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- Seen Sep 17, 2023
I believe I was watching a "Did You Know Gaming" video on YouTube regarding Pokemon games which contained information regarding Game Freaks opinion that the Pokemon Colosseum line of games were made obsolete when the main line series entered the 3D space itself and completely invalidated with the release of the Nintendo switch where mobile consoles and home consoles became one. I honestly hadn't found myself missing anything from the absence of Pokemon Colosseum since the release of X and Y on the 3ds, but I'm coming to realize that it wasn't necessarily due to the transition to a 3D environment, but that the main games just covered everything I was looking for in a pokemon game at the time. Yes, 3D models, but at the time I wasn't as concerned with the over all difficulty of the game, PVP elements, rewards, achievements, IVs/EVs, Shiny Hunting, rare items/unique pokeballs, mythic pokemon, hidden abilities ect. I was there to play through a game using my favorite pokemon, catch them all, become the champion, and wait for the next game in the series to drop. Fast Forward to Scarlet and Violet's era where I've become a lot more interested in the larger aspects of each game and I'm starting to think a successor to the Pokemon Colosseum, especially with the introduction of online storage and transfer via Pokemon Home, could be a fun adventure to explore some of these extra curricular aspects of Pokemon. What started me on this Colosseum tangent was the lack of a PVP simulation area such as a Battle Tower in Scarlet and Violet. I didn't begin to break into competitive team building until Sun and Moon. Prior to that, my concept of a battle strategy was to have a higher level and type advantage and click a super effective attack to win. I forget exactly what my purpose was for needing to succeed in Sun and Moon's battle tree. Maybe it was to unlock the Red battle to get some reward? I always hated anything requiring participation in these areas of the game to gain BP or a reward because my strategy just didn't work. Levels are capped and cool, strong pokemon don't just win. This is when I finally stopped and looked into how to succeed in the battle tree. It was some video about using a good mixed Trio, Something like Toxapex and how to get one with Regenerator, A solid offensive pokemon, and a utility pokemon like a hazard setting lead or a sub/wish passing Umbreon. In addition I had to learn how to get good IVs through game play and breeding, getting the appropriate nature, and EV training. The natural progression was to eventually move into actual PVP, but I'd always return to the battle tree to test team combos against the AI to get an idea of the build's synergy before taking to actual PVP. Sure, with the ease of online connectivity and random match making, there is always 'almost' always the means of indulging in a PVP setting, but I believe an offline/single player pvp simulation still has a place, and a new Colosseum style game would be the perfect place for a myriad of reasons.
Advanced Battling/PVP-
We'll start with my own experience with the battle tree and PVP. Since there is no PVP area in scarlet and Violet, New players won't particularly have any sort of introduction to PVP style play unless they jump into actual online PVP, which there is little incentive to do save the advertised tournaments and ranked matches when connecting online. I'll admit there is more focus placed on in depth pokemon builds given the important of pokemon builds in higher star raid dens, but gearing a pokemon to preform in a raid and one to function in a battle team are vastly different. An arbitrary reason for wanting an offline pvp simulation is the peace of mind against testing your ideas and team builds against AI before a real person. I realize that there is a lot of room to point out that the best way to see if a build is good is to test it against real players, but I always felt more comfortable making sure my team did well against AI before bringing it to actual PVP. It was more comfortable for me to experiment and see what worked rather than just trying to win. You can also just ask why I'm not writing about adding a battle tower to Scarlet and Violet as well, but more on that later. For now, I'll entertain the idea that a stand alone game like Colosseum would invite a wider array of PVP options than a battle tower area of a mainline game. Rather than the standard gauntlet of 3v3 singles or 4v4 doubles, you could enter a gauntlet of particular formats such as Smogon tiers such as Obers, OU, UU, ect. The same could be done with double battles and VGC. As with battle options in the Colosseum titles, These formats and tiers could each be a "cup" option players could experiment with and build teams for, each with either increasing difficulty levels or an incrementally increasing difficulty through progression. I feel like such a concept in a stand alone title like a new Colosseum would be a good introduction into PVP for newer players. Such a game would also present a better opportunity for a Pokemon game to educate the players on a lot of the PVP mechanics that even to this day, the mainline games at best, gloss over such as IVs/EVs, ect. A comprehensive tutorial might fit better in a game more focused on competitive battling than it would in a mainline title. I think we can see that with the release of Pokemon Colosseum on the online consoles on the Nintendo Switch, even without the ability to import our own pokemon from games, there is an interest in this space, even outside of the nostalgic factor.
Rewards And Collectables-
So to move away from the realm of competitive battle style game play, lets look at the potential for such a title to add to not just the experience of the game itself but to the mainline of games. Rare items, rare pokemon, and rewards are something of an aspect of Pokemon that's long since transcended generations of games. That's to say that things you've obtained in previous games, most notably Pokemon themselves, tend to travel with you through new releases and you'll be using them in titles to come, especially now with online storage and transfer services like Pokemon Home. A good example of this is my Soft-Boiled Clefable and Seismic Toss Kangaskhan which in the highlight of their competitive scenes were a big deal. What made these pokemon special were that the moves listed were only obtainable in past generations via move tutors in Leaf Green/Fire Red. You then transferred them from GBA to Diamond/Pearl or Heart Gold/Soul Silver via a DS transfer app. You then transferred the pokemon to Black and White or Black and White 2 and finally got them into the Pokemon bank where Kangaskhan could enter X and Y or Sun and Moon to unleash it's mega-evolution double hit Seismic-Toss for un-resistible static damage while Clefable could use it's superior self recovery move that, unlike moonlight, wasn't hindered by weather. Even though mega-evolutions are a thing of the past as of now, and Pokemon Home's new feature of of giving a pokemon game specific move pools somewhat invalidates the necessity of doing this, I make sure to bring my Kangaskhan and Clafable with me to the most current generation of games, or at least the most current storage and transfer platform, should Megas ever return and Clafable get access to it's Soft-Boiled. They come along with my Shiny Pokemon, Mythic Pokemon, Legendaries (though they tend to make them obtainable eventually in new games), and any special competitively built/trained Pokemon I want in current generations. Since generation 3, with higher detailed art, pokeballs have grown more unique in design and many balls have become special and rare, akin to shiny pokemon and pokemon marks which add to the value of keeping unique pokemon in a certain ball, shiny, having a mark, Ev/trained in a collection that follows you through the ever growing Pokemon experience. A stand alone game like Colosseum has been in the past, an outlet for rewards, such as a Mewtwo for completing the games content. Even games like Gale of Darkness have had rewards or content that could be transferred to the mainline games. A new Colosseum style game opens the potential for a lot of unique and desirable rewards for completing achievements and content in all of the categories mentioned above such as Shiny Pokemon, Mythic Pokemon (my missadvetures of getting a Marshadow are woeful, frustrating and sad, and to this day I hope for better access to such pokemon), Unique Balls, Unique Marks, ect. Given the more battle-centric nature of Colosseum games and focus on completing challenges and gauntlets, a high reward-yielding system, especially certain repeatable/farmable rewards for us to bring with us to generations of games to come would be most welcome.
Story and Purpose-
What I've touched on are what I believe to be the most important implications to a new stand alone title such as Colosseum, but since I touched on Gale of Darkness, we can incorporate that into our next tangent to explore the possibilities of the game I'd like to see. The Colosseum games were primary centered around pokemon battles with little in the way of the plot. As we can extrapolate from Game Freaks opinion of the Colosseum line, it was a means to bring pokemon from the 2D world into 3D for battles. Gale of Darkness (I've actually never played it so I'm going on the second hand knowledge I have. Chime in with corrections where needed) was more of an expansion on the home console 3D experience of Colosseum, with a more fleshed out plot to play through. According to the Wiki it is set i the same world/timeline as the Colosseum games. This certainly opens the door for our future Colosseum entry to be more than an in depth PVP simulator. A story mode would be also welcome. I don't have any particular interest in what sort of story I'd like to play through or plot, as that could either be this hypothetical title or a future mainline game. I'd like to stick to the implications of the game play and how they might benefit from a story mode or plot. I think the most basic reason for a new pokemon story would be to bring in more players. It would be a means of making the game a larger net to bring in more people who are less interested in the previous potentials for such a game. An aspect of this story mode or progression, given the nature of the game could be difficulty options and settings many advanced pokemon players, such as Nuzlock players would like to see, which are not present in mainline games. While I'm in the category of "Started but never finished" a Nuzloche of my own due to... generally needed a copy of the game you can restart and replay, as apposed to a copy you've completed and use to go back to when you need those aforementioned move tutors or items/events lost to time. A stand alone game could have it's "story mode" as a section of the game similar to our ideas for battle format tiers in which the player decides on Nuzlock rules, or perhaps level sync gym/boss/trainer battles for more difficulty and strategy, as well as an overall difficulty level that effects computer AI, Pokemon AI trainers use, battle items, opponent EV/IV/Nature, and things of the sort. It might resemble something more of a "Call of Duty" Campaign mode with episodic progression to different areas or strings of battles, but I'd personally like to see options that evoke more thought and strategy that the game evokes, rather than being manually self imposed by the player. A story mode would also allow acquisition of pokemon in the event that importing them from a mainline title isn't possible due to no internet connection or just not owning a mainline title. Overall, it would also give the game a bit more of a purpose than being a category of battle options and types.
Exclusivity and Enter-connectivity-
I've commented on the the relationship such a game should have with mainline titles, such as importing pokemon in from those games to use as was the case with past Colosseum games, and bringing back rewards to the mainline games. We've yet to explore the utility aspect and untapped potential of some content in the Colosseum games that has actually been utilized in mainline games to an extent. I honestly can't remember if pokemon gained EXP or anything at all in the previous Colosseum games, however leveling, EV training, and hyper training should exist for imported pokemon within such a game, and it could exist in a variety of ways. I've touched on the rewards aspect through completing challenges within the game. I could definitely see implementing a currency system as well such as BP to obtain in game items such as battle items and stat EV boosting vitamins. I'd actually prefer a currency system for common items such as these, so to not encroach on the opportunity for more unique and special rewards for completing challenges, game modes ect. I'd rather get a Friend Ball or Celebi to transfer to my mainline game than 5 proteins or PP ups for completing the OU tier trial on hard mode. Mini-games are another avenue for training and leveling that we've seen in past games. Sun and Moon and unique ways of boosting EVs over time by depositing pokemon in a training area and leaving them there for RL time. Before that, there were mini-games available to boost certain stat's EVs. As with the mini-games in the original, Colosseum, various mini-games could be made that allow a player submit a pokemon and complete the game with to advance EVs in certain stats, friendship/happiness, or EXP in general depending on the mini-game. It might be something more akin to leveling and collecting things like a pokewalker or pokeball plus, but it would perhaps be a welcome alternative to slapping on the appropriate training item and grinding a bunch of battles with specific pokemon, or farming poke dollars to buy vitamins. Naturally this would help get personal pokemon acquired in this theoretical title and/or mainline game prepped for use, or ready to send to the preferred game for Raid Dens, PVP, or whatever.
So Why Colosseum?
I think pushing for a stand alone title like a new Pokemon Colosseum, as apposed to trying to add this to a future mainline title in the form of a battle tower or optional segment of the game just makes sense on a practical stand point as far as game development and utility. I believe something of this idea could work in the form of a hypothetical DLC instead but mostly limits it utility to that game, where as a stand alone game has a larger potential. Being it's own title allows it to expand within it's own world, rather than fitting into the world of the mainline game it's in. It can have it's own story mode and elaborate on the various battle modes and challenges, rather than just offering something additional to an existing game. The scope of it's connectivity to other pokemon games might be more intuitive and expanded as well. If a person owned Sword and Shield, Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl, Legends of Arceus, or The Let's Go games, they could send pokemon to this game and back via Pokemon Home, as apposed to needing Scarlet and Violet in any capacity. I feel that is more welcome as it seems more and more that all of the existing titles are inter-related. In Sword and Shield, you went back to sun and moon to get your alola-sandshrew and vulpix to send up. Now we're going to Legends of Arceus to get our Hisui forms into Scarlet and Violet. We're even going to sword and shield for our Galar forms.
What do you all think? Is the world ready for a new Pokemon Colosseum?
Advanced Battling/PVP-
We'll start with my own experience with the battle tree and PVP. Since there is no PVP area in scarlet and Violet, New players won't particularly have any sort of introduction to PVP style play unless they jump into actual online PVP, which there is little incentive to do save the advertised tournaments and ranked matches when connecting online. I'll admit there is more focus placed on in depth pokemon builds given the important of pokemon builds in higher star raid dens, but gearing a pokemon to preform in a raid and one to function in a battle team are vastly different. An arbitrary reason for wanting an offline pvp simulation is the peace of mind against testing your ideas and team builds against AI before a real person. I realize that there is a lot of room to point out that the best way to see if a build is good is to test it against real players, but I always felt more comfortable making sure my team did well against AI before bringing it to actual PVP. It was more comfortable for me to experiment and see what worked rather than just trying to win. You can also just ask why I'm not writing about adding a battle tower to Scarlet and Violet as well, but more on that later. For now, I'll entertain the idea that a stand alone game like Colosseum would invite a wider array of PVP options than a battle tower area of a mainline game. Rather than the standard gauntlet of 3v3 singles or 4v4 doubles, you could enter a gauntlet of particular formats such as Smogon tiers such as Obers, OU, UU, ect. The same could be done with double battles and VGC. As with battle options in the Colosseum titles, These formats and tiers could each be a "cup" option players could experiment with and build teams for, each with either increasing difficulty levels or an incrementally increasing difficulty through progression. I feel like such a concept in a stand alone title like a new Colosseum would be a good introduction into PVP for newer players. Such a game would also present a better opportunity for a Pokemon game to educate the players on a lot of the PVP mechanics that even to this day, the mainline games at best, gloss over such as IVs/EVs, ect. A comprehensive tutorial might fit better in a game more focused on competitive battling than it would in a mainline title. I think we can see that with the release of Pokemon Colosseum on the online consoles on the Nintendo Switch, even without the ability to import our own pokemon from games, there is an interest in this space, even outside of the nostalgic factor.
Rewards And Collectables-
So to move away from the realm of competitive battle style game play, lets look at the potential for such a title to add to not just the experience of the game itself but to the mainline of games. Rare items, rare pokemon, and rewards are something of an aspect of Pokemon that's long since transcended generations of games. That's to say that things you've obtained in previous games, most notably Pokemon themselves, tend to travel with you through new releases and you'll be using them in titles to come, especially now with online storage and transfer services like Pokemon Home. A good example of this is my Soft-Boiled Clefable and Seismic Toss Kangaskhan which in the highlight of their competitive scenes were a big deal. What made these pokemon special were that the moves listed were only obtainable in past generations via move tutors in Leaf Green/Fire Red. You then transferred them from GBA to Diamond/Pearl or Heart Gold/Soul Silver via a DS transfer app. You then transferred the pokemon to Black and White or Black and White 2 and finally got them into the Pokemon bank where Kangaskhan could enter X and Y or Sun and Moon to unleash it's mega-evolution double hit Seismic-Toss for un-resistible static damage while Clefable could use it's superior self recovery move that, unlike moonlight, wasn't hindered by weather. Even though mega-evolutions are a thing of the past as of now, and Pokemon Home's new feature of of giving a pokemon game specific move pools somewhat invalidates the necessity of doing this, I make sure to bring my Kangaskhan and Clafable with me to the most current generation of games, or at least the most current storage and transfer platform, should Megas ever return and Clafable get access to it's Soft-Boiled. They come along with my Shiny Pokemon, Mythic Pokemon, Legendaries (though they tend to make them obtainable eventually in new games), and any special competitively built/trained Pokemon I want in current generations. Since generation 3, with higher detailed art, pokeballs have grown more unique in design and many balls have become special and rare, akin to shiny pokemon and pokemon marks which add to the value of keeping unique pokemon in a certain ball, shiny, having a mark, Ev/trained in a collection that follows you through the ever growing Pokemon experience. A stand alone game like Colosseum has been in the past, an outlet for rewards, such as a Mewtwo for completing the games content. Even games like Gale of Darkness have had rewards or content that could be transferred to the mainline games. A new Colosseum style game opens the potential for a lot of unique and desirable rewards for completing achievements and content in all of the categories mentioned above such as Shiny Pokemon, Mythic Pokemon (my missadvetures of getting a Marshadow are woeful, frustrating and sad, and to this day I hope for better access to such pokemon), Unique Balls, Unique Marks, ect. Given the more battle-centric nature of Colosseum games and focus on completing challenges and gauntlets, a high reward-yielding system, especially certain repeatable/farmable rewards for us to bring with us to generations of games to come would be most welcome.
Story and Purpose-
What I've touched on are what I believe to be the most important implications to a new stand alone title such as Colosseum, but since I touched on Gale of Darkness, we can incorporate that into our next tangent to explore the possibilities of the game I'd like to see. The Colosseum games were primary centered around pokemon battles with little in the way of the plot. As we can extrapolate from Game Freaks opinion of the Colosseum line, it was a means to bring pokemon from the 2D world into 3D for battles. Gale of Darkness (I've actually never played it so I'm going on the second hand knowledge I have. Chime in with corrections where needed) was more of an expansion on the home console 3D experience of Colosseum, with a more fleshed out plot to play through. According to the Wiki it is set i the same world/timeline as the Colosseum games. This certainly opens the door for our future Colosseum entry to be more than an in depth PVP simulator. A story mode would be also welcome. I don't have any particular interest in what sort of story I'd like to play through or plot, as that could either be this hypothetical title or a future mainline game. I'd like to stick to the implications of the game play and how they might benefit from a story mode or plot. I think the most basic reason for a new pokemon story would be to bring in more players. It would be a means of making the game a larger net to bring in more people who are less interested in the previous potentials for such a game. An aspect of this story mode or progression, given the nature of the game could be difficulty options and settings many advanced pokemon players, such as Nuzlock players would like to see, which are not present in mainline games. While I'm in the category of "Started but never finished" a Nuzloche of my own due to... generally needed a copy of the game you can restart and replay, as apposed to a copy you've completed and use to go back to when you need those aforementioned move tutors or items/events lost to time. A stand alone game could have it's "story mode" as a section of the game similar to our ideas for battle format tiers in which the player decides on Nuzlock rules, or perhaps level sync gym/boss/trainer battles for more difficulty and strategy, as well as an overall difficulty level that effects computer AI, Pokemon AI trainers use, battle items, opponent EV/IV/Nature, and things of the sort. It might resemble something more of a "Call of Duty" Campaign mode with episodic progression to different areas or strings of battles, but I'd personally like to see options that evoke more thought and strategy that the game evokes, rather than being manually self imposed by the player. A story mode would also allow acquisition of pokemon in the event that importing them from a mainline title isn't possible due to no internet connection or just not owning a mainline title. Overall, it would also give the game a bit more of a purpose than being a category of battle options and types.
Exclusivity and Enter-connectivity-
I've commented on the the relationship such a game should have with mainline titles, such as importing pokemon in from those games to use as was the case with past Colosseum games, and bringing back rewards to the mainline games. We've yet to explore the utility aspect and untapped potential of some content in the Colosseum games that has actually been utilized in mainline games to an extent. I honestly can't remember if pokemon gained EXP or anything at all in the previous Colosseum games, however leveling, EV training, and hyper training should exist for imported pokemon within such a game, and it could exist in a variety of ways. I've touched on the rewards aspect through completing challenges within the game. I could definitely see implementing a currency system as well such as BP to obtain in game items such as battle items and stat EV boosting vitamins. I'd actually prefer a currency system for common items such as these, so to not encroach on the opportunity for more unique and special rewards for completing challenges, game modes ect. I'd rather get a Friend Ball or Celebi to transfer to my mainline game than 5 proteins or PP ups for completing the OU tier trial on hard mode. Mini-games are another avenue for training and leveling that we've seen in past games. Sun and Moon and unique ways of boosting EVs over time by depositing pokemon in a training area and leaving them there for RL time. Before that, there were mini-games available to boost certain stat's EVs. As with the mini-games in the original, Colosseum, various mini-games could be made that allow a player submit a pokemon and complete the game with to advance EVs in certain stats, friendship/happiness, or EXP in general depending on the mini-game. It might be something more akin to leveling and collecting things like a pokewalker or pokeball plus, but it would perhaps be a welcome alternative to slapping on the appropriate training item and grinding a bunch of battles with specific pokemon, or farming poke dollars to buy vitamins. Naturally this would help get personal pokemon acquired in this theoretical title and/or mainline game prepped for use, or ready to send to the preferred game for Raid Dens, PVP, or whatever.
So Why Colosseum?
I think pushing for a stand alone title like a new Pokemon Colosseum, as apposed to trying to add this to a future mainline title in the form of a battle tower or optional segment of the game just makes sense on a practical stand point as far as game development and utility. I believe something of this idea could work in the form of a hypothetical DLC instead but mostly limits it utility to that game, where as a stand alone game has a larger potential. Being it's own title allows it to expand within it's own world, rather than fitting into the world of the mainline game it's in. It can have it's own story mode and elaborate on the various battle modes and challenges, rather than just offering something additional to an existing game. The scope of it's connectivity to other pokemon games might be more intuitive and expanded as well. If a person owned Sword and Shield, Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl, Legends of Arceus, or The Let's Go games, they could send pokemon to this game and back via Pokemon Home, as apposed to needing Scarlet and Violet in any capacity. I feel that is more welcome as it seems more and more that all of the existing titles are inter-related. In Sword and Shield, you went back to sun and moon to get your alola-sandshrew and vulpix to send up. Now we're going to Legends of Arceus to get our Hisui forms into Scarlet and Violet. We're even going to sword and shield for our Galar forms.
What do you all think? Is the world ready for a new Pokemon Colosseum?
