Is XD the secret BEST Pokémon game?

A year and a half after Pokémon Colosseum, Genius Sonority released Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, a game that supposedly fixes every single issue with its predecessor. Is it true? Does that make XD the BEST Pokémon game then? Or are both GameCube installments definitely not worth the trouble? There's only one way to find out!

------------------------------

[Lyra]

Hope you enjoy the video, and have/had a great April 1st! No tricks here, just Pokémon XD. Speaking of, you would think that after this many hours of playtime, I would get the names of the Purify Chamber and the Battle Bingo right... but no.

Twitch streams are back, and we are getting close to completing the Gen 3 Living Dex challenge! Join us this weekend for the conclusion at twitch.tv/lyrara_lyra

[armorbearer]

If you ever want a true challenge, attempt to complete Orre Colosseum. Its a much more scary beast than the 100 man Mt. Battle challenge.

[SoraIndigo]

I think the beauty of the shadow lugia fight is that in your first playthrough, you're most certainly going to have a full party of non-shadow pokemon by then and when you face lugia, most would use the master ball, but using it is a bait and switch because that makes the actual fight harder since now you don't have a free catch on one of the legendary birds, and shadow lugia will get sent to your pc, so there goes the best shadow pokemon resist in the game. Then, the real challenge starts there: catching all 6 shadow pokemon in a single battle.

The only shame is the other 3 mons being rhydon tauros and exeggcutor(maybe a reference to high tier mons during the rby days?) Since they aren't too terribly difficult to catch and besides tauros and maybe rhydon, their damage output is carried by shadow moves being super effective on non-shadow mons.

[IndigoEuphonium]

Kinda funny how XD fixed a lot of issues with Colosseum, only to then introduce a bunch of its own issues. Those push notifications are a living hell

[relicking]

Not sure if you got it, but once you get all the Shadow Pokemon Mirror B shows up at the top of the Lighthouse with a Shadow Dragonite for you to catch.

[GavinAstraWolf]

I'm glad you gave XD a chance. I honestly didn't mind it becoming battle heavy at the end because it felt like the stakes where getting higher. Plus there ARE some puzzles but even then there is combat sections around them so I get it. I think the level curve in this is so much more natural and all of the side modes are fun. I think catching all the Pokemon is still worth it in XD cause most of the Pokemon learn either exclusive moves or Egg moves they normally don't learn. One example being Salamence with Dragon Dance which I can't express who INSANE THAT IS. I'm glad you enjoyed and I hope the rest of your Gen 3 living dex is smooth sailing from here on out.

[wulfywulfynrir]

14:10

If yall weren't there for stream, Lyra is severely underplaying how this joke happened live 😂 iirc, we got four notification popups before we even got past the dude passed out at the front desk LMAO

[muma-kitty]

8:00 tbf, the orre region is based on arizona, and here in the states we kinda tend to let things rot

[Iggy_Dogg]

thank you Lyra I like having actual videos to watch on april fools that arent silly jokes

[brianhull]

6:39
This part I’m going to have to disagree with you on.

Like, I get why you’re not a fan of the old locations returning. You weren’t a fan of Colosseum (which is perfectly understandable), so you don’t feel any nostalgia for those old locations, but back then, I think most people who bought XD after having already played Colosseum did so because they enjoyed at least _something_ about Colosseum (besides connecting Game Boy Advances to battle each other using the 3D animations, of course) and wanted more of it. For people like me, getting to see these old locations along with new ones was a treat!

And, like, you overstate how unchanged they are. Sure, places like the Snagem Hideout, Shadow Pokémon Lab, and Agate Village are practically identical, but it does make some sense. Both Team Snagem and Cipher were out of the picture during the gap between games, so why would those locations change significantly? And Agate Village was meant to be a sorta time capsule untouched both by the long-ago desertification of Orre and advances in technology and such; it’s not going to change in just 5 years. But other locations did change substantially. Pyrite has replaced the building Cipher used to use as a base of operations with a new TV broadcasting station. Realgam Tower has changed drastically with the new minigames and battle simulator. And while Mt. Battle is mostly the same, it at least made it less of a chore than in Colosseum for the story mission.

There’s also Phenac, which—while virtually unchanged as a location from Colosseum—has a pretty cool bit with how each and everyone in the town has been replaced with one of Cipher’s goons in disguise. That was a nice twist!

And their inclusion is sometimes perfectly sensible if not necessary at times. Like, given that we have to purify Shadow Pokémon still, and the only way to do so until the Purification Chamber is complete is via the Relic Stone in Agate Village, we kinda have to be able to revisit Agate Village. The return of Cipher means that it makes perfect sense for us to have to return to the Shadow Pokémon Lab, since that was once one of their primary bases for major operations. The Mt. Battle game mode has returned, so the location kinda has to be present in the story mode, and the nature of Orre’s traversal system means we basically need to have a reason to go there for the location to be made available, anyways. The same idea goes for Pyrite, Phenac, and Realgam, since they host the three major colosseums in both games. (I kinda wish the Under returned, too, so we could get that BGM again and so that we’d get the Under and Deep Colosseums again.)

And on top of all of that, there are enough new locations to more than make up for the returning ones. Only the middle of the game features a bunch of returning locations; most of the locations in the first and last parts of the game are completely brand-new. The Lab you start out at, Dr. Kaminko’s lab, Gateon Port, the remains of the S.S. Libre, the Shadow Pokémon Factory, and Citadark Isle are all completely new, as are the new Poké Spots.

Maybe they could’ve made some additional changes here and there, namely in Phenac and the Shadow Pokémon Lab, but I don’t think their remaining largely identical is a problem. It’s not really any different from how many locations in the Kanto region are practically identical in the Gen II games. Pewter City and Pallet Town in particular have almost no differences between Gens I and II aside from Brock having a new team, and Fuschia City has even less stuff than it did before thanks to the Safari Zone being shut down. Sure, it’s not a perfectly fair comparison since, aside from the Indigo Plateau, all of the Kanto locations in Gen II are technically in the post-game, while the returning locations in XD are visited during the main story mode, and the time that passed between Gens I and II was less than the time that passed between Colosseum and XD, but the point still stands. Especially when we also look at Black 2 and White 2, which is perhaps the most direct comparison one could make since they’re direct sequels that take place in the exact region with new locations added to that same region.

Just because they’re reusing some assets and locations doesn’t automatically make it lazy.

[Cratmang]

I can understand the argument against reusing content from previous games, but if it means that we get a better, more enjoyable experience, I don’t mind so much. Heck, XD and Colosseum reused Pokemon models and animations from Pokemon Stadium, and I don’t think anyone really complained, even if the gen 1 models were showing their age.

Ironically, many would argue that pre-gen 6 animations were far better than what we started getting from X and Y onwards.

[pablodelgado]

The only thing that really makes me sad about XD is that they got rid of The Under. Love the hell out that place in Colosseum, not to mention the absolute bop of a theme.

[QuiltedDusknoir]

Because I'm pedantic, FRLG had the help screen that shows the type match ups. I remember studying that diligently when I was young. =)

[CosmicDoom]

As someone who played XD without playing Colosseum (only GBA games) - the whole thing felt absolutely mindblowing and new. Playing Colosseum after felt terrible because it was just so clearly worse than XD.

If you want the most fun, I would recommend skipping Colosseum entirely and only playing XD

[cephelos]

Even though you said "no tricks" in three pinned comment, I'm going to assume that the complaint that "I returned to a town 5 years later and the buildings were the same" is a joke, because that would be an absurd complaint if it was genuine

[iamredjustice]

Pokemon xd gale of darkness was my first ever Pokemon game. Not having played or knowing of colosseum's existence until I was an adult, XD was so much fun and had no idea so much was reused. Makes me think of XD as the ultimate/best version of a Genius Sonority Pokemon game.

[MostlyAlone]

It is an absolute travesty that the Realgam tower minigames never carried forward to any future games. Those puzzles and games were so fun and well enough designed that they could have been an entire game on their own.

[CoolGamer]

I love this game so much. Easily my favorite, seeing as battles are indeed, my jam. However, there IS a soft lock of sorts in this game that I found by complete accident. If you fail to Snag the Shadow Voltorb that Miror B. has in the cave Poké Spot, it will NEVER appear again. This means that you can’t catch the Shadow Dragonite at the end of the post game. H as to restart a whole save file because of it, which sucked.

[kingsgrave_]

don't understand the complaints about the battles given that's what every pokemon game is

agree that the side content stuff is cool

[cephelos]

"The latter half of the game is nothing but combat."
Like the entirety of every main series game?