Two of the, in my opinion, best Pokémon games in the franchise aren’t even mainline ones. Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness both take place in the split off Orre region and make use of a mechanic usually only accessible in other games via cheat codes: stealing Pokémon from other trainers. When I was a kid, this slight but incredibly impactful change to the flow of a Pokémon game absolutely mystified me. On top of that, the story of both games was concise and narratively sound; rather than generally centered on completing some Pokémon League style competition or gathering gym badges with an evil antagonist force as a b-story, both Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD place the antagonists at the forefront of the story. I loved this change as a kid, but I never fully appreciated how important it was.
Those two things, snagging Pokémon and taking on the evil organization, Cipher, make these games meaningfully different from the main series of games while maintaining some of their core elements and building upon them. That’s precisely why, despite not being mainline games, they deserve remakes. Lately, the exact structure of Pokémon games has become more experimental.
Games like Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Pokémon Legends: Z-A are demonstrative of the popularity of games that break from the mold by quite a bit and feature robust changes to overworld battles against wild Pokémon and trainers. Spin-off games, like the Ranger, Mystery Dungeon, Rumble, and Snap series, have historically broken far from the standard and are compelling in part because of their novelty. Despite doing neither of these things Colosseum and XD stand as some of the most beloved games in the franchise.
Why Snagging Changed the Game
Snagging is uniquely difficult in the double battle format that the overwhelming majority of both games takes place in. Like any (traditional, setting aside games like Let’s Go Eevee and Let’s Go Pikachu) battle against a catchable Pokémon, trainers have to weaken their target to a reasonable HP level, using status moves and increasingly performant Poké balls to make a catch more likely.
But, unlike those traditional one-on-one battles, you have to balance winning the actual fight against a trainer and either beating their other, non-Shadow Pokémon or, later in games like Pokémon XD, not beating their other shadow Pokémon so it can be caught on a subsequent turn. You only get captured Shadow Pokémon if you win the battle, so doing this all while not losing is paramount.
Shadow Pokémon in these games have access to some strong stats and special moves that are always super-effective against non Shadow Pokémon. Every turn you attempt to catch a Shadow Pokémon is a turn you get attacked by it if you fail, leading to plenty of situations where you’ll lose one or more of your own party Pokémon while trying painstakingly to catch an opponent’s Pokémon.
Combine this with some Shadow Pokémon being rare / mythical and having abysmally low catch rates and you’ve got one hell of a challenge. I can remember losing multiple times to a Cipher opponent sporting a Shadow Entei, throwing ball after ball while getting absolutely pummeled by it and eventually running dry of potions and all my recovery items. The feeling of satisfaction was nearly doubled when I finally caught the damn thing, beating a powerful training in the same fell stroke. These games just in general felt harder, something that was welcome with how easy Pokémon games are.
There was also a lot more strategy that came into play because of this added difficulty. It made sense to have a party equipped both for defeating and catching Pokémon. It wouldn’t make sense to, for example, have a dedicated “catcher” Pokémon with moves like False Swipe and Hypnosis that one only pulls out when they’re specifically hunting for a new Pokémon or trying to catch a legendary with a static appearance.
You never know what battles are going to have Shadow Pokémon, but you do know a lot of them will. So it made sense to keep status moves that ordinarily wouldn’t be quite as useful in mainline games with largely single battles. This is on top of many of the double battle teams exploiting common mechanics to add cohesion to their teams like weather moves, Earthquake + a Pokémon with Levitate, or moves like Helping Hand.
One notable shortcoming from the Shadow Pokémon system was how few (relative to a mainline game) catchable Pokémon that meant you’d encounter in a given playthrough, limiting the variety of party composition. I think this was a weakness of these two games, even when XD added limited wild Pokémon that could be caught alongside Shadow Pokémon. The solution? Just add more Pokémon. Modded versions of Pokémon XD have accounted for this shortcoming by doing just that and it works perfectly. Obviously, there won’t be as many available wild Pokémon as there may be in a mainline game, but I think that’s fine.
Memorable Characters and Region
The Orre region had a unique aesthetic to it and unique lore as well. Wild Pokémon were rare, meaning the quintessential notes of “we work together with Pokémon in our daily lives” was missing from NPC dialogue. Altogether, things were a bit grimier. Criminal activity wasn’t limited to the little cave where the antagonist hideout was located; an entire town was basically the crime city and its name and look reflected it.
Plenty of Shadow Pokémon were here, it wasn’t considered bad form to use them in colosseum challenges, and the vibe from opponents was generally hostile. This was a region where the bad guys had basically won already. Aesthetically, there was a sort of steampunk vibe to parts the region that made it seem like all of the cities were made by engineers that cared a lot more about function than form. Other parts were beautiful, featuring lush trees or oasis type environments.
Colosseums were grand locations and extremely cool settings for a battle. They always felt satisfying to compete within.
As far as iconic villains go, I only need to mention one to make my point: Miror B. This dancing, flamboyant afro’ed villain used a team of (nearly) all Ludicolo and had what was easily the best soundtrack in the entire game (and his Colosseum music was better than his XD music, I stand by that). You’d encounter him multiple times throughout a playthrough and plenty of other characters with personality and jokes alongside him.
This isn’t to say that no other Pokémon game has good villains; some like Volo, Cyrus, and N are iconic. But, by and large, I think the villains are some of the weakest characters in mainline Pokémon games, with those few notable exceptions. Colosseum and XD having Miror B. is more than enough to make them pass that bar in my opinion, but the other villains were pretty decent as well. They were no frills, straight villains, and they had surprisingly hilarious dialogue sometimes.
High Time for a Remake
There’s already a precedent for remaking spin-off games through the Mystery Dungeon series getting a remake that featured Mega Evolution on the Switch. This game was excellent and a real burst of nostalgia that I enjoyed playing. I think having another chance to play Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness would be enticing to many, especially those who grew up with the GameCube and played these excellent games when they first came out so many years ago.
For those who haven’t played them, I think a remake would be an opportunity to get some exposure to a new set of mechanics via a relatively lightweight game. Neither was too long and that was a good thing. It would be the perfect type of game one could complete with a few weeks of casual play and put more time into if there were any sort of postgame options.
Overall, for both new and returning players, a remake of these treasured titles would be more than worth it.
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