Pokemon Stadium 2 (Nintendo 64)

The highly successful Pokémon Stadium was less of a stand-alone game and more of a graphical expansion pack made to accompany the best-selling Game Boy Color Pokémon games. The premise was simple: Raise your Pokémon on the handheld and send them into battle in full color 3D against friends or the CPU on your N64. The game certainly had nowhere near the amount of depth available on the Game Boy but made the perfect companion piece for the Pokémon enthusiast who needed everything. This year's Pokémon Stadium 2, appropriately housed in a gold and silver cartridge, improves upon the original's formula in nearly every category, although its status as a quality stand-alone game is still questionable.

From the moment you first press start, you are bombarded with options and play modes. Battle now! initiates a quick battle with a random set of Pokémon. The event-battle mode is a two-player battle that lets you configure the rules to your liking. Once again, the focus of Stadium 2 is clearly on the tactical battle elements of Pokémon, eliminating the RPG elements that made the Pokémon series so well rounded.

Those familiar with the first Stadium game will notice that combat has remained essentially unchanged, save for a few welcome menu-based changes and slight graphical tweaks. As before, a group of Pokémon is chosen for each side, ideally balanced enough to challenge any opposing roster. Pokémon perform attacks, dole out punishment, and are called back to the reserves for substitutions, battling until one side has been defeated. Selecting techniques has become significantly easier for those not familiar with every attack in the Game Boy game, thanks to a detailed onscreen summary of move effects and statistics such as type, strength, and accuracy. Awkward moments where players stare at the screen trying to decide whether a metronome, leer, charm, or sunny day would be appropriate can now be avoided, and the game is much friendlier for inexperienced players.

If battle is the heart of the Stadium series, the graphics are clearly the body. The 249 Pokémon available in Stadium 2 are rendered in full 3D, complete with a proper repertoire of over-the-top attack effects. The characters are large, nicely rendered, and faithfully represent what you would expect of the cartoon and handheld's newest stars. The techniques are each accompanied by a brief animation, such as an onscreen sandstorm, a colorful shower of light, impressive chrome effects, and the like. Attacks have been altered to accurately represent the way each individual Pokémon would perform them. For example, Dragonite's fly attack is preceded by a frantic flapping of miniscule wings while Delibird, the over-the-shoulder-sack-wielding birdlike creature, takes flight by flapping one wing up and down in a comical motion. Although frustratingly ineffective, Caterpie and Metapod's defense techniques also serve to show off how nicely the attacks look in Stadium 2.

The menus are very nicely designed and are easy to navigate--a must given the game's many options. The artwork as a whole is solid, and the trainers and characters encountered follow what we've come to expect of the Pokémon series. However, the battle arenas are plain, drab, and generally an eyesore. Although the variation is sufficient--you can fight in a baseball diamond, a library, and many other arenas--not one of the areas is detailed enough, with a total lack of any appreciable textures, shadowing, or other graphical effects.

The single-player gym-ladder castle mode has returned, this time with 21 different opponents with level-50-plus Pokémon, including the gym leaders found in Pokémon Gold and Silver. Familiar faces like Misty and Brock can be found therein, and while the battles against the CPU opponent are predictable and easy to counter if you have knowledge of the types and proper matchups, they remain entertaining nonetheless. Besides taking on the gym leaders, you can participate in a free-battle mode, alone in single competition or with up to three friends in team competition. The team mode uses a tag-team mechanic: When one player selects the Pokémon battle option, his or her teammate depresses the appropriate button to toss a reserve Pokémon into the fray.

Pokémon Stadium 2 presents a number of options outside of the gym-leader castle and battle modes. You can spend time in Oak's laboratory, where you can peruse your collection of Pokémon and examine items you have found. Arranging Pokémon into groupings of your choice, such as level, gender, tameness, and type is allowed. The Pokedex has returned, and it's more versatile than ever. You can check each Pokémon's specific data, display a full-screen image of the Pokémon, and examine a full color map of Gold and Silver to locate areas where each creature lives.

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