Pokemon Stadium 2

"Way way way better than the first one, but still has some slight errors."

Pokemon Stadium 2 is the sequel to Pokemon Stadium. And it improves on almost everything Pokemon Stadium failed at. The gym leaders are stronger and now have trainers in their gym. The stadium has more challenges in it for more fun. The mini-games are way better. (My favorite game is the Igglybuff Counting Game) I LOVE THAT GAME!!! That you can play Pokemon Gold & Silver on the big screen and you can even edit your house in this game. Of course there's always free battle where you can just choose random pokemon to battle each other. So now it's time for a fun filled review on Pokemon Stadium 2 for the Nintendo 64.

It's pretty cool seeing the pokemon in 3-D. But they look similar to the previous game. (The first Pokemon Stadium) They improved the graphics at least a little bit. They changed it so they could at least you could notice that the colors are darker and the outline is more shaded in and complete. The background battle scenes are nice and colorful and brighten the battle field. (Which really improved from the first Pokemon Stadium) I still remember in the first Pokemon Stadium the backgrounds were just a field of nothingness and all that was on there was your pokemon and the opponent's pokemon. The battle animations are really nice and cool looking, so that gives it a plus rating. So overall I think I'll give graphics an eight.

The announcer was really annoying and sometimes he gets really annoying. He should just be taken out of the game overall or at least get a better announcer, but aren't all announcers like that. He tends to repeat the same phrases over in a battle. Like "the trainer is switching pokemon" or "that did little damage." I can still remember the phrases, because there stuck in my head for the rest of my life. The attacking sounds and the pokemon sounds are a little bland, but that's ok. Because you can just turn the volume down on your television.

There are so many things to do in Pokemon Stadium 2. You can battle other friends using rental pokemon. (That means every pokemon is unlocked and you can whatever you want, but must follow their attack skills) You can train your skills at the Pokemon academy. Which means you must learn lessons on pokemon battles. And then you are given an exam which is a battle and you must defeat the trainer using the technique or else you fail. Pretty much it's just a school where you learn pokemon stuff. I wish real school was that interesting. Or you can participate in a stadium where you must beat eight trainers in a row. (Which is harder then it sounds) And if you beat them all you get a trophy or something really shiny and you get an ever harder difficulty. Which means the trainers are crazy stronger than last time. Well, not really. I guess they just got smarter and won't use pointless attacks.

You can also battle the gym leaders to earn nice badges. (Which was my second favorite part of the game) The best thing you can do is play fun filled mini-games. There aren't that many, but at least they are all different types of mini-games instead of just like 30 mini-games that are just clicking the A button over and over again. Example of a game that does this is Mario Party. Some other things are like taking Pokemon Quizzes, Playing Gold and Silver on the big screen, and making your room and stuff and stuff. Which improves the gameplay by a lot. But unfortunately they put too much pokemon battles in this game. So be prepared for a whole bunch of pokemon battling. Which can get boring really soon. (But at least there's mini-games)

Multiplayer is high, because of the really addicting mini-games and the pokemon battling you can do with your friends. Controls are simple to master and you will easily master them in the first few minutes of the game. Pokemon Stadium 2 has no storyline, it's just fun time with pokemon and mini-games.

With so much to do, you'll be packed for the whole month with stuff to do. Like pokemon battling, mini-games, pokemon academy, stadium, quizzes, and gym leader battles. So much to do and once you finish that there's a surprise waiting for you at the end of the game. Which means high replay value.

Get it if you love pokemon, rent it if you haven't played a pokemon game yet. Because this game will be so much fun with a lot of your friends and is such a better game than Pokemon Stadium 1. (I didn't like Pokemon Stadium 1, so I was scared this game might be bad too. But this game is a whole lot better, so that made me really happy.)

P.S. This game isn't like most Pokemon games. You don't walk around and catch pokemon all you do is battle trainers using rental pokemon. So for all you people that like to train your pokemon to level 100. You can't do that here.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/21/06, Updated 11/09/07

Game Release: Pokemon Stadium 2 (US, 03/28/01)