tommy_lop's Full Review: Pokemon Stadium 2 for Nintendo 64
One year ago I bought Pokemon Stadium when it first came out. 6 months later Pokemon gold and silver where released, seeing how Pokemon stadium was released before gold and silver, gold and silver didn’t work on it. Of course Nintendo solved the problem and to get more of your money decided to make a sequel to the Pokemon stadium.
Graphics.
If you thought that the Pokemon in the original looked smooth and real, then you should look at Pokemon stadium 2. While the animation for the first 150 still remains the same, they are a lot smoother and brighter. A lot of the old moves have been redone to look better and more realistic.
The backgrounds have also been made better do. While the backgrounds in the original where pretty detailed, they where also pretty blurry. Unfortunately the backgrounds are still pretty blurry, however they have done a lot more with them. Now inside the stadiums you can see other arenas, signs and advertisements and a whole lot of other stuff to. To see the best example of how many more backgrounds there are you should head through the Jhoto gym leader castle. Now in the original PS gym leader castle all the arenas where the same, they only had an unique feature like lava or something to tell the difference between them. This is no longer true, so each of the new Gym's look different you get a gym with a huge stain class window in the gym for your battle against Whitney, a rather woodshed background when you battle against Jasmine, and you should see the background you get when you battle Red.
Sound.
Good and bad news here. Nintendo did make the sound a little better, and even added a few tunes from the over world in the stadium battles. However they still get mind numbingly dull after listing to them for about an hour. Now for the bad news they kept the annoying announcer in, so after you battle your way thorough a couple of cups you'll be wanting to mute your TV.
Gameplay.
There are several areas of game play in Pokemon stadium 2 here they are.
Mystery Gift.
If you own Pokemon Gold or silver you can come to this once a day and get a mystery gift from a little girl. The gift can be decoration to your room, to an item. The items range from HP up to a berry, it's not a bad idea if your trying to get everything the game has to offer to stop by here at least once a day.
Gym leader castle.
This is the same thing has the last game, you battle through gym leader and there underling Pokemon trainers to win there badge and move on to the next part of the castle. After that you can battle the elite four and the champion Lance. After you accomplish that you will move on the Kanto gym leader castle for new battles against the old gym leader, and the ultimate show down with Red (Ash). While I enjoyed going thorough the castle even more then the last one, and it is a lot harder to beat the elite four I found the prize you win for beating it to be bad. Instead of wining a Pokemon, you get to choose an old TM move that your Pokemon has forgotten, this is good for powering up for fights in the stadium but not much else besides that.
Prof Oak lab.
Same has the last game the lab will help move and organize Pokemon on the PC. You can use the Pokedex to help find Pokemon. And like the last game the biggest help in this area is the trade machine. While trading in the gold and silver on the game boy isn’t has big a pain due to the easier to use PC, it's still no joy. Trading with a friend who has the previous 3 is no fun either. The trade machine makes it easier seeing how you can trade from PC box to PC box, it also will let you know which Pokemon you can't trade to the original 3 and why.
My room.
This is just a 3d presentation of your room in the silver version. You can redecorate it in 3d and get a better picture of what it looks like. This is an interesting feature but I find it really worthless beyond the 5 minutes of looking at the things you put up.
Earl's Pokemon Academy.
For you folks who didn’t buy a strategy guide, Earl is here to help. You can take tests, read lectures on advance strategy’s, and take tests in the classroom. After that you can study Pokemon and what moves they learn in the library, this is definitely helpful if you’re tracking down the right TM or Pokemon for a battle in the arena.
Free battle.
This is the same has the last game, this is where you go if you want to battle a friend without the hassle of the game link. Like the original you get a lot of options to help customize your battles.
Mini games.
While the original game had the kids club full with Pokemon mini games, most of them sheer fire cures for insomnia. The new mini game area actually has some that are fun. In this one you can play a game of super pong with mr.mime, play a game quick cut game with Scyther, and catch falling eggs with Chancey. While these games aren't going to be replacing Mario Party any time soon, they are a lot better then the original. Oh yeah if you choose to go for the championship you can actually win coins to use in the casinos. Besides these your friends can now test your Pokemon knowledge by competing in a quiz show.
GB tower.
Just like the original except with a few more options to it. You can now play your Gold and silver in full color on the TV. Of course this leads to a few problems seeing how the Game boy color is not back lit, there are a lot of hues when you play it on your back lit tv set. What about Doduo and Dotrio modes, there back sort of. While you can unlock these modes to increase the speed of your game, they’re only available for the original 3. My guess is that going triple the speed would goof up the internal clock that gold and silver have.
Stadium
This is the main mode you can compete though several cups. Here are the cups.
Little cup.
This is for Pokemon level 5 to 10, get your best Pokemon to breed in order to survive thorough this one.
Challenge cup.
How good are at using rental Pokemon, this ones going to test your ability to use rental Pokemon. Instead of using your homegrown Pokemon, instead you will now use a random team of Pokemon that the computer will select for you. The trick here is to choose the right Pokemon and the right moves to fit the right situation.
Poke cup.
Pokemon level 50 to 55 can take place in this battle.
Prime cup.
I hope you saved your Mewtwo from the original 3 because you’re going to need it. In prime cup all your challengers are going to be level 100, so bring your best Pokemon team along for the ride.
Battle.
Nothing has change to the battle system. The controls are still the same A or B to choose between attack or switch, then hit a key on the C button to select your move. There is only two things that have change to affect game play, Pokemon are now able to use hold items making the battles a little bit more complex. Number 2 is now your able to read the other players comments on the battle. You’ll hear them brag about how well their Pokemon is doing in battle, or how badly there loosing by message boxes at the bottom of the screen. This can give you a few chuckles here and there besides that it’s not very useful/
Do I recommend it.
I did enjoy this game, however I wouldn’t hesitate to rent it first if you’re unsure. Also if you didn’t like the original Pokemon stadium then you definitely won’t like this one.
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