Pokémon Stadium was released for the Nintendo 64 not too long after the original Game Boy titles hit the market. It offered the exact same style of battling, but with 3D rendered Pokémon as well as animations for their attacks. The game features all 150 of the original Pokémon, and even features some real voice acting for announcers that do commentary during the battles. There's a couple handful of mini-games to play, and the game also supports local multi-player. It even has a device that plugs into your controller, and you can upload your Game Boy Pokémon team into the game to use for battles on the Nintendo 64! This game was amazing for it's time, and is still super fun to play to this day. Anyways, on to the review!

Graphics 9 / 10 -- The graphics in the game are really well done. Every single Pokémon is colorful, full of detail, and look exactly as they should. Everything from their size to their color scheme looks spot on, and it honestly couldn't have been done any better. One of my favorite examples here would be Zapdos. Every detail on the Legendary Bird from it's beak and eyes, to each ridge on his yellow and black layered wings looks fantastic. The arenas they battle in look great, and remind you of what kind of "Stadium" you would see Ash from the anime battle in. There's a Gym Leader Castle Mode (more on that later) and the arenas there look especially phenomenal. Even the mini-games look superb in every way. One of these mini-games is a bunch of Lickitung must run around trying to eat food from a circular conveyor belt, pushing each other out of the way, and even the small plates of food themselves look incredibly detailed and easily identifiable (if you recognize Japanese cuisine, that is). There are also animations for all of attacks the Pokémon use in battle, and most of them are incredible. I'm amazed that every single individual Pokémon has their own animations, even having a few variations of said animations for physical attacks. Things like Surf use a universal animation for the attack itself, but again, every Pokémon has their own unique body movement animation for special attacks such as this. Another great example here would be Zapdos using an Electrical attack, as you can literally see each strand of lightning extremely clear and crisp looking. I wasn't a huge fan of the stat modifier effects, which are simply a circular aura that appear around the Pokémon that show an upward or downward arrow effect when it hits, but the effect in of itself doesn't look bad at all.

Sound 8 / 10 -- Overall the sound is pretty good. The cries for each Pokémon when brought into battle are ok. I would have really preferred they went with the anime style of the Pokémon simply speaking their own name, but sadly it's more like they sound what they would in real life, giving off a roar or something similar to that. There are a few who speak their name when summoned, but it's pretty few and far between. Using Zapdos as an example, it's cry sounds more like a bird shrieking than anything else. Something I really appreciated in the game is the fact it has real voice acting for commentary on the battles. The announcers will call out things such as a critical or super-effective attack when it lands, or when a Pokémon faints sounding upbeat and excited as an announcer should. Sadly, there isn't a very wide selection of things for them to say, so hearing them say the same things over and over again can get annoying after a short while playing the game. The music is very good in my opinion, and definitely gives you the Pokémon vibe the franchise's music is so well known for. The battle music is intense and upbeat, just like in the other franchise titles, and the boss / special battle tracks are even more so. The music for the mini-games is very catchy and gives you a warm, fuzzy, and happy feeling when you hear it. I'd be lying if I said I never left the game on just to hear a few of the tracks the game has to offer. The actual sound effects are really good, an example being when one of your Pokémon use Surf in battle you can hear the waves swelling and then crashing down into your opponent. 

Addictiveness 9 / 10 -- The game is extremely fun to play, especially if you love Pokémon. The battles have the exact same dynamic as the other titles in the franchise, and only add more to the experience. Another great feature here is there's so many different ways to play. There are tournament style championships to participate in, a Gym Leader Castle in which you must fight your way through each Gym Leader (and a few of their trainers / disciples) all the way through the Elite 4, you can compete for fun or competitively in the mini-games section of the game, or even play your Game Boy copy of the game on your Nintendo 64 using the connectivity device that plugs into your controller. There's not a whole lot to do outside of battling, playing the original game, or enjoying the mini-games, but if you bought the game in the first place for your love of Pokémon, you will really adore everything the game has to offer. Especially considering you can import your own team from the Game Boy version, you will definitely enjoy raising teams to participate in all of the various battles / modes the game has to offer. If you love battling Pokémon, this game will keep you coming back for more.

Story 1 / 10 -- I'm not even entirely sure this game has any plot to it whatsoever. More than anything, it's just different, or rather a more detailed way of battling Pokémon than what the Game Boy could offer at the time. Obviously it still follows the "Your dream is to be Champion one day" formula, but I'm not even sure this is presented any more thoroughly than Oak saying a few sentences to you in the introduction of the game. And even at that, I'm not sure he does that much (it's been a while since I've actually played the game).

Depth 8 / 10 -- The game has a lot to offer, but at the same time most of what is offered is along the lines of battling, just for different goals. In the Tournament section there are 4 different types of tournaments, each offering 3 or 4 levels of difficulty. The tournaments vary in what level Pokémon you are allowed to use. The 4 variations are level 15 - 20, level 35 - 40 (or maybe 30 - 35?), level 55 - 60, and level 1 - 100 (your highest level will be the opponents level for every Pokémon in this one). There are Pokémon you can rent with their own predetermined Move-Sets you can use to build a team, or as I said before, you can import your own Pokémon from the Game Boy version. You can also try your hand at the Gym Leader Castle, which allows you to take on each Gym Leader in order, as well as 3 trainers leading up to them who use similar typed Pokémon, or at least a similar style of battling. You also face off against the Elite 4 at the end of this. There are 9 different mini-games to play, and they all vary greatly. Other than the ones I mentioned already, a couple examples are a memory based game, where you must remember up to 16 directions you input one at a time with the D-Pad, increasing how many to remember each turn. If you mess a direction up, then you get a strike, and a certain number of strikes will knock you out of the game. Whoever lasts the longest will win, or if 2+ people make it all the way, they all get points for the win. Another mini-game is you must mash the A or B button as quickly as possible to fill up a generator with power as Pikachu or Voltorb, and which button you press depends on the color shown. Another interesting feature the game has, is if you manage to beat every battle tournament and Gym Leader in the Castle (as well as a secret battle unlocked by doing all of that), then you have the option of "resetting" the game kind of like a New Game Plus, in which everything becomes twice as hard. With the rented Pokémon, it was literally impossible for me to even get past Misty (I actually couldn't even get past the trainers leading up to her) in the Gym Leader Castle after the "reset."

Difficulty 7 / 10 -- Overall the game has a pretty average difficulty. On any given mode, the opponents Pokémon can only be up to 5 levels higher than your highest leveled Pokémon. When battling in the tournaments, your Pokémon will always be at the lowest level possible for that given variation. So if you're battling in the level 15 - 20 tournament, all of the rented Pokémon you can use will be level 15, though your opponents can and will go up to 20. In any mode the level is not specified, your rented Pokémon will be level 50, and your opponents can go up to 55. Though this adds some difficulty to the battles, with enough patience and attempts, every battle in the game can be won. You must pick a team of 6 before starting any given mode, and each battle will be a 3 vs 3 that you and your opponent choose from the 6. You have no idea which 3 your opponent will choose, and the computer selects their picks randomly (or by who has the best stats). The game's AI is pretty smart for the most part, and will break you down in the most efficient ways possible. As for the mini-games, even on the most difficult setting, destroying the computers is difficult but very achievable.
When playing on a New Game Plus, the game is borderline impossible to beat. If you don't raise your own team, do a very good job of it, and import them specifically for the battles in this game, you will almost certainly fail. I tried to get past Misty in the Gym Leader Castle probably 50+ times using all sorts of variations of rented Pokémon, and never even made it to the battle with her. Not once. And this was knowing exactly what type of Pokémon the trainers would be using...

Overall 8.3 / 10 -- If you love Pokémon, especially the core titles of the franchise, then you will probably love this game. It may not offer much outside of battling and mini-games, but the battling is why we all love Pokémon in the first place (at least why I loved it). If you want a good challenge in battling, I definitely recommend this game, especially when attempting the New Game Plus mode.

Hope you enjoyed the review