The Revolution!

[3kul]

Pokemon for Wii, something that, after having played it non-stop for the past few hours, I'm having mixed feelings about. I guess I should split up the good and bad things to explain this.

So, first up, the bad. All it is is just battling, there's no storyline or anything like there was in the previous two GC games, and no minigames like back in the N64 games. It feels quite empty, not very much like a full game at all. I would go so far as to say that, even if you like pokemon, you will hate this game unless you own either Pearl or Diamond, as without one of those games you're stuck with a very limited set of rental pokemon.

The modes are in between good and bad, because some I enjoy and some I truly loath. Neon Colosseum is by far my most hated mode, and I doubt I'll ever be tempted to play through it again. In this mode, you and your opponent pool your pokemon and decide who gets what via a roulette. This sounds like it could be interesting, but the problem is that whilst my pokemon have been raised to blitz through the DP games, theirs have been raised to be mediocre opponents. So when I'm handed their Plusle who only has one attack move (that move being Fling) or their highly skilled Metapod (Tackle, String Shot & Harden, you can imagine the damage that this move set can do ) and they receive my Empoleon or my Misdreavus and proceed to absolutely destroy me, you can see why I might find this to be a little upsetting. In the end I was forced to play with rental pokemon so that no matter what, everybody wound up with mediocre pokemon

The graphics are disappointing too - the pokemon look great, but their attacks are really uninspiring. Honestly, I find that the DS battle animations capture my imagination more, for when I watch a very nicely designed Nidorina perfom a double kick with it's forearms it just makes me wonder why anybody thought that made sense (I don't particularly like Nidorina, that's just an example. Trust me, there are plenty of instances in the game just like it). The game is almost entirely about battling, why not try to make it as realistic as possible? Oh, and on top of that there's this weird clear effect that whoever was modelling the attacks clearly loves to death, as it dominates far too much. It's hard to describe, but it's really annoying, and if you've played the game or seen enough footage of it you'll know what I mean.

Finally, whilst the music is enjoyable and the announcer is actually half decent in this game, the pokemon's voices take the back seat. I was pretty disappointed to see my wonderously 3D pokemon burst on to my television screen in silence, simply because their cries have been altered to be whisper quiet for some reason.

Well that's the bad stuff, now on to the good.

First up, one of the most interesting features is your trainer card. Finally, the trainer is almost entirely customizable by the player. I would really like to see something like this in the next Pokemon game, because it's pretty cool to see your character make the transition from generic to unique. I am currently sporting a classy looking top hat, and hoping that I will get a monocle somewhere down the way (it seems that more costume stuff is unlocked as you play).

Then the DS integration. This is truly a wonderful thing - all you do is wirelessly link your DS to your Wii and it copies all of your game data across. That's right, copies all of it. No more transferring pokemon, no more spending hours going to a damn pokemon centre every time you need to do that, every pokemon that you've caught is instantly copied on to the Wii, all it takes is just a few short minutes.

As I mentioned earlier, some of the modes are actually quite fun. I'm currently playing one where the game throws 12 random pokemon in front of you and your and your opponent make a team of four from them to use against each other. It's interesting because whilst some pokemon might seem like great choices, they actually have terrible movesets (and vice-versa), so I get to play a few pokemon that I usually avoid. Another mode has you playing with your pokemon order totally random, so it's a great way to see whether or not your move sets stand up to the test. There are still standard battles too, though honestly I'm finding these kinda boring by now

Last but not least, there are some bonuses in owning the Wii Pokemon game. The Shop offers many evolutionary items that you can usually only find one of in the games, and there are also some decent TMs that you can Mystery Gift back to your game. On top of this, when I finish the game I get three rather nice presents: a Pikachu (complete with Light Ball and the following impossible moveset: Volt Tackle, Surf, Tail Whip, Thunder Wave), an Electivire (holding Magnet with moveset: Thunderpunch, Ice Punch, Cross Chop, Earthquake) and a Magmortar (holding Charcoal with moveset: Flamethrower, Psychic, Hyper Beam, Solar Beam). It seems like there could be more on top of that, as to get Electivire and Magmortar you need to enter a code (Pikachu is given to you when you finish).

Oh, and this means that I may finally see some WiFi action. To those of you who told me that I should spend my time trying to build up a decent team... Sorry that I ignored you I guess I'll be sorting out that team right about now...

Anybody else got this game? Care to share your thoughts and/or opinions?

[Dr Tanner]

I'll be picking this up for myself once I get up the cash for a Wii and the game.

If I can indeed buy a Wii anywhere - they're constantly sold out everywhere.

Then I'll let you know what I think.

[3kul]

Finished up each of the Colosseums for the first time, and got a crazy Pikachu for it - it's attacks are Volt Tackle, Surf, Tail Whip and Thunder Wave, and it's currently at level 10.

I can't imagine using it too much, but it's still pretty cool to have (and it's holding a Light Ball too)

[Danikat]

I might well end up getting this. I was a big fan of Pokemon Stadium on the N64, and pretty much all I did on there was battle so the lack of other options probably won't bother me too much.

The random mode intrigues me. Me and my brother and sister tried to invent our own version of this for Stadium by picking pokemon with our eyes closed and using random stop points (like the end of a song that was playing) or plugging in the broken controller and waving it around until it picked something for us.
As you can imagine it was very time consuming and frustrating but a lot of fun because of the challenge of using pokemon and move sets you wouldn't normally consider so an automatic version would be great.

Plus I only got a Wii the other day so I'm looking for anything that sounds interesting to try out.

[huynh_192265]

Isn't it just another Pokemon Stadium game?

[3kul]

Well if you want to put it like that, aren't Diamond/Pearl just another handheld Pokemon game?

Yes, but it's different to it's predecessors in various ways, some good, some bad. I'm pretty sure I covered that in my first post though.

[Dr Tanner]