Pokémon Colosseum

The Good
Pokemon Colosseum's biggest perk is its dark story (in terms of cute little monsters making each other 'faint' its rather dark). You are a trainer who used to be a part of an evil organization and now you are just trying to get by as a Pokemon trainer. However, your former employer doesn't take to kind to deserters and you eventually start to have deadly encounters with them. The story is a welcome change to people who have always wanted something different from pokemon.

The gameplay mechanics are tweaked to help Pokemon maintain some freshness while still being familiar to those who haven't played since the Game Boy games. Battles are now 2-on-2 and there even more items to equip to your Pocket Monsters. During special encounters, you run into Pokemon who have "black hearts" or something like that which makes them 'evil Pokemon'. Once you beat the hell out of them-- I mean 'free' them-- they become yours. Although I personally would have preferred the old method of just catching wild Pokemon, this works just fine (and it doesn't hurt that the controls are very straight forward). And for people who have a Game Boy Advance and some link cables you can upload data from Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, FireRed and LeafGreen.

The Bad
While it puts some interesting new ideas in the PokeMon universe, the ideas quickly end up becoming window dressing and still don't change the fact this is the same PokeMon you have been playing for years. You still have to save at PokeMon Centers, buy items from PokeMarts (haven't these people heard of Discount Cards?), and collect Gym Badges.

On top of that, the graphics don't do the game any justice. While the frame rate is good, the color scheme is just as dull as any other generic future games. The Pokemon creatures have no shading, texturing, and battle animations as limited as they were in the Nintendo 64.

The Bottom Line
Overall, if you are still a rabid fan of Pokemon, this is a game you could easily play and you like it as much as the other games. If you arn't much of a Pokemon fan or were a Pokemon fan who has gone on to other media, this game won't bring you back into the fold.

The Good
Finally, a console Pokemon game with a story not based on the TV series! Is it what we've been waiting for? Well... not really.

The gameplay seems mostly like the normal Pokemon games, so Pokemon fans won't have too much trouble figuring it out. This time, however, you have a goal deeper than "catching 'em all". You must find a special set of Pokemon turned evil by a... well, EVIL corporation! No, it isn't Team Rocket this time (I think).... EEEVILLLL!!!!!!

The graphics are good. Not great, but good. To be honest, the Pokemon animations look like Pokemon Stadium's animations only with a higher poly count or something. I can let this slide, though. As for the characters, they aren't bad. Some just look plain goofy, though. You know. Bo-bo-bobo-bo's long lost Pokemon addicted brother twice removed and just came back from the 70's. Yeah. That guy.

The music isn't too terrible either. Not nearly at great as other installment's music, though. But, what can you do?

By now, your probably wondering why the title of this review says it's "watered-down". Sounds normal so far, right? Well, this game suffers from one itsy-bitsy tiny problem...

The Bad
YOU. CAN'T. CATCH. THEM. ALL!!!

I'm not kidding! A Pokemon game that limits the Pokemon you can catch. What kind of bull is that?!?!

Well, remember when I said you had to catch EVIL Pokemon? Yeaaah... that's the ONLY Pokemon you can catch. No wild Pokemon. Nothing besides EVILLL Pokemon. I can understand other people's Pokemon can't be caught, but NO WILD ONES? How hard is it to make a console Pokemon?

On a minor note, it just gets boring after a while to me since YOU CAN ONLY CATCH 40 SOMETHING POKEMON! Also, in the Quick Battle thing, you STILL can't choose your own Pokemon. What the hell?

The Bottom Line
This is NOT how Pokemon should be enjoyed! If you want a more enjoyable Pokemon game for the console, buy Pokemon Puzzle League or Pokemon Stadium or even Hey You, Pikachu! All three of those games are far more enjoyable than this!