Pokemon Stadium Review

Here is my review of Pokemon Stadium that I made a while ago on another site:



Title: Pokemon Stadium
Platform(s): Nintendo 64
Review Of: Nintendo 64 Version
Release Date: January 1, 2000
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
Genre: Action
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo

The Pokemon Lab game mode is excluded in the review for reasons obvious, like there is nothing to review in it.

Introduction

Pokemon Stadium was one of Pokemon's first steps into 3D, so let's see how Nintendo swayed with this title!

Stadium

The first, large game mode you will spot when you click the "Pokemon Stadium" option in the first little menu is the Stadium game mode. This game mode is one of the most enjoyable modes and it consists of a series of different cups where you go through a certain amount of trainers with the Pokemon of your choice in order to take home the victory trophy for that cup. This game mode stands out to me because there is a variety of trainers you must fight to win and you have to actually think about weaknesses with each of them in order to win. This especially reminds me of the Game Boy games in the way that you have to match up the right Pokemon with your opponents and you can't just easily win with any random Pokemon. Some cups are harder than others, but they all have the same outcome when you win, you actually feel remotely proud. A lot of games are too easy and you don't really care when you win, but in this Stadium mode, you actually are really glad to win (atleast I was). Hearing "And that's the game!" with me the victor is one of my happiest Pokemon moments!

Game Boy Tower

There is not much to say about the Game Boy Tower, other then it is a great feature to the game. Would you rather play with emotionless and Pokemon without any fond memories, or memorable faces with familiar names like Skip and Jessica? I would go with the familiar faces because it is just really enjoyable to see old friends from your Game Boy games transferred into a 3D atmosphere with (what were for its time) smooth graphics at that!

Free Battle

Free Battle is probably my favorite game mode of them all, and that is for one reason and one reason only: you get to either beat or lose to a family member or friend- in person! This is one of those memorable (in the same room) multiplayer games because you can have tons of fun playing together (even if it is possible to tell what their next move will be). The game may seem unplayable because your moves are displayed on-screen and you can see each other's movesets, it can be quite enjoyable. You can get a lot of memories out of this with your family, and you can't help but notice the announcer's cheesy quotes. For instance, when Magikarp uses Splash attack, the announcer responds with "What's the point of splashing!?!?!?!?" and you can't help but laugh. You do not want to miss out on Free Battle (unless you plan on battling CPUs)!

Gym Leader Castle

Yet another awesome game mode (seeing a pattern yet?) is the Gym Leader Castle. This brings one of the Pokemon Game Boy games' greatest features to the 3D realm and that is the gym battles! In this mode, you can battle through all 8 of the Kanto gym leaders as well as (most of) the elite four! Not only that, but just like in the Game Boy games, you have to battle a series of trainers before each gym leader. That is where Pokemon type strategy comes into play yet again which makes the mode even more awesome! Usually, the gym leaders are a breeze to beat (seeing as you know what types to go into battle with), but once you get into the elite four and some other strong trainers, it is really hard to beat them, let alone choose the right Pokemon! An overall great experience nonetheless though!

Victory Place

Victory Place is pretty much the equivalent to the handheld games' Hall of Fame, except (in my opinion) even better! Basically, it has a trpohy stand for every single one of the 151 Pokemon and whatever Pokemon you beat the Gym Leader Castle with will have trophies displayed on their trophy stands. It is a very cool feature and I always enjoy going back just to look at all of them!

Kids Club

Please do not let the name deceive you! You will miss out big time! The Kids Club game mode is one of the most enjoyable and fun game modes of all! This mode is a compilation of nine different minigames. They can all be very fun to play with friends and family, and this was back when minigames had a good quality to them! This is one of minigames in general's primes and should not be missed. Make sure to play the "Who's the Best?" part of the minigames though, because it is much funner that way. The "Who's the Best?" part of the minigames is pretty much a tournament mode with the minigames where whoever wins enough of the minigames the most wins the whole thing. The thing about the minigames is that they are so simple and easy to understand that they are so enjoyable to play! A lot of times you will get bored of battling and will want to sit back and relax. This is when you should click "Kids Club" and have a blast!

The Verdict

Pokemon Stadium was amazing for its time and is still a blast to this day! You may miss actually leveling up and learning moves instead of having the same moves everytime, but no worries! Just relax and play some of the extremely fun minigames with friends and/or family, then go back to beating the gym leaders and getting victory trophies! It's a never-ending, addicting spiral, it's Pokemon Stadium!

Final Rating: 8.3/10

Good review, it's very in-depth.

I liked the game when I was younger. Specifically, I liked the "Kids Club." Even more specifically, I liked the Magikarp splash game thing, because it was the only thing I could beat my siblings in at the time (Press "B" FTW!). XP

I think I'll got get the N64 out now...

This game is awesome!

MariovSonic wrote:

Good review, it's very in-depth.

I liked the game when I was younger. Specifically, I liked the "Kids Club." Even more specifically, I liked the Magikarp splash game thing, because it was the only thing I could beat my siblings in at the time (Press "B" FTW!). XP

I think I'll got get the N64 out now...

Thanks and I agree with you all the way.

On another note, I want to get a hold of a copy of Stadium 2. I rented it (back in my renting days), but never actually bought it. I still want a Stadium 3. Imagine being able to choose from the (soon to be) 500+ Pokemon! xD

Renting days?

Yes, back when I used to actually rent games...

Anyway, what do you think of the review?