Review: Pokemon Battle Revolution

Developer: Genius Sonority

Publisher: Nintendo

Yes, sorry this has to be done. Love them, hate them or completely in the dark about them, the Pokemon gravy train rolls on.

First up if you know nothing about Pokemon, here’s a little intro. There are 493 (at present, I’m ignoring the new gen for the minute) Pokemon. Each one has strengths and weaknesses according to what type they are. For example, a fire type is strong against grass (grass burns) and weak against a water type (water puts out fires – Think rock, paper, scissors). There are now 15 different types and dual types of Pokemon available. The catch is you can only use six Pokemon in a team at any one time. With this team you battle other “Trainers” from around the computer or real world.

You can upload your Pokemon from your DS copy of Diamond or Sapphire to do battle in the various stadiums of the game and each stadium has different conditions. One lets you only battle with immature Pokemon of level 5 and under, another sees you trying to beat 100 opponents in a row and another takes the form of a round robin system and so on. This is the only sort of variation you get in the game. Compared to both the previous games on the GameCube this Wii game is a travesty.

You can control the game in one of two ways: use the Wiimote as a pointer and select everything with A or turn the Wiimote sideways and use the Wiimote like a control pad. The nunchuk isn’t used.

My main problem with it is this: it’s a Wii game by the same damn company who made two better games on the GameCube and there’s no story, no plot and no capturing. It’s just mindless battling, your Pokemon don’t even earn any experience for battling and you can’t even trade with Pokemon with anyone in the game or online. I can only think of a couple of reasons you’d want to slog through this game.

One: Spend some time and you’ll got Pokecoupons to spend in the shop to buy some rare items, which you can then take back into the DS games with you. Two: Two rare monsters hide within the game, although these are unlocked by inputting a code, so no effort required there then! If you have been using the Global Trading System on the DS you will probably already have them anyway. Oh, and you can get a Pikachu that knows Surf. Wow! Like that hasn’t been in 3 games before.

This game reeks of “must have a Pokemon Wi-Fi game for launch”. It’s quite frankly lazy, the boys and girls in the development lab must have been hanging their heads in shame. The most frequent screen you will see when playing online is the ‘connection lost’ screen. Plus there’s a ridiculous time limit of one whole minute to choose between four moves, and if you need a whole minute you must be playing with your tongue. I have never had a problem with Wi-Fi games on my Wii bar this one.

Now the good points. It looks ok, some of the moves have nice lighting effects but really it’s like polishing a gilted turd. It’s nice to see the Pokemon in 3D rather than squinting at a DS screen, but things like sending a rival’s monster to sleep and then not having it closing its eyes just brings me back to the sheer laziness of it. When someone emailed the Official Nintendo Magazine to ask, and I quote, “Pokemon Battle Revolution should I get it, is it any good?”, their answer was a succint “Meh.”, which for me speaks volumes. I really hope they do a follow up proper game, this time with a different development team.

In conclusion it really is a shame. I’m going to put my hand up now and say yes, I have been playing pokemon since the days of Pokemon Yellow and yes, I have enjoyed battling and capturing, just in case you thought this was a “it’s a kids game I’ve not played it” review. This however is memorable because of it’s badness. Do yourself a favour and save cash for a proper release of a colosseum game if it ever  happens.

In fact, here are the Pokemon unlock codes so you don’t have to play through it. To put in the codes, go to “Self Introduction” in your profile, and type in the following:

Magmortar: B416-X4HT-VTWF
Electivire: BA16-X4SH-E2AT