If you played Gold or Silver and enjoyed the battling, then Stadium 2 is great. Otherwise though, you may want to pass.
When you begin the game, Stadium 2 once again will bombard you with choices. 'Battle Now' gives you a set of Pokémon to battle with either a friend, or the computer; 'White City' is basically a revised version of the little hub from the first game, and offers more choices than ever; and event battle allows for two friends with Gold or Silver Game Paks to play with special rules.
Stadium 2 brings back the Free Battle, Gameboy Tower, Gym Leader Castle, Mini-Games, Oak's Lab, and the Stadium. Stadium 2 does come with a couple of additions though: the Pokémon Academy, and 'My Room.' 'My Room' is only accessible if you have a Gold or Silver cartridge inside the Transfer Pak, and it allows you to see your room from the in-game in 3D; you can also customize it here as well. The Pokémon Academy is where you learn the ins and outs of the competitive aspect of the games, and also see some base stats and capable moves that a Pokémon can learn.
The Stadium also gets a change of its own. It now consists of three returning cups with some changes, as well as a new cup. The Poké Cup makes its return with four ball divisions which rise dramatically in difficulty, Little Cup (formerly named the Petite Cup) remains its own division, and the Prime Cup has been converted into only one division instead of four. The four-division cup, however, is placed into the hands of the Challenge Cup. In the Challenge Cup, you are given a completely random team throughout the four ball divisions and have to triumph through the eight trainers with what is given to you.
The Gym Leader Castle gets a revamp to fit in the Johto leaders and the Gold and Silver Elite Four as well. More interesting things wait in the gym leader castle when you finish. The overall difficulty of the castle in this game is kind of mixed to me. I'm unsure whether I find it easier or harder than the one offered in the first Stadium. While some teams can be tricky, others can be flat out predictable and can easily be swept. The Elite Four and what follows after are a complete joke as long as you are prepared.
Mini-games return with a little more variety and uniqueness this time around. They feel a little more polished and more 'proper' than the ones that the original Stadium had to offer. As a little bonus, some mini-games offer you to use select Pokémon from your Game Pak (depends on the mini-game), which is overall pretty neat. I would really only recommend messing with the mini-games with friends however, as playing through them with computer players can become a real bore pretty fast.
The technical battling aspects of Stadium 2 are basically poured right out of Gold and Silver, which isn't a bad thing since that's what it's based around in the first place. The physical and special split will also be applied to your party if you're registering from a Blue, Red, or Yellow Game Pak, as you may expect.
The controls are entirely the same as well when it comes to everything but the mini-games. This should be expected though, as after all, it is a sequel and all of the Pokémon RPGs tend to keep their main control scheme throughout every new installment regardless of platform. This makes navigation fine, but I would still like to have been given the choice to use the control stick instead.
While Stadium 2 does not make much of an improvement on the technical visuals from the original Stadium, the game is still able to look good, even though the first generation models are basically imported straight from Stadium. I do like the added detail in the gyms however, given to make the game look a little more interesting on the technical side.
The game accomplished what you would ask from a Pokémon game based around Gold and Silver: a very nice representation of the region's art style that helps make it a fan favorite of the series. This is shown with White City as a whole, as it is aesthetically pleasing and can relate to a city in the Johto region of the Pokémon world pretty well.
While the music is mostly great, it still suffers from the problem that the first Stadium seemed to have had: the game uses multiple re-arrangements of the same tracks instead of mostly creating entirely new material. While it can be argued that it could change the overall feel of the game taking away the feeling of Gold and Silver, it would had been nice to hear some more unique tracks instead of some being arranged to what seems like a countless amount of times.
The Pokémon still sound like they do in the Gameboy games, but once again with much better clarity. While it's mostly the Kanto Pokémon that benefit from this, the Johto Pokémon also get some sort of a benefit as well, as sometimes the 8-Bit cries can get fairly annoying when you need to listen to them constantly.
If you liked the announcer from the first Stadium, then good news! He's back to commentate some more on your battles. For those who found him annoying and pointless however, you can still silence him in the options menu.
Your replay value with Stadium will often vary with how much you can tolerate battles consecutively. If you can make it through eight rounds of trainers and not get annoyed, then you will do just fine with wanting to move onto Round 2. For everyone else, you'll probably just end up starting over on your Gold Silver or Crystal before you even get to it.
While Stadium 2 does build on its predecessor on almost every possible aspect, it still has some returning problems as well as some newfound ones.
The first one I noticed is that the repetitive nature of the first game is still around. There isn't much of a reward for completing some cups so sometimes completing them can feel more so like a necessary evil than an encouragement to progress through the game.
Another I found is that unless you have Gold, Silver, or Crystal, the game's offerings feel rather shallow. Almost half of White City's offerings are basically eliminated entirely if you do not have a Game Pak to use for yourself.
The last one I found that was worth mentioning is that the rental sets are questionable. The evolutions of Pokémon will almost always have very weak moves while the pre-evolutions will get all the powerhouse moves that the final evolution will sometimes be known for. It can become an annoyance for those who do not have a Game Pak to play with.
Recommending Pokémon Stadium 2 this day and age is a little difficult, and regardless it can be answered by a few questions. Did you like the battling aspect of second gen? Does your Game Pak still work? Do you have a team that can be used for battles? If you say yes to either of those, then Stadium 2 just might be worth picking up. For everyone else, on the other hand, you might just want to stick with the RPGs primarily instead.
Rating
Presentation: 7.5/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Graphics: 7
Sound: 7
Replay: 8
Verdict: 7.5/10