Pokemon Stadium (Japan)

"A great license but a laclustre game"

Obviusly Pokemon is a huge fad at the moment and in a bid to boost sagging n64 sales in Japan , HAL labs and Nintendo released this game . The first major downfall for this game is that it doesnt even have the 150 from the game boy games / tv series , only a paltry 40 or so . It takes these Pokemon and puts them in a stadium to fight a battle that is exactly the same as the ones fought on the gameboy version . Here in lies the problem ; while this may have been fun on the game boy it really only holds your interest until youve seen all the pokemons moves , and that doesnt take too long at all , considering each one only has four , and there are only 40 . The speed of a round is quite slow , and boredom quickly sets in . And to compound the problems , if you cannot read a word of japanese like me , you are really stuck with doing things . The menu's are full of text .

On the upside , the graphics of the Pokemon are actually quite good , with most looking better than they do in the TV series , with some exceptions . Some of the moves that they do are quite bizarre but are animated just as convincingly . Where Nintendo could have made the game better would have been by adding real pokemon sounds from the tv series , like they did in Pokemon Snap , or Smash Bros . Also sound problems are made worse but the lack of music . Makes for very quiet battles .

I think the game was meant to have some sort of game boy link up , but considering i dont have either a game boy or a game boy 64 pak , it doesnt matter .

In summing up , buy Pokemon Snap before you even think of importing this game . Or better yet , just wait until the superior Pokemon Stadium US version comes out later this year .

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/01/99, Updated 11/01/99