"There are no wild Pokémon in Colosseum, no matter how hard you search."
The plot of Colosseum isn't like the central games of Pokémon, oh no, it follows a different story. You see, there is an organisation in a new region (called Orre) which goes by the name of "Cipher" and their goal is to close the hearts of Pokémon by making them into "Shadow Pokémon", violent Pokémon that'll attack other trainers without any kind of mercy. While this is happening, another team, called "Team Snagem" is hell bent on stealing every Pokémon in their radius with a machine they invented – the Snag Machine. However, your character (who is called Wes, but can be named by the player) is a part of Team Snagem, and steals the Snag Machine for himself (by bombing the Snagem base). They must've been feeling a lot of irony at that moment, eh?
Along the way, you'll meet a girl that has been kidnapped by Cipher, who is called Rui. Rui is a remarkable ability to see into the hearts of Pokémon, and detected whether if they're Shadow Pokémon or not. "What must you do with these Shadow Pokémon?" you may ask. Well, you can't detect Shadow Pokémon without Rui and Rui can't steal them because she isn't a trainer. Yeah, you know where this is leading – the Snag Machine. You must steal the Shadow Pokémon from their trainers in order to purify them, but to purify, it gets more complicated, but that will be explained later on.
The first thing you'll realise with Colosseum, is that you're starters are in their mid-20's. This doesn't really create a problem, but you know it's going to feel weird. Another thing you may notice is that there are no wild Pokémon in Colosseum, no matter how hard you search. This uncomfortable vibe is very eerie, as you will miss going into a cave with Zubat's annoying you at every turn or going into some grass and waiting until Sentret's bore you with their dramatically low levels, but it's just a sense that you'll miss (and not have at all) in Colosseum.
But, can that be excused? Yes, it can – just look at the game. It looks beautiful, and Pokémon Colosseum was the best looking Pokémon game during its year. Sure, it's graphical presentation may not look good compared to Pokémon Battle Revolution, but this is what the fans wanted – a full-on Pokémon RPG game, and this is what they got. The Pokémon, the characters and the cities, but not every city is colourful and full of life. Pokémon Colosseum gives us depressing areas, and makes you wonder if you're playing the same game.
The music is superb, but there is one thing that could've been done better – the noises of the Pokémon. Having their original calls is cool and well respected, but… Why? In consoles, we have well surpassed using sounds from the original games. They also sound very soft, and are consumed by the games music within an instant. Maybe if they could be altered, it would've been good, but it never happened and probably won't happen ever.
One of the interesting facts about Colosseum is that you can use the GBA-GameCube cable to connect up to your GameCube and battle your friend in the game, or battle the Colosseum file. Is this any use? Well, it may look pretty, but, no, it's absurdly useless. You can, however, trade Pokémon, which works well since back then, you couldn't really get the three Legendary Dogs, Ho-oh or the Johto starters, so Colosseum could easily become of those Pokémon games that have no purpose but to supply your handheld titles with Pokémon that would've been far more difficult to get without cheating.
Purifying Pokémon is usually a long, painful task that you must do. To purify a Pokémon, you must use it in battle enough to make it's heart open. If it's gone into it's "Hyper" mode, call it and it's heart will open more. If you don't wish to use it in battle, but want it to hoard loads of experience, put it anywhere in your party and give it an Exp Share. So, when it's purified, it can go up quite a lot of levels. You may also come across and item called a "Time Flute" which is used to summon Celebi and instantly purify your Pokémon if you're truly lazy to do it another way.
Along the way, you'll participate in tournaments held in colosseums and do various other stuff, but you have to ask yourself – Is this the perfect Pokémon console game we've been waiting for? Well, not exactly, but it's closer than all the other console Pokémon titles released. Dust off your GameCube, your Game Boy Advance and the GBA-GameCube cable – there's some Pokémon to be played.