With every generation of the portable pokémon games, we get treated to a 3D version that lets us battle out little beasties in three of the best dimensions that I’ve ever been a part of. But they also add a little extra, like a tutorial mode, or enhanced management utilities, or even a whole, separate RPG mode.
So, when I saw that the companion game for the DS versions of the portable series was coming out for the Wii, I pretty well disregarded the reviews that I saw. All of the companion games score pretty low as a rule, mostly because they’re reviewed as standalone products instead of the companion products that they really are. Which is to say, if you don’t have the portable game that goes along with each console title, your fun is going to be extremely limited, and that’s fair.
But I do have Pokémon Diamond, so it was pretty well a no-brainer that I’d pick up the companion game for it.
Pokémon Battle Revolution is a whole lot like the Stadium and Colosseum games that came before it. You take your team of monsters that you raised up in your portable adventure and make them fight each other in a ridiculous amount of preprepared situations. After three games, that’s not really much to write home about any more.
But, like the other games that preceded it, the most fun you’re going to have is when you get a friend wrangled into playing the game with you, so you can see who’s the better Pokétrainer. But, that can actually get kind of tough, so this game actually takes advantage of the Wii’s newfangled ability to connect to the Internet to allow you to play battles against folks all over the world… who are mostly far, far better than you are.
But other than the battles, what kind of other features do you get with this game?
Nothing, really.
The only real thing you can do, other than the battles, is look at a few static pages of text that offer up some battle strategy, most of which is so basic that it’s essentially worthless. There are no mini-games, no tutorial battles, no extra RPG mode, and no Pokémanagement utilities.
What you get is a kind-of okay, sort-of flashy 3D interface to your battles, which is nice, but it just doesn’t seem like you get a lot to do for the $50 entrance fee.
Yeah, I didn’t really expect much from this game. But I’m telling you, if they made a Pokemon MMO well, it could trump WoW. I know I would blow all of my cash to play it.