When I was in middle school I received my copy and began my quest at catching them all. Pretty soon I had a level 100 Charizard that I had raised and made 6 copies by yanking the link cable during trading. Ah, Pokémon was the life. And if only I’d known how much more I would play Pokémon Gold & Silver (estimates are not possible) I probably would have cried for all the future lost time.
Regardless of the amount of time put into these gaming masterpieces, one of the coolest ways for me to fight with my Pokémon was via Pokémon Stadium 1 & 2. These games further revolutionized Pokémon by providing gamers with the ability to fight with their Pokémon in epic battles on the big screen. And battling your friends wasn’t even half the fun, beating the rather difficult 1-player mode was equally as enthralling.
I must say, though I spent many hours in some of the more recent Pokémon games, I will never spend more time than I did on Gold, Silver, Crystal, Stadium 1 & 2. I just feel like none of the recent games have been anything close to the quality that was seen in those three Game Boy Color games (it’s a shame I can’t retrieve my Pokémon from these games though…). As for Pokémon Diamond & Pearl, the two games are about as close as they’ve come yet to creating a game as polished and thus my hopes for Battle Revolution to revolutionize my experience and get me hooked on the series once again were very high.
You see, Pokémon can be quite an addiction and though many shun it, they must remember its impacts on the world of linking; Pokémon is really the first game to make linking a popular thing. In the same vein, it also succeeded in being the first game to link a handheld game to a console game via Pokémon Stadium 1 & 2 for the Nintendo 64 (if you don’t consider Super Game Boy a game). Now Pokémon is setting a few more bars in this current generation of gaming, as Pokémon: Battle Revolution was the first Wii game to connect to Nintendo WiFi connection (though there are currently a few more games with this functionality right now), is the first game to connect the Wii wirelessly with a DS, and is the first game to save data to a Wii-mote. It’s great to see innovators making use of functionality at hand and setting the bar for future connectivity.
With all of these great features and the ability to transfer Pokémon from any of the Game Boy Advance games as well as Pokémon Diamond & Pearl (provided you have Diamond or Pearl to transfer Pokémon from the Game Boy Advance games) Pokémon Battle Revolution is sure to make fans of the series delighted. But does the game have enough features and polish to serve a broader audience and does it match up to some of the other current Nintendo released Wii titles?