Collection essentials #423: Pokémon Stadium (N64)

The mainline Game Boy Pokémon titles were huge. And despite the vastly inferior hardware, it was clear that handheld systems would be the main home for the series. The games were perfect for portable play, and the Game Boy’s link cable let players trade and battle their Pokémon which were essential aspects of the series. And so, the next big and grand Pokémon adventure wasn’t going to be on the Nintendo 64 or any other home console. But was there a way Nintendo could make a major Pokémon console game that was more than just a spinoff like Pokémon Snap? Turns out, there sure was. 

The brilliance of Pokémon Stadium is that it functions sort of like additional content for the main Pokémon games. The game came bundled with the “Transfer Pak”, so players could insert their Pokémon Red, Blue or Yellow Game Boy cartridges into the Pak which plugs into their Nintendo 64 controller, and then use data from their Game Boy game on Stadium for the Nintendo 64. 

Pokémon Stadium doesn’t contain an adventure like the Game Boy titles. You never control a character who moves around freely. It is a game that is mostly centered around battling. There are a variety of challenges and tournaments to conquer. The game uses the same battle mechanics as the Game Boy games (with a few tweaks that the average player probably won’t notice), and the most enticing part is that you can use your own Pokémon that you caught and raised in the Game Boy games. If you don’t have a Game Boy cartridge to bring Pokémon from, there are a variety of “rental Pokémon” which can be used instead. 

As a Pokémon-crazed kid, you have no idea how amazing it was to have a game like this. The Pokémon Game Boy games were great, but ultimately the Pokémon were depicted using primitive 2D illustrations and sounds. This game lets your Pokémon come to life in a big way, in full 3D moving as if they were alive, and with enhanced audio. The game has a great presentation too, with a play-by-play announcer who makes the battles feel like a TV broadcast.

But there’s more appeal to Pokémon Stadium than just the novelty of 3D Pokémon. The battles are much better and more challenging than anything you’d play in the Game Boy titles. Why? Because the AI will actually try to battle like a real human being would. You see, in the original Pokémon games, computer-controlled opponents didn’t have much intelligence behind them. They would send out a Pokémon, 99% would not ever switch it out due to a bad matchup, and either pick moves randomly or based on a rather primitive criteria. That’s not the case at all in Pokémon Stadium. Enemy teams you face are usually much better-constructed to begin with, and the AI actually knows how to battle competently, usually knowing the smartest move to use and when it’s optimal to swap to a Pokémon who has a better matchup. 

Pokémon Stadium also provides a variety of wonderful non-battle features as well. If you have two Transfer Paks you can easily and conveniently trade Pokémon between cartridges. There are convenient ways to see all the Pokémon contained on a game cartridge and relevant information about them. You can even play the Game Boy games themselves on the big screen, and you’ll eventually unlock the ability to increase the game speed when playing the Game Boy titles which is super cool.

If you want a break from battling, this game also offers a series of fun mini-games featuring various Pokémon, and these are all meant for four players. Some of them are pretty simple, such as one when your Metapod and Kakuna must use “Harden” at just the right time when rocks fall on them, or the one where Magikarp must repeatedly jump high enough to hit a bump as often as it can. The most complicated one is one featuring Lickitung eating stuff, as there’s a variety of different foods to eat, with a very particular scoring system, each food being worth a different amount of points. 

Also included in the photo is a copy of the Japanese version. There’s merit in owning it too, as some of the tournaments are different. You may notice there is a “2” on the label, and that is because this is indeed technically the second Pokémon Stadium game. There was one before only in Japan with a rather limited set of features. I do own that one too, but I’ve never played it very much and it (for now) isn’t making my list. 

As you can imagine, Pokémon Stadium was right up my alley as a kid. When I first heard of fit, I actually didn’t properly understand what it was. I think I only saw screen shots and assumed it was some sort of action or fighting game, which I certainly wanted to exist. When I learned I was turn-based, though, I warmed up to it quickly. I remember the first time I played the game was at my sister’s friend’s house. I got the game for myself in the summer of 2000 if I’m not mistaken. My dad decided to surprise me with it. Us kids used to go out on the deck to shuck ears of corn before a meal, and my dad told us to go out there and put the game box in a bag instead of the corn, if I remember right. The cartridge shown in the photo is my original, as you can see my name on it, and the torn-up instruction manual is too, but not the box. At the point when I got it, I had been borrowing my cousins’ Game Boy and Pokémon Blue, so I initially used the Pokémon from that. And then not long later I got my own Pokémon Yellow and then Red and raised my own Pokémon to take on Stadium with. I played the game to absolute death. It’s a very obvious essential that any fan of old-school Pokémon ought to own.