Glen-i

Pokémon Colosseum is a turn-based RPG released for the Gamecube in 2003. Developed by Genius Sonority, it's the closest the Pokémon series has ever gotten to being a home console RPG before the upcoming Let's GO games. I'm gonna start this post by stating why this game counts as a spin-off, but Let's GO doesn't. The method of obtaining Pokémon differs. Instead of a world map, the game has areas interconnected to each other through a menu. Not every Pokémon encountered in the game can be caught without using a seperate GBA title. This also means that filling up a Pokédex isn't one of the objectives. The game isn't developed by Game Freak. Set in the region of Orre, you play as Wes, an ex-criminal who has recently betrayed the criminal organisation, Team Snagem, by blowing up their base and making off with a special device called the "Snag Machine" which allowed them to steal other people's Pokémon. It appears that Team Snagem are collaborating with another organisation to take these stolen Pokémon, corrupt their hearts in some way, and give them to trainers for some reason. Using the Snag Machine, Wes plans to steal back these "Shadow Pokémon", uncorrupt their hearts and stop Team Snagem and this mystery organisation from causing any more problems. For fans who had played the mainline series, Colosseum marked quite the exciting change. The plot played a central part of the game, in a series that normally has the plot be a side story in the ultimate quest to be the Pokémon champion. And while the plot isn't anything amazing, it made for an interesting take on a Pokémon RPG. All the battles in this game are in the recently introduced Double Battle format which has both trainers send out 2 Pokémon at once, forcing you to utilise new strategies to get ahead. I mentioned some of the changes above, but the biggest one is how you obtain Pokémon. You effectively steal them from other trainers. Not any old Pokémon, mind, Wes has standards. You can only steal Shadow Pokémon that have a weird purple aura around them. Once you do so, you have to uncorrupt it by spending time with it, winning battles and just generally being a nice dude. Once you do that, it can level up and learn moves like a normal Pokémon. Because of this, the Pokémon you can catch in this game are quite limited. 56 Pokémon are catchable. (7 more Pokémon were available through special events and e-reader cards) Once you finished the game, you could transfer Pokémon between this game and the GBA games Ruby/Sapphire and FireRed/LeafGreen using a GC/GBA Link cable. As well as the main RPG mode, there was a colosseum mode that played a lot like the Pokémon Stadium games mentioned earlier. Using your team from the RPG mode or the GBA games, there are 4 cups for you to test your skills in, as well as being able to battle your friends who have the GBA games. There was also a sort of gauntlet that has you fight 100 trainers in a row to reach the top of a mountain to win yourself a Ho-Oh that you could use in the main game. Pokémon Colosseum has sold 2.41 million copies, which is pretty impressive for a Gamecube spin-off title. The thought of a Pokémon RPG on a home console was the big selling point and I think the game deserves the success. It's a solid Pokémon game, if a little dated due to it being a Gen 3 game. Which brings me on to... Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness is the sequel to Pokémon Colosseum. Once again developed by Genius Sonority, it was released for the Gamecube in 2005. Set 5 years after the events of Colosseum, you play as Michael, who finds himself embroiled in a plot of another organisation to use a special Lugia, known as XD001, to take over the world. They also reignited the previous Shadow Pokémon plot once again. Michael is given the Snag Machine that Wes once used and goes out to save all those Pokémon once again. As you could probably guess, this game plays pretty much exactly the same as Colosseum. There's different Pokémon for you to steal this time and the Colosseum mode has been dropped in favour of a meatier and longer RPG mode, although you can still communicate with the GBA games for trades and battles. This game sold 1.37 million copies, which is pretty standard for a sequel. And that's the last we heard of Genius Sonority's RPG side series, they later released Battle Revolution, which I think was a massive step in the wrong direction. There was potential here and it was squandered for whatever reason. It's hard for me to guage whether we could see another game like this. The Pokémon Company is pretty over protective these days and I can't see them letting a company that isn't Game Freak handle a Pokémon RPG. Still, what did you think of it? I replayed XD last year and I think it's still good. It fulfills it's role as a different take on the Pokémon RPG, even today. Don't get me wrong, they both have flaws and there are better Pokémon games out there. But if you want something different, this isn't a bad choice to look up.

You know, it's creepy. I recently restarted my 3DS Smash file a few weeks back. I'm on Challenge Board 3 with about 5 more tasks to do. But what I'm doing now is trying to beat All-Star on hard with every character. I've done everyone on the base roster and Mewtwo. Gotta do it with Lucas next. That'll be cake! I own with Lucas. EDIT: BTW, something I noticed recently with All-Star mode. You know how the characters fight you in order of when they first appeared? Well in the fourth stage, Ness is one of the fighters there, and after him the Gen 1 Pokémon start showing up. You'd think Pikachu would be the first of them lot, but nope. It's always Mewtwo. If you played through Earthbound Beginnings, that ordering suddenly makes a whole lot more sense in a very subtle way.

My selection was just that amazing. You're all welcome.

And here I was thinking I could ask you for advice whenever I decided to rule over an ancient civilization... You're a fraud!

12th sounds good. Let's go with that.

That would have given you a score of -17, so I don't think that would work. And that's precisely why I implemented the number of fighters penalty.

Ah, bugger. Sorry. Although leaving you out might have been a kindness. Will edit the post.

Before I get stuck into the Gen 3 spin-off's, I want to take an opportunity to take a detour through the strange and wonderful world of the tiny spin-off's that you've just gotta ask... Pokémon Channel was released for the Gamecube in 2003. Made by Ambrella, it's a... um... I'm not sure what it is. You and your Pikachu have to help Professor Oak by... watching Pokémon anime and other pointless things. This game was so unnecessary that they slapped in a Jirachi for the main Gen 3 games for anyone in Europe and Australia crazy enough to actually buy this. Something of note is that there's actually a few demos of Pokémon Mini games in here, including one that is exclusive to this game. ...Yay? Pokémon Box: Ruby & Sapphire is an application that gave players 25 extra boxes to store Pokemon in. Yes, it's Pokémon Bank but with none of the online features! It was released in 2003. Over here, it was only available in a Pokemon Colosseum bundle, or through the Nintendo VIP 24/7 service. I've pretty much covered all of it there. Although the game does allow you to play Ruby/Sapphire games on your TV. But that was rendered useless with the Game Boy Player coming out 2 months before hand. Interestingly enough, the emulator used here was used for a Mario Pinball Land demo on the Gamecube. So, not only is this pointless, it inflicted that particular abomination on people. It's probably in hell now. Next up is PokéPark Fishing Rally DS, a special download only game offered at the real life Poképark in Japan throughout 2005. It's a Pokémon fishing game, what else is there to say? Anyway, you can't mention small Gen 3 Spin-off's without mentioning the e-Reader. I have it on good authority that the cards actually blurred like that when scanned. Despite being pretty short-lived, Pokémon got a bit of mileage out of it. Some cards added trainers to fight in Ruby/Sapphire and Colosseum, some worked with Pokémon Channel and even Pinball R/S got in on the fun. And finally, there's... Woah, hold up... SQUARE-ENIX MADE A POKÉMON SPIN-OFF!? I genuinely didn't know about this before I looked it up! How exciting! Let's have a look-see... The hell is this? Well, this is Pokémate, a Japan-only messaging application that allowed people to message each other. Developed by Square-Enix, it also had a tiny catching mini-game as well. If you're thinking, "that's a bit of a waste of talent", you'd be right. Worth noting that this game had microtransactions, marking a dark first for the series... And that about does it for this small detour. Tomorrow, I'll be tackling bigger titles.

Alright, let's get it done! Ken correctly predicted by: No-one, if only we knew echo fighters were a thing. Incineroar correctly predicted by: No-one, if only I knew Ivysaur was a thing. Piranha Plant correctly predicted by: No-one, if only we knew drugs were a thing I want to formerly apologise to all the people who predicted Decidueye because of my reasoning. I chose that because the game needed a grass starter to round out the trio. But then Ivysaur. If I knew Ivysaur was coming back, I would have gone with Incineroar instead. So close! Unlike the Isabelle update, a whole bunch of Assist Trophies and costumes got announced. Which means it's time to take another journey down the path of sadness that is the Avenue of Crushed Dreams Isaac - @Ugh first aid Spring Man - @Glen-i @markderoos @GenericAperson @Nintendo Fan @Dcubed @Julius Caesar @Nicktendo @Vileplume2000 @S.C.G Rex - @Glen-i @markderoos @Ugh first aid @GenericAperson @Nintendo Fan @Dcubed @Julius Caesar @Nicktendo @Vileplume2000 @S.C.G Chain Chomp - @Mandalore Dillon - @Glen-i @Jonnas @Ugh first aid @Dcubed @Julius Caesar Chibi-Robo - @markderoos @Nicktendo Rex there with 10 predictions! I think he might have taken the title of Dream Smasher! Amazing! BTW, now that we know that there'll be 5 more DLC characters, there's 23 characters that weren't in Smash 4. (Not including Inkling) So that's the magic number. The further off you are, the more you lose. Who's ready for some negative scores!? And that leaves the scores at... @Fused King -5 points @Ugh first aid -6 points @Mandalore @Julius Caesar -11 points @Glen-i @RedShell -12 points @Nintendo Fan -13 points @markderoos @Jonnas -14 points @Vileplume2000 -15 points @S.C.G -16 points @Dcubed @Nicktendo -17 points @EEVILMURRAY -20 points @GenericAperson @Ashley -21 points @bob -23 points Now we're in QI territory! Negative points all round! Out of everyone @GenericAperson and @bob are the only people whose score is now finalized, all of their choices have been confirmed/deconfirmed. So their score will not change from now on.

Considering you only get 8 characters at the start, you might want to wait a bit.

Did somebody say N-E Tourney!? Because we actually did that on the WiiU one. 3 seperate ones for Fun, Glory and Crazy Smash (Stupid, hilarious, nonsense matches) It was great!

OK, y'all ready to vote? The console I'm basing my nominations is... That thing, I forget it's name. I think it's Ultra 64 or something... And it's gonna be based around Smash. Because if I can't shove Pokémon into it, I'm sure as hell gonna shove my 2nd favourite series into it. BTW, I vote for Game #1. How long should we give this? A week, 2 weeks?

Well then, I'll get my 3 games up later on today once I get on a device with good formatting.

Smash 4's last character revealed was Shulk, who was such a nobody before that.

Fair point, but I did notice that some were Stamina matches. So it's not all Basic Smash.

Piranha Plant is more important than Waluigi! Also @Dcubed, you're wrong there's more challenges than WiiU. There's around 111 in Ultimate.

@Dcubed raises a good point. I didn't see any sign of Home-Run Contest on the site. But I will not have him talk smack about Incineroar! He literally has to pose after every attack. That's bloody hilarious! And Spirits Mode is basically Event mode anyway. All the fights are themed around one of the spirits. So I don't know what you're on about.

Well, for what it's worth. Whenever a kid from my community centre starts Smash for the first time and asks who I recommend, I always recommend them playing as Kirby first. He's a good beginner character, with his simple moveset and multiple mid-air jumps.

It's a new month. Who's next for the 3 game nominations, @drahkon?

EDIT: Oh right, I forgot to mention that the Random Task is a secret one this time.

So, a few things I gleamed from the site.

Well, Duhhhh. That's common knowledge. @MindFreak I found this on the website. YAY! 6 characters for DLC! Here's some deets on how to get it with a physical copy of Smash.

Separate mode. I guess it's more accurate to say that they're two modes that are connected through the collectable spirits. Spirits Mode is a quick way of playing matches to collect spirits. Kinda like Master Orders in WiiU. Adventure Mode is the World of Light thing. You start with Kirby and progress through stages in order to rescue everyone else. The main bad guy in that is called Galeem.

The site has updated with all sorts of new items, assist trophies and the like. Gonna trawl through all of it and then update the Roster Competition thread tomorrow.