Pokémon Colosseum



Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness are spinoffs of the incredibly popular Pokémon franchise for the Game Cube. Produced by Nintendo and Pokémon Company-owned Genius Sonority and released in 2003 (2004 stateside, XD in 2005), the games are notably Darker and Edgier than the rest of the series. The series takes place in the desert region of Orre, where there are no wild Pokémon to be found. So how do you accomplish the usual task of catching and raising your own small army of adorable little forces of nature then? You steal them, mainly from the bad guys.

The main character of Colosseum, Wes, is a top operative of an organization known as Team Snagem. Using a device known as a Snag Machine, this gang is infamous for "snagging" Pokémon from Trainers all across Orre. All is well until Wes pulls a spectacular double cross on the organization, stealing their only portable Snag Machine and blowing up Snagem's headquarters. Upon reaching the town of Phenac, he stops two thugs in the middle of kidnapping a girl called Rui: a girl who can perceive a strange black aura around certain Pokémon that indicates that they have been corrupted into heartless fighting machines known as "Shadow Pokémon". She pleads with Wes to use his "snagging" expertise to help her purify all the Shadow Pokémon and uncover the conspiracy behind their creation.

Pokémon Colosseum is notable for being the first fully-3D Pokémon RPG (with a storyline and everything!) and for some unique gameplay features: such as the fact that every fight in Orre is a double battle, requiring a whole new set of tactics from regular play.

The sequel, Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, was released the following year. XD scaled things back a few notches by replacing the Anti-Hero main character with a Kid Hero called Michael and cleaning up Orre so that it's not quite as gritty as before. The plot this time revolves around "XD001": a Lugia transformed by the Cipher crime syndicate into a Shadow Pokémon supposedly immune to purification. XD added a few new features, such as "Poké Spots", small areas where you could lure and catch wild Pokémon and a method for mass purifying Shadow Pokémon, Shadow Pokémon now have a much greater variety of moves than just Shadow Rush.

The series as a whole contains examples of:

 * After Combat Recovery: At least in normal (non plot-driven) Colosseum knockout challenges such as the Phenac and Pyrite Colosseums, and Mt. Battle.
 * Ascended Extra: Miror B. went from relatively minor but memorably quirky Starter Villain to a decent sized part of the plot and gameplay in XD.
 * Aerith and Bob: The three main characters throughout the series have the fairly normal-sounding names of Wes, Rui, and Michael. However, everyone else has really weird, made-up-sounding names. One possible theory is that it's due to a bad attempt at making the setting seem more exotic. Another says that the game's translators brought in a bunch of toddlers to bang on the keyboards.
 * Ambiguously Gay: Miror B. is ambiguously... something. It's just not entirely clear what.
 * Anti-Frustration Features: One for Pokédex completionists: The majority of endgame Shadow Pokémon in XD are Pokémon of types that, while they can be found in the wild in FireRed and LeafGreen, have notoriously low (1-5%) chances of appearing (and some have the added annoyance of being found only in the Safari Zone). Additionally, Lunatone and Zangoose are both present, eliminating the need to purchase Ruby or Sapphire along with Emerald.
 * Shadow Pokémon in both games cannot be Lost Forever. In Colosseum, you can eventually rematch all Shadow Pokémon Trainers and in XD they'll wind up in Miror B's possession when you rematch him.
 * As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Another theory about the weird names of Orre is that the weird names were selected to give the region an otherworldly, foreign feel.
 * Art Evolution: The graphics improved greatly from Colosseum to XD.
 * Black and White Morality: Cipher's primary characterization is that they are unashamedly trying to Take Over the World (Of course!), with all members being fully aware of this goal. A stark contrast from Pokémon's use of relatively small scale groups with the goal of making money, Well Intentioned Extremists, or complete tools who are just blind pawns for the (actually evil) Big Bad, and unlike the few enemies of other spins offs that are made entirely of evil folk, they aren't silly self-proclaimed villains.
 * Bunny Ears Lawyer: Miror B. He has a Poké Ball afro. He loves to dance. He's also an Admin of an evil Pokémon organization.
 * But Thou Must!: Don't want Rui to follow you around? But Thou Must!! Don't want to help Rui save all the Shadow Pokémon? But Thou Must!! Want to use your Pokémon-stealing device to steal non-Shadow Pokémon? But Thou Mustn't! Don't want to fight Eldes, because it wouldn't mean anything? But Thou Must!, my friend.
 * Canon Immigrant: The PC's physical design in the Orre games is the standard design in Generation 4.
 * Speaking of which, the physical/special move split seen in Gen IV started with the Shadow moves in XD.
 * Ceiling Cling: Cipher Peons in both games, but mostly XD. One in XD even shares an (rather small) elevator with you.
 * Because the item capsules are box-shaped this time around, Voltorbs and Electrodes can't use the old Chest Monster routine.
 * Cloudcuckoolander: Miror B. seems to be in his own little world most of the time.
 * Combat Pragmatist: Cipher is regularly indicated to have Pokémon physically attack humans (Trainers can be found on the ground in pain saying how they lost). "Pokémon are (pocket) monsters that can seriously injure or kill a human, the only reliable defense against them is other Pokémon (which is gone if all yours are KOed)" has always been the Elephant in the Living Room of the series, implied, but never stated, (Except in Pokémon Special, where it is completely explicit), though Cipher is the only one to carry out the implied threat (again, outside of Special).
 * Crapsack World: Gets better (not by much, though) in Pokémon XD.
 * Crutch Character: Shadow Pokémon have moves super effective against everything but one another, but they can't gain level up until they're purified.
 * Poochyena in XD. Bite + Dig is decent coverage, but the fact that Dig takes 2 turns, it evolves early (meaning it gets good stats for when it first evolves, but it never progresses beyond that) and fact that it gets nothing beyond that means that its teammates will quickly catch up with it after a bit.
 * Damage Over Time: In Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness, Shadow Pokemon who enter "Reverse Mode" in battle sustain damage per turn, as do non-shadow Pokemon when subjected to "Shadow Sky" weather.
 * Darker and Edgier: Oh boy, see the intro for the tip of this iceberg. Very noticeable, as it premiered right after the Lighter and Softer Ruby and Sapphire.
 * Dark Is Edgy: Shadow moves are types 1 or 4.
 * Dramatic Wind: Every single battle seems to have high speed winds coming from the center, given the way the Trainers stand.
 * Desert Punk: Especially the first few parts of Colosseum. Virtually no law (only two real cops in all of Orre!), bone-dry wastelands, criminal gangs tearing up the place... prototypical Desert Punk. The few exceptions are the Pokemon HQ Lab, Dr. Kaminko's Mansion, and Gateon Port in XD; and Agate Village in both games. Exactly why Orre is so bone-dry is never explained.
 * Eagle Land + Americans Are Cowboys: Word of God gives the basis for the crime ridden wasteland of Orre as Phoenix, Arizona.
 * Enormous Engine: Wes probably stole the engine for his hovering motorcycle thingy from a Greyhound bus...or a Top Fuel dragster...or a diesel locomotive. It's mounted at the very front of his vehicle; only the Rule of Cool keeps the machine from nose-diving forward and catapulting Wes and Rui face-first into the sand.
 * Everythings Funkier With Disco: The one, the only, Miror B.
 * Expy: Ein is basically Hojo in the Pokémon universe.
 * Rui also resembles, and even acts, like Misty in her pre-GSC/HGSS design.
 * Many, many, many characters are or have been suspected of being expies of characters from various canons of Pokémon. It's actually part of the fun for some people trying to see which characters are which.
 * Faceless Goons: Cipher grunts. Ironically, they are the only evil team in the series whose grunts have individual names.
 * Five-Bad Band: The Cipher administrators in the first game:
 * Big Bad:
 * The Dragon/Dragon In Chief:
 * The Brute: Dakim
 * The Evil Genius: Ein
 * The Dark Chick: Lady Venus
 * Sixth Ranger Traitor: Miror B.
 * And in the second:
 * Big Bad: Greevil
 * The Dragon:
 * The Brute: Gorigan
 * The Evil Genius: Lovrina
 * The Dark Chi...erm, Governor Wannabe: Snattle
 * Sixth Ranger Traitor:
 * Funny Afro: Miror B.'s massive, Poké Ball-colored afro.
 * He even has an aspiring fanboy in the form of Mirakle B., who may be a Loony Fan.
 * Heel Face Turn: Wes has one at the very beginning of the game. And he sure knows how to make it count, since he pretty much crippled Team Snagem while performing it.
 * Inconsistent Dub: When Colosseum was translated, Battlus had his name changed to Somek, but when XD was translated, his name was left as Battlus.
 * Jiggle Physics: Miror B.'s afro and Sealeo's fat.
 * Karma Houdini: All the Cipher admins except  and Nascour in Colosseum and Greevil in XD.
 * Kick the Dog: Cipher is pretty much all about this trope.
 * Kid Hero: Averted for the first time in the franchise with Wes. Played straight with Michael.
 * Lost Forever: Failed to Snag a Shadow Pokemon? It will be a long time before you get another chance to try again.
 * Magic Skirt: The camera is quite careful about this for every female opponent, but it becomes really noticeable if you play VS mode with Leaf, who still has a skirt that just barely covers the hips and has a pose (one foot out forward and leaning in, as if bracing against wind) that should provide maximal pantsu, but the skirt is posed in just the right way for it to reveal nothing at any camera angle.
 * Marathon Level: Mount Battle.
 * Master of Disguise: Silva, a rare purely good example.
 * Mind Rape / Heart Trauma: The methods involved in Shadow Pokémon production, with Empty Shell, Super-Powered Evil Side, and The Corruption as the inevitable result.
 * Obviously Evil:
 * One Game for the Price of Two: One of the complaints was how in order to get all of the Pokémon before FireRed, LeafGreen, and Emerald were released, you needed this game and one of those Game Cube to Game Boy Advance Link Cables.
 * Interestingly enough, XD includes Zangoose and Lunatone, the only 2 Hoenn dex Pokémon that need Ruby and Sapphire to obtain both.
 * Perky Female Minion: Lovrina & Venus.
 * Police Are Useless: Taken to a nearly horrifying extreme in both games. There are a grand total of TWO cops in the entire two games, both working the same crime-infested city and unable to do much about any of it, and one of them is a complete moron. Of course, there may be more that we don't see. And for some reason there are two Chief Sherles during XD's ending.
 * The Power of Friendship: Hilariously enough, Cipher's master plan of closing the hearts of Pokémon to turn them into mindless killing machines can be completely reversed by simply caring for the Pokémon.
 * The exception is XD001, which at first glance looks like it may actually be unpurifiable... it isn't, but it needs a heck of a lot more than standard care to be cured.
 * Primal Stance: There is no reason for Dakim (Colosseum) or Gorigan (XD) to be walking around like gorillas, aside from the fact that they are characterized as brutish thugs. Gorigan is worse--he doesn't seem capable of even standing up straight and knuckles his way around the place.
 * Punny Name: A few, seeing as this is a Pokémon game. (Silva, a silver-haired character, is one example.)
 * Random Encounters: Averted, unlike the main series. There are no wild Pokemon whatsoever in Orre -- the only Mons you battle belong to opposing Trainers. The second game introduces certain "Pokespots" where you can catch Pokemon in the wild, but these aren't Random Encounters: You leave bait out, then check back later when alerted to a Pokemon munching on it.
 * The Scottish Trope: "A distant land" (listed in "Met" in a Pokemon's profile page) is the only reference made to Orre in the rest of the series. PERIOD.
 * Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Much more cynical compared to the main series and Mystery Dungeon games. Lightens up a bit in XD.
 * Spiritual Successor: Colosseum is one to the Nintendo 64 Stadium games.
 * Stripperiffic: Some of the female civvie and hood Trainers dress in this fashion, but no more than the average Rockette. Cipher Peons averted this before Galactic Grunts did - slimmer Faceless Goon suits are all you get if you're XX. Venus and Lovrina are somewhere between the two.
 * Top-Heavy Guy: The Bodybuilder Trainer class.
 * Vice City: Pyrite Town.
 * World Map: Rather than the usual free-roaming between each town, the player instead moves between areas via a map-selection screen, with cutscenes of the player character driving between locales.

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Tropes used in Colosseum:

 * Anti-Hero: Wes. Type II or III.
 * Badass Longcoat: Wes.
 * Bowdlerise: Rui's shirt no longer shows off her navel and has her skirt lengthened a few notches (originally it was shorter than Dawn's) outside of Japan. A bit odd in such a Darker and Edgier work, but least she no longer looks like a cheap hooker.
 * Check Point Starvation: Although it isn't much longer than the average dungeon, the Desert Lab doesn't have any healing machines or PC's halfway through to make the trip easier. But at least your enemy encounters don't respawn.
 * The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: When you use an item in battle, it takes effect immediately, before the AI selects its own moves, even. This means that when you use an item to cure a status effect (such as Poison or Confusion), the AI can re-afflict your Pokemon with that status on the same turn.
 * Cool Bike: Wes' hoverbike monstrosity is his primary mode of transportation. The laws of physics say that that thing shouldn't be able to move, but of course the Rule of Cool trumps this.
 * Cool Sidecar: During the first two trips, the side car has Espeon and Umbreon in it, with both of them sticking their heads out the top into the wind like real-world dogs.
 * Curb Stomp Battle: Eagun attempts to fight a Cipher minion with his high-level Pikachu, to no avail.
 * Dark Reprise:
 * Disc One Nuke: You start with Espeon in Colosseum, which begins with Return (and maximum happiness), and the STAB boosted Confusion. Umbreon, on the other hand, is a defensive tank in a game where tanking is awful thanks to the 2v2 format.
 * The Dog Was the Mastermind: See The Reveal below.
 * Elite Mooks: Cipher Peon Skrub, who is battled three times and is given a leadership role in relation to his fellow peons during the first two.
 * Endgame Plus: After beating the game, Wes starts receiving email from the Kids' Grid members hinting about where to find more Shadow Pokemon, including the old Team Snagem hideout which he blew up during the opening movie. On the other hand, nobody acknowledges the defeat and arrest of Team Cipher's leaders, and the player may return to Realgam Tower Colosseum to challenge the final battles again.
 * Fashionable Asymmetry: Wes and his trench coat/snag machine combo.
 * Guide Dang It: To fight Mirakle B. (a recolored peon with a unique battle music), go to where Miror B. was after the player defeats Dakim, but before the final boss. A bit of an Easter Egg.
 * There's also how to get Ho-oh in Colosseum, which is never hinted at anywhere in the game, as well as a huge slog through 100 consecutive battles (fortunately, you're allowed to save between them). The kicker? If you're not using Pokémon off of your Colosseum file, you won't get Ho-oh.
 * Of course, that doesn't mean you can't trade your good GBA Pokemon to the Colosseum file and use them.
 * Inevitable Tournament: Want to get into Miror B.'s hideout? Go win the Pyrite Colosseum challenge first so they can reward you with a Shadow Pokémon.
 * Joke Character: The Plusle you get in Colosseum, which starts off as horribly below everything else in the game in terms of levels. And if you're only playing the game for Hundred-Percent Completion in Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, it's even more worthless to you.
 * Knight of Cerebus: Taken to extremes - the game itself was the start of Pokemon's hard descent into Darker and Edgier territory throughout all continuities!
 * Lost Forever: Remember that room where you first fought Miror B.? If you trek back there before beating the game you can fight a wannabe Loony Fan, Mirakle B., who battles with a funky rearrangement of B's Battle Theme Music.
 * Morality Chain: Rui, kind of. She won't allow Wes to use the Snag Machine on anything but Shadow Pokemon.
 * Morality Pet: Wes's Espeon (and possibly Umbreon) starts with max happiness, as if to assure the player Wes cares for his Pokémon, despite his stats as an ex-Snagem member.
 * Mythology Gag: Rui's grandfather.
 * Never Trust a Trailer: An early Nintendo Power ad made out Wes to be an outright villain.
 * Non-Elemental: Shadow Rush (90 power, incurs recoil) is completely exempt from elemental matchups.
 * The Not Love Interest: Despite the fact that Wes saved Rui from kidnapping, their relationship doesn't seem to be romantic.
 * Though it's hard to tell when one of the pair doesn't speak at all.
 * Outlaw Town: Pyrite Town
 * Platonic Life Partners: Wes and Rui... probably. Rui doesn't seem to speak of him romantically, and Wes doesn't speak at all, so they seem to be this way.
 * Quieter Than Silence: When you battle Nascour, there is no battle music whatsoever, only the distant sound of the crowd.
 * The Reveal: He's the Big Bad.
 * Save Game Limits: You have only one save "file" ... per memory card, at least. The file is also locked to the card it was created on; you can't copy it off to a different card.
 * Save Point: The PC's normally used for Pokemon/item storage also save your game.
 * Slasher Smile: A rare good example comes from the protagonist as he roars off from the destroyed Snagem base.
 * Space Western: Well, futuristic western. The game makes use of western style archetypes (vigilantes against town controlling gangs), setting (crime ridden desert with little to nothing between the mostly independent towns that only have a state and federal government above the local law in theory) and music (there is a shocking amount of harmonica in the tracks, sometimes using underneath a techno and piano combination, which works shockingly well.)
 * Spikes Of Anti-Heroics: As if Wes doesn't look Badass enough, he has these around his ankles.
 * Those Two Bad Guys: Trudly and Folly.
 * Those Two Bad Girls: Reath and Ferma.
 * Wake Up Call Boss / Early Bird Boss: Miror B. in Colosseum is this due to the fact that you can't level up any Snagged Pokémon yet, and you have precious few moves that are effective against his team. At least his battle theme is a Crowning Music of Awesome.
 * What Could Have Been: This is likely based on an aborted 64DD game, Pokémon RPG.
 * White-Haired Pretty Boy: Wes. Well, it's kind of grayish-white. But he certainly fits the trope.
 * Nascour fits the trope better, and his hair is more blueish than white. Though some may argue he's more creepy than pretty.

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Tropes used in XD:

 * Bag of Spilling: While the player character is separate between the two games, a few returning NPCs have had their levels fall hard. Miror B. in XD no longer possesses his trademark Ludicolo quartet and is nowhere near the level seen in his endgame appearance in Colosseum. The same is true for various other Trainers fought (as XD starts with Level 10 opponents instead of 25/26). Eagun's Pikachu takes the largest hit, as in Colosseum it was Lv.50, but in XD it's only Lv.12 (and it's actually implied to be the same Pikachu).
 * Cool Ship: Robo-Kyogre
 * Curb Stomp Battle: During your first trip into Gateon port, Michael's little sister bumps into a thug, Zook. They're saved by one of Mr. Verich's bodyguards, whose Lv.40 Alakazam wipes the floor with Zook's Shadow Zangoose.
 * Dangerously Genre Savvy: Cipher Peon Kleef in XD is fairly pathetic (only 3 Pokémon with no Shadow Pokémon, and two of them are pure tanks with no real offense to speak of) in a straight up fight, but he is the only member of Cipher with the brains to attack you when you have just finished a (fairly hardish) boss fight with no healing machine in sight.
 * When Cipher takes back their stolen data disk during their raid on ONBS, they also make sure to Luckily Nett remembers one of the key parts, and Michael is able to discover the rest on their own.
 * Defeat Means Friendship: Lovrina, Snattle and Gorigan all come to respect you when you defeat them in the post-game colosseum. Ardos, however, gives you a death threat. What a douche.
 * Difficulty Spike: Shadow Lugia and 3 of the final boss's Shadow Pokémon of XD have catch rates of 3 (out of 255) while, with the exception of a Shadow Snorlax and Chansey (which are still 30, or 3.9% with no damage and a default ball), everything else has catch rates that can easily be gotten to the twenties (sleep + Ultra/Net ball)
 * Disappeared Dad: The player's "late" dad, who is explicitly said to be dead ("passed away").
 * Emoticon: Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness.
 * Even Evil Has Loved Ones:  He may be  but he still cares for his sons.
 * Even Evil Has Standards: Subverted. Dr. Krane gives Naps, Lovrina's number two, an earful about the misdeeds he's committing with Cipher. Naps acknowledges that it's evil, but nowhere near enough to quit his day job. Apparently, Poochyena soccer is the bare minimum to remain employed in his line of work.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: Silva assures XD's player character that he was not saying that he likes to wear woman's clothing.
 * There is a woman in the first area that says she sleeps with her Pokémon. She's standing next to a Kirlia.
 * Goggles Do Nothing: Gorigan has two pairs. One he wears as intended, the other he wears on his neck.
 * Gosh Dang It to Heck: Two scientists who have designed a method for serial abuse of Pokémon use "gosh" and "Gadzooks" in XD.
 * Infinity+1 Element: Shadow moves are not effective against other Shadow Pokemon, but super-effective against everything else.
 * Lighter and Softer: Orre is cleaned up in XD (but it is still fairly dark, particularly at the beginning and at the end), more grass and trees are growing, water is spreading, there seems to be more Pokemon League presence in the region, while one Wretched Hive is shut down and the other has a now clean white building in it whose inhabitants are dedicated to being helpful. The game makes it pretty clear that Wes shook up the region's status quo pretty good.
 * Lost Forever: Picking the wrong questions in an interview (You have to answer all completely truthfully) will make the Amulet Coin inaccessible without trading (you instead get a much less useful item that can be found elsewhere) and evolving the Shadow Togepi will make the special Elekid you can trade it for a plain old Elekid.
 * Subverted with the Shadow Pokemon themselves -- you may only have one or two chances to Snag a given one, but you can track down Miror B. later on, who will have whatever Shadow Pokemon you missed out on.
 * Meaningful Name: In Japanese, the hero is Ryu: "to kill". In English, he's Michael: "who is like God?". His other default English names are Adam and David.
 * Also Greevil. He's greEVIL.
 * Mister Big: Greevil.
 * Overlord, Jr.: Ardos and Eldes.
 * Nerd Glasses: Chobin wears the spiral variety, and is also Blind Without'Em.
 * Never Say "Die":
 * Nintendo Hard: Unless you trade over Pokémon, Orre Colosseum.
 * Colosseum's story mode is a huge Difficulty Spike compared to the rest of the series, because of the small pool of available pokemon and the fact that rather than sticking to one type like the Gym Leaders and Elite 4 or other games, bosses use legitimate--and often very effective--strategies which can easily decimate your party.
 * Obfuscating Stupidity: Some bimbo doesn't get a job as an Admin in the lab coincidentally. Lovrina must be one crazy scientist, especially if she claims to have made XD001 unpurifiable. She just pretends to be a Valley Girl so people underestimate her ginormous brain.
 * Opaque Lenses: Greevil's glasses..
 * Percent Damage Attack: The Shadow move "Shadow Half" reduces all combatants' HP by 50% -- friends and foes all included. It also requires an additional turn to recharge after use.
 * A Protagonist Is Ryu: Subverted by Michael in Japanese - it's not "dragon", it's "to kill".
 * The Psycho Rangers: The Hexagon brothers.
 * Quirky Miniboss Squad: The Hexagon Brothers.
 * Redheaded Hero: Michael.
 * Saharan Shipwreck: When the Libra is discovered. Apparently XD 001 dropped it by accident.
 * Sequel Hook:
 * Shotacon: A surprising number of female grunts flirt with the main character of XD (who, unlike Wes, is underage).
 * Slasher Smile:
 * Sleazy Politician: Snattle's dreams of governorship over Orre were all-consuming for him - so much so that he joined with Cipher to achieve it... and stayed onboard because Evil Feels Good.
 * Start My Own: Miror B. is no longer a Cipher admin but has started his own evil organization, which consists of ... him and his two minions.
 * Status Buff Dispel: Aside from the series's existing "Haze" move, the Shadow move "Shadow Shed" instantly dispels barriers like Reflect and Light Screen from the opposing party.
 * A Taste of Power: Right after the introductory cutscene you're treated to a battle with a Level 50 Salamence against an NPC's Lv.50 Metagross. It's only a simulation, however -- your real starter Pokemon is a level 10 Eevee.
 * Third Person Person: Jovi and Chobin both speak like this.
 * Those Two Bad Guys: Trudly and Folly return in this role.