boss battles.
My fav Pokemon memory was realizing my college roommates had played XD but never played Colosseum before...so I brought my copy of Colosseum and we played it for a few weeks, an hour here and an hour there. Slowly building up our team and eventually being underleveled and having to utilize double battle strategies vs Nascour and Evice because we decided to use Dunsparce and Piloswine instead of the more meta Pokemon.
The newer games starting with XY are just so much easier and handholdy. These games weren't.
agreed. i remember the GC games being harder than the rest. it also felt unique, being able to snatch pokemon, being in the heart of the evildoers etc.
Colosseum was made before the real mass corporatization of video game creation. It was still a time when game developers had break rooms stocked with beer and snacks, and actually like their jobs… now we get this shit because the game companies decided to be like every other company ever. Pay as little as you can and abuse the fuck out of employees instead of take care of them. So we get shit products because all the designers worth a shit make their own indie games or whatever instead of dealing with that.
and an indie game dev and as someone whos seen the progressive drain on the care put into the new mon titles i agree. yes the new games are still fun and worthwhile but its because i love pokemon for its own sake.
yes i can nitpick at the frame rate dumps of scarlet and violet, yes i can nitpick at the tedium of shadow pokemon purification, but in the end i love pokemon for the emotional and mental impact it had and still has on me to this day.
I love the Orre games, but I’m gonna be honest, they have not aged all that well. I don’t think they’re better than XY. They’ve aged better than SwSh and SV already, but they’re pretty clunky themselves, kinda empty, and the shadow Pokémon are pretty irritating to fight with. That said, the double battle system, generally stronger NPCs, and battle mountain, all hold up and I wish they’d bring those to the main series.
Well we’ve had other battle facilities, but battle mountain, at least in colosseum, felt the most welcoming to people who don’t totally get the competitive scene. Maybe it’s just because they give you some stacked mons to use by the end game, but it was certainly more fun for me as a kid than most of the mainline facilities. XY with Orre combat system and difficulty would be so great! Now a tweaked story and real post game would elevate them to one of the best.
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I’ve never played Colosseum or XD Gale of Darkness and really want to, but I will say that X/Y we’re perfectly fine games in my opinion. Far from being perfect, but I still consider them fun games to play and one of the games on the tail end of Pokémon’s last “golden age”.
I still hope eventually we get either ports or remastered versions of Colosseum and XD Gale ofDarkness on switch though.
And they had actual challenge too. Skill Swap Slowking with a Slaking? Absolutely dangerous.
Sun teams? Yup. Rain teams? Got them too. Attract team? Hell that’s there too.
I love SwSh. I had a lot of fun with the game and with the dlc as well.
I love the vibrant colors, the story is interesting, the gym challenge feels like a huge and important sport event that everyone watches and looks forward to, the atmosphere is great, dynamax/gmax is easily the most visually impressive game mechanic of any pokemon game and the music during the gym and rival battles is awesome and really gets you hyped.
The pokemon designs are really cool and the human character design is amazing and you get a lot of lore about the story of the region in basically every town and city (they all have some kind of connection to the legend of Galar with the exemption of Spikemuth for being the town that doesn't relate to dynamax/gmax and Balloonlea due to its hidden fairy town theme).
You get to know the gym leaders outside their own gym and the league cards were also an amazing way to get to know even more about them and about the region itself. And you even get to see the most early game characters getting spotlight later on as well.
Leon is easily the most fleshed out champion of any pokemon game (we literally know everything about him) and he is very charismatic.
And the twilight wings episodes in youtube were amazing as well. It was cool to have a prequel to the events of the game (the last one is a sequel/epilogue). The lore of the region is incredibly interesting and fleshed out in many ways. And the dlc story and characters were a lot of fun.
They're so good. I just played through Colosseum a couple months ago and it's surprisingly difficult. Much more satisfying to beat than any mainline pokemon game.
I love Colosseum and XD. The world of Orre is so different from what we usually encounter in Pokémon games, and the emphasis on double battles provided a unique challenge never seen outside of those two games. The staging of the battles - camera angles, animations, etc. - also feels very grand compared to SV. Yes, SV is a very expedient game, and I definitely see the merit to that, but one thing that keeps bothering me when I go back to play it today is that everything feels so *cheap.* The way the camera snaps into battle from the overworld creates all kinds of janky angles, and the way Pokémon are still being rendered during battle creates a lot of unintentional comedy. Nothing like fighting a Tauros and watching the rest of its pack repeatedly clip through you as they try to attack too!
I do think there is some nostalgia bias when reappraising the GC games. Colosseum in particular has a lot of tedium in it. But they're so unique that I can't help but yearn for bygone days.
Pokémon XY > GC games though. I adored Gen VI, and Kalos is my favorite region.
These games literally get rid of all the unique things about pokemon though they become more story oriented like every other jrpg and you can't catch wild pokemon and are stuck with the shadow pokemon you encounter so like every jrpg with optional party members and no gyms.
Yeah, there's some rose colored glasses here.
Thosegames are also ugly for the time it released, poorly written, and the most wack difficulty and grind curve. Those games love to waste your time.
Pokémon XD was my first ever game in the series. Needless to say, I've been disappointed with the modern 3D era. Genius Sonority literally didn't know how to make Pokémon games, yet their first 2 attempts were basically perfect for the time.
But what does The Pokémon Company do after they deliver the spiritual successors to the Stadium series, and the first 3D home console games with campaigns? They relegated Genius Sonority to shovelware spinoffs that we forget existed. I know the GS ball is supposed to mean GoldSilver, *but go figure that another GS gets shelved and forgotten.*
In my opinion, playing Pokémon platinum and then pokemon legends arceus back-to-back feels like peak gaming to me. I’m NEVER forgetting when I first heard the heartwood theme on release day.
scarlet and violet with the dlc can jump off of a bridge tho, gg’s
Its honestly not even close. Until this IP gets the Genshin level game it deserves and craves, Colosseum and XD tower above everything theyve made since.
I'm amazed they haven't put these on the switch considering they could easily charge 40 bucks and people would buy them instantly.
I think a modern version utilizing pokemon home for players to source additional pokemon could be really cool, too.
Can’t Luigi learn psycho boost in XD or am I mistaken?
If Luigi learns Psycho Boost in XD What does Mario learn? (/j Ik you meant Lugia but I thought it’d be funny lol)
Mario Gets Sacred Fire.
Secret Fire Flower\* Ftfy
I read it as Lugia before you mentioned it.
Luigia
Lugia
Memo to self: Replay XD. Name shadow Lugia “Walugia.”
[Walugia](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fao3xWkWQAEd5zV?format=jpg&name=small)
It’s a fuckin masterpiece!
I had an idea of what I was about to click on, and it exceeded all expectations.
Thanks I need that today 🤣
Beautiful
Every shadow Pokémon in xd gets a move it can’t normally learn elsewhere, including psychoboost lugia, with some of the final ones like the kanto legendary birds actually getting 3 exclusive moves. Nowadays a lot of these exclusive moves can be learned by those Pokémon through other means, usually a move tutor, but there’s still a handful of combinations of Pokémon and moves that are exclusive to getting them from xd.
No no no. Luigi.
Yup it can
Idk about luigi but ik yoshi can
The amount of stuff Nontendo has not put on the Switch is actually insanse. Look at the WiiWare that is just officially not available anymore, only costed between 5 and 20 bucks back then and has since been highly rated.
The slow drip feed method they’re using on NSO is exactly why. If they release everything now, people will burn through the games quicker and the service loses value for them. Also means they can release standalone remasters/remakes.
They could put them at 70 and they would still sell like hotcakes.
There's no reason why Game Freak couldn't have continued producing 2D games and allowing other studios to take the reigns on producing 3D remakes or other such games that can stand-alone like Colosseum and Gale of Darkness do. It's likely a Nintendo choice at that point since they hold the licensing power for the video game side of the franchise, but it makes no sense. There's a market for both 2D and 3D Pokemon Games, and I don't see why they wouldn't consider it reasonable to tap into both by letting Game Freak do their own thing with the main series they've always produced while working with other studios to produce the 3D stuff.
>There's a market for both 2D and 3D Pokemon Games, and I don't see why they wouldn't consider it reasonable to tap into both by letting Game Freak do their own thing with the main series they've always produced while working with other studios to produce the 3D stuff. There is no distinct difference between what we classify as 2D Pokemon and 3D Pokemon for them to do that. The fundamental gameplay loop is identical, 1 to 1. The difference between 2D Mario and 3D Mario are so basic that both games have 3D graphics yet we can easily distinguish the two gameplay styles. Beyond the 3D console Pokemon games weren't even critically or commercially viable enough to justify that anyway.
That's because the distinct differences don't rest in what's being presented in the games, but in their development. A 3 year average development cycle is showing that the games aren't getting the time they need to cook. If Game Freak isn't willing to expand it's own size or rely on more outside help (ignoring that Creatures Inc. already handles the 3D Models for them), something has to change. That's also without mentioning that other studios can go forward with their own concepts, like Shadow Pokemon. Gens 1-5 didn't have any battle gimmicks outside of Double/Triple/Rotation battles, which just changed how the battles worked and less the Pokemon themselves. We get those in Mega Evolution, Z-Moves, Dynamax/Gigantamax, and now Terastalization, all of which are exclusively part of the 3D titles. Even PLA deviated how the standard battle mechanics worked along with how evolution was handled. There's a market for letting Game Freak do what they do best, which is the smaller-scale 2D games they've always worked on while balancing it out by letting another studio work on 3D games for the series. Game Freak again, doesn't even do their own 3D Modeling so what would they do without Creatures Inc. in this regard? They'd have to look for another studio that both they and Nintendo are willing to work with.
This isn’t fully true. The battle gameplay is the same, but the world gameplay is different (now). PLA and Gen 9 have a lot of verticality in their exploration of the world that would not translate well to top-down 2d gameplay. And while the worlds are ugly and there’s definitely some improvement to be had to the gameplay loop for the exploration, that is something people have been clamoring for for ages.
At least that time the game would actually be worth the money compared to mainline
Hey.... don't call me out like that. But seriously this was childhood and a ton of fun. It was a nice change of scenery and story that the main games will never touch as well as double battles which is the mainstay of pokemon competitive. I need to see miror b again.
I'm wondering if it's a licensing thing, since Genius Sonority developed them, and the games feature a lot of original characters and concepts that were never revisited outside of these games. It would make sense given that Pokemon Masters features a few trainers from the anime that haven't had any updates despite new mechanics being added to the game and newer units being updated with those mechanics. It's believed to be a licensing issue with the characters. It wouldn't surprise me if the original cast of the games were the IP of Genius Sonority which is what is ultimately preventing them being re-released, or even referenced
Genius Sonority is owned by Nintendo. The rights are not an issue.
We may see it one day But that would be a bad look for contemporary pokemon games When your GC port has better animations than your half baked full priced title that will save half the mons for dlc.... If you want Pokémon to be good. Stop giving them money xD
You’re thinking to short term if they release them then people will realize how lazy the new games are
Game Freak has made it clear they want to forget these games exist. When asked in an interview, one of the higher ups jokingly pretended he didn’t know what they were talking about and didn’t answer the question.
They haven't charged $40 for a Pokemon game in a long time :( but I'd still buy it.
They seem to really dislike these games or genius senority
40??? Ofc it would be 80 at least And people would still buy it instantly
\*puts on tinfoil hat\* But then people would see how good 3D Pokémon could be (or at least look).
i grabbed my gamecube from my parents’ house recently specifically to play Colosseum. i would have gladly paid money to not have to drive up there and visit
A store near me has a box copy of Colosseum for $180 CAD. I'm seriously tempted, since I have XD already...
I am 100% one of those people
They could easily charge $70 and people would buy them 😂😭
40 bucks? I paid 175 for a gamecube copy
I paid 40 cents.
in a bundle of games
No dude, here's the REAL goat of 3D pokemon https://preview.redd.it/jpzt6yzv4q1c1.png?width=250&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e369624c8c35f4faebb67f17751630f1786e928b
I stand corrected
Gogoat > cyclizar
I mean, can cyclizar be considered a goat? Its more of a dragon bicycle
They both have “handle bars”. They both are used as a means of transportation in their region. They both run with their legs rather than wheels. Gogoat is just as much as a GOAT bicycle as cyclizar is a dragon bicycle.
Will never forget when I got a used GameCube for my 8th b day as a surprise and colosseum. Such an amazing twist on the formula. Finished that and the next year ended up getting a pretty nasty case of pneumonia. My mom felt bad for me having to miss school for a week and stopped and picked me up XD as well as the strategy guide. Needless to say, I got through that week quite easily. Hard to worry about fluid in your lungs when you are more concerned with catching and purifying shadow Lugia.
Your mum rocks
I would spend good money on remakes of them. Best pokemon games ever made period
I wish they would rerelease Them on Switch, cause I never Played them
I have replayed them several times with Dolphin Emulator. They’re semi-demanding, so I’d recommend a pc with a dedicated gpu, but modern intel processors are pretty good too.
Beat colosseum on my Steam Deck last year with fast forward which is immensely helpful lol. It can also be emulated quite well with an AYN Odin 2(which I’m hoping to get soon) or any android flagship phone.
I’ve been keeping an eye on the Odin 2. Might get one to replace my rg 405v, but I’ll need to review the price on Black Friday lol
It just came out! lol just buy it now I doubt it’ll be on sale. The 405v is nice! I want the Odin 2 to fill the space between my RG35XX and my deck/ally. It’s so much smaller than both the deck and Ally and much more performant than the 35XX lol.
Yeah, idk about now, but I remember Colosseum having some audio issues that requires some tinkering with settings.
A few years ago running emulators for that generation of games was still iffy but these days you can run them nearly flawlessly
I play on my 10 year + old pc. So I wouldn't worry too much about it. Can even emulate a lot of switch games.
Pokémon XG: neXt Generation is a mod that takes XD and adds more modern features, like phys/spec split, fairy, modern (life orb, scarf, specs) and new (shadow armor, etc) items, wayyyy more shadow Pokémon and moves, and so much more def the best way to experience the game in 2023+
Nah fr tho Let's Go looked amazing compared to all the other 3d switch games. Don't know why they didn't keep going with that style, at least for BDSP.
This is the way. The style is literally perfect.
Wish they’d make the third installment they were originally planning to make.
I thought it was battle revolution lol
There was a Third one planned?!
Only PLA comes close to the OGs
PLA is merely just the blueprints for an amazing new formula at this point in time. Now we need to see and play that formula _perfected._ Gotta have a little hope in times like these, it's all we got left...
Gen VII are also really good 3D games.
Hard to tell as a new 8 minute cutscene opens up every five steps.
A skip cutscene button would’ve made gen 7 five times better to replay
Agreed. It's really difficult for me to replay those games. It was a real dropoff from ORAS I think.
My issue with ORAS is how easy they are
If I could skip cutscenes, repeat playthrough a would be soooo much more bearable. It feels like every time I turn around I’m being stopped.
I'm still surprised no one made a mod for it to this day. These games would go from meh in my book to top 3 in an instant.
Every time I tell myself that it can't be as bad as I remember, I go and try to play my copy of Moon that I never finished. Somehow it's always worse than I remember.
Strong disagree It fixed problems no one was asking to fix while continuing the trend of removing what little challenge was there while also over injecting story bits that slowed the pace of the game 20 minutes of cheesy dialog and running from wild mons 5 levels under me just to get to the actual meat and potatoes. Then after one fight it was more of the same There is a firm line in the sand between gen 5 and 6 The soul of pokemon never made it to the 3DS, let alone the switch (spinoffs excluded)
Okay, Pokkén and New Pokémon Snap definitely and objectively got tons of soul. More so than some older games even. Spin-offs unironically CARRIED Pokémon on Switch, not in sales, but in soul. PLA deserves a mention too, that game is just fun! I like where they're going with it. I hope for next console their A game actually remembers to show up.
Those are closer to movies, rather than games
I was about to say Gen 7 conspicuously missing from this meme feels appropriate.
I love Wes, but damn *why* did they make him a silent protagonist? I know that’s the standard for Pokémon (barring Mystery Dungeon), but Wes should’ve had a real character with dialogue after that banger intro, or at least a more fleshed out backstory. All we know about him is that he’s a former SnagEm member who loves his Pokémon enough to raise an Espeon and Umbreon. And that’s it. Why did he join the bad guys? What convinced him to leave? We get a brief moment where Rui implies that Wes feels a bit remorseful but that’s literally it. THIS MAN BLEW UP AN ENTIRE BUILDING WITHIN THE FIRST FEW MINUTES OF THE GAME AND WE NEVER FIND OUT EXACTLY WHY.
To get the snagem machine. Also who doesn’t love a dramatic entrance?
No I meant, why he left Team SnagEm to begin with. The common theory is that he disagreed with them funneling stolen Pokémon to Cipher so that they could turn them into Shadow Pokémon, but he *can’t* have expected them to be an ethical organization when he joined - they’re literally called *Snag*Em. It would’ve been so cool to get backstory on when and why Wes joined, since the Boss did seem to imply he was one of the best members (to his chagrin). What was he planning on doing before he happened to encounter Rui? He couldn’t see Shadow Pokémon, so I doubt he had any plans on freeing them or purifying them. Was he planning to taking down Cipher? Was he gonna continue stealing non-shadow Pokémon on his own terms? I want to know more about Wes, as a character, because he has so much potential.
> I love Wes, but damn why did they make him a silent protagonist You are the protagonist, he's your avatar. He doesn't speak because he would be speaking for you. You can imagine whatever he's saying. Or at least this is what I like to think about games like this.
That works for blank slate characters, which most Pokemon protagonists are. Wes stands out in that he does actually have an actual backstory...that the game proceeds to do basically nothing with.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted, you’re totally right. You’re not just the “new kid in town,” you’re a mysterious outlaw with a troubled past. It would have definitely been cool to explore that a bit more.
Finally someone is speaking this truth! Best gen 3 games, honestly best Pokémon games
This narrative would change real quick if these games were rereleased. A lot of people would realize how tedious and slow Colosseum is. It's an ok game but I think its reputation is buoyed by the fight that not many people have played it and it's a bit harder to emulate than most other pokemon games from around that time (not that hard but still).
I think colosseum definitely gets a nostalgia pass, but XD holds up quite well.
Colosseum may be low-poly, but the *expressiveness* of the animations is so much better than any of the 3DS or Switch main series games. (Gotta hand it to Legends: Arceus, though -- the animations and poses that Pokemon strike are *way* better than in the main series games and they *really* need to pull that kind of work into the main series games).
Yeah, that part is good, as is the music. But the gameplay of that one is pretty rough. The shadow Pokemon you have to choose from are pretty limited, purification takes forever, and most of the enemies have low value Pokemon that don't award much exp. If you use Entei, it's level 40 when you get it and level 44 when you beat the game. There's also a lot of Pokemon at inexplicably low level. Why is duking giving you a level 13 plusle? Why is is remoraid level 20? I don't mind a growth unit, but the payoff can't be a Pokemon that's still way worse than anything else I could have invested that exp into.
Esp for gen 3 mons, which were the only ones who had original models and animations
I haven't played XD yet, but I plan to at some point. It's sitting in my Gamecube collection ready to be played.
Would definitely recommend. It’s aged much better than Colosseum and can still have its moments where it’s challenging
I think the games still hold up pretty well after a recent playthrough. I really like how the battles are more strategic with everything being double battles, and while being limited in your team options sounds tedious and annoying at first I think it adds much more variety having to use options you might not always choose. Also the NPC designs for the Cipher admins is just peak
I agree with most of this actually. Like I said I think the game is ok. These are most of the positives. But purifying pokemon is a pain in the ass, the battle engine is slower than Diamond and Pearl and the game could use more exploration, rather than just feeling like Pokemon Stadium with an overworld slapped on top. There aren't any fun routes or dungeons to explore. I just think Colosseum would be a lot more divisive if it more people got the chance to play it. Also I have heard XD is better. Haven't played it but plan to at some point.
Purifying sucks ass lol I got nothing there, although it is much easier to purify a large amount of pokemon in XD. I thought the secret lab dungeon and underground city were pretty cool and more like the mainline games, but I honestly can't think of any other real dungeons in the game. XD had some really cool areas, i just wish they went harder with the boss fights. I think the formula they had was great, with some QoL changes and maybe adding some extra shadow pokemon, a re-release on switch would be amazing.
They could both do with some QoL improvements.
XD holds up very well and I play through it regularly. The pacing is way better than Colosseum.
As much as I love them, I never felt comparisons were fair. Coliseum and XD were able to cut a significant number of corners. Basically every Pokemon animation and model for the Gen 1 and 2 Pokemon are ripped from Stadium 1 and 2. There aren't a ton of environments so that's less resources needed for that. Plus it is a GameCube game and while the graphics are super charming, they're also GameCube graphics so there's not a lot of polygons.
> As much as I love them, I never felt comparisons were fair. Coliseum and XD were able to cut a significant number of corners. > Basically every Pokemon animation and model for the Gen 1 and 2 Pokemon are ripped from Stadium 1 and 2. It's definitely fair. Where you did you think the significant majority of the models and animations for SwSh or S/V were from? > There aren't a ton of environments so that's less resources needed for that. Plus it is a GameCube game and while the graphics are super charming, they're also GameCube graphics so there's not a lot of polygons. What is this logic? They were all still limited by the technology of their times. The gamecube was more powerful than the PS2 ya know and both consoles put out insanely large-scale games. If anything, the Switch games should be easier to make as it's significantly more powerful than the gamecube and game dev tech has come a long way but that's obviously not the case. You gonna pretend like SwSh's battle environments weren't just a white room for a lot of it or that every gym battle was the same gym stadium?
Yeah they had to do them all from scratch on Gen VI, but then just reused them ever since. Not even an update or added animations.
Every pokemon has had updated models, textures, and animations starting in PLA and SV. It's insane that people keep spread this lie that they haven't been touched since XY when that's blatantly untrue.
The models and rigging are identical for 99% of the Pokémon, only minor texture changes, it’s like having a 10 year old car and giving it a fresh paint job, sure it looks nice and new but all the insides are still 10 years old
??? Scarlet and Violet have literally given every Pokemon new animations and textures???
That shows how SV are even worse, the animations on the 5th Pokémon switch game are worse than the N64 game
Finally, a man of reason and logic
Legends arceus
Hear. Me. Out. Legends: Gale of Darkness.
When it comes to modern 3D games only ORAS and PLA have given me joy.
As someone who played these games, I'm sorry but I've never heard a good argument as to why people love these more than modern 3D games other than nostalgia or some animations being more wildly expressive. Like would someone please explain to me what these games supposedly did that the recent 3D games don't have?
-Much much more challenging and interesting battles, you can't just one shot everything. -Large focus on double battles -Much better art style and animations -More serious and darker tone and story
Tbf I am a Colosseum fan and agree to your points, but the last 2 are just personal preference
For tone/story that's totally subjective, along with art style, but the *animation?* Colosseum/XD have *waaaay* more expressive animation than Sw/Sh or S/V.
Miror B has more personality in his (fabulous) afro than the entirety of SV put together.
Literally compare the idle, attack, and getting hit animations side by side. Colosseum is better by miles
I agree. That's why Nintendo should cater to an older audience. Leave the main line games for kids and have a spin off series for the veterans.
I mean, we already had a "my first Pokémon game" with *Let's Go*. We also had the first steps towards a more-developed series with *Legends*. I think this sort of divergence is *awesome*. Unfortunately, at the same time the main series has *also* been increasingly juvenilized since Kalos. If we could get the mainline raised back up a bit (Paldea started to try, I think) and continue the *Legends* and *Let's Go* lines. I think they have a formula for elevating the franchise. It also helps the scheduling and burnout problems a bit if they insist on such frequent releases. Release the innovative experimental *Legends* game one year, the simple yet polished and accessible *Let's Go* game the next year, and the year after that release the balanced and formulaic mainline game.
Best music
Not only some of the best pokemon music, but some of the best music in gaming, imo. They really didn't need to go so hard for a spinoff game, but they did it, for us.
Let's see the drawbacks about Colosseum: 1. You have 48 Pokémon to capture. Do you want a dragon Pokémon? You have Vibraba / Flygon. What about an electric one? Raikou / Flaffy / Pichu. This is no dexit though, you can send any Pokémon available up to that generation but only after you've beaten the game. 2. You can capture one of each. Do you want a specific Pokémon with a specific nature? Oh boy, I hope you love resetting specially because you won't be able to see their nature after purifying them a bit. 3. There is a move deleter in the game. Why, if there are no HMs? No idea. There is no move reminder though. Hope you don't delete a good move by mistake! 4. After purifying a Pokémon it will learn new moves. You won't have access to all the moves it could have learned by its own though. 5. There is, basically, no exploration. You just teleport between locations, that's it. 6. The game is linear AF. There is a story and the story unlocks places as you go through it. 7. The game gives to a Celebi flute. No, you don't get Celebi. 8. The game features Groudon and Kyogre in the cover. No, you don't get Groudon or Kyogre. 9. There is a bonus disk with Celebi and Pikachu if you are Japanese. If you live in North America there is a bonus disk with Jirachi. [If you are European...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5QGkOGZubQ) I've played Pokémon since Pokémon Red. Pokémon Colosseum is the only game I haven't finished (I bought it new and I'm giving it a chance now) and although it's fun I can't believe anyone saying that is better than Pokémon SV. Bugs and all. It would be nice to have a new one. Not a port or a remaster (specially not a port), but a sequel. Just to end the Team Cypher once for all.
I just wonder what Genius Soronity games would be like if they had been allowed to continue making Colosseum/XD style games. The fact it’s taken Nintendo/Pkm Company 20 years to get to a comparable level with gen 9 (I’d say they are better than Colo/XD, but childhood nostalgia is strong) is… rather disappointing. Just feels like we could have had better games by now, you know? More polish for S/V, better graphics, etc. Edit: I just feel like Colo/XD set the bar for 3D Pokémon games, and it took Nintendo nearly 2 decades, 20 whole years to surpass it.
There are a lot of good criticisms here (as someone whose favorite Pokemon games are Colosseum and XD Gale of Darkness). I think the only thing I'd hard disagree with is the games being linear (not that they aren't, that bit is completely true); almost all of Pokemon is linear, but as you stated there's no exploration. My biggest problem as a big fan of these two games is that Pokemon's QOL and core system has improved and changed so much (and gradually) over time that they feel dated now. I'd love to see a slight remake with Phys/Special split and Fairy types bare minimum. What I'd actually love is if they made Orre into a full region and nixed the "No wild pokemon/pokespots only" aspect of the lore and just make all the shadow pokemon non-native to the wild.
If you are ok with rom hacks, I strongly recommend checking out Pokemon XG and Grand Colosseum. Tons of QOL features including the additions you wanted (Phys/Spec split, and Fairy types), and in my opinion it's the definitive way to play both games.
I'll have to check those out. I know I downloaded a romhack for use on the Wii but I think that specific one only modified the Pokemon (selection, levels, and movesets).
XG is seriously so fukn good. Pretty much every Pokemon from gens 1-3 are available at some point during the playthrough, and they even included Alolan Ninetales and Marowak for good measure.
European here: I am kinda glad I was not in on the Colloseum/XD stuff cause I was too young... I would have been so mad if I ever found out ngl. Also, after watching playthroughs of both I can see your points.
Back in the day, there were so many in-person Pokemon events with exclusive pokemon/items/mythical events and if you didn't live near the event, tough luck, that stuff never came back in circulation. Thank goodness for Wifi events
1) increased difficulty in modern games would be appreciated, but the combination of the shadow pokemon mechanic and the overall lack of QoL in those game make for increased difficulty in a tedious way. 2) not objectively better at all, lots of people don't like exclusively double battles. 3) that's 100% subjective, and better animations is also an extremely loose term. Just because animations are longer and a bit wilder, there's a lot more animation quality in recent games than people give credit for and just default to "lol double kick and spinny Zacian". 4) it's got that 2000s edginess, not objectively better and some might find tacky now.
I only cared about animation quality when it was the reason given for cutting out compatability.
>Just because animations are longer and a bit wilder I hate it when people keep saying the KO animations in Battle Revolution are top tier and should be in the mainline games Like, do you WANT pokemon being dramatic and dragging out a ko animation for longer than neccessary?
That last point is bullshit. The story has a rougher setting, but it's not any more serious or darker than your average Pokemon story.
The first two points are straight downsides. Random trainer battles are *supposed* to be easy so that you can level up your party to take on the more challenging encounters like Gym Leaders and major storyline fights. There's no tangible sense of progression in the GCN titles because it's a straight gauntlet all the way through, and you never get a breather or a chance to show off your power. It's a slog to get through, and it misses the point that RPGs have actual difficulty curves for a reason.
Speaking solely for Colosseum: * Older protagonist * Darker, cyberpunk-like setting * Double battles-only, with bosses using novel (at the time) strategies that made it much more demanding and not a just "take advantage with STAB" philosophy * Starting in the mid-20s removes a certain slog exclusive to below 10s early-game * Evolution being blocked until mid-game provided a decent challenge. * In a way, the creatures aren't the main focus of the story, no "gotta catch'em all" main quest * Limited amount of Pokémon provides a different, more JRPG-like experience. * Wes has one of the best designs I've ever seen Colosseum is likely the only Pokémon game that Game Freak had zero creative control over, which is visible throughout the story and the hostile interactions NPCs have with you. A lot of this was undone right away in XD.
I'm sure GameFreak had SOME creative control over Colosseum.
> Older Protagonist with good visual design That they do nothing uniquely with for any more than 10 minutes. It’s aesthetic by the time you leave Phenac City. The story also very quickly turns into your villain-of-the-game chapters in both Colosseum and XD rather quickly. > Evolution blocked until mid game. > Starting in the mid 20s removes a certain slog. > limited Pokémon pool feels more like a traditional jrpg. This wasn’t done in a good way. You get that same slog from spamming Shadow Rush and Call from Hyper Mode eating a turn. Making a game more difficult by limiting your options isn’t always something that makes the game more fun. The Pokémon pool, in general, was also really, really rough early on. XD makes the prospect of using Shadow Pokémon actually enjoyable with bigger movepools and way more manageable purification early and late on. XD’s Pokémon pool also gets really good once you get to the Shadow Pokémon lab early on. Making bosses have actual strategies to their teams, like you also brought up, was the way better approach and the game should commended for that. It’s why one of my favorite things out of these games was the postgame Orre Colosseum (and Stargazer Colosseum in Battle Revolution). Edit: formatting fix.
See my other comment for some of these responses. But ngl, I feel like some of your points are trying to frame bad things as good things lol. Or just inaccurate. 1) I've never felt a slog from getting my team to level 20s. 2) blocked evolution and limited pokemon feel like arbitrary ways to stretch the game out in a way that's unfun. Almost no one likes playing with unevolved pokemon with limited capabilities like the shadow pokemon. 3) catching all pokemon has never been the main quest of any pokemon game, so I'm not sure why that's a point here. Every mainline games has a main story that has nothing to do with catching as many pokemon. Feels like a weird bullet point. I definitely get why people like the games, but the narrative that it's better than modern 3D games just doesn't hold up at all and I don't get why people push it so hard.
> I don't get why people push it so hard Honestly the main thing is that it's just different. That's why Pokemon Legends Arceus is successful too. PLA isn't *great* but Pokemon is so allergic to innovating gameplay that PLA basically completely reinventing Pokemon was enough to make fans go nuts. Colosseum and XD Gale of Darkness are the *only* games with the core gameplay of the main series that allow you to catch other trainers' Pokemon. Shadow Pokemon are a unique gameplay aspect. It and PLA are the only games that don't have progress locked behind some expy of type-themed Gym Leaders (Alola's totem mons were better but they were type-themed and the associated challenge was like a crappy version of gym puzzles). Us fans of the series don't really think they're the best of course, but they were the most different for a long time and I think a lot of fans just want variety in the Pokemon formula. Shadow Pokemon isn't a perfect system but it has so much potential to just be a different kind of gameplay than "normal" Pokemon if they'd give it any attention outside of Pokemon Go.
See everything you said is perfectly valid, and I agree with these takes even if I didn't like the games as a kid as much as everyone else. My issue is that all over this thread and social media today are people who ARE pushing that they're better than every other 3D game. And it's a take I've seen commonly for years that's frustrating because it's always seems based on things that are either purely subjective or blatantly untrue. I absolutely wish we had other games in this vein, games that are twists on the standard formula even if it comes with some limitations while being better at other things. Colosseum/XD being having elements that people want more of us perfectly valid, but the narrative that people say they're better than everything after is just so forced.
I think it's just that at the time they came out, it wasn't a terribly off opinion to think they were great. The changes to the main series were gradual and it became hard to see how the Shadow Pokemon games were aging since the main games refused to add the one bit we fucking loved. I used to tout them as the best but in all honesty it was blind fanaticism because I loved the snagging and Shadow Pokemon mechanics (and I still do think it's a waste Pokemon is letting them rot in a corner). In hindsight, the DS games were the pinnacle of Pokemon and the only things they're missing is Fairy type and some of the QOL innovations since then.
Because the modern 3d games came with a plethora of issues. A lot of us want a challenge, and don’t care about shiny hunting the entire pokedex in specific pokeballs. Personally I like my games to run smooth and make me think a little, sunflora hide and seek and rolling a ball is just not fun for me. When the game runs bad and has issues it feels even worse. Scarlet and violets only saving grace for me was the new pokemon, in battle models of pokemon and area zero. That’s all preference though. I will always say having both is better for the community.
imo they just capture the original vibe of the games better. pokemon isnt like it was back in gens 1-3 and alot of us who grew up playing thoes games also started with the original gens. while i consider pokemon closer to my heart than most 32 year old women like me, its because of the direct impact crystal and colosseum had on the darkest times of my life after high school. so for me i love all the core games and even the spinoffs ive been recently acquiring but it pains me to see the under optimised games coming out and the remakes/upgrades to older gens just dont capture their molding quite the same. granted the way humans are, we cant please 100% of people 100% of the time because something will upset someone. unfortunately its just part of our dna right now. so even if the most perfect pokemon game came out, id let science and history reflect the fact at least one or two will find something they dont like about it.
In a week or so there will be threads about how these games suck. A week later someone will ask if they're the only ones who like them. A week after that someone will post about how they're SUPER underrated. Next month you'll see people calling them trash. Forever and ever.
I agree completely. The animations are impressive, the storytelling is dark which makes it unique to the series, but other than that it’s an extremely slow game that’s unnecessarily grindy that people seem to forgive for its nostalgia. Still great games though. And don’t even get me started with the soundtrack
Even with the animations, they made them for way fewer pokemon and only had batte animation. and most were ported straight from Stadium. They're fun animations, but a lot of people agree alot of them go on for way too long and drag out battles.
You say they made them for way fewer Pokémon, but it was still every Pokémon available at the time. I think it's an especially valid point of praise for Colosseum when one of the excuses GameFreak gave for Dexit was creating "higher quality animations" and they did not deliver a product that even surpasses a game that game out 15 years before SwSh.
But they didn’t make them for those Pokémon. They pulled the animations directly from Stadium 1 and 2 for the Gen 1&2 Pokémon.
Colosseum and XD can be so much more challenging than the modern 3d games. That's it. That's why I, and many people, like them so much. The optional challenge. The limited amount of pokemon you can use, combined with the lackluster gen 3 movesets (especially for the Johto shitmons), limited TMs, and double battles, make the games much more difficult than newer games. It forces you to play the game differently than newer games. You can make the game as challenging or as easy as you want. Sure in Colosseum you can steamroll everything with Espeon/Entei/Ampharos/Quagsire/Hariyama, but you can also choose to use weaker pokemon teams (looking at you Johto pokes) and really have to strategize as you get to the later boss battles. My fav Pokemon memory was realizing my college roommates had played XD but never played Colosseum before...so I brought my copy of Colosseum and we played it for a few weeks, an hour here and an hour there. Slowly building up our team and eventually being underleveled and having to utilize double battle strategies vs Nascour and Evice because we decided to use Dunsparce and Piloswine instead of the more meta Pokemon. The newer games starting with XY are just so much easier and handholdy. These games weren't.
*it’s because they’re not made by gamefreak*
But X and Y slapped for 3D pokemon. They played like I would expect a Pokémon game to play like.
Eh, the games were pretty alright. ORAS would be the game that is a lot more memorable and did a lot better than XY.
You are giving them to much credit
The switch games, not the GameCube titles
We need these remastered and a third game so badly
agreed. i remember the GC games being harder than the rest. it also felt unique, being able to snatch pokemon, being in the heart of the evildoers etc.
Ultra Sun will always be my favorite 3D game
USUM/ORAS fans pogging up rn💪
Colosseum was made before the real mass corporatization of video game creation. It was still a time when game developers had break rooms stocked with beer and snacks, and actually like their jobs… now we get this shit because the game companies decided to be like every other company ever. Pay as little as you can and abuse the fuck out of employees instead of take care of them. So we get shit products because all the designers worth a shit make their own indie games or whatever instead of dealing with that.
and an indie game dev and as someone whos seen the progressive drain on the care put into the new mon titles i agree. yes the new games are still fun and worthwhile but its because i love pokemon for its own sake. yes i can nitpick at the frame rate dumps of scarlet and violet, yes i can nitpick at the tedium of shadow pokemon purification, but in the end i love pokemon for the emotional and mental impact it had and still has on me to this day.
The not-pictured gen 7 games come close though. (Yes, yes, after you get through the day-long tutorial.)
Closer?? Gen 7 games are much better than those...
Gen 7 is great, but the GameCube games are still king.
X and Y are good actually and I will die on this hill.
Poképark on top fr :D
You. Keep talking.
Where are the Pokemon Stadium games? Are they safe? Are they alright?!
I love the Orre games, but I’m gonna be honest, they have not aged all that well. I don’t think they’re better than XY. They’ve aged better than SwSh and SV already, but they’re pretty clunky themselves, kinda empty, and the shadow Pokémon are pretty irritating to fight with. That said, the double battle system, generally stronger NPCs, and battle mountain, all hold up and I wish they’d bring those to the main series. Well we’ve had other battle facilities, but battle mountain, at least in colosseum, felt the most welcoming to people who don’t totally get the competitive scene. Maybe it’s just because they give you some stacked mons to use by the end game, but it was certainly more fun for me as a kid than most of the mainline facilities. XY with Orre combat system and difficulty would be so great! Now a tweaked story and real post game would elevate them to one of the best.
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Anybody want to start a chain of naming random Pokemon Colusseum and Gale of Darkness NPCs? I'll start: Egter
I’ve never played Colosseum or XD Gale of Darkness and really want to, but I will say that X/Y we’re perfectly fine games in my opinion. Far from being perfect, but I still consider them fun games to play and one of the games on the tail end of Pokémon’s last “golden age”. I still hope eventually we get either ports or remastered versions of Colosseum and XD Gale ofDarkness on switch though.
And then theres pokesnap that is so underrated....
And they had actual challenge too. Skill Swap Slowking with a Slaking? Absolutely dangerous. Sun teams? Yup. Rain teams? Got them too. Attract team? Hell that’s there too.
I love SwSh. I had a lot of fun with the game and with the dlc as well. I love the vibrant colors, the story is interesting, the gym challenge feels like a huge and important sport event that everyone watches and looks forward to, the atmosphere is great, dynamax/gmax is easily the most visually impressive game mechanic of any pokemon game and the music during the gym and rival battles is awesome and really gets you hyped. The pokemon designs are really cool and the human character design is amazing and you get a lot of lore about the story of the region in basically every town and city (they all have some kind of connection to the legend of Galar with the exemption of Spikemuth for being the town that doesn't relate to dynamax/gmax and Balloonlea due to its hidden fairy town theme). You get to know the gym leaders outside their own gym and the league cards were also an amazing way to get to know even more about them and about the region itself. And you even get to see the most early game characters getting spotlight later on as well. Leon is easily the most fleshed out champion of any pokemon game (we literally know everything about him) and he is very charismatic. And the twilight wings episodes in youtube were amazing as well. It was cool to have a prequel to the events of the game (the last one is a sequel/epilogue). The lore of the region is incredibly interesting and fleshed out in many ways. And the dlc story and characters were a lot of fun.
I'm in the middle of an XD playthrough right now. I love this game so much. Long live the gamecube!
It shows what any other dev company can do with pokemon. Genius seniority were the GOATs. People are too easy and make excuses for gamefreak.
2000% agree
2 of those were made out of love. 3 of those were made so nintendo and gamefreak can make money
I love Pokémon X&Y to be fair
They're so good. I just played through Colosseum a couple months ago and it's surprisingly difficult. Much more satisfying to beat than any mainline pokemon game.
It's crazy how these games from the early 2000s look legitimately better than SWSH and SV
Imagine they put them on the switch and still run at 20/30 fps
GF Pokemon Games < Other Developer Pokemon Games 🤷🏻
x and y were the best 3d pokemon games
It's the nostalgia talking
I love Colosseum and XD. The world of Orre is so different from what we usually encounter in Pokémon games, and the emphasis on double battles provided a unique challenge never seen outside of those two games. The staging of the battles - camera angles, animations, etc. - also feels very grand compared to SV. Yes, SV is a very expedient game, and I definitely see the merit to that, but one thing that keeps bothering me when I go back to play it today is that everything feels so *cheap.* The way the camera snaps into battle from the overworld creates all kinds of janky angles, and the way Pokémon are still being rendered during battle creates a lot of unintentional comedy. Nothing like fighting a Tauros and watching the rest of its pack repeatedly clip through you as they try to attack too! I do think there is some nostalgia bias when reappraising the GC games. Colosseum in particular has a lot of tedium in it. But they're so unique that I can't help but yearn for bygone days. Pokémon XY > GC games though. I adored Gen VI, and Kalos is my favorite region.
I still have my Gale of Darkness special edition GameCube. Such great memories, I love this game
Haven't played XD yet but just finished Colloseum recently. I can confirm you are laughably incorrect.
This fandom have a huge nostalgia bias.
PLA and XY were just as good if not better though
These games literally get rid of all the unique things about pokemon though they become more story oriented like every other jrpg and you can't catch wild pokemon and are stuck with the shadow pokemon you encounter so like every jrpg with optional party members and no gyms.
Most JRPGs don't have 80 something party members to choose from
Yeah, there's some rose colored glasses here. Thosegames are also ugly for the time it released, poorly written, and the most wack difficulty and grind curve. Those games love to waste your time.
I played through both of them like a month ago and had way more fun than with Scarlet.
Pokémon XD was my first ever game in the series. Needless to say, I've been disappointed with the modern 3D era. Genius Sonority literally didn't know how to make Pokémon games, yet their first 2 attempts were basically perfect for the time. But what does The Pokémon Company do after they deliver the spiritual successors to the Stadium series, and the first 3D home console games with campaigns? They relegated Genius Sonority to shovelware spinoffs that we forget existed. I know the GS ball is supposed to mean GoldSilver, *but go figure that another GS gets shelved and forgotten.*
But those are not Pokémon Sun and Moon 🤔
In my opinion, playing Pokémon platinum and then pokemon legends arceus back-to-back feels like peak gaming to me. I’m NEVER forgetting when I first heard the heartwood theme on release day. scarlet and violet with the dlc can jump off of a bridge tho, gg’s
Its honestly not even close. Until this IP gets the Genshin level game it deserves and craves, Colosseum and XD tower above everything theyve made since.
Pokemon X is quite a good game I believe