Pokémon battle revolution

Fights take place at eleven Coliseums, each Coliseum has its own leader and its own rules. Winning battles, the player earns Pokécoupons, a game currency that can be spent on items or changing the appearance of a game character , for example, his clothes, skin color and hair. From time to time you can buy new Pokemon. Unlike the earlier Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness , the Pokémon Battle Revolution lacks a story mode ^[2] .

Since Battle Revolution has the ability to communicate with the games of the main series for the Nintendo DS , in this game you can buy Pokémon for game currency and send them to games of the fourth generation. The feature also allows players to get Pokémon that are difficult or impossible to obtain without cheating . To unlock Pokemon, players must achieve certain goals or enter a special code.

Battle System

The combat system of the game completely copies the combat system from portable games of the main series. Battles take place in turn-based mode ; from one to six Pokémon can be used in battle. During the turn, the player is invited to use one of the four Pokemon abilities, change the fighting Pokemon or surrender and stop the fight. Only one action from this list can be done per move, after which the right of the move passes to the opposite side. There are battles of Pokemon, where on each side there is one fighting Pokemon, as well as battles where there are two on each side. As in the games of the main series, the Pokémon can be given an item that he can use at a certain moment of the battle or in some other way affects the course of the battle. In total, there are 493 types of Pokémon in the game. Each Pokemon belongs to a certain type, for example, to fire, water, electric, etc., also Pokémon can belong to two types at once, combining some of their features. The outcome of the battle often depends on this, for example, a fire-type Pokémon can defeat a stronger Pokémon, which is a grass type, but itself, in turn, will be vulnerable to attacks of water or stone Pokémon. Pokémon have hit points (HP), which are reduced if the pokemon takes damage. If the points of life are running out, the Pokemon falls unconscious and can no longer fight ^[2] .

Online Functions

The game has two online battle modes: “battle with a friend”, where you need to enter the Nintendo Wii Individual Code of the player you want to fight with, and “battle with a random player” ^[3] , where the opponent is randomly selected ^[4] . After each random battle, players are given the opportunity to exchange coaching cards. The exchange must be mutual, and it will not happen if one of the players refuses this function. Online features are first used in a series on stationary consoles, and a second time for the Wii console itself after Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Pokémon Battle Revolution was developed by Genius Sonority and released by Nintendo. Yoshiaki Iwasawa, who led the development team, recalled that the game was being developed before the Wii was released , and since Game Freak was developing the Pokémon Diamond and Pearl at the same time, we had to constantly check their achievements to ensure compatibility between the games. The developers wanted the game world to be uniform, but at the same time enticing, which is why it was decided to stylize Poketopia as an amusement park. When work was done on customizing the appearance of the characters, the developers constantly looked back at the design of existing characters so that new characters fit well into the surroundings of the game. Difficulties were caused by the creation of three-dimensional models of Pokémon, especially for large-sized Pokémon: they had to be drawn so that all 493 species of Pokémon looked equally good from the same angle. In addition, it was difficult to animate the attacks of the Pokémon: the Seismic Throw attack came out too comical, and to create the Surfing attack it was necessary to depict a large wave, the rendering of which heavily loaded the Wii processor ^[5] .

The announcement of the Pokémon Battle Revolution took place at the Nintendo press conference on June 7, 2006 ^{[6] [7]} . Satoru Iwata , president of Nintendo, cited the game as an example of connectivity between Nintendo DS and Wii , adding that Pokémon Diamond or Pearl owners can transfer their Pokémon from there to Battle Revolution and play using DS as a controller ^[8] . The process of connecting the Wii to the DS portable console was first demonstrated at the 2006 Nintendo World Tour. The game has the opportunity to use cartridges with Pokémon Diamond or Pearl to display the menu of attacks ^[9] .

The game received mixed reactions from critics: it has 53% on the Metacritic website ^[11] , 60% on the Game Ratio ^[18] , 51 out of 100 on the MobyRanks website ^[23] and 53.19% on the Game Rankings website ^[17] . IGN gave her 5/10, disapprovingly saying that many of the features that appeared in the Pokémon Stadium and in the Pokémon Colosseum , for example, mini-games and story mode, were simply thrown out of the gameplay. The multiplayer game was also criticized due to the lack of a tournament mode: the reviewer wrote that he was not far from the games for the Nintendo DS, while the single-player game was called “just ridiculous” because of its superficiality ^[15] . GameSpot set the Pokémon Battle Revolution 5.5 out of ten points, emphasizing that the gameplay is monotonous and repetitive, and that without the Nintendo DS and Pokémon Diamond or Pearl , there is simply nothing to do in the game ^[14] . GameTrailers criticized the graphics, calling the 3D models of Pokemon “angular”, eventually giving a score of 5.7 / 10 ^[19] . Eurogamer magazine, on the contrary, claimed that the graphics are pretty good, however, the reviewer wrote that the game has fewer features, even compared to the Pokémon Stadium . In the magazine, the game was assigned a low score of 4 out of ten ^[21] . Allgame website rated the game three and a half stars out of five, and Nintendo World Report called the game’s strongest point a high-quality visual performance, but criticized the gameplay, the lack of voice chat in a multiplayer game like in Diamond and Pearl , ultimately deciding that the game wasn’t it is worth buying even to the most ardent fans of Pokemon, and that its price is clearly overpriced - the retail price of the game was $ 50, and the reviewer considered that the price would be decent if it cost $ 10-20 and if it was distributed through WiiWare service ^[16] .

Game Informer gave the game a rating of 5.75 points out of ten, making the same comments as GameSpot, and Nintendo Power rated the game 6.5 points out of ten, praising the multiplayer game, but criticizing the underdeveloped single-player mode. However, Japanese magazine Famitsu rated the game 35/40 ^[13] and Game Oracle 75%, while the graphics, gameplay, and music were praised ^[25] . The game has 53% on Game Rankings and Metacritic ^{[11] [17]} . Jeremy Parish from 1UP.com noted that the game will be interesting only to fans of the series and that the only interesting aspect in the game is the multiplayer game, and expressed his dissatisfaction with the lack of exploration of the game world, one of the most important components of the games in the series. The result of his review, Parish brings up the question: “What is the point of Battle Revolution if it just copies portable Pokémon games , and then does it not very well?” ^[2] . GameSpy criticized the multiplayer mode, noting the lack of a win and loss account, and called the “battle with a friend” system inconvenient by entering a twenty-digit friend code ^[12] . Despite all the negative reviews, the Pokémon Battle Revolution had fairly good sales: 1.52 million copies were sold worldwide, of which 0.77 million in America, 0.33 million in Europe, 0.3 million in Japan , and 0.12 million throughout the rest of the world ^[26] .

• Official website
• Official site (Japanese)