Looking back at Pokémon spinoffs

[Glen-i]

51 minutes ago, Ashley said:

That's all I'm saying

That's from Pokémon Stadium 1.

[Aperson]

Of all the games listed so far, Pokemon TCG was the only one that I actually played. Was one of the earlier games I played and I got it at a time after a period of time playing the actual trading card game, so I already knew the rules. The cards obviously were a huge craze, so I was naturally interested in learning the game. I still have the cartridge but haven't really gone back as I haven't played it in years. I started to play multiple trading card games like Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh, then sold all my Pokemon and Magic cards because I couldn't really justify playing multiple card games and wanted to focus on the newest one. Then I got bored of Yu-Gi-Oh.

It is a bit odd though that there have been far more Yu-Gi-Oh games than Pokemon TCG games though.

[Ashley]

13 hours ago, Glen-i said:

That's from Pokémon Stadium 1.

 

[Glen-i]

Pokémon Pinball was released in 1999 for the Game Boy Colour. A pinball game with a Pokémon twist. It was developed by Jupiter and HAL Laboratory. One of the selling points was that the cartridge had a special rumble compatibility.

While the object of the game was to rack up a high score like a traditional pinball game, there was also a secondary objective to capture all 151 Pokémon. They could be found across two different tables, Red and Blue. You had to play both of them in order to find all 151 Pokémon. Thankfully, any Pokémon you got was saved to a Pokédex, so you didn't have to do it all in one go.

Successfully capturing and evolving lots of Pokémon gave you access to special bonus games for lots of beautiful points! There's also plenty of traditional pinball aspects such as multipliers and extra balls to help the player get that elusive high score. You could also use a Game Boy Printer to print out your high scores.

The game sold 5.31 million copies worldwide, making it the 3rd most successful Pokemon spin-off. So, like most successful spin-offs, it was only a matter of time before it got a sequel.

CHEEKY EDIT: @Dcubed has just informed me that the soundtrack actually has some songs based off of music from the Japanese anime. Neat!

Pokémon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire was released for the Game Boy Advance in 2003. Made once again by Jupiter, (Not HAL though) this game featured 205 Pokemon to capture (Every Pokemon available in Ruby/Sapphire, the three Gen 2 Starters and their respective evolutions and Aerodactyl for some reason) across another 2 boards titled Ruby and Sapphire, more realistic ball physics and general visual improvements.

It plays very similarly to Pokémon Pinball though. I mean, why fix what isn't broken? So there isn't much to talk about here that I haven't already covered. While this game didn't have a native rumble feature, playing it on the Gamecube's Game Boy Player allowed you to use the Gamecube controller's rumble feature instead.

Out of all the spin-off sequels I will cover, this is the one that saw the sharpest decline in sales compared to it's original. It didn't do too bad, mind. But at 1.37 million sold, that's just over 20% of the original's sales and while there's no way to confirm it, this game probably killed off the Pokémon Pinball series.

And it's a shame too, I think both of these games are great pick up and play titles. Given the choice, I prefer the sequel. I completed both of these games and the Pokemon mechanics are a great fit for the pinball game genre, it's just really obvious in hindsight.

But could it come back? I'm gonna go with "It's possible, but probably won't happen" I say this because there's been a kind of resurgence with pinball games recently, especially if you look at the cheaper digital only titles. Maybe The Pokémon Company could get one of those companies to make a new pinball game. That'd be a great idea.

Anyway, I'll leave you with a crazy fact. @Dcubed has managed to max out the score of Pokémon Pinball: R&S. I'm not too sure, but he might have that particular game still going on his cartridge, never to end.

Edited October 26, 2018 by Glen-i

[Hero-of-Time]

Pokemon Pinball was an amazing game. I spent countless hours trying to get high scores on it and find all the Pokemon. It's such a shame it never made it to the 3DS VC.  

I never really got on with the sequel. I think it was due to the fact I wasn't a big fan of that generation of Pokemon, whereas the original pinball game had the Mons I loved.

[Dcubed]

2 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Pokemon Pinball was an amazing game. I spent countless hours trying to get high scores on it and find all the Pokemon. It's such a shame it never made it to the 3DS VC.  

I never really got on with the sequel. I think it was due to the fact I wasn't a big fan of that generation of Pokemon, whereas the original pinball game had the Mons I loved.

It's so weird that we got Pinball R/S on the Wii U VC, but we didn't get the original Pokemon Pinball on 3DS!

 

I could really do with it and all.  My current GB cart is buggered and it keeps crapping out  Guess I'm gonna have to hit up eBay...

[Glen-i]

Pokémon Puzzle League is an action puzzle game developed by Nintendo Software Technology (NST) and Intelligent Systems. Released for the N64 in 2000, it marks two oddities when it comes to Pokémon spin-offs. The first is pretty obvious from the boxart in that the game features Ash Ketchum for the first (but not the only) time. The second being the game never came out in Japan.

Mega Loser Ash is chilling out at a resort instead of training his Pokémon like he should be doing when he receives a call from Professor Oak. Prof. Oak informs him that he's been invited to the Official Puzzle League Tournament. Ash accepts and that's how the game starts.

The object of the game is to manipulate a series of blocks to match 3 of the same colour to make them disappear, you can get more points from clearing more than 3 at a time (Called a "Combo") or having one set of blocks cause a chain reaction and clear another set of blocks straight after (called a "Chain"). The blocks steadily rise as you play and if your stack reaches the top, you lose.

There's a variety of modes that have different rules. There's the normal marathon mode where you go for a high score, Time Zone gives you 2 minutes to get a high score, Puzzle University gives you a set amount of moves to clear every block on screen and there's my personal favourite, Spa Service, where you have to get your stack below a certain point to progress through levels. There's also some tutorials for beginners to get to grips with the game.
But the main meat of Puzzle League are the Stadium modes. 1P Stadium could be considered the story mode where you help Ash beat a series of CPU characters in order to be dubbed the Puzzle Master. With 5 levels of difficulty, there's enough to test your skills. There's also the 2P Stadium which is a 2 player mode (Duh). Here you can pick almost any of the characters that feature in the game (Except Ash, I mean he's there, but who would willingly choose to play as Ash!?) and face off against each other.

One key difference between this and the previous Tetris Attack is the 3D mode. The usual 2D mode has a rectangular playing field. 3D mode changes this to a cylindrical playing field with the blocks wrapping around the cylinder. This gives the player more room to work with and more blocks to keep track of.

Another thing to note is that this game actually has FMV cutscenes, which was a selling point the Playstation tended to use back then. It's strange for an N64 game. This probably ate up on the memory limitations of the cartridge and I bet it's the main reason why the soundtrack sounds like cheap MIDI rip-offs of the anime soundtrack.

Puzzle League is a series of games that are known as Panel de Pon in Japan. Generally, those games star a bunch of fairies, but Nintendo decided that the west would never warm to them because of their more feminine nature. So when it came to releasing these games over here in the 90's, the fairies would be replaced with more popular IP's. We saw this with the game Tetris Attack, which used characters from Yoshi's Island. The reason why Pokémon Puzzle League never came out in Japan could be because there was a planned Panel de Pon 64 which ended up getting cancelled for whatever reason. Can't confirm that mind, but I can see that happening.

Pokémon Puzzle League sold 0.45 million copies. Not releasing in Japan definitely hurt its chances, not to mention it releasing quite late in the N64's life. And yet...

Pokémon Puzzle Challenge released in Japan 4 days before Pokémon Puzzle League on the Game Boy Color. Developed by Intelligent Systems, this is a portable version of Puzzle League that instead of being based on the anime, was based on Pokemon Gold/Silver.

Playing as Ethan, the male protagonist of the Gen 2 games, you had to beat the 8 Gym Leaders of the Johto region using your team of Chikorita, Cyndaquil and the correct choice, Totodile. Along with the modes in Puzzle League this game had a garbage mode, not because it sucked, but because it was similar to Marathon, but you had to deal with periodic garbage blocks dropping on you. There was also no 3D option for obvious reasons.

During the main story mode, meeting certain requirements would give you the chance to unlock a new Pokémon to play as, considering that each Pokemon basically acts as a life to save you from the dreaded Game Over screen, this is pretty helpful.

As for how this sold? Ehhhh, I dunno. I can't find anything on it. Puzzle League as a series still shows up now and again, but not as a Pokémon title, so I wouldn't say it was dead, but you probably won't see a Pokémon version any time soon.

So what did you lot think of these games? I certainly like them, even if I'm pretty eh at them myself. I never have beaten the hardest difficulty on both of these games. However, @Dcubed and @Ugh first aid are blooming Puzzle League Ninjas! When they boot it up, they go on forever. I basically only ever win when one of them makes a mistake. My favourite character was Giovanni. His music was pretty good.

And that pretty much ends the spin-offs that originated in Generation 1. We'll be moving on to Gen 2 next, which is nowhere near as long as the first one. It's mostly because most of the games were sequels that I've already covered.

Edited October 27, 2018 by Glen-i

[Dcubed]

Quote

The reason why Pokémon Puzzle League never came out in Japan could be because there was a planned Panel de Pon 64 which ended up getting cancelled for whatever reason

You are indeed correct! PDP64 was cancelled and turned into Pokemon Puzzle League for us here in the west.

 

Amazingly enough, Panel de Pon 64 actually did end up getting released in the end... as part of the Japan only Nintendo Puzzle Collection for Gamecube!

 

 

Those with a keen eye will spot many of the gameplay features that are shared between the two games, including the Line Clear mode, 3D Mode and the Puzzle Mode (which share the exact same set of puzzles between both the N64 and GCN games).

 

What really sets the GCN release apart from Pokemon Puzzle League though (aside from the obvious lack of fairies; this IS still Gen 1 after all!) is the addition of the (rad as hell) 4 player mode!

 

Next to Tetra’s Trackers, it’s the best multiplayer experience you’ve never played!

 

That being said, Pokemon Puzzle Challenge actually DID get released in Japan, pretty much unedited from ours.  Though interestingly, it was itself a modified version of a cancelled Gameboy Panel de Pon title! In fact, this beta version is actually accessible from within Pokemon Puzzle Challenge via a debug cheat code! Even in the 3DS VC release!

 

Quote

Do the following cheats... At the title screen, press: "Up" 2 times, "Right" 4 times, Down, "Left" 10 times, "Up" 4 times, Right, "Down" 6 times, then B once.  This activates GB Mode.  Then at the "This game can only be played on the GBC" screen, press: "A" 24 times, then "B" 24 times.

 

Punch those cheats in and see how deep the Buneary hole goes!

 

Pokemon Puzzle League was my introduction to the Puzzle League/Panel de Pon series and naturally, being the massive Puzzle League nerd that I am now, I loved it to pieces! Today it’s one of my least favourite versions (I really don’t like the janky menus and overall presentation; everything outside of the actual gameplay code that they cribbed from Intelligent Systems’ original PDP64 project feels held together by string and duct tape!), but it’s the version I grew up playing and loving, so it’ll always hold a special place in my heart 

Edited October 27, 2018 by Dcubed

[Falcon_BlizZACK]

On 10/25/2018 at 7:11 PM, Glen-i said:

Pokémon Stadium was a Japanese only game released on the N64 in 1998. Made by HAL Laboratory, it's a Battle simulator game that allowed people to battle some Pokemon in 3D for the first time.
Yes, Japan only. This is a weird one.

Using the N64 Transfer Pak, players could transfer their Pokemon Team from Pokemon Red and Blue and battle them in 3D with either another person or a CPU controlled trainer. There was also a Tournament mode which pitted your team against a series of trainers. There was also a feature that let you play your Game Boy game on the TV.

The key question here is "Why does this count as a different game?" Well, compared to the one you know, this version was severely lacking. Only 42 Pokemon were actually able to be used here. Most of them were Pokemon that were used in real-life tournaments plus a handful of others for balance.
The trainers you could fight in the Tournament were based off of some of the teams used in those real-life tournaments. This had the unfortunate side effect of making the game really hard! Which is a common criticism of this.

Now for the one some of you expected...

Pokémon Stadium (Pokemon Stadium 2 in Japan) was released on the N64 a year later and came bundled with a Transfer Pak. Using the original game as a base, this game allowed all 151 Pokemon from the first games to be used, lowered the difficulty of the Tournament mode (Although a harder difficulty could be unlocked), new rulesets, a mode that pitted you against teams based around the 8 Gym Leaders from the GB Game and a selection of surprisingly fun Minigames.

A weird feature is that you could have 4 player battles. Although these were still in the Single Battle format, each person controlled 3 Pokemon.

I want to talk about the development of these two games. It's an interesting story. The late Sotoru Iwata flexed his developer's genius and transferred the battle logic used in the Game Boy games to Stadium. The impressive thing about this was that there were no reference documents to go on, so he analysed the Game Boy Source Code and still nailed it. He even fixed a few glitches there while he was at it, all in about a week. Amazing stuff.

Without your own copy of the Game Boy game, this game lacked much of a selling point. While the game provides Rental Pokemon for you to use, most of them ranged from bad to flat-out terrible, making progressing a torturous affair. Despite that, the game sold 5.46 million copies, making it the 2nd most successful spin-off to date.

There really isn't much else to say about this... Well, apart from how dreadful that Blastoise render on the boxart is. Jeez!

Pokemon Stadium 2 is the sequel to Pokemon Stadium 2... Wait... (It's known as Pokemon Stadium Gold/Silver in Japan) It's pretty similar to the first game, but is compatible with the second generation of Pokemon games (Gold/Silver/Crystal) This means there's 251 Pokemon to use. Apart from that, it's pretty similar to the first outing with the same kind of modes. There was a new Pokemon Academy that taught the player some advanced techniques and the ability to see your bedroom from the Gen 2 games in 3D.

This combined with general sequelitis would probably explain why it sold only 2.54 million. Still pretty impressive for a spin-off.

I guess I should mention Pokemon Colosseum. But while it does have a similar stadium mode to these games, I still feel like that's a whole different kind of game, so I'm gonna leave that for a future entry. Instead, I'll move on to...

Pokémon Battle Revolution was a Wii title made by Genius Sonority in 2006. This game communicated with the DS games Pokemon Pearl and Diamond to allow more 3D battling. And that's about all it did. Compared to the games that came before it, it was woefully feature-lite. No minigames or extras like that. The single player consisted of beating a number of colloseums, each with different gimmicks to them. It also allowed people to battle each other online.

The sales for this game were surprising, 1.95 million. Lower than Stadium 2, but still decent. I think the Wii's huge success might have helped with this title. Because it's pretty underwhelming.

And that does it for the Pokémon Stadium series. Apart from the weird first entry, there really isn't much to say about this series, so sorry that this entry doesn't say much.
I think the average Pokemon fan isn't really lamenting the loss of this series, not these days. The actual Pokemon games are in 3D now, so there isn't much of a selling point with the "See your Pokémon in 3D" aspect. So it probably won't be coming back, and I'm fine with that.

Did you play any of these battle simulators? What did you think? I remember spending hours trying to take my hard trained Pokemon through both of the original games. I guess those games are what got me into competitive battling in a weird way. If you have the Game Boy games, they're great! And those minigames were solid!
I never played Battle Revolution though. Seeing Pokemon in 3D was kinda played out at that point, so I never bothered.

Funny, I had a strong want to check out old video reviews of battle Revolution...Something about the battle music, while underwhelming, was soothing. I have a severe Pokemon addiction, so i was that guy who bought this at £50 and tried my best to beat the CPU with the rental pokemon you get after winning each battle...A strong 5-6/10 game...But it shows how strong the franchise is. I know for a fact the Lets Go series will sell very well, regardless of the online annoyances.

[Jonnas]

Pokémon Stadium 1&2 were the games that made me buy the N64. That might not sound like much, but up until that point, my videogaming history was Mega Drive, PC, and Game Boy. Buying the N64 would lead me to the Gamecube, and then this site. And it's all thanks to the Pokémon franchise.

As for the games themselves, the challenges were fun. I spent a lot of time trying to beat the cups (though the higher difficulties were just impossible. I swear, the RNG benefited the enemy far more than it did me), they allowed me to use Pokémon I normally wouldn't use in the games (like Electrode or Venomoth), the mini-games were fantastic in multiplayer, and there was a mode where I could play my copy of Blue in fast-forward (Doduo/Dodrio Mode. Lovely names).

Pokémon Pinball is amazing, and possibly my favourite spin-off. I never cared much for getting high scores, but building the Pokédex was an awesome goal to strive for. Finding out the tricks (how to "tilt" the table properly, how to guarantee loops in certain situations, etc.) was immensely rewarding, gameplay depth at its finest. The mini-games were also great, I wish there were more of them. Unfortunately, I could never complete the Pokédex: the save file keeps erasing itself every other year, much to my dismay (and I know it does this regularly, because I keep playing the game!).

The Ruby&Sapphire sequel, I didn't like nearly as much. Not only was it way easier in every way, the realistic ball physics weren't nearly as fun. Plus, you need to trust the RNG in order to even see 6 of the available Pokémon? Not cool. Still, it's decent, and I did play it for a bit (though not nearly as much as the original).

Pokémon Puzzle series I never played. I don't even know why, Puzzle Challenge released at the right time on the right console for me. Just one of those weird gaps in my gaming history.

Edited October 28, 2018 by Jonnas

[Glen-i]

There's actually only one thing I'm gonna cover when it comes to Gen 2 spin-off's and it's a bit of a different tack, but let's just go for it.

Who's that console? Iiiiiit's Pokémon Mini! Released in 2001 and manufactured by Nintendo, it was a pretty short lived console and had 10 games released for it (America only got 4 of those while Europe got 5). For the sake of mine and your sanity, I'm not gonna go into too much detail on each individual game.

The console came in 3 different colours. Wooper Blue, Chikorita Green and Smoochum Purple. Features of the console include a real-time clock, an infrared port, a reed switch and a motor. Along with it's 96 X 64 screen and incredibly tiny buttons. (And some people complain about the Joycon... bloody lightweights) A weird quirk of the Pokemon Mini was that save files were stored on the console. And seeing as it could only hold data for 5 games, it became a bit of an issue if you had the Japanese only games.

Now, I normally poke fun at myself for being a bit of a Pokénerd, but if you want actual proof of that, here it is. I owned one of these. I had the game that you see in the picture above. (Pokémon Party Mini) It was pretty decent, although you probably don't need to rush out and get one immediately.

Anyway, the actual most interesting thing about the Mini is that people even nerdier than I am reverse engineered the bloody thing! You can get homebrew on this! No, I have no idea why anyone would bother, but here's a particularly well known one.

So that's Pokémon Mini, a weird little oddity as far as Ninty consoles go. It was... OK. We probably won't see Nintendo try something like this again. It's not really what they do these days.

BTW, that also ends Gen 2. Told you it was short. Don't worry though, there's more in Gen 3. Which I'll probably start next Saturday.

Edited October 28, 2018 by Glen-i

[Hero-of-Time]

MJR done an episode about the Pokemon Mini a few weeks back.

 

[Ashley]

21 hours ago, Glen-i said:

Mega Loser Ash[...]who would willingly choose to play as Ash!?

[Jonnas]

Literally all I know about Pokémon Mini is that it had a Pinball mini-game. A friend of mine who loved Pokémon Pinball as much as I did wondered if this was the Pokémon Pinball 2 we were anticipating. We never saw one for sale, so we never checked... but I'm leaning "No, it wasn't"

[Glen-i]

18 minutes ago, Jonnas said:

Literally all I know about Pokémon Mini is that it had a Pinball mini-game. A friend of mine who loved Pokémon Pinball as much as I did wondered if this was the Pokémon Pinball 2 we were anticipating. We never saw one for sale, so we never checked... but I'm leaning "No, it wasn't"

You're right, it's not. Instead of traditional pinball tables, Pokémon Pinball Mini works more like an adventure game. You had to smack your way through 70 levels using different Pokémon as makeshift flippers.

[Aperson]

Pokemon Pinball was one of the earliest games I got and I absolutely loved it. After getting the game I played it to death, though to this day I have not been able to capture every single Pokemon. I did go back to the game recently after getting the means to play it again but I'm no longer as good as I was back then when I could rack up high scores and in general get a good feeling for where the ball was going to go when I flipped it. The main reason is that I feel the game is very unbalanced between the two tables, the Blue table was far easier than the Red and as such all the Red exclusive Pokemon were ones I never got, travelling on the Red table is very difficult too. As such I was never able to get anywhere near the 151 Pokemon mark and I never got the chance to catch Mew.

I was very pleased when they made a sequel to Pokemon Pinball and didn't waste any time picking it up. It's a far better balanced game between the two tables and I liked how they were able to make them more 3Dish with the ramps akin to real pinball tables. The Egg Hatching was also a good way of getting around the fact that pre-evolutions had been introduced since and coming off Ruby the Pokedex was very familiar with me and I think Pinball R&S is why to this day the Hoenn regional Pokedex order is the one I remember most compared to others since. I got really close to getting all the Pokemon, far more than I did on the original. I don't know whether it's because the game was easier or not or if they tweaked some things behind the scenes but I eventually got 200 of the 201 Pokemon that would normally make up the Hoenn Dex... of course I had no idea that the Johto starters were in this game. I might have to look up how to get them.

I was very disappointed that there was never a Pokemon Pinball 3. I really though the the DS would have been the perfect console for a pinball game what with the fact that you could have the entire table laid out in front of you across the two screens. The DS did get Metroid Prime Pinball which I picked up at a time when I was buying many Metroid games but unfortuantely that game does not have the lifespan of a Pokemon Pinball game, it's crazy how much lifespan simply catching all the Pokemon would take. I didn't know at the time that the series was being shelved due to lack of sales and thought it was a "standard" spin-off series that would keep going into new hardware. A dual screened Pokemon Pinball would have been a game I absolutely loved and it was the spin-off I was waiting for, alas it never arrived and I would remain a "main game" only player until 2016 when Pokken Tournament came around.

[Dcubed]

I still have my Pokemon Mini! I actually had some good fun with it; it was a pretty neat little device, and the shaking gameplay was pretty novel at the time (who know that it would go on to inspire hundreds of ripoffs on Wii!?  )

 

Weird and wonderful  

[Jonnas]

6 hours ago, Glen-i said:

You're right, it's not. Instead of traditional pinball tables, Pokémon Pinball Mini works more like an adventure game. You had to smack your way through 70 levels using different Pokémon as makeshift flippers.

Wow, I thought it would be very basic pinball, but this... It's practically criminal to name a videogame "Pinball", and then have it not be the actual pinball genre.

Edited October 28, 2018 by Jonnas

[Glen-i]

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.

Edited September 15 by Glen-i

[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.

Edited August 4, 2023 by Glen-i

[Jonnas]

Oh man, Pokémon Channel and Box. I remember reading about their announcement, and wondering what the heck was happening with the franchise.

Never played the Gamecube RPGs, though. At that point, I had come to terms with the fact that I was no longer following the main series, so why would I play a Gen III spin-off?

By the way, why did you skip "Hey You, Pikachu!" and the Pikachu-themed N64 that came with it?

Edited November 3, 2018 by Jonnas

[Glen-i]

On 03/11/2018 at 5:31 PM, Jonnas said:

By the way, why did you skip "Hey You, Pikachu!" and the Pikachu-themed N64 that came with it?

Holy crap! I completely spaced on it! To be fair, I've been using @Serebii's site as a list of all the Pokémon games and I just double checked it and it's not there! I wonder why...

Oh, BTW. The Pikachu N64 had nothing to do with Hey You, Pikachu! It was just a general Pokémon N64.

Well then, I've got some free time. Guess we're getting a double feature today.

Hey You, Pikachu! was released for the N64 in 1998. A Japan/North America only title made by Ambrella. I guess you can define this as a virtual pet kind of game.

Using the included Voice Recognition Unit, this game's main selling point was that you could use the microphone to influence the game. Professor Oak tasks the player with using a device called a PokéHelper to communicate with Pokémon. Pretty quickly, you meet a Pikachu and accompany it through 18 stages of... talking action?

Yeah, this game was pretty experimental for the time. Taken on it's own, it really doesn't amount to much. It's short, simple and pretty forgettable as a game. The voice recognition was the one interesting thing about it, but a common issue is that the microphone was only really calibrated for higher pitched voices. Fine for children, not so great for anyone else. Ah, 90's technology.

Despite that, this game does have an ending, which you can only see after playing through 365 in-game days, and considering there's only 17 different types of days you can do, that's not something most people would trawl through.

A common interesting tidbit you hear thrown about was that saying the word "Sony" or "Playstation" would cause Pikachu to get angry with you. I'm afraid I have to tell you guys that's an urban myth. A total Mew under the truck. The game doesn't recognise those words what-so-ever. This might have been a result of the game causing a random reaction when the game doesn't recognise what you said. One person probably got lucky with this and started the whole rumour. I recall the official UK Nintendo Magazine actually falling for this and stating it as an amusing feature in their preview of the game. Oops!

It sold 1.83 million copies. Which is... something, it only released in 2 countries. I feel like I need to apologise to them all. If any of you are reading this, sorry about that.

Anyway, this is another one-off spin-off in the Pokémon series. With it never coming out over in Europe, I never got to play it. I'm fine with that, 8 year old me might have been bummed out, but older, wiser, nerdier me doesn't care. I mean, it is made by Ambrella and I've learned my lesson with that company. But that's not for now.

But could it come back? ...Nope. Got no reasoning for that, but no-one cares anymore.

Edited August 4, 2023 by Glen-i

[Dcubed]

Pokemon Channel is very much the successor to Hey You Pikachu.  It was developed by the same team and shares a lot in common, including the setting.

 

Those were the days where Ambrella at least tried with making weird, if very flawed, experimental gameplay concepts.  I do have to at least admire them for that.  Their early games never quite hit the mark in terms of quality, but you can’t say that they didn’t try to make something different!

 

Then they became a Pokemon Rumble factory.

[Glen-i]

OK, it's time. You knew it was coming, I knew it was coming. Prepare for one hell of a long post and an unintentional amount of gushing, because it's time to look at...

The Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series are a bunch of Roguelike dungeon crawling games developed by Spike Chunsoft. And before I get started on the first entry, there's a bit of background I need to establish first, because PMD isn't the first game of this kind, not by a long shot.

A long time ago, Chunsoft were the developers of the Dragon Quest series, they worked on the first 5 entries. But we want to look specifically at the 4th. Around the development of this game, the co-creator of Dragon Quest, Koichi Nakamura, discovered a PC game called "Rogue", a difficult game that tasked the player with reaching the bottom of a randomly generated dungeon. He became quite enthralled by it and wanted to make a series of games with a similar kind of ethos. So in 1993, Chunsoft developed the game "Torneko no Daibōken: Fushigi no Dungeon" A Dragon Quest spin-off featuring one of the characters from the 4th entry, where the main character, Torneko, explored randomly generated Mystery Dungeons to find items to help make his shop famous. So in an amusing kind of way, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon is an inadvertant Dragon Quest spin-off. Wacky!

The Mystery Dungeon series as a whole follows the same kind of layout, randomly generated dungeons that tend to punish failure harshly, some even had you start the entire game again from scratch! (Such as the Mystery Dungeon series with original characters, "Shiren the Wanderer") Thankfully, the Pokémon versions are not that brutal, but you do tend to lose all your money and items that you were carrying upon failure and then booted out of whatever dungeon you're in, forcing you to start that dungeon again. They also tend to work in a turn-based system, nothing moves until you perform an action, so thinking ahead and planning your actions is a key part of progress.

Pokémon and Dragon Quest aren't the only franchises to get the Mystery Dungeon treatment. Final Fantasy, Etrian Odyssey and even TwinBee are just some of the IP's that have gotten entries.

But that's enough about those other franchises, we're here for Pokémon. So let's get started.

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team / Blue Rescue Team are the first entries in this series and a front runner for cleverest box art ever (I positioned them like that on purpose, have a close look at them), Red being released on the GBA with Blue being a port for the DS. Both released in 2005.
Much like the mainline Pokémon series, these two games have minor differences in what Pokémon appear, but Blue also takes advantage of the DS' capabilities for Quality of Life features as well.

The game takes place in an alternate universe where the only inhabitants are Pokémon and humans are nothing more than a fairy tale to them. You play as a human who has somehow been transported to this world of Pokémon and subsequently turned into one with no clue as to why. Depending on the answers you give in a questionaire, you could be one of 16 different Pokémon, from fan-favourite Pikachu, to secret best choice, Cubone. You're discovered by a Pokémon (of your choosing) who talks to you in what appears to be perfect English, which while odd, is completely normal to this world, what with everyone being a Pokémon. After the two of you help a Butterfree, whose child is lost in a Mystery Dungeon, you explain your predicament to the Pokémon, who decides to help you figure out what the hell is going on. What follows is a story quite unlike anything the Pokémon video game series had ever seen, as you slowly discover the true purpose of being brought here and the implications and consequences it has brought to this world.

I cannot stress this enough. I truly mean it when I say the Pokémon video games had never seen anything quite like this plot at the time. On the surface, it appears as a happy-go-lucky affair that is thick on "The Power of Friendship" and gets a bit cheesy at times. But the Pokémon themselves had never been characterised in quite this way.
I'm sure some of you recall an episode of the anime that focused on the Pokémon that Ash and his friends were training getting seperated and having conversations with each other (in subtitles). It was a good episode that looked into how a Pokémon might end up feeling about the situation they're in.
This game took that idea and dialled it up to 11, and sooner or later, you start to notice some surprisingly dark undertones. I'm not going to go into too much detail because spoilers, but this particular entry touches on the subject of death a couple of times. Mostly implied, of course. It is a Pokémon game, after all.
Oh, and this was the first game to get me to actually tear up. It gets pretty rough and it was at that moment, I realised that this was something quite special.

The game (and most of the spin-off series) is also notable for being legitmately hard. Now, it's no Dark Souls, but you're going to die quite a few times. It says a lot when the second boss is a bloody Zapdos! Get your 2 level 12 unevolved Pokémon through that!

This entry sold a total of 5.85 million copies, making it the most sucessful Pokémon spin-off to date. I'm just as surprised as you are. I didn't realise it did that well! I guess I wasn't the only one who enjoyed the plot and challenge this game provided. It was so sucessful, it even got a special anime episode loosely based on the game.
I also mentioned this in the Smash thread, but this game is the first time popular Pokémon Lucario showed up. It was a cameo appearence, mind you.

But wait, there's more, it's time for some nerdy knowledge! Did you know that in South Korea, only Blue Rescue Team was released? It's because the GBA wasn't released over there.
Not nerdy enough? Fine! Did you know there was also a substantial free demo of the game for Korea that consisted of the first third of the story?

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gold Rescue Team released exclusively in South Korea in 2007, I stated what it was above, but I feel like I'm forgetting something...
Oh right! Duh! This wasn't a DS title, or a GBA one, for that matter. This was a PC title. Making this an offiical Pokémon game for the PC! I said wow when I discovered that little detail.
Unfortunately, it required a connection to an online server that no longer exists, so it can't be played legitmately any more. Not that you'd need to.

Anyway, I was naturally super hyped to get the sequel when it was announced.

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time / Explorers of Darkness relased for the DS in 2007. These games are once again basically the same game with slight differences in the Pokémon available.

It features similar gameplay to the first game, but, being built with the DS in mind, features lots of gameplay improvements, graphical enhancements and of course, more Pokémon to encounter. Not to mention a story that's about twice as long as the first game. This is one meaty game!

You once again play as a human who has been transported to the world of Pokémon and has turned into one of 16 possible Pokémon. (Get used to that, it's a recurring theme) The game opens with you and an unknown character getting seperated in some kind of storm. You're discovered on a beach by another Pokémon (Of your choosing, also a recurring theme). Unfortunately, you have that pesky amnesia thing and can only remember your name and the fact you used to be a human. It's at that moment, the other Pokémon is mugged by a Koffing and a Zubat of a weird stone slab. After going through a Mystery Dungeon and convincing the two thiefs to give the slab back by beating them up, the other Pokémon asks you to join them in joining the local Explorer's guild because they're too timid to do it by themselves. And so you do so in the hope of finding out what exactly happened to you.

Ask anyone who has played the PMD games which story they like the best and the chances are it'll be the one in these games. Not to go on about it, but the plot here is something you just won't see in other Pokémon games, including a twist that is so subtly well foreshadowed, it changes about half of the scenes that came before it. It's one of those twists you don't see coming and yet still feel like a complete dope for not seeing it coming. Not to mention this game is way darker than the first, which already touched on some surprisingly heavy subject matter considering.

The game's also harder than the first, so get ready to hear that failure music a fair bit.

I'm going to choose now to applaud the pixel art that these games sport. It's amazing just how much there is! For example, here's the Totodile family.

Spoiler

Now imagine having to do that for 489 more Pokémon. Oh, and some are ambidextrous sprites to boot, so they differ depending on which way they face.
Oh, and see those cool portrait squares in the top left? Every Pokémon has one and Pokémon that have dialogue tend to have more than one. Have a lookee!

Spoiler

It's like a game of Where's Wally? If Wally was a Kecleon.

So yeah, whoever worked on those, well bloody done! Whatever you were paid was clearly not enough. They help add so much charm to the games and while I totally get why they moved to 3D models in the future, I do miss them a bit.

These games sold 4.88 million copies, which is highly impressive for a sequel! Over 80% of the first game's already high sales numbers. And yes, I cried at this game as well. I know, I'm a wuss.

But we're not quite done with the second game...

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky released for the DS in 2009. This served as a third version to the two Explorers games before it, much like Pokémon Yellow.
It decided to do away with the version exclusive Pokémon thing and have all 492 Pokémon revealed at the time. (Although Arceus wasn't officially available at this point, it makes a cameo appearence that's almost impossible to find).
As well as that, it offers a slightly harder difficulty mode, new dungeons to explore, 5 more Pokemon to play the role of the 2 main characters and most notably, 5 "Special Episodes" that consists of stories that follow the side characters. Two of which are pretty heartbreaking, especially the final one! Holy crap at the final Special Episode!

*ahem*

This one sold 1.49 million copies, not surprising, really. It is an awesome enhanced version of a previous game.

I think I need to cut this post here. It's getting really long. But stay tuned, I'm gonna get right to work on the second half right now.

Edited August 4, 2023 by Glen-i

[Julius]

Great write-up @Glen-i! 

The Pokémon Mystery Dungeon titles hold a special place in my heart too - now that I think about it, these were probably the first remotely mature (in a storytelling sense) video games that I played growing up. Despite them clearly having sold so well, I still feel like they are - by far! - the most underappreciated Pokémon games, and I never deny myself the opportunity to urge others to play these games. It easily has some of the best characters and storytelling associated with the franchise. Game Freak should really start taking some notes...

I still remember picking up Blue Rescue Team from Cex for having done well at primary school, and pre-ordering Explorers of Time with the Explorer’s Guide from GAME. I also remember that around halfway from my playthrough of Explorers of Time, I found the hinge on my first generation DS was broken after returning from a school summer fair (so probably in July?); not wanting to damage the console further, I glued the hinge in order to the game, and didn’t get it replaced until December of the following year (which is probably why I stopped taking it into school). I think I got Explorers of Sky for a birthday? 

I’ve actually yet to play Super Mystery Dungeon, despite it being on my shelf, so I’m curious as to what people think about it compared to the previous games. Oh, and I completely skipped the earlier 3DS entry (Gates to Infinity, I think?) because that released during my break from the series - in which I missed both it and White 2 - and those Wiiware titles which I read about in Pokémon World and on Serebii, though I guess those probably end up being Japan exclusive..? 

Edited November 4, 2018 by Julius Caesar