Pokemon Stadium

"It's....okay..."

Pokemon. You love it, or you hate it. You worship it as a god, or you burn it in the furnace. Face it, whether you like it or not, Pokemon is going to be around for quite awhile. And this is proof. It makes little kids gleam with happyness to see Pikachu do a thundershock, etc. It makes older gamers think and plan. But this game takes away most of the stratagy, and leaves you with a game of luck. Just luck. I have tried and tried again to figure out just why it's impossible to get Hydro Pump to hit when both you and the computer just have 1 hit point left. Why The opponent's Mew will seemingly last forever, after yours is dead. Why. There is a reason why. It's this. Nintendo enjoys making children suffer. That's why they didn't give us Mew unless you went to a tour. None of those tours ever came to where I live, Oklahoma. None. And this is just one more reason to think of Nintendo as scheming greedy jerks.

Graphics:9
Okay, It almost always looks great, but sometimes some things looks pathedic. What looks pathedic? This: Why does Drill Peck just hit the air and not the enemy? Why does Karate Chop just hit the air? Why can't they run up and hit them? Are Machops really psychic and can just attack the air and have it hurt Pikachu? Really? No. That is stupid. Why did they do that, why? Special attacks hit them literaly, which looks good. Thunderbolt for instance looks great. Sludge looks awesome. As for the pokemon, they look about as cool as you can get. Not blocky, and it looks excelent. Backgrounds look detailed and great.

Sound:9
Great sound. The music sounds like it did in the Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow games. It is improved over it. Nintendo 64 can obviously handle more sound/music detail, and it took advantage of it. Too much advantage. Through the game, you get to listen to an anouncer, who sounds much like the guy who replaced Brock in the Pokemon television show, keeps on blathering about nothing. Almost makes you wish that it were Madden....well.....all most.

Controls:10
Okay. Nice, simplistic controls. All it is for the main game is just hit Start to quit, B to change pokemon, and A to attack. After hitting A, press a C button (up, down, left, or right) to choose an attack. Hold R to see the list of attacks. Press L to go back. Simple. Minigames are not always as responsive as I wish they were (mostly Snore War...never have won that before...)but still good.

Replay:10
Even though it is anoyingly hard, you will find yourself going back to it again and again for some odd reason or another. Also, as for leveling up your pokemon, you can't in the main game, but in Gameboy Tower you can. It lets you play it exactly like it is on gameboy. But, if you get enough done, you can do it at 2X, and 4X the normal speed. I'll tell you this much, it's hard to get use to, but after awhile it is easy. Then you can get a pokemon up to level 100 quick, compared to trying on normal speeds. Very useful.

Overall:8
I would say buy this, as with all there is in it, it won't be something you can beat quick and easy. If you like hard games, try it. If you like pokemon, try it. If you like menu based battles, try it. If you hate pokemon, think about it. Not the best game, but not the worst either. I say buy it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/22/00, Updated 10/21/01