Developer: Nintendo EAD Publisher: Nintendo

Released: March 6, 2000 Rated: E 8/10

I find that few games are as, for lack of a better term, “misremembered” as the Pokemon Stadium titles on the 64. I don’t say this as if to say that people never actually had a good time with it, or that the Pokemon hype oversold this particular release, but that what you get out of Pokemon Stadium isn’t really a game, at least not one that you can just pick back up a la carte and recreate the experience of the way you can with other classic titles on the N64. Pokemon Stadium, in a manner suggested by its original release in a big, sturdy box with multiple key components – is a toolbox. And a vital toolbox at that, but still, not a complete game experience in and of itself. It requires its companion accessory the Transfer Pak, which it was originally packaged with, and a copy of Pokemon Red, Blue, or Yellow, which you were a lot more likely to have on hand already back in 2000.

Boasting a variety of modes, mostly identified by their respective tournament formats, ladders, and locales, Pokemon Stadium is mostly a place to further invest time with your own beloved Pokemon that you’ve been carrying around, cultivating, and most importantly, training up for the past two years since the original Western debut of the original 151 monsters in their monochrome, 8-bit forms. Along with iconic artwork from Ken Sugimori and others to inform fans and trainers via guides, cards, and, of course, a smash hit anime, Pokemon Stadium serves its main purpose as the first attempt to fully realize Pokemon in a 3D, polygonal presentation that was probably one of the first things anybody and everybody obsessed with the franchise in those formative Generation I years probably wanted. And while it’s not the full adventure we would quite literally never get until the parallel lines of console and handheld converged and intertwined with the Nintendo Switch, it achieves its goal of giving players more to do with their Pokemon in a more impressive forum.

The primary sources of actual content in Pokemon Stadium are delivered through two unique sets of challenges – the titular Stadium, which features a selection of different cups to compete for against AI trainers, and the Gym Leader Castle, which is an even more grueling ladder format through the eight gyms, Elite Four, Champion, and finally Mewtwo. And the crux of these modes for trainers is not only to provide a brilliantly curated set of challenges for experienced trainers, but to encourage those players to do them with the fearsome teams of Pokemon they already have. Players can jump into any mode they like, including free battles against a friend, and select from a list of pre-set Pokemon that all have predetermined stats and movesets (both of which are intentionally lackluster), but your chances of success essentially require you to have a killer’s row of your own choosing to have any real shot, not to mention, actually enjoy the experience of seeing your battles play out more like you’ve imagined them in getting up to that point with the GameBoy titles. It’s for this reason as well that these various challenges actually reward you with somewhat tangible prizes – Pokemon that were originally one-time events or difficult choices in your existing save files, like Eevee, starters, and fossil Pokemon.

The rest of the package rounds out the toolbox more or less perfectly for what might have been expected way back in 2000. The 3D battling is the main attraction, but a slew of mini games still holds a place in many folks’ hearts, with some real bangers like Lickitung’s Sushi-Go-Round and Ekans’ Hoop Hurl being my personal faves. It’s no full complement like you’ll find in Mario Party, but the fact that each of the nine mini games has remained fairly iconic speaks to both a baseline of quality as well as the absolute fever of the franchise at the time. Oak’s Lab offers a Pokedex and some movement options for Pokemon on your GameBoy file, and the Victory Palace is a more fitting monument to one’s battling prowess than even a GameBoy Printer Hall of Fame readout. Perhaps most vital, however, is the GB Tower, a sort of spiritual Super GameBoy achieved via emulation where players can play their copies of Red, Blue, or Yellow right on their TV, and even do so at helpful double and triple speeds if they’ve managed to best some of Stadium’s most strenuous challenges.

Continuing Legacy

Though the erosion of any separation between 2D sprite-based adventure titles and polygonal 3D battling was finally achieved with the release of Pokemon X and Y in 2013, the intervening years between the N64 and the Nintendo 3DS (and now up to the Switch) would feature numerous titles offering more robust versions of tools, features, and concepts introduced with the Transfer Pak and Pokemon Stadium. Pokemon Crystal introduced the beloved Battle Tower, a similar concept to Stadium’s Cups and other challenges, and remained a popular feature in subsequent generations. Pokemon Colosseum and Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness introduced unique stories to the console-based titles, though the mainline series still lived on handhelds, of course. Storage and movement systems like Pokemon Box and Pokemon Bank would become important tools in the arsenals of expert trainers for their respective generations. And Pokemon: Battle Revolution on the Wii would bring the concept of the console arena for your Pokemon to a close with its release in 2008, amid the fourth generation of games. Pokemon Stadium can be played on the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pak, but without any way to utilize one’s own Pokemon instead of rentals, there’s little reason to start it up besides a quick round of Kids’ Club mini games. Here’s hoping the GameBoy originals can hit the service with some kind of integration into Stadium.

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