Day 13: How do Colosseum/XD compare to other main-series games?
A few guiding questions:
Which aspects did you enjoy and why?
Which aspects did you dislike and why?
How would you improve upon these games if they followed a similar formula in the future?
You can focus on these or story/capture method/whatever you want.
I really loved yesterday's posts, even if they made my computer lag a bit. :]
As the colosseum expert I guess this is my day to shine (thanks for letting me know on irc Stellar, alerts system on this sucks and didn't tell me when a watched thread was replied into...).
Colosseum is a fantastic game, and first of all I would like to make the one main thing that is different about them here: NOBODY KNOWS ABOUT THESE GAMES!! IGN themselves said that "X and Y are the first 3D Pokemon games". Our own benevolent Mekkah doesn't know what they are for goodness sake. How these games go unnoticed baffles me still; not even I know of XD: Gales Of Darkness until I bought it a few years ago! I haven't read Cobaroll's post btw, forgive me for anything I repeat.
Which aspects of the game did I enjoy?
All of it Well it was simply so different for me. As somebody who actually did play Pokemon Red as my first game (not many people actually know this about me, since I refer to Colosseum as my most nostalgic) and didn't actually like it I took a risk with this game. The problem with Red was it was far too linear and it felt to me as though there were some Pokemon that you absolutely had to use: Starter, Snorlax, that kind of thing. There were also fairly bad graphics and lots of bugs which as a child frustrated me more than anything. Colosseum improved on all of these factors, and as a child with a fairly dumb mind (it's still dumb now, just less so ^_^) some of the puzzles were SO fun to get through. Cipher Laboratory, Pyrite Cave and The Under as a whole really stand out to me. The thing is is that these puzzles were just challenging enough for adults playing the game for the first few times to get stuck on too, but for less time, and as a child who liked challenges I loved this aspect of the game. Let's compare this to other games; Kanto's biggest puzzle is probably Ice Cave or Cerulean Cave. I got through Ice Cave very quickly (don't ask me why) and I've never actually played the games far enough to get to Cerulean Cave, they bore me soooo much. Johto's biggest puzzle is Ice Cave, and that is simply frustrating. WHY ARE YOU SLIDING TO THAT ROCK GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!! It also ruins speedruns... against Mekkah.... with lots of people watching you fail at it.... the shame..... Anyway Hoenn's biggest puzzle was probably... I don't even know. This is one area Hoenn was really lacking for me, I guess that as a kid who didn't like cheating the biggest puzzle was reading the braille but... who really did that without cheating? Like really? Thought not. I didn't go to the great marsh so for me the hardest puzzle in Sinnoh was that foggy route but YOU CAN'T SEE ANYTHING WHY ARE YOU BLAMING ME ABOUT THIS? Unova had.... nothing really.
The Pokemon selection is another thing that has many opinions on this game. As a concept it is good but unfortunately it is something that doesn't really appeal to me, as it really showcases that this is just a way to get rare Pokemon into Hoenn. Pokemon such as Misdreavus and Quagsire are used a hell of a lot as they are the only Ghost-Type and Pokemon with access to Surf AND Earthquake in the games, respectively, as well as being available early on. If you play the games a bunch then eventually the selection of these Pokemon grows stale for you, and if you are like me you rarely use the Pokemon in that game in any other games because you know exactly how it is going to play. I don't think the idea of this should get the hate that it does though, I mean, if you only play the game a little bit then it could be good. People who like Misdreavus find out he is unique in this game. It lessens diversity to the game in a way, but if you want to challenge yourself with these games then you find out different ways to use these Pokemon. For example, the first few times I used Gligar I went offensive. Recently I tried a more defensive set with Screech/Sand Attack/Toxic/Slash and Gligar was easily my MVP. The games also did a good job of introducing Pokemon at good levels... with the exceptions of some Pokemon such as Delibird and Sunflora. It has to be said I feel like Nintendo really had a good personality making these games. They put in trashbags such as Delibird and Sunflora late-game, character designs such as Miror. B and his theme (see yesterday for my feelings on his theme), it's little details like this that truly make these games special. As this is a comparison question, let's compare it to the other games: Red and Blue really has no personality at all. Linear. Average Pokemon Designs for the most part and average moves for the Pokemon. Johto: See Red and Blue. Seriously these games are made so similarly.... Hoenn starts with a bit more personality I guess, you can imagine the fun the programmers were having whilst making some of those cutscenes and also the text. Something that stands out to me is the sign next to New Mauville which you all should know of! Sinnoh... eh, not really. The region is all about Myths & Legends but they didn't really showcase what mythology is about, which really disappoints me. Unova's personality is just wrong... all of the "POKEMON ARE OUR FWIENDS!! :3 :3 :3" is bad in itself, but there are other parts which is basically just saying "Fuck you, haters". Both Black, White, Black 2 and White 2 just seem like "so you say this is cockfighting? Let me tell you why you're wrong!". The problem is that everyone says this storyline is amazing when let's be honest. It's not. Team Plasma, a.k.a PETA want to release Pokemon, a.k.a animals from people. You believe that "POKEMON ARE OUR FWIENDS!! :3 :3 :3" at that point so say "no". There's some icky talk where Cheren says "YOU'RE MY FWIEND TOOOOO!!!! :3:3:3:3:3" and then you get a stolen Pokemon back... that identity of which is never revealed. Then nothing much happens until they steal a fossil head for there plans LOL NOPE WE DON'T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A DRAGONITE AND A ZEKROM FFS. I'm not going to go on but I'm just pointing out Nintendo quite clearly had PETA in mind whilst creating these games, which really annoys me because the games just feel so... so wrong. Pokemon Colosseum's personality is fantastic and you can tell that the producers were having a good time making the game, other games feel like the producers had their backs against the walls. Hard.
Onto the story itself and this is like a modern-day movie... except it was really old. It starts off with something bad happening, OMG A BUILDING JUST GOT BLOWN UP!!! Then another bad thing happens, OMG THERE'S A GIRL IN A BAG. Then the guy who just blew up the building saves the girl: Oh, so he's the hero right? Well, kinda, but he has this giant guilty conscience of stealing Pokemon? Betcha didn't see that coming! Playing this game for the first time is so exci- IT HAS EXPLOSIONZ! DON'T FORGET THE EXPLOSIONS!!!! Seriously this game catches you off-guard in so many different ways. When you chased Venus down in The Under were you expecting an explo- BOOOM MUAHAHAHAH!!!!!! Yeah exactly. You weren't. There are also so many things to remember that only things like Kingdom Hearts do. The whole Duking/Silva thing was so mysterious to me the whole game, because it seriously made Silva look like the bad guy but then he was captured? Wait so is Duking the bad guy? Wait no, his kids oversee the Kid's Grid, a fucking syndicate taking down Cipher! It was little things like this that kept racing in my mind when I was playing the game and even when I wasn't, trying to figure stuff out for myself. I know that you WTF'd at Evice too, don't lie.... Ok so let's compare this to other games: You defeat gym leaders. Yeah usually I write a sentence for each game (or even multiple! :O) but that's it. ;D. Lolno but R/B/Y has like no story at all. There are a few grunts here and there but no personality. Johto/Crystal are largely the same, let's be fair. Hoenn, however, have one of the best stories in Pokemon, like including the spin-offs. It is literally a fight of the sea and the land, two things living in harmony for so long are influenced by humans and BOOM THE APOCALYPSE JUST HAPPENED. Sapphire was good enough but in Emerald THE FREAKING SKY GOT INVOLVED!! This game was also Pokemon's first try at cutscenes, which IMO looked really good for the time. Sinnoh's story was terrible and Unova's.... PETA SUCKS!!!
No wild Pokemon. Now this is one of the more controversial things and I kind of touched upon it earlier with limited options. The point of this game is it is story-driven. Yes, you gotta catch them all, but you gotta catch them all to actually properly beat the game, and receive Ho-oh! What about in the other main-streams? ERMAGHERD SHIIIIIIIIIIINY is the best thing I've got from that... and that's only in B2/W2. Wild Pokemon would ruin this. Another good thing about this that I personally like is you know what you're going to run into; there's no "is this going to be a Magikarp or a Qwilfish?" it's sure as hell going to be a Qwilfish. This eases you when you plan your teams a lot and it also makes the games so much easier to play. Just because I like Surskit doesn't mean I'm going to waste my life for looking for the damn thing! People would argue that this makes the games incredibly linear, and in a way yes, it does make it kind linear. But the other games are linear in this way too, you know that Route 1 holds Rattata. You know that you've got a Lugia waiting for you at the bottom of the whirl islands and you're sure as fuck getting a Castform from the weather centre. These games are really no different from that, so that is not a viable excuse as to why these games are bad, and I personally like it.
So the characters. There are so many more unique characters in terms of game-length in this game than in other games. In other games you have, what, player character, Mum, Professor, Rival (or two), Gym Leaders, E4, Champion, leaders of criminal organization? That gets most of it. The shop keeper has an individual model in this game, however. Want a different looking fortune teller? Done. Want a mythical trainer looking different? Gotcha. Want his fucking wife looking good? Why the hell not!? I mean seriously the developers went all out to make each character their own. Lots of times this was models, even making some minor differences to some random ones. Other time's the old lady is in love with her Mightyena, or that old man over there is almost having cardiac arrest. I'm not using any websites while writing this, by the way, these characters stick to you! This is relating back to what I have said multiple times throughout this which is that the developers has a lot of fun making this game. They didn't have to make the Roller Boy be putting on a show and rhyming every line, and in main-stream games they're not going to do that because it's "too risky" or something dumb like that. The characters stand out as one of the main differences this game has to other games as it is just just so funny; all of it. I legitimately laughed many times through this game, other games? Fuck no.
Now for possibly the MOST hated thing about this game: It's all double battles. OK I get that the whole game being double battles is a little bit too much, and I understand that. I have to say though, people who complain about this NEED to be more open-minded. There is the colosseum area, where you can play single battles with a lot of different Pokemon to your heart's content! I don't understand this because yes, it would be kinda nice to have some single battles, but people would still complain that there aren't enough. You have to realize that there are some people who prefer double battles to single battles, and how do you feel about how most of those guys feel playing through your main-stream games? It's a different style, whether this is bad or good depends on opinion. I know that this can be said for everything but it of the utmost importance looking at this just because people don't seem to get that it is different for a reason. I'll leave this at that.
So basically these games are very different, but there are also lots of similarities. I touched upon the differences Pokemon Colosseum has to the other games, and would only have slightly talked about similarities whilst comparing some of these points to other games. I explained about how the games are different, I said whether they are good and bad and I tried to use unbias opinions but if you know me you will know that this is probably pretty damn bias.
Next time you mention XY, Stellar, expect a post like this except full of negativity. (BTW PLEASE DO A QUESTION ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE HATING ABOUT XY I WANT IT)!!!
Oh, and
Cobraroll I beat you! :p
Edit: 20:46 AstralFireAlso, the reason X/Y are referred to as the first 3D Pokemon games is that they're the first main series games to be 3D. The Pokemon franchise went 3D with Stadium, well before Colosseum.
These are actually stories though. It is controversial as to whether these count as main series games but personally I'd say they are good enough. I think that IGN more specifically says "the first story 3D games" or something so that's what I meant...
