Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness

"Good for training, and not much else"

I remember playing Pokemon Blue Version and Red Version when they first came out a long freaking time ago. Then Pokemon Yellow came out and it improved the graphics and added colors to the games I loved, but I didn't play it as much as R/B. I played all of those games for days on end without stopping (of course I didn't have college and lots of homework then, but that's not the point). It was so much fun and very exciting. Later they made Pokemon Gold and Silver and they were even better than the last ones, improving on every single aspect on the game not leaving a single stone unpolished and they were amazing. So was Pokemon Crystal that followed. I didn't have the Nintendo 64 back then so I never had the chance to enjoy Stadium and Stadium 2. But I have played them now, several years later and it's pretty sad to say that they are better than the ones on the GameCube even if they are a different style completely. More years went by, and more awesome Pokemon games, now on the GBA where everything was improved one more time by every degree. However the games had gotten a bit repetitive, being exactly the same with only graphical improvements. I sold my Pokemon games suddenly because they were all boring and old and I saw the future of Pokemon as being the same every year and getting worse and worse. Fortunately I was wrong. In 2004, Nintendo revived 3D Pokemon games on the GameCube with Pokemon Colosseum. It was better than average. Finally a 3D Pokemon game with a story and characters and a plot. Not a bad plot at that. But it could have been a whole lot better. I felt stupid as it was good enough to make me go to the store and purchase my old Pokemon games again. A year later and another Pokemon game, and it was a sequel to the last one. Was it as good, or did it fail by comparison?

Graphics: 4/10

I know some people are wondering why I would give it a measly 4. Well the answer is simple. I edit textures for old n64 games, so I know how easy it is to get good looking backgrounds that are constant and nice looking. That's all Pokemon XD is. You just see the same textures being constantly repeated and it gets as old as can be. Plus the textures are so basic they don't even count as being good, they are exactly the most average texture a game has ever had. Plus the game suffers from bad level design and no places to explore. It is a full 3D game where all you have are predetermined paths, and very small rooms all over the place. You can't explore anywhere at all and everything is predetermined, completely the opposite of the GBA versions of Pokemon. Plus the character trainers are disgusting to look at. The main character is the most crappy excuse for a main character I've ever seen. And the sad part is I liked the main character from Pokemon Colosseum. It's been another year and they still haven't improved any of the old Pokemon from red/blue/gold/silver, and I hate it. Some of my favorite Pokemon just look disgusting like Charizard and Gyarados. They did, however, improve every attack from Colosseum, except for very few like Confusion. But in my opinion some of the attacks looked better on the last game like Flamethrower, Solar Beam, and Hyper Beam.

Music/Sound: 1/10

Simply put the music is horrific. I literally turn off the volume on my TV and listen to the radio or my computer soundtracks. And with no voice acting, there is no reason to listen to the game period. The only song I even partially enjoy is one song in the ONBS building. Even then it isn't worth it to turn on the volume for it. If you are listening to the music in the game then you have not heard a good soundtrack before. There, it is that simple: the music is HORRIBLE. Not to mention it is mostly the exact precise same music from the last game, not even remixed to sound better. and then there are the sound effects. They are no better than the sounds with all the attacks having generic sound effects and all. that's all there is to say about sound, it sucks out loud.

Pokemon/Moves: 5/10

Yes I gave the Pokemon themselves their own category in this review because, lets face it, a Pokemon game without the Pokemon game is just an electronic book without anything important. Anyways, the moves are pretty bad. They all are animated the same and show no originality. For example a Charizard could have Cut, Wing Attack, and Iron Tail. All three of the moves will have the exact same Charizard movement, just with different effects at the end. Its quite sad considering the attacks don't actually hit the opponent either. Like I mentioned earlier, all of the Pokemon have the old Nintendo 64 3D models, just smoothened out a little bit. I could go on and on about how lazy Nintendo is when it comes to updating graphics *coughs* Twilight Princess, Animal Crossing*, but I wont bore you with that today. Still it would have been nice to see the Pokemon done looking better. And the best choice still would be to make the game cel-shaded . And don't get me started on the shiny Pokemon. I love shiny Pokemon in GBA and DS, but on the gamecube they look like puke. Seriously look at Metagross and Arcanine and Starmie. Look at them any way you possibly can and tell me that don't look like somebody just puked color all over them. But anyways, they at least fixed the shiny Pokemon on Battle Revolution. But I do like the selection of Pokemon greatly. They have all the uncatcheable Pokemon from the GBA games and even some that were uncatcheable on the previous game. As well as some rare Pokemon like Tauros, Chansey, Dragonite, and the “eeveelutions,” not to mention favorites and legendaries such as Zapdos, Articuno, and Lugia.

Story: 6/10

It's the same crap as the last Pokemon game on Gamecube but with a crappier main character, and better Pokemon this time. Much better Pokemon this time. In fact the selection is so much better this time it is the only reason you should buy the game. Basically an evil organization captured a bunch of amazingly awesome Pokemon and turned them evil and close the door to their hearts. They got Lugia and said it would be impossible to purify Lugia. You catch all the Pokemon and then you beat the game. You can take the mount battle challenge and beat all 100 trainers without changing Pokemon, and choose from the 3 gold/silver starters with great moves to start with as well as great natures and stats. But that is it, if you played the last game then you already know the story of this game. On the same note, if you are playing Pokemon for the story, then you aren't playing Pokemon for what its supposed to be played for.

Gameplay: 8/10

The only real part of the game that I liked was the gameplay, which is the only reason to like Pokemon anyways. Purifying the Pokemon has become a million times easier on this game than the last one and for good reason. There are over 3 times as many Pokemon to be snagged this time around and if I had to personally take the each to that Celebi fountain, I would be pissed. Then this time around you can catch a handful of “wild Pokemon”. They call them wild but they aren't really, its more like a Pokemon that you can set a trap for and get when you want, but at least it is better to have some monsters that you can call your own. You can also trade with Duking in the game to get some even better Pokemon like Larvitar. I like the wild Pokemon option because you can have Flygon and Tyranitar and other pretty good Pokemon without having to snag and purify them. And this time around shadow moves are super effective against all pure Pokemon and not very effective against shadow Pokemon. That adds a bit of difficulty and originality. You have to decide if you should purify a Pokemon and get all of its moves and allow it to level up, or you can decide to keep it a shadow Pokemon making it that much easier to catch others. It can't receive a 10 because there is no flying or surfing or even bike riding. But they did at least add puzzles and mini-games in addition to the double battling style. I prefer double battles over single battles now because of Pokemon colosseum and XD. The game has this one thing where you do a lot of battles with a specific goal, like defeat the enemy in 4 turns, survive explosion, or take down Mew with all the eeveelutions. These, surprisingly, will teach you a bit about the game and how to do double battles properly, I actually enjoyed doing most of them and almost completed them all. Its also too bad there are no gym battles, rival battles, or the elite four. I still want there to be a 3D console Pokemon game that has all of that stuff, but until then Pokemon XD is the closest to a real Pokemon on a console.

Overall: 7/10

Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness is better than some of the other Pokemon games like Hey You, Pikachu, Pokemon Box, and is more of an actual Pokemon game than Pokemon Stadium, Stadium 2, and Battle Revolution. However it is not the greatest of all Pokemon games by any means. If you want the true Pokemon gaming experience and you have every console and handheld out there, than go pick up Pokemon Diamond/Pearl. If you have only the old systems go pick up Pokemon Crystal or Pokemon Yellow. Those were some truly awesome games and none of the 3D games have come anywhere near this one. It is better than a few but not as good a Pokemon Colosseum. Colosseum is as close to a real console Pokemon game that you will get for now, too bad the graphics are no better than this one, and neither is the story.

Graphics : 4/10
Music/Sound: 1/10
PKMN/Moves: 5/10
Story: 6/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Overall: 7/10


Rent or Buy: Buy

Buy it. I say that because training is incredibly easy. I trained my Lugia from level 70 to level 85 in 1 hour, and the enemies go all the way up to level 70 which is higher than any game before it for normal enemies. As much as I hated Mt. Battle, it is incredibly good for both normal leveling and EV training. Plus all you have to get is a GBA/GC wire to connect to your GBA and you can trade faster from GameBoy to GameCube than you can GameBoy to GameBoy. But if you don't own the other GameBoy games, do not buy this game, only rent it. In fact don't even do that, just rent Colosseum instead.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/15/08

Game Release: Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness (US, 09/28/05)