Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness Review by: Snu - 7.8/10
A mine full of Orre Orre. A region rife with sand, crime, more sand, water (wait what?), and forests (what? How can a region have such different climates?). Five years ago, this land was a dangerous, hostile place, with not one, but TWO evil teams, Snag'em and Cipher, collaborating with the goal of taking over the world with Shadow Pokémon (Pokémon who have had the door to their hearts closed a.k.a Brainwashed into killing machines). Thankfully, their conquest was stopped at the hands of an ex Team Snag'em member and his love interest friend. Fast forward to the current time, where we have a new protagonist, Michael, and an awesome starter (Eevee) here to stop Cipher from rising once more!
Let us go, and take a look at this new journey through Orre!
Graphics 9/10 This game looks amazing! The attacks are easy to see (The shadow moves in particular look cool and, well, shadowy), the character models look great, the environments are nice to look at (especially Phenac City with all of the running water) and most of the Pokémon are very well done.
My only gripe with this is that, for whatever reason, some of the Pokémon from the first generation had their models ripped straight from Pokémon Stadium, and it shows. Golduck is the most prominent example. Compared to everything else, the poor duck looks absolutely ugly and out of place.
Sound 9/10 This game sounds great. For sound effects, there isn't much outside of battle. Granted, the battle sound effects sound nice, if not similar. Most of the attacks are a 'shhh Bang!' sound. Barriers are a twinkle like sound, and stat buffs and debuffs are a 'twing!' and a 'neeoow', respectively.
Outside of battle the effects get a lot more cartoony, what with the sort of sound effects you'd expect to hear in a comic parody (Like a sharp 'Bang' for a foot stomp, or a quick 'Dink' when someone notices you)
The music in this game, however, is really quite something! There's a little something for almost everyone! Want some country? Go out and fight some wild Pokémon! Looking for some Rock? Face off against an ordinary trainer! Smooth Jazz? Pyrite Town is the place to be! Techno? Head to the Battle Sims! Just want to listen to some Coliseum tunes? Fight Rider Willie or go through a Coliseum!
My only real problem with the music is that the techno songs are far too short and tend to loop much too often.
Addictiveness 6/10 Unlike most of the mainstream Pokémon games, Pokémon XD doesn't have much for an aftergame. There's really only the Orre Coliseum, the special prize (if you caught every other shadow Pokémon), and Mt. Battle (if you haven't done it yet). If you want to play the game over from the beginning, all the power to ya, but you won't really get anything from it, other than trying out different party combinations. There's always levelling up your Pokémon to level 100, and messing around with the boxart shadow Pokémon, but there really is nothing else to the game after the story ends. I give the game credit for at least keeping me hooked throughout the main story, though.
Depth 7/10 Orre has quite a bit to do outside of the story for a forgotten region. Granted, most of it still revolves around battling. Outside of the story, there's Coliseums (Three of them, though one can't be accessed until the aftergame), Mt. Battle (If you go through all 100 battles with no breaks, you can get yourself a Johto starter), Battle Sims (Play out specific battle situations, and if you win, you get an item), and, my personal favourite, Battle Bingo.
In Battle Bingo, you start off with one Pokémon (determined by which Bingo card you pick. Ex.: Dragonair Card starts you off with Dragonair), and you begin by choosing one card. If a card has a type on it, you'll fight a Pokémon of that type. If the card has '?' on it, it'll either have a Master Ball (only useable inside Battle Bingo), or BP (Battle Points. If your Pokémon runs out of these, it can no longer battle). Your goal is to turn over every card in order to get a 'Blackout'. I've burned hours on this game just trying to beat every Bingo card. It can be a very hard game.
Other than those modes, this game has roughly the same depth as any other Pokémon game with EVs and such. However, since there's only 9 wild Pokémon in this game, this isn't a good game to try and EV train.
Story 7/10 In Pokémon XD, you play as [
insert name here], who I like to refer to by his canon name, Michael. It has been 5 years since the big Cipher incident, but people are still paranoid, so the lab that Michael and his family live in have been devising all sorts of gadgets that can be used to stop another Shadow Pokémon plot if one ever arose. The latest one they've finished is a modified Snag Machine that allows you to snag only shadow Pokémon from another trainer. However, no sooner is the snag machine completed, the head professor, Professor Krane, who is in charge of helping complete a purification chamber, is kidnapped. It's now up to Michael and his trusty Pokémon to find Krane, and uncover the truth on exactly what's going on!
It's certainly different from your usual Pokémon game, but still nothing too special if you've played this game's prequel, Coliseum. The story is also slow, and interrupted often with long battles.
Difficulty 6/10 This game is never easy, except in the very beginning. Because of the game's take on catching Pokémon, you often need to take a route that gets rid of one Pokémon, while still trying to prevent the snaggable Pokémon from fainting. Thankfully, even if you fail to snag a Pokémon, you get a chance to get it later, though it takes a lot of patience. Later on the game will start throwing trainers at you that have 2 or more shadow Pokémon on a team, which requires even more strategy, and ramps up the difficulty a bit. The final boss in particular has seven, yeah that's right, SEVEN shadow Pokémon for you to catch ON YOUR FIRST TRY. Believe me, if you want the special prize in the endgame, you need to catch every shadow Pokémon before you beat the game, which is MUCH harder than it sounds.
Things not covered above+ There's a great call mechanic that
replaces the usual 'Run' option. It nullifies the use of X Accuracies, Awakenings, AND brings your shadow Pokémon out of the damaging 'Reverse Mode'. All around great option.
*The game is chock full of double battles. Take it however you want
+ By doing Coliseums and winning, you can actually get some nice TMs (and good extra Poké.
+Orre has THE most competent bad guys I have ever seen. Not going to spoil anything, but they show serious genre saviness at some points.
- The final area is longer than any other Victory Road type area in other Pokémon games. How long, you ask? Well, HALF of all Shadow Pokémon available in the entire game are in the final area. Get used to being in that area for a loong time.
To sum it all up, this is a great Pokémon game. It's different, in a good way. Shame there's not much to after the story's all done, but the story itself is enjoyable enough to keep you playing until it's all done.
Overall this game gets my rating of:
7.8/10Thanks for reading!
Graphics
9 Sound
9 Addictive
6 Depth
7 Story
7 Difficulty
6
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