Next year will see 10 years of Pokémon. Wow doesn't time fly when you're putting little animal things in red and white balls?! Pokémon Colosseum is the 18th game in this very good and long series which spans 5 consoles. But will it live up the hype? Can it better the others? Or is Pokémon's Pulling Power dying like the spark in Pikachu's cheeks?

 

PokéGraphics:

Well they are very good. In the RPG mode they are very detailed and colorful. It looks just like the cartoon! What's more the characters and the Pokémon interact with the environment, the only disappointment with this is it always seems to be the same and gets rather repetitive. All the buildings (Poke Center, Homes etc) are the same in your head as they are in here. As for the battles, there is only one word for them: WOW! The trainers, Pokémon and crowd, yep there is a crowd, all look like J-Lo's bum; perfect. Some shadows on some Pokémon don't look quite right at times however, but that is just a very minor detail.

PokéMusic:

Much better the Game Boy but well, you would expect that! The music has the same classic tune we've all grown to love and associate with the little critters. Everything has also been 'jazzed' up for this game slightly though. The Pokémon do still sound like dying Cheeky Girls unfortunately and they should say their names like in the cartoon! All other sound effects work fairly well though, whether it's a PokéBall snapping shut or even just a door opening, it's good enough to be noticeable.

 

PokéControl:

Played Pokémon before? Well you of all people should know it's mostly menu driven, which is pretty hard to screw up that even babies could play understand it, they won't know what quite exactly what's going on but they could play it!

PokéPlay:

There is so much to do in this game, i won't be able to fit it all in! There are 2 main modes; Story and Battle, the Story mode having a very Final Fantasy feel about it. Taking place in the entirely new Ore, you battle other trainers and snatch the shadow Pokémon from them for they are from a very evil gang who have caught all the wild Pokémon (WOW!) and have turned their hearts into shadows! Gloomy! According to the game's designers, they wished to make the game more accessible to older Pokémon fans, so they took the game into a darker, more mature direction. The game designers describe the main character as a bit of an "anti-hero".

In Battle mode you battle like in the other stadiums, nothing much has changed. The straight forward battle mode remains a big part of the title; up to four players can dish it out in style. All Pokémon will be supported, from every GBA version and a plethora of new rules and battle modes have been added. In fact, players can unlock Colosseum-only Pokémon and then transfer them to the GBA games, after clearing certain conditions.

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But for some unknown reason, Nintendo have taken out one of the best parts of the Pokémon Stadium games. Yep you guessed it; there are no mini-games. This is a great disappointment in the overall enjoyment of Colosseum and it beats me as to why they have eluded such a high point of the stadium games, it makes Colosseum feel somewhat in-complete.

 

PokéLifespan:

Like many great games before it, the story in Colosseum will not last as long as it should. It is far too short even though you will have to do some battles over and over again because sometimes you just can't win, a classic fact that has always been present with Pokémon, no matter how good you are sometimes winning first time just isn't possible. However, you can go back and catch the Pokémon you missed; this can buy you about another ooh 6 hours play time. Story will last no more than 25 hours.

Battle mode will last forever as long as you have friends that like and have Pokémon on the GBA and GC-GBA cables!

 

Final Say:

Yet another game is added to GameCube's library and although it's yet another Pokémon, yet again it's… well, a classic. Buy this game. There is something here for everyone, although Pokéfans will obviously get the greater enjoyment. It's an RPG with battles! What more do you want? But it does have its down points, one of them being a high level of frustration endured in some places and don't forget there being no mini games. Oh and just to note, the UK will also see the 'Pokemon Box' which will let you store up to 1000 Pokemon, should come in handy as you only get 3 boxes in RPG mode.