Pokémon Colosseum hit the Gamecube 20 years ago and gave fans a look at what this franchise could look like as a 3D RPG. While a bit flawed for today’s standards, fans did enjoy what this title did at the time and are celebrating this game’s legacy.
Colosseum was technically a spin-off from the main series and was also a sequel to the Pokémon Stadium games from the Nintendo 64. However, unlike those games, Colosseum had a proper single-player mode that almost played like a standard Pokémon title.
Like a lot of these games, Pokémon Colosseum has you control a silent protagonist who battles a ton of trainers. What differentiates Colosseum from previous games is that you can only catch Shadow Pokémon, corrupted versions of the critters we know and love (thanks Serebii). This makes forming parties harder but also adds some strategy, making players catch the types they need to stay ahead.
Rather than beating gym leaders, Colosseum has a more straightforward plot of stopping a bad guy and saving the world. Granted, this is still done through the turn-based battles Pokémon games are known for, but the plot did give fans something new to go through.
Despite nostalgia being strong for these games, most fans agree that a lot of this game’s mechanics didn’t age well. Attempting to use Shadow Pokémon was frustrating, as they had limited move-sets but needed to be used in battles to be “purified.” Once these Pokémon were ready for purification, players had to go all the way to a village to make them pure.
If all of that sounds tedious, well, Pokémon Colosseum was a very tedious game, albeit, an ambitious one. Thankfully, a lot of these issues were fixed when the sequel, Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, was also released on Gamecube, giving fans another solid RPG experience.
While Game Freak doesn’t acknowledge the series as much as we’d like, they haven’t completely ignored it either. Pokémon GO brought back the concept of Shadow Pokémon as part of special Shadow Raids last year, with fans taking notice. Unfortunately, this didn’t lead to a remaster or remake of the Gamecube game.
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Until Nintendo or Game Freak re-releases the title, Pokémon Colosseum is stuck on Gamecube. Fans can definitely play the game if they want, as long as they know where to look.