The Peak of Gen 3: Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness 

The biggest crime in video game history was making battle revolution just battles and not giving it the same storyline and rpg elements as XD/Colo. I miss shadow Pokémon and double battles

My favourite CD was the Shedninja one. It isn't hard, but it's hilarious: Your opponent has 6 shedninja, and you have one turn to beat all of them, so you have to use spikes or sandstorm (don't recall), then Roar the first two away to make each Shedninja be instantly wiped out. Such a specific niche, but man is it funny to see a 1-turn wipe.

Miror B. dominates the field with his giga-Chad energy.

I still have the disc for this game all these years later. I spent a lot of time on this game as a kid and felt like it was an underrated game. I still feel that way and it has battle graphics that aged well.

I still jam to the mirror b theme from this game frequently all these years later. The Next Generations romhack for XD makes it even better as well, 11/10

I used to think that Wes was Michael's father, and the mother was a grown up Rui. Granted, I never played the original colusseum, only saw snippets of others playing it.

RIP Genious Sonority, instead of just dying, they're doomed to a future of mobile puzzle games. Least they're getting more work, that's a small win at least.

It's crazy that this games battle animations are better than gen 9's lol

On the topic of Battle SIMs, I'm suddenly reminded of Pokéstar Studios from BW2. Many of the battles feature custom opponents specifically tailored to the preset Pokémon you're given. Obviously it's not as complex as the double battle strategies you have to account for in the SIMs, but they're definitely the closest thing to a puzzle battle experience since XD.

This is the perfect distraction from watching my favorite competitive gaming scene catch fire today.

Another fun tidbit about XD is the sneak peek of Gen 4 with the inclusion of Munchlax and Bonsly. And I swear, both of them seemed to have the goal of pissing the player off. Bonsly has a whole un skippable segment in the story where you have to chase it around a shipwreck and try to trap it and Munchlax occasionally pops up eating the lures set out for wild Pokemon. And you cant catch it, it just takes off. So you have to set another lure and hope Munchlax doesn't pop up, and you wasted a huge amount of time going out there and back because you only have a small amount of time to get out there before the wild Pokemon flees. I know that it's meant to be a preview for Diamond and Pearl, but I cant help but love the foreshadowing for how slow and frustrating Diamond and Pearl are.

In this game (Colosseum too) Timer Ball is stupidly broken. Each attack counts as a turn, and since it is always double battle, it was very easy to get x3 or x4 ratio. Definitely stronger than using Ultra Ball which has x2 ratio.

Battle simulators are absolutely one of my favorite concepts in video games. Yu-gi-oh championship edition 2005 (I think it was called) had these things called “duel puzzles” which were basically the same thing, rigged draws and all. You could even make your own! I didn’t figure out how to play as a little kid so I never beat them, but the battle simulator did bring back some fond-ish memories of at least trying them.

Definitely needed this after Tamashii Hiroka's awful video bashing Colosseum. Jesus!

Even after all these years i'm still disappointed they got rid of The Under in XD. Loved that place so much, not to mention the theme of The Under still goes hard to this day almost 20 years later.

Funny how shadow Pokémon aren't just a thing of the past anymore but now an established part of Pokémon Go

Honestly, for me, two mainstays were Houndoom and Delcatty as a pair. Those two just _tore apart_ most things that stood in their way.

In Pokemon white 2 and black 2 the battle CDs do make return as pokestudios. Basically, you take on challenges following a script and figuring out how to win a certain way. How you win can affect the ending of a movie and give you some cool results.

This is what I thought the future of pokemon was going to be as a child. Safe to say I no longer expect anything

I think a return to Orre would be fun. Even had my own idea that'd also bring in new Pokemon and regional forms. Basically, Orre would have its own Grand Underground discovered with said new Pokemon and regional forms within it. Such a discovery leads to what can be described as a Gold Rush in information with people from several regions visit Orre and making the region become more developed with the side-effect of overwhelming the crime scene through sheer numbers alone, especially since many powerful trainers would be among those coming to Orre. Could imagine navigating the Grand Underground as a way to get from town to town. Maybe the equivalent to Galar's Flying Taxi could be done by a Psychic Pokemon using Teleport. Plus, there's also the idea of Orre's characters returning being a given. Maybe the title of champion is shared by either Wes and Rui or Michael and Lily as you face the either pair in a double battle, fitting since Colosseum and XD: Gale of Darkness were focused on Double Battles.

(Around 15:20) First time I saw the "Ultra Lusimune" fight in SuMo I immediately thought of Robo-Groudon...

I still have my Psychoboost Lugia from this game sitting in pkm home, mad that the move isn't actually in the newer games at all so I'd be forced to delete it if I transferred

Seriously thank you for covering these dude, these games have some of the best gameplay and story/vibes of the whole series. Thank you for bringing this too light for anyone to enjoy. Not only is it massively good nostalgia but it had genuine bangers throughout the game whether it be battles, music or story elements loved both of the 2

This is why Gen 3 is my eyes was the best Generation sure the move special and physical levels were wacky but the Pokémon, regions, Music, and characters were epic and awesome I love that generation dearly to heart. I wish nowadays they would seriously look at games like Collosuem and Gale of Darkness and learn from them.

It’s so funny because every time I’m watching a cutscene because how good they are, until a Pokemon appears on screen I forget the franchise I’m playing

Yes! This was my first Pokémon game, and I have the fondest memories of it! I no longer have the game, but I still have my save on my memory card. Hopefully, I can still transfer all my original Pokémon from there one day.

I remember this era well and it really was Pokemon's golden age before Game Freak succumbed to greed. I continue to wish shadow pokemon would come back in a new game as having to snag them in double battles opened a whole new level of challenge to catching them all and that is not even mentioning how XD and Coliseum would teach you about meta strategies through the single player campaign which was soooo ahead of its time and still is today unfortunately.

I remember this game. It was a hand-me-down from my cousins. Surprisingly enough, the two pokémon that became the most OP in my team didn't include eevee, rather houndour and spheal I caught from some guys in the early part of the game. I also remember having no idea how to purify dark lugia, thank god for internet. Also, robot guy with creepy mansion was cool too.

One thing that I'm upset didn't get mentioned is that Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness was the first spinoff Pokemon games that were released along the way to the release of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl on the Nintendo DS. The next were Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team and Blue Rescue Team (Red Rescue Team was the last Pokemon game on the Game Boy Advance, Blue Rescue Team being the first Nintendo DS Pokemon game), Pokemon Ranger, and Pokemon Trozei.

Genus Sonority really needs to develop another Pokémon game. I know the devs are still working with TPC since some worked on Cafe, but we really need another Colosseum-like entry again. Hell, have them work on a main line entry! Also, wasn't Wes originally going to return as the main antagonist?

*Oh my god...* For those who know these Battle CDs that I'm just learning of are basically like Duel Puzzles from Yugioh. I can't believe the possibility of something like that for Pokemon never crossed my mind. I love it.

This game looks better than all Pokemon games on switch

just finished this game yesterday, love it, even the little graphics improvement in characters models compared to colosseum. That last battle was quite hard, wasn't prepared at all but shadow Lugia was the mvp accidentally because I was playing with a 5 mons party waiting for that dragonite (didn't know it was a post game exclusive) and Lugia resisting every move + having that shadow move that lower both opponents defense saved me

I played through this game once. Very entertaining. I made the final battle easier by leaving an open slot in my team so that I could use Shadow Lugia as a tank to soak up hits.

Loved the Stadium and Colosseum games including Gale of Darkness despite this game being the only one out of the 4 I never got or played. At least I can appreciate the efforts from the developer to put as much Pokemon Battle mechanics so people who want to play competitively can have ideas of how they want to develop their strategies. As soon as I played Stadium 2 on the N64, I found out about the weather mechanic and always had a Electric/Water combo for Rain Dance with Thunder and Powerful Water attacks. As well as Grass/Fire combo for Sunny Day with 1 turn Solar Beam with powerful Fire attacks. Double Battles especially in Colosseum was the reason why I put loads of thought behind my weather tactics.

Nice, time to grab a coffee.

I still have this disk. Helped me finish a few dex back in the day. I know I particularly liked the purification mechanic and trying to find the best loop to get that catchy song going full blast.

For the love of god, we need a new Orre game…Or at least Orre representation in Masters.

The animations and Pokemon look better in this than in scarlet and violet🤣

in case it hasn't already been mentioned yet, but shadow pokemon resisting shadow moves in the lategame is really useful if you pick up the optional leftovers + shadow snorlax holding leftovers itself, you can kinda just sit on the last boss fights with snorlax + salamence for example both holding the leftovers while spamming pokeballs, makes the kanto birds a lot more reasonable to catch when they can't really damage you

Need these games on switch tbh

Pokémon XD will be always my fav one!! I love the slightly darker theme and the music is just og

I truly wish they would work on a third part to this game that shows both protagonists a little grown up. Improved mechanics, more wild Pokémon, and being able to re-battle everyone, along with more open-world would be absolutely amazing.

12:27 I already loved Ludicolo as a pokémon, so when miror b showed up with a team full of them, it was an instant S tier character for me =))))

There is an optional Chobin fight if you go to komiko’s lab after gaton port but before you go back home with Michel’s sister where he has both sunkern and magikarp

I have an idea for a proper sequel to Pokemon XD. A Pokken Tournament game that takes place in Orre years after Gale of Darkness. The battle format would just like the first Pokken. Every Pokemon can be a fighter or support Pokemon because it would be an RPG. There would be Colosseum battles, Mt. Battle and Shadow Pokemon. All of the characters from Tekken 8 would appear as trainers in keeping with the spirit of Pokken being Pokemon with gameplay elements from Tekken. The story would connect the world of Pokemon to the world of Tekken and take place after Tekken 8. Ardos would be the new leader of Cipher and have connections with the G Corporation. Eldes would join the Pokemon HQ Lab along with characters such as Jin Kazama, Lee Chaolin and Lars Alexandersson. The player character would be completely customizable. Of course, there would be new characters such as Cipher admins, G Corporation personnel and even Colosseum Leaders. The battle mode would be a Colosseum challenge, stages both old and new, Poke Coupons and online multiplayer with the same ranking system as the original Pokken. Finally, there would be a legitimate arcade mode that would be the sole method of playing an arcade version of the game. Arcade mode would have difficulty levels, secret battles and a set of Pokemon to choose from.

I doubt you’ll see this comment but I wanted to say I really enjoy your videos. I honestly have never enjoyed rpgs that much but I grew up watching my older brother and cousin play them so in a way watching your vids take me back to my childhood

if i recommend something about gale of darkness it is replayability wise a randomizer is one of the most fun and funniest things you can do. fighting a cipher grunt and watching him pull out a groudon and a sunkern and the shadow you get is the fricking sunkern is great. it also offers a lot of different team comp as well as sometime much harder fights with greater rewards in shadow pokemon. a shadow rayquaza is awesome but it hits so hard and is even harder to catch!

This game was my entire childhood, can't believe I still have my dumbass username from it

Hmm the plot in this Pokémon game seems more interesting than we’re having. And pokemon actions are unique to.

2:20 wtf i've never seen gulpin scream like this.. those Genius Sonority 3d models are filled with details

I love Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness, keep up the great work RPGmonger!

Also I never got that cutscene of micheal leaving behind the snag machine despite catching and purifying all of the pokemon, was there something I have to do to trigger it? Micheal still has it for me

Good times got this from Hollywood video for my 9th birthday. Had it for years until my brother gave it to a friend to play and they stole it. I just re purchased it about 2 years ago for about $230 CIB.

Highly recommend trying out Pokemon XG if you haven't, it adds so much content and modernizes a lot of the old stuff.

I wanna say something about Greevils Team. You said he has 6 Pokemon which are all Shadow, but actually he has 7 Pokemon when you think about it. They dont give you an Option to heal between the Lugia and Greevil fight and Lugia is obviously his Pokemon. So when you dont catch Lugia with a masterball, you actually fight 7 Pokemon which are all Shadow and 4 Of them are Legendarys. This fight is just GG xD.

Ok but fr, when the mech threw the poke ball I DIED

This was the first Pokemon game I ever beat when I was a kid.

did you know Team snagem backwards is megans meat

Still my favorite game till this day and forever will be

The closest thing to battle CDs I can think of are some of the more difficult challenges in Pokémon Masters EX. Admittedly, much of the challenge comes from the CPU Pokemon having way too much HP, but they do feature similar puzzle-ish strategies being needed to win.

Hey Monger, I just started a playthrough on Pokemon XD. What a game!

Greevil took me five tries, and even then I couldn’t catch his Zapdos. I immediately ran back to Citidark to go rematch him so I could get it lol

Competing all the battle cds I could get was great. I could never beat all the orre Colosseum battles to the end.

My only complaint is that we went back to being a kid again I would've loved to be a teenager again since we haven't gotten the chance to be one since coliseum

obiously cant forget mirror B, but i did forget that banger theme so thank you

Snatle looking like an Arceus acolyte

Sure wish they would remaster these for the switch....

It is sad gamefreak said they will not bring any spiritual successor to these games :C

Have you not considered you can just take Pokémon out of the purify Chamber once they're ready to be purified and lose no progress with them to put the new Shadow Pokémon in?

the crazy part is the battles here look equal or better than S/V and this game is old as hell

Where can I find the Pokemon XD romhack, btw?

I fucking love it when you play the music you are actually talking about 🔥

I think your Colosseum video spurred me to play through it. I'm fighting the urge to do the same here. I absolutely loved these games.

Yet another high quality video by Monger xD - V.D.

Puzzle battles like the Battle CDs need to come back in a modern Pokémon game. The closest we've gotten since is Pokéstar Studios in Pokémon Black 2 and White 2.

The ending reminds me of the movie star stuff in black and white 2

Supposedly Wes was going to be the big bad of Cypher in XD! The idea being his plan from the start was to engineer a battle with Evice and take his place. This idea was cut because of two reasons: 1) they thought it would be too dark and 2) it would ruin repeat playthroughs of colosseum and colosseum as a whole

If there's one thing I might criticize is that XD seems to have been released too early. It was literally just one year after Colosseum. I kind of wish they would have waited for the fourth gen. Imagine XD but it had Sinnoh pokemon. You can catch Shadow Lucario or Bronzong. I think that would be fun. And maybe it would have sold better since people had more time to really crave it.

I played this so much that my disk doesn't work anymore.

At the very least, Gen 9 doesn't give ALL of the Team Star grunts the same, limited pool across all members, but Grunts under a specific boss will use mon of a specific type (The Dark boss's grunts all use dark type mons). However, you only really face one grunt and one boss in a normal battle for the 5 bosses in the game. The subteams are all disorganized, but it makes sense with the theming of the game. But, yeah, I can understand if someone is disappointed with how you take out the 5 subteams compared to the older games (like knocking out Team Rocket's 2 bases of operation in Red/Blue)

Just downloaded this on my Mac. Never had a GameCube as a kid

We need one last game to wrap up Grand Master Greevil's involvement with Cipher. Ardos even refused to accept Cipher's defeat and that look on his face as he left definitely suggests plans of his own to revive Cipher again.

Still have this physical copy of the game, never could beat the last Orre Colloseum battle. I loved the CDs battles tho, very challenging

It's no big wonder I stayed behind in gen 3 to continue enjoying the glorious gamesn

"I don't like that he drives a motorcycle." "Honey, a vespa is NOT a motorcycle." -bojack horseman.

I havent bought a single pokemon game since they moved to Nintendo Switch due to the massive drop off in quality while demanding full retail price, its gonna take alot to win me back _But I'm just saying, if they bring _*_Mirror B_*_ back I'll put my money where my mouth is and preorder that bitch Day 1._

Welcome to Orre, Leg Day is illegal

Not gonna lie i clicked on the video only to say that is the most accurate title I've seen on any video

The fact these games run better than scarlet and violet speaks volumes lol😂. Imagine if 3D Pokémon had been built and improved along this engine that came out almost 20 years ago.

Double battles rule

His Zigzagoons are fully evolved either mid way into or at the end of Colosseum. You just had to go out of your way to do a rematch with Willie.

Gosh, gotta check this mod for the game =D

bro how did you get your golbat to evolve lol could not get it at all

16:26 LOVE this meme lol

Awh man, I played this and tried to catch every shadow pokemon when they appear and just missed the Primape >

Try playing the game with OCD. I just HAD to catch every shadow Pokemon with pokeballs respective to their color scheme. Yes, I had to suffer thru Articuno and Moltres for hours and hours...worth it. Also, I NEVER purified Shadow Lugia cuz Master Ball and cuz its design looked sick! I think SL was THE first official regional variant, sick.

I came across this for sale on ebay for like almost 300 bucks, so I had to learn about it lol

POKEMON XD SHOULD'VE HELPED PUSH POKEMON IN A BETTER DIRECTION!! But no, they instead just copy pasted nonstop for money lmao

shame they never made another game in the style of xd.