Colosseum vs. XD: Gale of Darkness

[bobandbill]

Simple - which spinoff title by Genius Sonority set in the region of Orre did you like better? And why?

For me I'll split by different aspects:

- Colosseum had the better protagonist by far, and I also preferred the villain characters more as well as its story and progression. It also had the slightly better Miror B theme, but both are fantastic and objectively hard to say which is better.
- XD's quality of life improvements cannot be ignored however - from the save function (can be done anywhere!) to the purification chamber. Then there's the Pokemon availability, which is no insignificant factor, and more side content to enjoy. And you can battle Miror B multiple times!

 

[Sydian]

ugh unfair question. i love them both, and while gale of darkness is definitely the better game, i still prefer colosseum. i like the protagonist more and it is such a let down to go from someone older and with a darker past than the norm to a child again, especially one without much of a background. and i prefer colosseum's darker tone altogether. the grittier environments, the shady people, even the music wasn't often very friendly. gale of darkness doesn't have the same atmosphere that colosseum had and even as a kid, i still preferred the tone colosseum set as opposed to the one in gale of darkness.

gale of darkness is an improvement on gameplay, features, post-game content, and available pokemon, but i just have a super soft spot for colosseum. it's still a bit of a novelty in the pokemon series, too. other games haven't come close to that tone, at least not aside from certain scenes and circumstances (looking largely at climaxes of games like BW and SM, but the games overall don't keep that tone throughout the story).

i think my idea of colosseum is largely skewed because of the nintendo power article. i still have this issue of the magazine and that colosseum article stuck with me HARD. i remember it was like 'there's no low level lollygagging in orre' bc you don't even start in single digit levels like most games, you're RIGHT THERE in your mid-20's. and stuff about the protagonist being a part of team snagem at one point. i would have loved more elaboration on that, honestly, but i guess they couldn't make the protagonist look TOO bad bc it's still pokemon.

but yeah even though i will wholeheartedly agree that gale of darkness is the better game for playability, i just enjoy the feel of colosseum much more. it gets my vote.

 

[colours]

Wes wins purely on being a more rebellious character than the goody two shoes characters we've had in like... every single Pokemon entry, ever. Makes you wonder why Game Freak doesn't go with that kind of character archetype in the main series games. :s This is more or less what gives Colosseum the edge to me.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but couldn't you also go through tournament matches in The Under, as well? Was this more of a Colosseum thing, or XD, or both? Assuming it's more of a Colo thing, then I enjoyed that a lot, which is another point in its favour.

Purification chamber in XD though is nice and made purifying Shadow Pokemon significantly less of a pain and the fact that you're able to evolve Eevee into pretty much whatever you want at the time instead of being stuck with Espeon/Umbreon. That is, if course, unless you like Espeon/Umbreon, anyway. Personally, I didn't mind either, but it was nice to have the option to go with another eeveelution should one feel like it's necessary. I went with Vaporeon because bulk which paid off a lot.

There are only four Cipher admins which made them a bit more memorable in Colo than they were in XD. Although it's hard not to give points to Gorigan for his crazy battle pose lmao.

.... I can probably do this all day, but it's hard to choose between both. Although if I had to pick, XD may have the slight edge for replayability reasons, and iirc the fact that you can catch "wild" Pokemon in that game, as well. Granted, it's not to the extent of the main series games, but it's definitely something. But I'm voting for Colosseum because how can you not like a game where

Spoiler:

the happy go lucky mayor is actually the final boss of the game??

lol can't believe I'm spoilering for a game this old but STILL

 

[Rivvon]

Colosseum is my preferred game by far. Not only due to story and characters (as has already been said, going from Wes to Michael was the worst downgrade) but the way it played. It was more challenging and required more strategy--limited save points meant you couldn't just rush into things. Limited Pokémon selection made you appreciate the positives of everything you got. The story and characters already make Colosseum far more memorable in general, but it was also significantly more challenging, which is something I appreciate leagues over the QOL and graphical improvements of Gale of Darkness.

 

[Sydian]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but couldn't you also go through tournament matches in The Under, as well? Was this more of a Colosseum thing, or XD, or both? Assuming it's more of a Colo thing, then I enjoyed that a lot, which is another point in its favour.

so like. you can go through tournament matches in both games, but the under no longer exists in gale of darkness. and if you wanna go even deeper, there is deep colosseum (pun not intended) in colosseum which, of course, is underneath the under so it's not in gale of darkness. there are no new colosseums in gale of darkness, unless you count realgam tower actually being a colosseum challenge in gale of darkness as opposed to the final showdown area in colo.

at least, i don't think there are any new colosseum areas introduced in gale of darkness. i'm just going off the top of my head. there's phenac, pyrite, the under (colo only), deep colosseum (colo only), realgam tower (functions as a colosseum only in gale)...and they all offer, iirc, four rounds where you get TMs at the end of each four trainer run. honestly it's tedious now that i think about it. but it's great for grinding and getting shadow pokemon purified. shrug.

i hope this doesn't come off as a "well acK TU All Y" btw i'm just kind of thinking out loud rn

 

[bobandbill]

so like. you can go through tournament matches in both games, but the under no longer exists in gale of darkness. and if you wanna go even deeper, there is deep colosseum (pun not intended) in colosseum which, of course, is underneath the under so it's not in gale of darkness. there are no new colosseums in gale of darkness, unless you count realgam tower actually being a colosseum challenge in gale of darkness as opposed to the final showdown area in colo.

at least, i don't think there are any new colosseum areas introduced in gale of darkness. i'm just going off the top of my head. there's phenac, pyrite, the under (colo only), deep colosseum (colo only), realgam tower (functions as a colosseum only in gale)...and they all offer, iirc, four rounds where you get TMs at the end of each four trainer run. honestly it's tedious now that i think about it. but it's great for grinding and getting shadow pokemon purified. shrug.

i hope this doesn't come off as a "well acK TU All Y" btw i'm just kind of thinking out loud rn

There was the Orre Colosseum! Postgame place where you could rebattle the admins with special teams, like in Colosseum but in the Deep Under.

Anyways I'd probably say Colosseum overall too - the atmosphere and tone of the game overall was great and overweighs negatives Colosseum has that XD doesn't. Not much in it though!

 

[Sydian]

There was the Orre Colosseum! Postgame place where you could rebattle the admins with special teams, like in Colosseum but in the Deep Under.

oh shit no wonder i forgot about that one. it was hard as hell and actually abided by stadium rules, if i'm remembering it correctly. i remember not being able to beat anyone, but the last time i attempted was when i was a kid. it might not ACTUALLY be as hard as i'm thinking it was.

 

[colours]

should we include battle revolution here too or is that considered its own thing

 

[Sydian]

should we include battle revolution here too or is that considered its own thing

we don't talk about her

 

[bobandbill]

I chose Colo and XD because they're easier to compare than PBR. The latter doesn't have a true story mode and is focused on just battles and wifi battles. Colo and XD meanwhile are directly linked (one being a sequel and all).

 

[Zeostar]

I've played through Colosseum 3 times, while I've only played Gale of Darkness once. I remember enjoying Gale of Darkness more for the length, but since I've played Colosseum more I would choose that.

 

[RickGrimes]

Colosseum without a doubt. I know a big complaint about this game is that there's a very limited selection of Pokemon to choose from. I personally never really minded that. At the time of the game's release (before Emerald came out), there were a number of Pokemon in Ruby/Sapphire and Firered/LeafGreen (like the Johto starters) that weren't possible to obtain without either a cheating device or trade from Colosseum.

I had a strategy guide for FireRed/LeafGreen which outright stated that the only way to get a Cyndaquil was to snag the Quilava from Colosseum, trade to the GBA games and breed with a Ditto or something. That was the catalyst for me buying the game. I bought it along with Metroid Prime. Best decision ever.

Though I can say that the commercial for Colosseum didn't make me want to buy the game. It's almost as bad as the Super Mario Sunshine one to me.



XD isn't...bad per se, but I don't like how it reuses a number of areas from Colosseum. It comes off as lazy. Sure, it's nice to revisit some old areas, but when a good chunk of a games feels like a giant walk down memory lane, it's depressing. Depressing because my favorite areas in XD were the newer areas (Citadark Aisle being my number one) and it feels like the old areas take away from that. It's like "hey, remember this from the first game? What about this? What about THIS?!"

 

[Ronto Region]

Gale of Darkness!

 

[blue]

both are iconic games of their time but i've always slightly preferred colosseum. honestly, they need a remaster or something, fuck it even port them to the switch and i'd still buy them again and again.

 

[ShyRayq]

I'm going to have to go with Colosseum. It was a bit more unique in how its storyline and progression was laid out than XD, because XD just felt like a normal pokemon game. While XD had the magnificent save system that Colosseum lacked, XD just felt a bit too crowded with its shadow pokemon, with most of the grunts in the latter half of the game having 2 or more, making the battles a bit more tedious. You had to focus a bit more on weakening the shadow pokemon rather than outright fainting them, which is much easier to do. The last battle, with 6 shadow pokemon, was such a pain to do.

Also, Colosseum had the infinite master ball trick which is a +100 in my book.