jeremy1456's Full Review: Pokemon: Battle Revolution for Nintendo Wii
The Pokemon series is a worldwide phenomenon, and in an effort to make as much money on it as possible, Nintendo invented a series of games for their home consoles that allow you to battle your creatures in full 3D on your television. This is commonly referred to as the Pokemon Stadium series. I've never been a big fan of this line of games because I've never seen much point to the whole thing. With the latest release for Wii Nintendo included the ability to battle random opponents online - something the latest handheld Pokemon games lack. This was enough for me to dive in, but is Pokemon Battle Revolution any good? Read on to find out.
Pokemon Battle Revolution
Pokemon are creatures that inhabit the world as animals, insects, fish, and even mythical creatures. A Pokemon trainer is someone who raises them to battle against other trainers in hopes of becoming the very best.
Gameplay is the same as it always has been with your basic Pokemon title. Battle Revolution is an RPG where you pit creatures against one another taking turns dealing out numerical damage. The first creature to lose all of it's hit points will faint, and the last trainer with a Pokemon standing wins the match. Pretty basic stuff - the formula in this case remains true to the handheld titles.
Pokemon Battle Revolution takes out the adventure mode from the main games and consists only of the battling part of the formula. This game takes place on an island called Poketopia - you play as a Pokemon trainer (you can customize their appearance and name) who must travel across the island challenging various colloseums. Your goal as always is to defeat everyone and come out as the best Pokemon trainer.
Selecting various colloseums around the island is an easy process. You are shown a map of Poketopia, and the interface is a simple point and click affair - made that much easier by the nature of the Wii-remote. The best part of the map based progression is that there are actually multiple paths for you take, and while they usually don't lead anywhere different, it makes things slightly less linear.
There are a surprisingly large amount of match types, though most of them just plain aren't fun. You'll find some coliseums that will challenge you in tournament fashion, some that will only offer double battles, and more. The most unique of the bunch comes in the form of a roulette wheel that selects which Pokemon you and your opponent will be allowed to use. This does serve to mix things up a bit, but it's still not enough.
Previous games in this line have been chock full of mini-games, sometimes even an RPG story mode, and additional content that gave them more substance. For Battle Revolution however, Nintendo decided to cut out all of that. What we're left with is a barebones stadium game that offers little more than allowing you to watch your Pokemon battle in full 3D. How disappointing, especially given the possibilities.
The first step to playing is to create a character and a battle pass. You can select from around six different base characters, and upon choosing one you can customize their clothing, catchphrases, etc. This customization is new to the series, but you aren't given a whole lot of options. Selecting clothing and writing up new phrases is cool and all, but it still feels like you don't get enough control over your character due to the rather limited options. Acquiring items is done through a store where you spend money earned from battles.
Battle Passes are a necessary part of the game. You set six Pokemon to each one and these are the creatures which you will be using in battle. The cards are used to associate your Pokemon with your selected trainer, and before each battle you will have to select the battle pass with the Pokemon you would like to use. You can customize the card's appearance by selecting from some rather basic designs, but this too is nothing special given how barebones and trivial it is.
Part of the fun is in seeing your own Pokemon raised in Diamond/Pearl in full 3D. Battle Revolution allows you to connect your DS with your Nintendo Wii console in order to copy your full Pokemon roster to Battle Revolution. All statistics, special moves and abilities are brought over. It is surprisingly easy to make the transfer, and thanks to the DS and Wii making use of wifi it's a process free of wires. It takes just under a minute to get up and running with your own creatures.
Pokemon Battle Revolution is absolutely not worth it if you don't own a Nintendo DS and Pokemon Diamond/Pearl. If that's the case then you are stuck using rental Pokemon, and because half the fun is using your own Pokemon you raised from nothing, this drains away pretty much all the fun to be had.
The online component isn't all that great unfortunately. Though you are given the option to battle against random opponents there just isn't much incentive to do so. The game features no leaderboards or online tournaments. There's not even a way to communicate with your opponent. What's more is that the game uses Nintendo's stupid friend code system - requiring you and a friend to enter each other's code into the game before being able to battle against that specific person online. Nintendo really needs to get their act together when it comes to online.
The online experience itself is alright. You will sometimes get disconnected, or the system will fail to find you an opponent, but that's to be expected. One problem is that the gameplay slows down during online battles - even while the system is doing something as simple as loading the command menu. Overall the online portion works pretty well.
Unfortunately Nintendo screwed up with this game. There's not nearly enough stuff to do, and the main quest is plagued by being way too easy. On top of that, the crippled online mode, paired with the stupid friend codes system is just plain annoying. What kills me is that Nintendo is charging full price for this game, that for all intents and purposes, feels more like a tech demo than anything.
If there's one thing the game does have going for it then it's definitely it's presentation. Plain and simple the graphics are beyond what I thought the Wii is capable of - with truly awesome lighting and very detailed on-screen creatures. The backgrounds are slightly lacking, but that's probably in order to keep the character models up to snuff. On top of that there's very little in the way of slowdown (besides while online).
The music is pretty bad though. The soundtrack, consisting almost entirely of electronic techno beats, is pretty annoying sometimes. It just doesn't convey the Pokemon atmosphere well at all, and at the same time, it can make you feel like your ears are bleeding. The sound effects are fairly high quality and work much better with the game than the ear piercing soundtrack. The announcer (who has to state the obvious every few seconds) is also terribly annoying, but thankfully you can turn him off.
Controls are interesting to say the least. The game gives you three different ways to play - you can use the Nintendo DS' touch screen, aim at options on screen with the Wii remote, or you can even turn the remote on it's side and manage the menus more traditionally using the D-pad and buttons. There are no real problems in this field, though the menus may be a bit intimidating (because there are so many of them) for children or inexperienced gamers.
Final Recommendation
Truth be told, I wanted to like this game. It's online and it's Pokemon, plus the graphics are really nice. Honestly though this is a barebones experience that I can't really recommend to anyone. Even the most diehard Pokemaniacs will be bored with this one in a matter of hours while those who don't own a DS or Pokemon Diamond/Pearl will probably stop playing after a few minutes. Get back to the drawing board Nintendo - we know you can do better than this.
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