Pokémon Colosseum is charming yet frustrating
Shout-out to playing my first GameCube title in 2025
Pokémon games are a cornerstone of my gaming interests. No matter how much criticisms I have of their games, they hold a special place in my heart. One of my first interaction with Pokémon was playing Stadium in the McDonald’s playrooms. Then the first Nintendo game I owned was Pokémon Emerald on my red Gameboy Advanced SP. I was not aware of Pokémon Colosseum’s existence until much later, when I found YouTube playthroughs of XD Gale of Darkness. I remember wanting the Shadow Lugia so badly because I adored how they looked.
That never happened, and I’m not willing to spend at times $200 for XD Gale of Darkness. Thankfully, I could play the first Pokémon Colosseum for free thanks to my boyfriend owning it. Maybe it’s because I was playing it on the Wii, a console I owned in my childhood like many others, but it was oddly nostalgic to play even though I never experienced it.
The game opens up with your protagonist, canonically named Wes, running out of a building hidden within a canyon. He’s being chased by characters with the same design and a buff man with a unique mustache. As he hitches a ride with his adorable Espeon and Umbreon, he leaves the area with a smirk as he presses a button and blows up the building.
This guy already made an impression without even saying a word. Throughout the game many will comment about how strong you are, how cool you are, sometimes even how hot you are. If you forget, don’t worry, the people will remind you. Even if they initially were insulting you they come around. They will also ask you who's this girl following you around, is she your girlfriend? You guys look so cute together!
The girlfriend, but not girlfriend, Rui is introduced to us shortly after Wes makes his escape and enters Phenac City. Rui is stuffed into a sack, two men struggling to drag her out of the city, so we make quick work to stop it. As you are her knight in shining armor, she immediately recruits you to help her find the strange Pokémon she saw. Besides that, Rui is not exactly a compelling character. She's there to help you discern which Pokémon are Shadow Pokémon and to move the story with her dialogue since the main character doesn't talk.
In the barren Orre Region, there aren't wild Pokémon so the people don't use Pokeballs. There is only one place you can purchase them from, and with the Snag Machine Wes stole you can "snag" anyone's Pokémon. Which is how we are going to help save the Shadow Pokémon being distributed by Team Cipher. We're a morally good thief.
Pokémon isn't known for their compelling narratives. The story of this game is simple, which isn't bad. I like to poke fun at it because you can tell it was made when cool edgy main characters were popular. Even though this wouldn’t have been marketed towards younger me I probably would have been into it.
But, where this game truly shines is the gameplay.
I always loved double battles. They naturally lead to more compelling strategy. It was impressive and frustrating to have bosses use combos like Protect/Earthquake, weather set-ups, and multitudes of status effects. Out of every Pokémon game I've played, this is the first one where I've ever had to think about setting up status effect combos in the main story. Which is an impressive feat to accomplish.
This game also has a certain charm to it aesthetically. Pokémon Colosseum is my first GameCube game so I don't have many to compare it with, but I really did love the designs of the different cities and towns in the Orre region. Even the character models despite the lack of variation had a lot of charm, especially in how they'd react to losses. The animations of the Pokémon are a highlight of this game. They feel so alive with how they move. Their reactions to how they get hit and to when they faint were always so entertaining to see. I forgot how vibrant the animations of Pokémon were back in this generation, but it was a nice reminder.
My biggest problem with the gameplay was the grind. As you progress the game you'll start to realize that the level jump can get intense. The worst I ran into was near the end game and it was a 15+ level gap. Also, if you're trying to cleanse as many Shadow Pokémon as you can, you'll end up hurting yourself in the long run because you'll be lacking leveled Pokémon. Is unlocking these Pokémon's hearts truly that important if I can't beat the evildoers distributing them? It wasn’t worth the hassle to me.
I ended up needing to train in Pyrite, go through all the Colosseum battles, then go through 80 trainers in Mt. Battle for my last burst of grinding. This might sound enjoyable to some, but I was at the end of my rope here. Digimon World Dusk almost burnt me out with their grind so my patience with grinding was thin. I'm sure there are people that can relate to being so close to finishing a game but you're forced to grind it out even more just to get over that last hump.
It's a bit demoralizing.
But when I finally beat it, with the help of my partner to strategize, I felt so satisfied. I have a lot of problems with this game, but now I can understand why it's so beloved by some and hated by others. Plus, I have a newfound respect for Espeon, because that boy carried my whole ending team. When in doubt, just level up Espeon as much as you can, throw Psychic at everyone, and they will absolutely destroy everyone in their path.
(P.S. I might have made the game harder for myself using a suboptimal team, but also if you’re forced to use the box legendaries to beat a game smoothly I don’t think that’s a well designed Pokémon game. Also, I love Meganium and Plusle I don’t care what anyone says!)
I’m really keen for Gale of Darkness on Switch 2!