Pokemon Colosseum or XD?

Pokemon introduced two adventure pokemon games for the Nintendo Game Cube: Pokemon Colosseum, and Pokemon XD. These games are of course not part of the original pokemon games, but rather, side games that both take place in the Orre Region.



In Pokemon Colosseum, you start off as a young man named Wes (or whoever you'd name him) as you were the former member of a criminal organization known as Team Snagem. One day, you've fled from Team Snagem, stealing their treasured Snag Machine Arm.

You also have two pokemon to start off with: your trusty Espeon and Umbreon. Soon you encounter Shadow pokemon, which are pokemon who have their heart's closed off due to artificial means.. or so they say. You partner up with a girl named Rui, who has the ability to see these shadow pokemon, and so, your job now is to capture these shadow pokemon, in hopes of restoring them to their former self.

Soon you'd encounter Team Cipher, a group who are responsible for creating these shadow pokemon, as you'll have to battle against member after member to rescue the shadow pokemon, and save all of Orre.




Pokemon XD is the sequel to Colosseum, taking place 5 years after the events from Colosseum. This time you're a boy named Micheal (or whoever you named him) who lives in the Pokémon HQ Lab, with his mother and little sister. The guy in charge of the lab, Prof. Krane, develops a snag machine who gives to you, to try and capture a dangerous group of pokemon named 'Shadow pokemon'. Soon Prof. Krane becomes kidnapped by a gang called Team Cipher, as you'd have your first encounter with shadow pokemon there. It's now up to you to rescue the professor, and stop the newly reformed Team Cipher!


So from all that and more, do you prefer Pokemon Colosseum or XD? Or do you prefer them both? Feel free to share thoughts!

Both are actually very good games. There's lots of Colosseums to do, lots of Pokemon to catch that you can't catch anywhere else, both have amazing music, and both have Mirror B. Awesome!

But if I had to pick one I preferred, it's the original. Not only is it more adult, with the opening being you blowing up the bad guy's (and your former employer's) base, but it has the evolved stages of the Pokemon you're capturing, which is both unique and more helpful. And of course there's the purifying of Shadow Pokemon; you have to purify them all yourself. No Purification Chamber for you! You'd figure that would be tedious but really it helps you get more attached to the Pokemon you're purifying, and it makes you feel really good every time your Pokemon regains a move or remembers its real nature, which is lacking in XD because you have the Purification Chamber doing the work for you.

I never got a chance to play Colosseum since I never had a GameCube, but I did play XD on my Wii. I only played it once, but it was enjoyable enough.

Sorry if this doesn't really provide much of a reasoning x_x

I have to say that after experiencing both Colosseum and XD, i have a stance towards the two games, which are both great games but with also great flaws that do not really ruin their credibility.

Colosseum:
Groundbreaking at the time of its release. It introduced a much darker and edgier atmosphere to the Pokemon universe, and it introduced Double Battles as the main way of playing the games, which of course was a much different ball game compared to the Single Battles that most people were used to. If there is one thing i would like to say about Colosseum is that it was the more challenging game between the two because every trainer battle felt that they were always of a higher level relative than what the player's current party really is. Hell, the final battle against Evice was something. Most players who do not grind and just casually playthrough the game as much as possible would always be TEN LEVELS LOWER than Evice's party.

Regarding the purification of Shadows, it was fun until it got a little too tedious. Some may argue that its a way to get "attached" to the pokemon you want to purify, but when there are so many things to do, it just gets frustrating.

XD:
It had some gameplay improvements and anti-frustration features that were fixed from Colosseum. It even did include wild pokemon that can now be caught, which adds to the lighter atmosphere of the game, as well as an additional means to get some useful members for your party. It also had some really fun distractions and mini-games to help the players get hooked.

However, despite the inclusion of wild pokemon through pokespots, the way Pokespots were executed was severely flawed. Basically the whole process is that you leave some bait and wait for the wild pokemon to get there. Sounds simple? yes except its easier on paper than on execution. You can be on the process of an important part of the game such as infiltrating the Cipher buildings but suddenly you get a notice on the pokespot rader. If you don't get there on time, you lose the bait and the pokemon that you could have caught. Basically, there's no way around it.

Also, unlike in Colosseum where every trainer battle felt harder because they were always of a higher level than the player (even by 1 to 3 levels, which is still a lot), in XD things got a little easier where it went back to the core-series roots were majority of the trainers are now weaker than the player relative to the time you face them. Some trainers who were seen in the last game even had their pokemon LEVEL DOWN (ehem Eagun and his pikachu) just to join up with the trend of making trainer battles easier for the player.

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Both are incredible games on their respective rights. If i wanted the more challenging game (including the management of some flawed features) then I would prefer Colosseum. If I wanted the lighter but arguably less frustrating game then XD would be my cup of tea. These are games that don't get the attention they deserve because THEY AREN"T CORE SERIES POKEYMANG GAMEZ CUZ THEY ARENT IN HANDHELDZ..

flight said:

I had a lot more fun with Colosseum than I ever really did with XD.

Don't get me wrong though, Pokemon XD was a great game in its own right, and the storyline definitely got me hooked--but where XD falls short is really the execution of the main character itself. Wes appeals to me a lot more than Michael. I'd just rather have this badass dude who used to be villain than your standard goody two-shoes kid, y'know? Though I suppose that's me being rather nitpicky...

My memory is super foggy for both games but tbf I just prefer Colosseum more, I remember having a lot more fun with it overall.

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It's that longcoat, man. Longcoats make everything cooler.

But yeah, jokes aside Wes was really a lot cooler than Michael was. He blows up former employer's bases, he has two awesome Pokemon that evolve through happiness, he has a girl following him around, and he rides around on this levitating motorcycle thing. Michael... has an aura reader, a little sister (who is actually really cute), and rides on a scooter. Meh.

When it comes to both of these games, I don't know which one I like more since I have never played either of them. Course I do find one of the Cipher admins in XD kind of attractive. Yes, I am talking about Lovrina.

Both are really fun games, I loved the Gamecube era for Pokémon.

My favourite of the two would have to be Colosseum. Although there are less Pokémon to capture, the storyline has more depth, the Region has plenty of nice towns, and the overall gameplay experience for was more enjoyable than XD.

flight said:

Wait, I just remembered something...didn't Colosseum have a lot more post-game content than XD? At least, you get to join multiple tournaments and do that 100-trainer thing, whereas XD had less? I could be very, very wrong here because my memory is so hazy that I just don't remember a thing anymore, so help would be appreciated here. ;__;

I mean, my vague memory of Colosseum is it being more enjoyable as far as the tournament battles go...

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XD actually might have more.

Colosseum did have the Mt Battle challenge for Ho-oh if you purified all the Pokemon first. And its multiple tournaments thing from the main menu was a bit better as well. Both games had the in-game Mt Battle challenge however. XD meanwhile also had more Pokemon to get (not a post-game thing but it does help), minigames in Battle Bingo and the rather interesting Battle Sim challenge (50 different battle challenges), and the Orre Colosseum which was fairly challenging (battling against a number of characters in a tournament mode).

I'm not quite sure which I prefer more. May need to play XD fully again first to decide, haha. But XD did seem to have more to do, at the cost of a much less interesting protagonist. Let's compare them - Colosseum had Wes, a teenager who is introduced to you as a guy who blows up a building. He has a history of working for a criminal gang too, making him way more interesting than the protagonists in the Game Freak games who are basically blank slates. He has a cool trenchcoat and starts with two eeveelutions as well. That's pretty cool!

XD gives us a kid who looks eight with red hair and a scooter.

On the flip side, XD had so many possible battles against Miror B and probably spent half their animation time on him and his back flips and wobbly afro.