Pokemon Colosseum and XD: Gale of Darkness - The Shadow Pokemon Saga

[StoneKnightMan]

A really great video game duoligy for the Nintendo GameCube. I give you

Pokémon Colosseum

And it’s sequel, Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness

In these two video games, you play as a trainer and you go around the Orre Region battling trainers. And catching Shadow Pokémon that some trainers happen to be using. You’ll also be fighting the games antagonist, Cipher, who is using Shadow Pokémon for world domination


In Pokémon Colosseum, you’ll take control of Wes, a young man who defected from Team Snagem (a sub group working for Cipher and tasked with stealing trainers’ Pokémon). Wes crashes into the Team Snagem hideout with his Espeon and Umbreon and steals the Snagem Device and escapes and blowing up their base in the process.

Here’s the badass opening.

Chuggaaconroy has a playthrough of Colosseum on youtube so check that out

In XD: Gale of Darkness, you take control of a young boy named Michael, the threat of cipher has returned and even more threatening with the appearance of a Shadow Lugia.


You can connect your gen III gba games (Firered, Leafgreen, Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald) to do trades.

 

[Robotron]

>XD

 

[Corrugated Daffodils]

These were fantastic games. I loved how each pokemon filled a unique roll in your party!

 

[Hen in a tie]

I loved roaming on a home console. it was my first 3d pokemon game so it felt really immersive at the time.
Also lets never forget Mirror B. I love his battle music and his god awful Ludicolos

 

[dunbrine47]

Colosseum 3 on Switch. *mic drop*

 

[Bunk3r]

jesus fuck, its been AGES since ive played that
anyone own a copy that i can buy off on amazon or ebay?

 

[melty]

Honestly I didn't care much for this game. I think I sold it. I liked getting Jirachi from it, though.

 

[King_Scrotus]

The 3D pokemon games were always my absolute favorites, moreso than the gameboy games honestly. Most of my childhood was spent fucking around with Stadium on my N64. I always wished they'd make even more after the gamecube ones, but meh, that never happened.

These two gamecube ones were great, though I would have preffered more opprotunities to catch wild pokemon than the ones they offered. From what I recall it was just some shitty minigame where you sat in some specific spot like a cave and just had to sit and wait until a pokemon showed up, and every time it was a Zubat.

Though I recall that there were lots of Gen 2 pokemon in the first one, which made me love it since that was always my favorite gen. Nothing better than getting a Feraligator in 3D!

 

[Corsola]

I had both, they were pretty cool. Played the first one a lot more though. It was especially awesome at the time cause that was the only way to get a lot of Gen 2 Pokemon on your mainline GBA games. I remember breeding them and giving them to kids at my school and feeling so cool. They also seemed more difficult than the mainline games, but thinking back that may be because I rotated my party so much trying to purify Shadow Pokemon.
I would buy a Switch sequel.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Colosseum can get really difficult towards the end. I haven't played much of xD.

Weird how the latter still seems like a "new" game to me.

 

[LegoTugboat]

It was a interesting idea and one of the better Pokemon console titles. That being said, though, I'd really just prefer a majorly overhauled Pokemon Stadium.

Granted, Colosseum had hilariously bad shadows. Not shadow Pokemon, but their shadows. Ridiculously blocky.

Also, Mirror B. Just Mirror B.

 

[Catastrophe-TM]

Probably the only pokemon games that are actually challenging and fun to play imo. I still play them every once in awhile (mostly XD). I really hope for a third game someday. A lot of people say XD isn't hard, but I personally think it is due to some bosses such as Snattle and Ardos. And Miror B. of course.

 

[Slumber Crasher]

These games always came to mind when people were saying X and Y were the first 3D Pokemon games. I guess the fact that you don't get random encounters makes it not count for a lot of people. Glad to see others enjoyed them; they were a good bit of fun for a Pokemon sperg.

Them having just blocks for shadows is also true. Jumpluff was probably the funniest.

 

[andr0id psycho sho(ker]

my first ever pokemon game back when I was kid. Was a totally noob but I had fun with it

 

[Dunsparce]

From a competitive standpoint, Pokemon XD has 2 very relevant Pokemon from it:

-Refresh Pidgeotto
-Refresh Salamence

Basically both are used in Gen VI and VII as Mega Pidgeot/Salamence with a similar set:

Mega Pidgeot uses Hurricane/Work Up/Roost/Refresh, Mega Salamence uses Return/Dragon Dance/Roost/Refresh

Basically both boost their offensive stats with a boosting move, healing with roost and getting rid of status with Refresh for longevity, and then once they get up high enough they spam No Guard Hurricane/Aerilate Return until either they faint of the opposing team does.

The main problem with using these is getting ones with the right nature, since it is really hard to soft reset for that stuff in the gamecube games.

 

[dunbrine47]

I had an totally awesome team for Colosseum.
Let's see, I had a Delibird, a Sunflora, an Umbreon with Hyper Beam.....wait a minute I was awful at team making back then.

 

[TrippinKahlua]

The Pokemon Colosseum games earns an A+ for effort, an A- in terms for story, but a complete F in terms of presentation in my book.

While fun to play, I felt the first game was a big letdown for the "First console Pokemon RPG." It didn't need to be a continuation of the Pokemon Stadium series, but the "Move cinematics" (as I call them) were severely toned down in this next generation installment. Ever seen Blaziken use Blaze Kick? Just a weak jump flip with his boot flaming a little bit... Nothing like what you'd have imagined if you saw Blaziken using it in the Johto League arc. The way your character moves is notorious for how you can sometimes get stuck with your girl sidekick (who I will call Aya since thats what I called her). I appreciate them including sidekicks for you like in the anime, but they just didn't install the system right.

The way you acquire Pokemon was original, it was pretty cool at the time to hear you would be "stealing" the Pokemon, and while grim at first (especially considering the protagonists menacing appearance, which I'll get to later) it fell more into place when it was learned the Pokemon were mistreated and became "Shadow Pokemon." And this is where problems start to come in. Shadow Pokemon are just Pokemon you can't find in Ru/Sa, created to transfer, but you can't transfer them. For something depicted as a horrible idea, Shadow Pokemon themselves weren't presented to be something like that. They just have a dark aura around them, and can only use one move. And... anything else? Are they prone to the infamous "Disobedience" mechanic? I don't remember all the cutscenes, but did any in particular exist depicting the supposed evil-influenced Pokemon attacking civillians? At least the purification process was handled well enough (compared to the sequel, fuck that purification machine, I don't even think I Purified the Lugia).

And now onto those....... "Characters" The Character development for the humans, in both installments, is shit. Pure shit. Your protagonist, if I recall, was a cliche "Silent RPG" Protagonist, but if he's supposed to be a former member of one of the evil teams, why not a little more backstory as to why he went rogue? Why did he ALREADY have both Espeon and Umbreon? And why did both get such an unceremonious debut? Why was the opening prologue so unceremonious in the first place? How come EVERY story development was unceremonious. Even "Event Pokemon." You're given a Plusle. Why just a Plusle? You need a Minun to use that Pokemon effectively. Why not give me both? This was the generation that debut the Double Battle Mechanic. What a wasted opportunity.

And the biggest failure for me is this stupid, unceremonious crap they did near the end of the game...... "GUESS WHAT GUYS, THERE'S SOMEONE ABOVE ME!!!!" Literally three fucking times the game faked you out with who the true final boss was. And then the final reveal, the real head honcho.... I don't even want to spoil his name because it was such an unbelievably stupid thing to include, and it wasn't even a twist because at this point, a twist wouldn't have mattered, and there was NOTHING to suggest this person would have been the true villain and even worse, this person had certain influence... Which made the entirety of Orre seem like a very unsafe place (and yes, I know it really was portrayed that way, but seriously fuck this place).

But even though I didn't like it that much, I got the follow up. It did improve on some things, gracefully giving us more Shadow Moves, but nothing else was really done with the "Shadow System" besides that clunky and confusing machine that was supposed to be the way to purify that Lugia.

 

[LegoTugboat]

Brah, it's Pokemon. The games aren't exactly known for their indepth plot.

The most heavy part of the any Pokemon game's plot is probably when Magma tries to blast a rocket into Mount Chimney in Emerald to make the damn thing erupt.

 

[Yeeb-Renzo]

The “always set to double battle” thing was a little weird to me, but I can see that they were trying to go for something a little different with the combat system. That it could potentially opened up more strategies and have you carefully choose which moves you were gonna use next so that you won’t end up killing the Pokémon next to you, but for the most part, it stayed pretty much the same.

 

[Catastrophe-TM]

The way you acquire Pokemon was original, it was pretty cool at the time to hear you would be "stealing" the Pokemon, and while grim at first (especially considering the protagonists menacing appearance, which I'll get to later) it fell more into place when it was learned the Pokemon were mistreated and became "Shadow Pokemon." And this is where problems start to come in. Shadow Pokemon are just Pokemon you can't find in Ru/Sa, created to transfer, but you can't transfer them. For something depicted as a horrible idea, Shadow Pokemon themselves weren't presented to be something like that. They just have a dark aura around them, and can only use one move. And... anything else? Are they prone to the infamous "Disobedience" mechanic? I don't remember all the cutscenes, but did any in particular exist depicting the supposed evil-influenced Pokemon attacking civillians?

Actually yes. They do have a disobedience mechanic in a sense; if they're in Hyper Mode and you make them use an attack other than Shadow Rush, they may attack themselves or your other mon on the field, attack your trainer or the opposing trainer, return to their poke ball or attempt to use its hold item even if it doesn't have one. This is only in Colosseum unfortunately, Reverse Mode in XD works differently.
In Colosseum's storyline, there are only 2 instances of Shadow Pokemon attacking people. The Makuhita that attacks your trainer and a Togetic in the post game (the latter being just a photo of it though).

You're given a Plusle. Why just a Plusle? You need a Minun to use that Pokemon effectively. Why not give me both? This was the generation that debut the Double Battle Mechanic. What a wasted opportunity.

They actually planned to have you snag a Shadow Minun to go with it, but it was scrapped for whatever reason. So yeah, a wasted opportunity.

And the biggest failure for me is this stupid, unceremonious crap they did near the end of the game...... "GUESS WHAT GUYS, THERE'S SOMEONE ABOVE ME!!!!" Literally three fucking times the game faked you out with who the true final boss was. And then the final reveal, the real head honcho.... I don't even want to spoil his name because it was such an unbelievably stupid thing to include, and it wasn't even a twist because at this point, a twist wouldn't have mattered, and there was NOTHING to suggest this person would have been the true villain and even worse, this person had certain influence... Which made the entirety of Orre seem like a very unsafe place (and yes, I know it really was portrayed that way, but seriously fuck this place).

Colosseum never faked you out 3 times on who the boss was. You're lead to believe its Nascour and the other admins were shown to be working under him to make you believe that there was no one else above him. There was some hints though to Evice being the true leader, mainly how Nascour was walking out of the mayor's house and how the mayor states he'd look into your case but ultimately does nothing.
imo, it was a twist to see Evice because this evidence is so trivial that you never really think too much about it (or if you go back and talk to him sometime beforehand, he'd give an excuse to one of those things).