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NOT Colosseum for the Wii

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 96 / 98
Date: July 01, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I admit, it's my fault. I got excited and I assumed. Hopefully by now, you know what happens when you assume.

First: There is NO, I repeat NO real single player game on this!! This is not Pokemon Colosseum or XD!! And that's where I made my big blunder. I assumed that this game would be similar to those extrodinarily enjoyable games. I guess if I had gotten on to the right websites, I would have known this, but I didn't. Though the back of the box never promises anything like Colosseum, honestly, I never really looked at the back. Lesson learned.

Second: If you don't own Pokemon Pearl or Diamond, and haven't played through either of those games, there's really not that much reason to own this game. Yes, you have 12 pokemon available to you, but they never get better, and have NO manner of customization that I have encountered so far.

Third: The focus of the game is on battling other people over the net. While I assume this can be quite fun (I haven't done it, because I don't really fancy getting my backside handed to me by people with huge numbers of very customized pokemon from the aforementioned DS games), it's not really why I've played the Pokemon games in the past.

In the end, I really don't care for the focus of this game. And I sorely miss the single player game that I boneheadedly assumed would be there. I'm very disappointed in this purchase. I don't want other people to make the same mistake.

E.

Botched match-making is biggest flaw

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 26 / 27
Date: June 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This really seems like a Wii expansion pack for the Diamond/Pearl DS games. Great graphics make your beloved pokemon come alive. For a full-price game, a solo quest really seems like it would be appropriate. For those with D/P the worst problem is Nintendo's on-line match-making system which requires extra friend codes and doesn't even give you a game lobby so you can find someone you'd think might be a good match for you.

If you have the DS game already this is a great purchase. If your kids and their friends have them, this will make your house the game center of the universe! But if you don't have pokemon playing friends, I'd recommend finding a web site of other players to connect up with so you don't have to rely on the game's match making ability (or lack of it).

And if you don't have Diamond or Pearl I don't think it's worth the price.

No Revolution Here: For Die Hard Fans

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 24 / 26
Date: June 29, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Pokemon Battle Revolution is anything but a revolution. It feels like a step in the wrong directions sometimes. Mostly, however, you just feel like the game wasn't complete... like it could use a lot more than we got. Simply put, Battle Revolutions isn't bad, it's just a glass that's half full. This is a game for only the most die-hard of Pokemon fans only.

Let's get the first big annoying thing out of the way. If you don't have Pokemon Diamond or Pearl, then I highly suggest buying those before you actually dive into this game. Otherwise you'll find your experience to be a pretty daunting one. If you don't, you get passes with random Pokemon on them. This is pretty sad considering other Pokemon games in this genre let you rent Pokemon. Instead here, you're given six random Pokemon with random stats and moves. You've no say in the matter, and that's just lame. At least transferring your Pokemon from your DS games is no pain at all.

Let's get the second really annoying thing out of the way. The menu is alright and everything, but your guide through the menu is really really annoying. The guide has to explain everything. And when I say everything, I'm not kidding. If you're a seasoned gamer, you know what most of the stuff the guide is going to tell you is, yet you still have to sit through it anyway. The good news is you only have to sit through it once.

Previous Pokemon Stadium games also gave you a more RPG like experience. There was actually more to battling than just the sake of battling. Here in Battle Revolutions, that's all you're doing. You're battling just to battle... and you're battling endlessly. There's no real reason why. Of course, this isn't a HUGE problem, though, because in the long run battling is quite fun. I just wish there was some kind of objective here, and some kind of reward to show your achievements to your friends. Not found here. Of course, there will be some who really love this. After all, the point of battle revolutions is to do just that: Battle.

Seeing all your favorite Pokemon from Diamond and Pearl is a real treat indeed. The game has a cartoon like look, but that doesn't mean it isn't impressive. In truth, it is. It doesn't take the Wii to its limits, but again, no Pokemon game ever really pushes a system to its limit. But the game looks good for what is. Visually the game is great. It's the other aspects of the graphics that I sometimes find pretty lacking. It suffers from the same thing Pokemon has suffered from for years. There's hardly a whole lot of animation going on. You simply watch your Pokemon step forward and perform the attack, and then you see the other Pokemon take damage. There's no interaction between the Pokemon. It's a limitation that doesn't make combat less exciting, but over the past few years you do kind of wish your Pokemon would actually... you know... look like they're battling each other rather than just standing there idly. Regardless, combat is still pretty solid, and much like the DS games, pretty addictive.

As far as DS and Wii connectivity go, this game shows that it can be done. As you can transfer your Pokemon from your DS to your Wii wirelessly. However, you get the feeling so much more could've been done with it. Unless Nintendo plans on making a "DS Player" for the Wii, I can't imagine why they wouldn't let you play through your DS games on the big screen. Again, it's not a big set back, but it is a step back from other Pokemon Stadium installments. There's also the excitement over using your DS as a controller, but even that feels incomplete sometimes. Simply because you can't use your DS as a controller in the main game. You CAN, however, use the DS as a controller when playing against a friend. It feels limited, though. Otherwise you can use your Wii-Remote like an NES controller or use the motion sensor controls to point and click.

Now there's the online experience. This is the first real true taste of an Online gaming experience on the Wii. Unfortunately, like the rest of the game, it feels a bit... incomplete. The only thing you can do online is battle. And the battles are all random. To be honest, if all I wanted to do online was battle... I'd just boot up my DS copy of Diamond or Pearl, and they let you do more online than this game does. It just feels like the online mode in this game was a test to see if they could actually do it. The test is a success, but the experience is pretty stale overall.

This isn't the kind of game you buy for curiosity's sake. A lot of it really does feel incomplete. There's so much potential here, but the overall product feels as though it were rushed. Previous Pokemon Stadium games had a lot more substance to them. Pokemon Battle Revolutions is, for the most part, fun. It just doesn't include a whole lot of content worth getting excited about... because the things that we were getting excited about aren't really all that exciting. You're pretty much only going to buy this game to battle... but why spend 50 bucks to do so when you could just as easily spend 35 bucks on the DS games? Besides, without those DS games you can't enjoy the full experience of battling in this game anyway. It's a good "test" to see what the Wii can do, but hopefully the next Pokemon Stadium game will actually push the structure to its limit.

AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME with a DS

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 20 / 21
Date: July 24, 2007
Author: Amazon User

If you do not have a DS do not buy this game. It is next to useless. Sure you can go online in 3D and do a couple of canned battles, but there is no real collectathon. However, if you have a DS this game is pretty darned cool, if for no other reason that you finally have some connectivity for that awesome wii and awesome DS. You can use your wii to see the DS guys you have found and put them in battle on the WII is stunning 3-D. Again, the short of it is that if you are a huge fan of Pokemon, you probably have a DS and are ying to go online with your diamond and pearl guys you have collected. If this is the case, buy the revolution!

Designed for long-time fans, newcomers, approach with caution

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 15 / 15
Date: June 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Pros: Beautiful 3D Graphics, Excellent representation of the battle system we know and love, Great Character Customization, WiFi Battles, Transfer of Pokemon from Diamond or Pearl
Cons: No RPG-like Single Player Campaign, Must own Diamond or Pearl to completely experience the game (If you are buying this as a gift, make sure the person you're buying it for

Pokemon Battle Revolution is an excellent game in that it does exactly what it has been advertised to do: battle in three dimensions, use Nintendo's WiFi connection to battle all over the world with others, and offer an excellent character customization. However, this game is really only worth purchasing if you already own (or are intending to buy) Pokemon Diamond or Pokemon Pearl for the Nintendo DS handheld system. Owners of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl are able to transfer all their Pokemon to the game using the WiFi capabilities of the Nintendo DS. If you do not own Diamond or Pearl, you are forced to use "rental Pokemon," which have fixed stats and movesets. They are harder to use than Pokemon you may be used to, but using the rental Pokemon does make for a challenging single player experience. It just isn't what the developers of the game intended - this is not a stand-alone game.
I spent a few hours testing what the game has to offer. Its strongest point so far is the integration of random battle matchups using Nintendo WiFi. While you are still able to battle a specific friend using a friend code, the option of a random battle with a random person is appreciated. The creation of a character is also very fun, I spent about half an hour on my first battle pass. The character customization goes so far to even let you customize catchphrases for when Pokemon enter the battle, return to their PokeBall, etc. Not to mention that transferring Pokemon from my Diamond cartridge using the DS was seamless and easy, taking only a matter of seconds to see my beloved Pokemon appear in all their three dimensional glory. In addition, when you earn currency in the single player campaign, you are able to buy items and send them to your Pokemon Diamond/Pearl game using the Mystery Gift function.
Many critics of this game may say that it suffers due to lack of a deep, RPG-like mode present in the handheld games and it's Gamecube predecessors, Pokemon Colesseum and Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness. While I'm the first to admit that I would have enjoyed a single player RPG campaign like in the handheld games, that is not (and never was) what this game was designed to do. It is a Wii and DS specific representation of Pokemon Stadium for the Nintendo 64: It focuses on battling on a very broad scale, and very little else. The graphics are better, they've improved many aspects of the formula, but at its core, it's just a game for people who want to have the major satisfaction of seeing their carefully raised Pokemon battle in three dimensions. This is a wonderful game to use if you or your child enjoy the battling system, or if you simply want a new way to battle competitively online beyond using your DS. Just be aware that the single player campaign is not what you may be used to from the handhelds, and that most of the advantages come from owning a DS and Pokemon Diamond/Pearl.

The Best and the Worst of Stadium

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: August 18, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This game, without a doubt, represents both the best and the worst of stadium. After seven years of experience with stadium games, they finally have managed to get the battling system correct for the most part. Instead of the animations taking massive amounts of time like in every previous stadium game, they are now very fast. Faster than even battling on the DS! Online play is basically the same as the DS with the ability to add a few rules (sleep clause, anyone?) and the ability to have extremely limited random battles.

Where's the worst, then? Some extreme idiocy involving both online and offline play. For one thing, you can automatically level your pokemon to level 50, but not level 100. I understand that in Japan they have some sort of fetish for playing at level 50, but the rest of the world plays at level 100 and the fact that you can only automatically go to level 50 is really inexcusable. In addition, the random battles are absolutely horrible. There's no way to set any clauses, and they can ONLY be level 50 stadium mode (that's 4v4) doubles. There is no way to deviate from this. It's like the random battles were thrown in merely as an afterthought.

This game, when I first saw it, had the potential to be excellent -- it recognized many of the mistakes of past stadium games and corrected them. But thanks to some incredibly stupid and easy-to-fix mistakes, the game is really just...not worth it.

Great graphics, not so great game.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: July 13, 2007
Author: Amazon User

If you've already invested in other Pokemon games, especially Pokemon Diamond or Pearl, you will have a better time with this game than if you haven't. There are no RPG elements in the game to strengthen your characters. You have to import characters from your old games in order to have most characters. If you do not have an old game, you have to use a predetermined set of Pokemon. Later you will get the option to get other pokemon from other trainers, but it still leaves much to be desired. Still the graphics look very impressive, and it can be a fun game for kids and long time pokemon fans alike.

No use of Wii motion controls in battle

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 14
Date: October 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

My boys bought this thinking they could load their DS Pokemon into the Wii and then have a dynamic battle using the Wii controlers. That is not the case; the battles are the same turn-based move selection as the DS Pokeman games. We added the Wii to our collection of gaming platforms for the motion control, so this purchase was a big let down.

Fun, but not stand-alone

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 8
Date: July 26, 2007
Author: Amazon User

You definitely need Pokemon Pearl or Diamond for this game, otherwise they just give you Pokemon that aren't as good. Otherwise, pretty fun game.

challenging game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: January 01, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I purchased this game for my grandson who is 8 years old and he said this is the best gift I could have ever gotten him. I watched him play this game on his nintendo wii and it was totally well worth the buy. It is very challenging for him and it sure makes him get to know what each Pokemon characters are like. If they are weak or if they are strong, he figures it out. I LOVE IT!!!!
MAM-MAW

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