An Early 3D Pokémon Retrospective

we've crossed the Event Horizon that it's all downhill from here a horrible accident occurred and it was called 3D Pokemon think of this as a great reset and you better know I'm gonna say it once again for those in the back 3D is a paradigm shift so incredible that no franchise has ever left the process entirely unscathed when you rip off the 3D bandage you must discard old questions and ask yourself wholly new ones Pokemon a multimedia franchise built on the back of yearly game releases which sometimes set into motion an entire new generation of toys movies cards and spin-offs to absolutely no one's surprise doesn't quite mesh with the trials and tribulations associated with 3D development shocker I know I genuinely can't think of a single 3D Pokemon game that isn't held back in some way because of it being a 3D game we are entering a tumultuous period for the franchise one with controversy hiding around every corner some of those complaints I agree and some of them I don't which means I get to make a lot of different people really upset I can't wait to read your comments but first we require additional context see Pokemon X and Y are not the first entries we'll be discussing we've actually been enjoying 3D Pokemon since the N64 they're so revered in fact that they're involved in the discourse surrounding each new release despite many of them still being stuck on decades-old Hardware think of these earlier 3D titles as a set of boxing gloves and the recent 3D titles as the punching bag that is the lens through which we approach modern Pokemon critique at the moment since these games are going to be quite relevant to the discussion moving forward I wanted to go back and see how well they've held up over the years I want to know how they tackled the 3D Pokemon dilemma how successful were they what problems arose how could we remedy them let's talk about the early days of 3D Pokemon [Music] before that odds are if you enjoy Pokemon you enjoy giving I mean who hasn't hunted version exclusives for a friend and that's why I've partnered with omaze who has sponsored this video omaze is a fundraising service launched with the goal of transforming how typical Charities operate they provide donors the chance to win once in a lifetime prizes you'll have a chance to win an all-electric Hummer EV Edition 1 while helping to support Rebuilding Together which makes essential repairs to help neighbors stay in their homes they often address the long-term recovery of communities struck by natural disasters which will only become more and more common omaze has raised over 150 million dollars for charity in fact in 2021 alone they gave around 27 million dollars supporting 131 non-profits with 6462 winners it's a great way to dream big while also supporting a good cause head on over to omaze.com King k for your chance to win an all-electric Hummer EV Edition one that's omaze.com King k for your chance to win an all-electric Hummer EV Edition 1 while supporting a great cause so you want to use your gold and silver skills in a 3D World [Music] now you can get Pokemon Stadium 2 the only place you can upload your Game Boy Pokemon on your N64 and battle with over 250 characters in 3D you've got skills save them for the game it's 1998 a few years after the first Pokemon game and the release of the Nintendo 64. 3D was sweeping the industry yet their sat Pokemon Shackled to the Game Boy something had to be done about that and so Nintendo's internal development Studio EAD released Pocket Monsters Stadium it wasn't exactly a game in the traditional sense of the word in order to play it you had to connect one of the Game Boy games while it was saved at a Pokemon Center through this you were able to view those hideous 2D Sprites in wondrous 3D while reading their Pokedex entries the battle mode had rental teams but it was best enjoyed with your own monsters well some of them anyway there were only 40 Pokemon available for the battle mode while the other 111 were purely viewable in the Pokedex at some point they were planning to add the rest through the 64 disk drive but since it was never released outside of Japan and Pokemon fever was spreading across the globe they opted to Simply make a quick sequel for more money instead and so Pokemon Stadium for the Nintendo 64 is technically the second Pokemon Stadium game but it is the first 3D Pokemon release in the west all of the 151 Pokemon were available to be used in battle and you were no longer restricted by preset teams you could instead rent all of them though they had moves which weren't always ideal it still wanted you to use the transfer pack to pick from your own Pokemon and that seemed to be a large part of its appeal Pokemon was a burgeoning media Enterprise fans were hungry to see the companions they painstakingly raised on a bigger screen filling that need in so many fans is likely part of the reason Pokemon became so popular the games were the hook that sent players searching for more ways to appreciate them collect the trading cards watch the anime snap pictures of them in their natural habitats or send them up onto your television to do battle it was a prolific franchise from the get-go Stadium isn't really a Pokemon Adventure as much as it is a big console battle tower it had modes with all of the now Standard Online rules unrestricted level 50 little cup Etc there's a gauntlet mode where you fight every gym leader their trainers the Elite Four and the champion they stick to their original theming somewhat but in order to buff up their challenge factor a few of them were given coverage bonds to fill in their weakness gaps Brock has a Golbat and a nine tails surge has a polyrth Tangela and Lickitung Lance's team is far more unique with Charizard Snorlax and Electabuzz the teams are fun but that's also all they really are you don't see Lance standing there while you fight him or anything you're just doing battle after battle after battle it's theoretically pretty fun until you remember that this came out before gen 2. stadium has all of the broken stuff that was in red and blue rap locks block crits being tied to speed all that fun garbage if I ever feel like torturing myself maybe I'll go through it all someday but I'd have to be in a really dark place to wish that upon myself I know a few of you are into the Gen 1 Jank so hey this one's perfect for you since it's all battling you'll get to watch it break so much more often thankfully two years later they released another sequel based on the second generation they added all the new Johto Pokemon and an entire new Wing to the gym leader Castle it's the same structure same set of modes but within the more polished Gen 2 framework personally as someone who never played the stadium games I don't really get a lot out of them if I wanted to battle I'd rather do it in a Mainline game I care more about or on Showdown but at the time those options wouldn't have been available for a short while these were the best options for battling against friends and I really admire just how much work went into the Pokemon models and animations to make those battles larger than life spectacles they only had to work on a couple hundred of them and the Johto mons were handled on a completely separate development pipeline inside a set of games with basically nothing in them except battling so it makes sense what they were able to achieve here in such a short amount of time every Pokemon has a unique entrance exit and idling animation many moves like Mega kick have a different movement depending on which monster is using it it's a shame there's not much else to do here besides a battle for hours alright I'm not here to bash on the stadium games they serve their purpose and even if I'm not crazy about them I don't know that they were ever supposed to stand the test of time they propagated the Pokemon media Empire and gave a bunch of kids a cool new way to appreciate their favorite monsters I'd bring up the stadium games because it's important to set a foundation for the console Pokemon battle titles notably that they were always meant to be battle simulators more than anything else a way to show off a new generation of Pokemon in 3D if you want to be purely cynical about it their only reason for existing was to be a powerful marketing tool again I don't say that disparagingly I simply want to set the stage for the more ambitious titles we'll be shifting our Focus to we will get our Pokemon back [Music] some Pokemon have fallen under the spell of an evil organization and you need to snag them back make them good again and train them for battle their newest Adventure now in 3D Pokemon Palestine only for Nintendo GameCube rated E for everyone 2003 three years after the release of Stadium 2 the GameCube has hit store shelves and it's time for Pokemon to take Center Stage this was the first project headed up by a group of devs put together by Nintendo to develop Pokemon games for home consoles genius sonority they were established in 2002 meaning they had a little over a year to make this one you play as a 17 year old boy named Wes former member of team snagum for reasons that will remain unknown you steal their prized snag machine which would allow them to steal Pokemon from other trainers you blow up their Hideout and ride off into the sunset with your Espeon and Umbreon this opening has a bit more of an edge to it your character is older and used to work for the villains there's no League challenge in the ore region instead your focus is on taking down an evil organization called Cipher who have taken over the scattered desert settlements they've been abducting and terrorizing Pokemon all across the region closing the doors to their hearts and turning them into thoughtless emotionless beings these Shadow Pokemon as they're called show no outwardly different signs that can be detected by the naked eye using this to their advantage members of Cipher hand out these Shadow Pokemon as tournament prizes to unsuspecting trainers hoping to populate the region with more aggressive fighting machines to drive interest in their new stadium real gam Tower the scope of Cipher's operation makes ore feel like a No Man's Land other Pokemon stories would see figures like the champion coming to help you take on the evil team sometimes with the aid of other Gym Leaders those evil teams were always on the back foot pushing against an established Authority team Cipher meanwhile actively controls most of ore throwing Wes and his allies into the underdog rule working with the kids grid you battled the cipher admins liberate cities steal back all the Shadow Pokemon and raid real game Tower you roll around the Pokemon equivalent of the Wild West stealing Pokemon from trainers of course we know we're doing a good thing purifying Shadow Pokemon from the trainer's perspective though who can't notice that they even have a Shadow Pokemon we essentially feel the same role as team snagum stealing Pokemon left and right initially there's a lot of intrigue surrounding Wes and his former criminal affiliation but it gets swept under the rug once you meet rui and realize you're a silent protagonist this aspect of coliseum's story used to bother me quite a lot it sets up so much while expounding upon very little we never quite learn what prompts West to betray team stag him nor do we ever get the sense that he was the type of person to join up with them to begin with though I suppose for many this is the beauty of Wes he has more going for him than your typical Pokemon protagonist but is malleable enough that you can fill in the blanks yourself he is Wes embarrassed to admit to rui that he used to be a member of team snagum or does he proudly embrace the fact that he was wearing it like a badge of honor Coliseum might be the only Pokemon game in which you can role play as someone more than a 10 year old kid going on their first Pokemon Adventure which makes the rather by the Numbers conflict more personal to the West you envision in your head whether you're the benevolent hero or the outlaw with the Heart of Gold it fits with the Region's rugged aesthetic based on Phoenix Arizona The Ore region is a Barren Wasteland so devoid of life that there aren't any wild Pokemon to catch this is a handy World building tool to set up the main gimmick of Coliseum where you catch Shadow Pokemon from other trainers before fighting the final boss there are around 40 Pokemon you can pick from a pathetic variety if you're looking for a team of six your options are quite Limited in some ways I like this the small selection means that a few Pokemon have more inherent value than they do in the base games Slugma is not a terribly great Pokemon but he has flamethrower ready to go as soon as he's purified fight meaning he can throw out incredibly powerful fire stab attacks mrvis is the only Ghost type option you have in a game where trainers will often throw out normal and fighting type moves Dunsparce has Serene Grace which can be helpful for inflicting status conditions Fortress is a fantastic wall if you need to stall during particularly tough fights and there are quite a few of those the primary format of Coliseum is the double battle so there's a lot more to think about during a fight in previous games you could use earthquake whenever you wanted but in Coliseum you need to plan around this ridiculously powerful move by ensuring that it won't also take out your ally moves like protect reflect light screen and helping hand have much more value allowing for more diversity in the moves you carry it also makes for a harder game overall since you can't always out speed your opponent and defeat them before they can get a move off even if you can manage that with your limited options there will almost certainly be another Pokemon on the other side side of the field to deal with at any given time since there's no League challenge it feels like a more traditional RPG Cipher admins revolve around a central theme or Pokemon rather than a type mirror B uses a team of Ludicolo with rain dance two of them have Swift swim the other two have rain dish Ludicolo is already a defensive Beast with an awkward water grass dual typing making this fight decently challenging depending on your team composition dakim builds his team around powerful earthquake users slapping protect on all of them so they don't wipe each other out Venus has a variety of genders on her team so she can make use of a tract with a bronze set of typings to whittle away at your team Ein has a variety of strengths setting up rain for his water types to take advantage of while also allowing his electric Pokemon full accuracy on Thunder these are just the cipher admins the main bosses once you reach real gam Tower things get pretty nutty Ein upgrades his team still focusing on the rain dance core but adding allies like ride on and mainectric with the lightning rod ability to prevent you from taking advantage of the rain with your own Thunders it actually took me off guard while I was fighting him mirror B keeps two of his Ludicolo with the two different abilities and switches the rest of his team out for loudrid Golduck and armaldo to better cover his flying bug and poison type weaknesses using earthquake ice beam and rock slide takim who was already a decent jump in difficulty due to his fairly high level gets a sick upgrade he's still focusing on his earthquake strategy but using allies like claydol and Flygon who both have levitate to avoid taking damage he brings Fortress and wiscash for extra bulk and a Houndoom for more offensive power he also carries great coverage moves like solar beam flamethrower waterfall and Ice Beam Coliseum doesn't screw around if you're not adequately prepared it will Blindside you I consider myself a fairly seasoned veteran and I still struggle during the late game primarily against Evis who dare I say is one of the hardest fights in any Pokemon game if you aren't grinding at Mount battle you are probably going to end up under level by the time you reach Wheel game Tower and you're going to have several challenge points even if you decide to use all three legendary dogs on your team as I said Coliseum is structured like a more traditional jrpg they designed the game around the fact that you can and probably will use those legendary dogs so here you are fairly under leveled about to go up against Evis what does he have Slowking with own Tempo meaning he can't be put to sleep Shadow Ball psychic water pulse and skill swap a decently bulky specially offensive threat skill swap might sound odd but we'll get to that one in a minute scissor a decently bulky physical attacker metal claw silverwind Baton Pass and Swords Dance this thing can spam M sword stance if you don't have a reliable fire type move and then baton passed those attack boosts to one of its other Heavy Hitters speaking of which Machamp has guts for its ability in case you were considering wearing his team down with status moves cross chop rocks line earthquake and bulk up like your average fighting type he hits really hard Salamence has the ability to intimidate which will hit both of your Pokemon shooting your physical attackers in the foot right away Dragon Dance double edge aerialace and dragon claw I'm not going to tell you why this Pokemon is scary it should be fairly self-evident he's got a shadow Tyranitar but if you're smart you'll have saved your master ball for the end game so you don't have to deal with another super powerful threat which leaves slacking Crush claw area lace earthquake and bulk up legendary tier stats but can only attack every other turn due to its ability alright so that sounds pretty tough but why hype it up so much surely this can't be the hardest battle in Pokemon there are teams out there who are much tougher one in particular comes to mind but you have to remember every battle and Coliseum is a double battle which makes every comp even more uniquely terrifying you need to deal with two of these Pokemon at any given moment some of whom have deadly Synergy slacking normally wouldn't be too much of a threat just cheese his true and ability with protect or something right that's probably everyone's first instinct but odds are if slacking is out Slowking will be there with him Slowking knows a move called skill swap what does that do all it does is switch the ability between the user and the target that's a bit annoying but certainly nothing oh oh might I remind the class that slacking's base stat total is uh 670. I always have trouble with this fight it doesn't matter what team I make Evis is a brick wall part of me kind of loves how challenging Coliseum can be it fills a niche that a lot of veterans like myself likely have a craving for the mainline games have their moments but they're easier and more accessible on average it doesn't bother me too much since I'm into Pokemon for a wide range of reasons and that difficulty exists on a wildly fluctuating Spectrum depending on your team it's just another thing that sets Coliseum apart I have a pretty strong appreciation for this game I played it a lot when I was a kid I love the design of the region the music and the way the Pokemon are animated I played so much of emerald that it was a bit surreal to see all of those Pokemon in 3D a lot of people still admire the work put into the models and animation here compared to the newest Mainline games and even though they're mostly hand-me-downs from the stadium titles I'd be hard-pressed to disagree there's an individualistic Flair to every Pokemon here to set them all apart Zigzagoon will actually run in zigzags like his pokedex entry States Ludicolo is constantly dancing Espeon does a majestic cat sitting pose I grew to love certain Pokemon more because of Coliseum especially playing around with the battle mode where you have access to any Pokemon from the first three generations so yeah I really admire Coliseum it's too bad I hate playing it it's not an exaggeration to say that every single time I've gone back to Coliseum I've come away from it with at least some kind of pain those expressive animations I just described are long and elaborate I admire the work put into them but they bog down the pace of battle they quickly lose their luster when you've seen the same ones over and over in the midst of your seventh horrifically long double battle in a huge dungeon filled with nothing but hallways and enemies trainers will jump down from the rafters to surprise you which was cute the first time I saw it and agonizing the 10th while trainer battles have the potential to be difficult I found myself mostly on autopilot when I wasn't fighting the cipher admins to be fair I'm basically on autopilot during any trainer battle in the mainline entries but those did not Encompass all of the game's content those trainer battles can be inside dungeons or on expansive routes each filled to the brim with items to find puzzles to solve and a bunch of new Pokemon to catch not only that there are quite often multiple different optional routes to explore at any given time as slow as Gen 4 could be at least you were always exploring this beautiful and dense region ore is drab and rustic with dilapidated buildings and dank underground black markets it's a region with a really unique visual Flair and all you're ever expected to do in these awesome locations is walk down long hallways fighting trainers one of the first dungeons in pyrite Town takes several hours to complete I dread it every playthrough there are too many trainer battles you can't walk five feet without someone popping up whenever you enter a battle you have to watch the camera pan around as each of the four Pokemon are sent out individually rui has a nearly 10 second long Shadow Pokemon identifier cutscene if relevant then you have to plan both of your Pokemon's moves watch them all play out cut to a fainting animation or watch another one get sent into battle Moon moves like earthquake and surf hit every Pokemon individually and it's the same with damage from status conditions or weather it's one thing when you enter a Coliseum challenge all you're doing there is a battling trainer after trainer so it isn't as mind-numbing since that's what you signed up for when you're exploring a dungeon though you'd sorta expect there to be more to it than walking down a spiral staircase with trainers on every step given there was a single year of Dev time at most it's likely they ran out of time to make more areas the game is much shorter than your average Pokemon Adventure and you only go to maybe four substantial locations one of the cipher admins dakim doesn't even have his own dungeon they stuck him on Mount battle which means in order to fight him you have to run through a gauntlet of about 10 Trainers running back to the beginning every single time for a free heal you do this right after slogging through the Behemoth of a dungeon in pyrite town yet it's almost like they don't expect you to be here yet since the average level range jumps up and keeps doing so as you progress you visit the under immediately after this and the first thing you do is fight Venus who jumps up a whole five levels at various points it feels like you've skipped over content of course what they want you to do is grind at the coliseums that open up but here's the kicker you can't bring any Shadow Pokemon with you purifying Shadow Pokemon is a lot like raising its friendship walk around with it send it out into battle and call its name when it enters hyper mode they can't level up but they'll Bank all the experience they gain and cash out when they're purified if you're building a team of six or even if you're just using whatever Pokemon you want it's actually discouraged to enter the stadiums since you lose so much time and experience on those Shadow mods you want to use your option for grinding effectively then is basically just Mount battle have fun and don't think you're gonna get around it either I used Umbreon Espeon Altaria sweet riko and Entei I used the three legendaries something I normally never do and I still could not beat Evis the level jump is too absurd remember when I said that Coliseum having less options meant that weaker Pokemon have more chances to shine that's still true but if you're using weaker Pokemon get ready to grind even harder for me team building is the lifeblood of Pokemon strip away the choice and you're left with a bare bones jrpg with horrible pacing and next to no replayability it's a Pokemon game without the secret sauce Coliseum might be more difficult than Pokemon usually is but that makes it harder to use what you want many will complain that the mainline games are easy but I never saw it as quite that clear-cut sure there are teams you can create that will break the games in half but the same is true of the reverse the battles are easy enough that you can use weaker options and have a decent challenge that doesn't require a horrendous amount of grinding at the end of the day whether your team is weak or strong you're the one who got to make it and that process is fulfilling it's a fine line one Coliseum doesn't quite walk thankfully its sequel does [Music] Darkness Has Fallen over the land of already the mystery lukia battle your way across a fast land to purify the Shadow Pokemon before it's too late experience the extra dimension of Pokemon XD xpeople playing Adventure building for Nintendo give you just two more years after Coliseum we got Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness it's a direct sequel using the same engine Pokemon models and animations that's right this 2005 GameCube game is still using models and animations from a 1998 N64 game it's funny going back and tracking the evolution of these early 3D titles despite changing Dev Studios they all essentially built on each other for seven years XD is set five years later in the region of ore which you now explore much more of there's a night and day difference between the two map screens it's interesting to see an ore free from the control of Cipher pyrite town is now home to the ombs headed up by the leaders of the kids grid wild Pokemon are returning to the region thanks to the efforts of Mayor duking Professor Crane and his researchers are about ready to purify the rest of the Shadow Pokemon it's a liberated region with no more need for outlaws that might be why you play as a normal kid this time rather than an ex-villain the switch to Bland normal kid Michael was always pretty disappointing Wes was a huge part of coliseum's charm that opening cut scene bridging into the outskirts stand set the tone perfectly the opening to XD is quite tame you play hide and seek with your sister until the professor is kidnapped and you're sent to go save him this leads to you bouncing across the Ori region to once again foil team Cipher who have risen from the Shadows Under New Management unfortunately that wild west Vibe was really the only reason coliseum's story worked at all everything else about it was Skin Deep you really see that in XD team Cipher is headed up by another evil old man they have three more admins and it's your job to defeat them apparently Evis was never the true leader of Cipher he simply ran the ore Branch grieval was always the one in charge so he took over after Evis lavrina takes over after Ein gorrigan looks after the Shadow Pokemon Factory and snattle attempts to increase the organization's political power by by running for governor probably the closest Pokemon has come to acknowledging a higher governmental position than a mayor what do Cipher want to do rule the world with Shadow Pokemon why after you beat grieval he throws a tantrum and threatens to blow up the island you're on before one of his sons convinces him not to riveting I don't even know what to make of the story here they try to build a rivalry between you and zuke but nothing really comes of it you demolish him a few times he gets yelled at by a few people and then he runs away Shadow Lugia is probably the most interesting facet of their operation but he only shows up at the very beginning and the very end there are some neat twists like the entirety of fennec City being taken over by disguised Cipher grunts but for the most part they exist so that you can do a bunch of battles I do think XD has a leg up on Coliseum in terms of visual Fidelity some of the model and texture work in Coliseum made it look like the project had originally been intended for the N64 I don't think it was but my point is that it looked that ugly sometimes XD looks much more like a proper GameCube release with higher quality character models and more detailed areas City dark Isle in particular has always impressed me there's a lot more visual variety now that you can explore the region more fully and it makes it feel like a more complete adventure that's the best word I can use to describe XD complete basically everything except a few story and World building details is done better in the sequel it still is challenging but that difficulty is on a much more gradual curve lavrina snattle and gorigan are not powerhouses like the original admins lavrina uses a love disc beautifly Rosalia and Shadow Del caddy her theme is cute mons and that's about all she has going for her snattle has some decent Pokemon like matang that are difficult to deal with and uses a shadow Lunatone with Shadow Sky a damaging weather condition that only Shadow Pokemon are immune to he pairs this with a cast form using weatherball which turns into a 100 base power typeless move under Shadow Sky letting him break through any resistances Gorgon sorta copies to keem's homework and uses an earthquake protect strategy though he carries two Shadow Pokemon in the form of primeape and Hypno who both have Shadow storm a 95 base power move that hits both opponents for super effective damage in most cases Shadow Pokemon are a much bigger deal than they used to be in Coliseum the bosses usually carried only one of them and they'd have a regular move set besides Shadow rush it would regain that moveset gradually after you caught it and lowered its heart gauge having a Shadow Pokemon in a boss fight was simply a signal to the player that you could catch this one and much of the time actually using them in battle yourself was heavily discouraged I'd often send it out so I could drop its heart gauge then swap out for something with a full moveset purifying Shadow Pokemon is not a particularly fun process in Coliseum you can't unlock it until you finish the longest dungeon of all time and once you do the process of training up new ones is agonizingly slow xd's changes to this system are pretty cool their attacks have been made to be super effective on non-shadow Pokemon and a bunch of moves were added to give them more versatility Shadow bolt is a 75 base power special move with a chance to paralyze there's a version of that move for burn and freeze respectively Shadow half Cuts everyone's HP in half Shadow hold makes it so the opponent can't switch out Shadow end is a 120 base power physical move with 60 accuracy that completely decimated several of my Pokemon Shadow Pokemon are a much bigger deal now both the Rays and to fight against they now resemble the Fighting Machines they were always supposed to be with the inclusion of the cologne case you can spray some ax body spray on them to lower their heart gauge much quicker on the one hand it does take away from the mythology a bit Shadow Pokemon are supposed to be more Primal in nature meaning they're more difficult to train up than normal Pokemon it would make sense that the purification process is anything but simple the reality though is that the purification process took forever in Coliseum boring you from accessing most of your moves in the meantime they'd randomly enter hyper mode sometimes effectively canceling their turn and forcing you to waste another one calling their name whether or not that's a good thing depends on the person but what I can tell you is that xd's Shadow Pokemon pipeline flows a hell of a lot better and in my opinion doesn't lose much for it City dark Isle doesn't screw around the admin rematches are decently challenging mostly using upgraded teams like the original admins did but the final three fights are no joke ardos has a terrifying team that wiped me a few times swellow is a fast offensive threat with access to hard-hitting moves in Annoying weather condition and the ability to have your HP if it's paired with Snorlax who spams Shadow end and holds a leftovers the fight can snowball out of your control very quickly he just has so many powerhouses Alakazam Kingdra Heracross it's a nail biter and the hits keep coming eldis uses a Lapras with Shadow storm to hit both of your Pokemon super effectively and yet more Shadow sky for chip damage thick Club Marowak with Shadow end speed boost Ninjask Flygon with decent coverage it's definitely nothing to sneeze at but then it ends with grieval who has a team of six Shadow Pokemon who are those Pokemon oh you know just Tauros ride on executor Articuno Zapdos and Moltres this fight is challenging but not in the same crippling way as Evis for one XD does a much better job funneling you experience this does mean the end of the game is a bit trigger happy with the battles and it can get a little grating but at least you'll be competently leveled for these ridiculous fights basically you need to get around the legendaries here all three of them have amazing stats with access to the shadow moves of their element which can inflict annoying status conditions almost all of them can set up Shadow Sky many of them can use Shadow end some of of them can keep you in with Shadow hold Shadow Panic can confuse you grieval is indeed the master of Shadow Pokemon his ride on even has lightning rod often nullifying the bird's most common shared weakness the difficulty is fascinating too because there's actually a less traditional way out of this fight which is just to catch them all but since three of them are legendaries and the others are final stage Evolutions the catch rate is going to be pretty low throwing a Pokeball takes an entire turn one you could be using to weaken them or use a clutch healing item remember every single attack is probably doing super effective damage so you're defensively crippled here while it is a difficult fight since you're competently leveled for it there are many realistic Avenues to success and I was able to carry the team I built to a satisfying end there are double the amount of Shadow Pokemon giving you a lot more to work with when team building my team this time around was Vaporeon Ursaring Houndoom electrode Flygon and Sableye which I think served me pretty well Vaporeon and Sableye were good for bulk Houndoom and Electrode were good special attackers particularly electrode for always being able to hit first pairing it with Sableye was really fun for the free self-destruct Ursaring and Flygon were physically offensive and learned a decent range of moves I was essentially prepared for any situation there really weren't any weak links as you can imagine the ability to effectively team build is a big reason I like XD a lot more than Coliseum even though it has a lot of the same pacing issues I could see myself returning to this one pretty easily while you battle a tad too often I also think it's structured in a more engaging way the dungeons you visit have puzzles alternate Pathways and secret items there are lengthy breaks in between major boss battles and far more areas to visit overall they're about the same length but XD is much less exhausting so you get to reap the rewards of your team building efforts I'm already thinking of good Pokemon I could use next time like Sharpedo clay doll and brellum I also think there's a more diverse range of side content battle Bingo is a fun little game corner-esque distraction where you have to collect different types of Pokemon and ensure you win enough battles to clear every Square you can go to the ore Coliseum this game's battle tower equivalent here though you get to rematch the cipher admins including ardos and eldis for some reason grieval is arrested at the end and ardos somehow evades capture yet he's allowed to battle in this Coliseum for some reason even mouths off to you about how he's going to revive Cipher is a is anyone gonna arrest this dude whatever it's a pretty fun challenge you could do the same thing in Coliseum but since team building is more fun in XD The Ore Coliseum is a more fulfilling challenge lavrina is the champion of status moves carrying a tract on most of her Pokemon Encore Wobbuffet with Shadow tag to keep you locked in toxic rest leech seed confused Ray she's the perfect nuisance snattle uses Regirock and Reggie ice for the flex all of his Pokemon no explosion and many of them also know either endure or protect so it can be a little scary if you aren't prepared eldis uses both of the lotties a choice banded Tauros a leftovers Snorlax meteor Mash Metagross I think you get the point by now there are seven tough boss fights here to contend with as if this wasn't enough XD has collectible battle discs which let you play out Pokemon battles with various restrictions they're puzzle battles kinda like the Metal Gear Solid VR Missions one of the earliest CDs is against an Agron you have a Machamp with brick brick earthquake foresight and sword stance the Agron will always protect then counter then dig your Machamp is level 20 while the Agron is level 50. the challenge here is in identifying what the best moves are there is a little bit of trial and error to figure out what moves Agra on will use but once you know it's about responding in kind the first two turns should be dedicated to a non-damaging move since he throws out protect and then counter sword stance is the perfect option since your attack will be raised four stages Agron is four times weak to both brick brick and earthquake but you'll notice that it always uses dig you may not know this but earthquake does double damage to Pokemon that are underground this means your Machamp will be using a four times boost quad super effective earthquake that will be doubled thanks to dig one shotting the Agron before it can deal with you all of the CDs are like this there's something you need to solve before you can win admittedly a few of them are not all that intuitive there's a matchup between zangoose and cradely where the game expects you to Simply land a critical hit which isn't at all guaranteed slash increases your chances of critting but it's still a role that you can continually lose if you're unlucky these battle CDs seem to have the secondary goal of teaching players about Advanced mechanics and how to get out of disadvantageous positions it is helpful to know that your best option against a creatively with a physical attacker is to buff up and hope for a slash crit but the puzzle itself isn't rewarding there are only a few weak CDs though they're usually fun to figure out in one of them you use helping hand and surf to knock out both opponents at once so that both electrode and Psyduck come out at the same time if you kill one too early electrode will come out use explosion and you'll be dead damp however prevents moves like explosion from going off so they'll be stuck there's a CD where the opponent has Wobbuffet Shuppet and why not Wobbuffet and why not both have Shadow tag preventing you from switching out but the only way you can win in the limited amount of turns you're given is to get Houndoom out there you'll notice that Salamence is essentially useless and that your dusclops has an ice type move this one stumped me for quite a while trying to figure out the best way to get Wobbuffet and why not off the field as fast as possible possible but then I had an epiphany I can Target Salamence with my ice move one shot it and then the game will force Houndoom out winning me the CD one of them taught me that foresight nullifies type immunities which is something I flat out didn't know XD is teaching me things not that it would really make foresight a good move but it's cool that the game is able to teach you about Fringe matchups like this there are so many other cool ones but I don't feel like spoiling the solutions to them I loved going to do a few of these in between dungeons which is encouraged since you find many of them while exploring this is a cooler post game than most of the modern titles ever manage it's kind of crazy what is this then we got a complete 3D Pokemon Adventure nice after seven years of build up reusing most of the assets from stadium and Coliseum barely even reaching the same length scope or replayability of the core titles look I get the reverence for these games I like them too I grew up with them they were impressive at the time but I'm also not interested in using them to bash modern Pokemon these titles didn't have nearly as much on their shoulders as the modern entries do and they still struggled to keep up with the scope of the Core Series Pokemon Battle Revolution was the last major Pokemon title genius sonority developed and it was an impressive Leap Forward graphically all of the models were reworked and reanimated in far more detail than any of the mainline games could ever hope to match but much like the stadium games this is simply another set of battle arenas so that does not surprise me at all I wouldn't be surprised if the bulk of their development time was spent modeling and animating the Pokemon their moves and the Arenas they fought in unfortunately it feels like we ripped open Pandora's Box there's now a flood of comparison pieces calling game freak a bunch of lazy hacks for supposedly not being able to do what genius sonority could nearly 20 years ago I suppose it's easier to call a bunch of devs lazy instead of worrying about the reason why Pokemon games come out as frequently as they do but that's a topic for a future very fun video I don't personally want the early 3D Pokemon Legacy to be a weapon used to bludgeon the state of the franchise today especially when these games were far from perfect instead I see them as a welcome change of pace from the usual formula a nice shakeup that could have only come about by the willingness of the Pokemon company at the time to give their IP to another team much like the ore region that era felt like its own Wild West like anything went for better or worse I have an appreciation for it and though I might not play them as often as I used to I will forever have massive respect for genius sonorities take on 3D Pokemon [Music] now [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] alcohol [Music]

Channel: KingK

Views: 319,070

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Id: aM7s-ivZMyw

Length: 45min 13sec (2713 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 15 2022