Imagine you are a little kid again… you are playing Pokemon Red or Blue…you think to yourself, ” wouldn’t it be awesome if these Pokemon, were in 3D?” Well stop you’re thinking because there is a game such as that already out there! In the year 2000, the amazing game that is Pokemon Stadium, was released. You popped the game into the 64 and you were off. All of your favorite Pokemon, right there in front of you: Pikachu, Dragonite, Gengar, Dewgong, and so on and so forth. This game was made some childhood wishes come true, well at least one, it never did magically transport me to Mars…but that’s for another time, this game made Pokemon seem that much more real and that’s what makes it so great.

The first mode that draws the eye, is Stadium Mode. Mainly because the name of the game is Pokemon Stadium. Now in this mode you try to pick a good enough Pokemon team to beat the other trainers in the cup you selected. Their are four different cups: the Pika Cup, the Petite Cup, the Poke Cup, and the Prime Cup. When choosing a cup you are essentially choosing the difficult, Pika being easy and Prime being hard. So you pick your team and your off to fight some trainers! So you beat each trainer in each Cup and then you’ve beaten stadium mode. Which I gotta say, is a pretty fun mode. It’s pretty exciting calling out your orders and watching your Pokemon in 3D fight and do their movies in a way that none of the other Pokemon games could do, do to their 2D limitations. It really does look cool, if you haven’t seen it before click here. It gets even more fun when you challenge a friend, you both try to make a stellar team, in hopes that you can destroy the others dream of being the very best. (Like no one ever was)

Now before I move on to the next mode of the game, I just want to comment on the amazing announcer that this game has… there is noting more funny than hearing him yell, “THIS IS A HEATED BATTLE!” As none of your Pokemon are doing anything. The announcer just really makes me laugh.

Any way the other mode is Gym Leader Castle. This mode is basically like beating all the gyms and the elite four in the other games, just with none of the in between stuff. This mode is pretty fun, while I prefer the Stadium mode, Castle offers a different way to play. So first you pick a gym, then you battle three trainers before you get to the gym leader. All the gyms have different themes, like fire and water ect. One thing that made this more challenging was you had to beat each gym in one shot. So what ever damage you took in the last battle stayed with you to the next one, this added a lot more strategy and got really hard if you didn’t know your Pokemon types. The only real problem I have with this mode is how boring it gets. Now don’t get me wrong I love it, its just some times it can get really boring having to beat four trainers in each gym and then even more at the Elite 4. Its any awesome mode, but its better to take it in doses, not just all at once.

Once you beat both of these modes you unlock a fight with Mewtwo. He is really hard to beat. There’s really not much to say about the fight it self, but what happens after the fight. After you win you go to “Round 2” where you have to beat the whole game over again…and its harder then last time… isn’t that exactly what you wanted? This is the games biggest flaw(that and the fact that there is no story line), having to beat the whole game over again: every cup, every gym, the Elite 4, and Mewtwo again! Its just too fricin repetitive.

There are other modes too, if you have a lot of friends over, the Kids Club is cool to check out… why must they make the mini game center sound like a pedophiles hang out? Any ways there are number of different mini games and they are pretty fun. Now this post is getting to long to talk about all the other smaller modes, but they are pretty fun.

This game is fantastic for any Pokemon fan. In fact thinking of all of this 3D Pokemon business gets me really exited for Pokemon X and Y. They are gonna be the first full length 3D Pokemon games on a hand held system! I’m pumped up for the release! However those games won’t be released for some time, so we just gotta stick with the classics. Pokemon Stadium is a classic and all around a great game. It may have some flaws, but I find myself still playing this game today. Pokemon Stadium receives 3 out of 5 stars.