20 Years On, It's About Time These Pokémon Games Got Switch Remasters

Pokemon Colosseum — *Image: The Pokémon Company*

Soapbox options allow our particular person writers and contributors to voice their opinions on scorching subjects and random stuff they have been chewing over. Today, forward of its twentieth anniversary on twenty first November, Nathanial appears again on a Pokémon area that is been just about ignored for 20 years…

A standard mislabelling seen on-line is Pokémon X and Y as the primary absolutely 3D Pokémon RPGs. Of course, these within the Poké-community know higher: it’s 2003’s Pokémon Colosseum for GameDice that holds this distinction.

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Colosseum was the primary recreation developed by Genius Sonority. Colosseum and its 2005 sequel, Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness famously threw out fitness center battles and wild encounters in favour of a grittier story and solely a handful of ‘Shadow Pokémon’ to ‘snag’ from the evil Team Cipher. While these modifications restricted team-building alternatives, each video games set within the barren Orre area ramped up the problem and crafted an aesthetically distinctive and engrossing Pokémon expertise like no different.

So, on Pokémon Colosseum’s twentieth birthday, there appears no higher time to ask: may Game Freak bundle them up into an emulated assortment akin to Super Mario 3D All-Stars, a remaster like Metroid Prime, a remake like Pokémon Mystery Dungeon DX, and even ship a long-awaited sequel taking cues from New Pokémon Snap?

The reply is probably going disappointing, however there’s nonetheless a glimmer of hope; a small glowing Manaphy tail for followers of those forgotten gems who wish to play them on trendy {hardware}.

Why Pokémon Colosseum and XD can be excellent for Switch remasters

Pokémon Colosseum and XD: Gale of Darkness promote for giant bucks at secondhand recreation retailers. Even if followers do have the mandatory gear (the video games, a reminiscence card, a GameDice with controller, plus a GBA-GC cable if you wish to connect with the hand-held video games) the probabilities of having a scratched disc or malfunctioning {hardware} aren’t zero. To keep away from piracy — or to save lots of loads of Pokédollars — Game Freak and Nintendo can be clever to re-release each video games in some kind or different.

In addition to creating life simpler for Pokémon followers seeking to re-experience Orre, a remaster or remake additionally is smart from a technical standpoint. Pokémon Colosseum has its justifiable share of dodgy human character fashions, which a Nintendo Switch remaster may properly iron out. It may additionally enhance gameplay, rushing up Colosseum’s long-winded double battles and eradicating the necessity to save at PC terminals, one thing Pokémon XD already fastened.

There is precedent for porting older Pokémon video games. The Generation I and II video games have been famously dropped at 3DS Virtual Console, but the discharge of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon DX presents maybe the strongest case. The unique Mystery Dungeon was launched the identical 12 months as Pokémon XD. If Nintendo and Game Freak can see the worth in crafting a loving remake of the primary recreation within the Mystery Dungeon collection, maybe its spinoff cousins in Orre is also on their radar. Colosseum and XD did promote practically 4 million models, in spite of everything. While this pales compared to the core collection’ gross sales figures, it could possibly be sufficient for Game Freak to recognise a doubtlessly strong return on funding in remastering them.

Why Orre followers could be out of luck

It’s true that Genius Sonority has been making Pokémon video games as lately as 2020. However, the developer hasn’t made a full-scale Pokémon RPG title since XD, again in 2005, as an alternative having developed puzzle titles like Pokémon Shuffle and Pokémon Café ReMix.

Additionally, most of the unique group who labored on Colosseum and XD have since moved on to new horizons, corresponding to Art Director James Turner co-founding his personal studio, All Possible Futures. Considering all this, banking on Genius Sonority’s current relationship with The Pokémon Company and Game Freak doesn’t imply a remaster is on the horizon.

Moreover, Pokémon Colosseum and XD have to be thought-about as merchandise of their time. As Colosseum launched solely a 12 months after Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, its wide selection of accessible Johto Pokémon corresponding to Croconaw, Quagsire, and Noctowl made it an important buy for gamers seeking to full their Pokédex, owing to the shortage of backwards compatibility between Generations II and III. As the Pokémon panorama is vastly totally different immediately, the developer may even see each video games as relics that existed to fill within the Pokédex hole between Chikorita and Celebi.

This additionally extends to battling. Where Colosseum and XD crammed a neat area of interest by permitting gamers to see their 2D sprites from the Generation III video games in wonderful three dimensions, this clearly is a non-issue in Generation IX.

Additionally, whereas the Orre video games are having fun with a renaissance within the Pokétuber area, with notable names like SmallAnt operating by means of them with Let’s Plays and Nuzlockes, The Pokémon Company itself has barely acknowledged them for practically 20 years. Wes, Team Cipher, and each different location and character from these video games have obtained virtually no recognition since 2005. The solely exception is Orre’s inclusion in Serebii’s map of Pokéarth which probably makes an look in 2014’s Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire; a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it, quasi-easter egg. Maybe.

Yet, if anybody piece of proof dispels the concept of a remaster, remake, and even sequel, it’s the phrases of Junichi Masuda himself. When requested in 2016 by Nintendo Official Magazine Spain if a brand new recreation within the model of Colosseum can be attainable, he reportedly laughed and replied ‘no’. A remaster, in fact, would not be practically as time-consuming as the event of a sequel, however Masuda’s phrases don’t bode nicely.

Remasters of Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD Gale of Darkness don’t appear probably, then, however no person actually is aware of what’s on the horizon besides Game Freak, The Pokémon Company, and any Pokémon that is aware of Future Sight. There was a time, nonetheless, when a remake of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Blue/Red Rescue Team appeared about as probably as a mega-evolution for Flygon, but DX nonetheless made it to market. With the continued appreciation of those edgier, inventive, and altogether particular GameDice video games, there’s at all times hope that we’ll ultimately get to play them on trendy {hardware}.

Until then, you’ll need to mud off your 20-year-old disc, accomplice up with Espeon and Umbreon, and purify Orre’s few Shadow Pokémon the old style means.