Nintendo Expands Switch 2's GameCube Library This Week

My most anticipated title has finally arrived!

I wonder if anyone here will comment on their confusion of this being released before colosseum.

Wanted the original GC game but within a year of release it had already rebounded to it's original price for a second hand copy.

From there it hovered around £50-60 for a couple of years before getting more and more expensive/scarce.

Currently fetches £200 on eBay which is nuts.

I really don't understand putting out XD first. It's not only the 2nd game in the series, but its the better game of the 2. It is kinda like if they re-released Black and White 2 before the original, or if they re-release Majora's Mask before Ocarina of Time. (I realized when writing this that Majora's Mask is the better game as well, I have no strong opinions about which 5th gen game is better so that was entirely a coincidence)

@daftmagician Your post appeared as I was writing about it so...

@kkslider5552000 The Zelda game that puts the exploration (the most important element of any Zelda) on a timer that hinders you from really exploring is the better of the two? Yeah no.

To your overall point yeah, releasing a sequel first is always weird but I contest the idea of MM being better than OoT.

It's a sin that it can't interface with the FRLG releases for trading and battling.

Talk about mixed emotions lol. Split between "OMG MY CHILDHOOD FAVORITE GAMECUBE GAME IS FINALLY ON A MODERN PLATFORM HOW IS THIS REAL I CAN'T WAIT TO PLAY IT!!1!" and simultaneously not actually playing it yet because I want to replay Colosseum first. So for now it's just gonna stare back at me mockingly on the GCN player whenever I open it. :-/

The only explanation for releasing XD before Colosseum is that they wanted to make a better first impression of the Gamecube Pokémon games for people who never played them (considering how it's a direct improvement over its predecessor in almost all aspects), and then some time from now go "oh, and this is the one that came before".

Nintendo’s killing it imo with its frequent game releases, NS classics releases and technical improvements.

Can’t keep up.

Colloseum sold twice as much IIRC, so I suppose they are holding the game with more "nostalgic appeal" for later.

That leaves Pokemon Colosseum and Super Mario Sunshine among the remaining announced GameCube titles. I wonder which of these will come next?

I could complain about this game releasing before Pokemon Colosseum, but instead I feel like nagging Genius Sonority for a worthy remake or sequel.

@daftmagician
I hope this doesn’t mean they decided to quietly cancel Colosseum’s release.

@Don I think it'll be Sunshine in June and Colosseum in August.

To be honest....... because FireRed and LeafGreen are standalone apps that can trade with each other, I would have preferred XD Gale of Darkness and Colosseum to be their own apps too. But because they are part of NSO, they won't be compatible with FRLG for trading.

Okay but, should I wait to play this after they release Colosseum?

@Bolt_Strike Sorry but Majora's Mask is better than Ocarina in my opinion and it's not even close. There are more important things to Zelda than "exploration;" in fact I'd say that's only been of critical importance since BotW. The games before that were actually pretty linear (apart from Zelda 1 obvs)

I'm realizing that the acronym of this game's title is XD GoD which just sounds like a 12-year old's Fortnite gamertag.

@AussieMcBucket
It's tricky to say, it's a sequel to Colosseum's story but not really necessary to play in order for plot reasons. The problem with playing XD first is that it's better in nearly every way,* to the point where Colosseum might be a bit tough to get into afterwards. So it's your call really.

(*The exception being that the setting is utilized better in the first game. XD's vibes feel closer to a normal Pokémon game, Colosseum's darker tone feels like a fever dream at times. I think Colosseum's soundtrack is more memorable in places too but that's very subjective.)

@BrazillianCara Well, my opinion of XD releasing before Colosseum is because XD had more of an atmosphere of a regular Pokemon game. While Colosseum was somewhat darker, had a more sci-fi setting about it, and was overall more shonen in comparison to XD. (Plus the story Colosseum had was more of a crime story compared to XD and any of the Pokemon games actually.) Basically, they want to not confuse people who play the mainline Pokemon games and have never heard of the GameCube titles before nor anyone not as familiar with the brand: They want to make it clear the GameCube games are spin-offs.

I also think it's not that big of a deal that XD is releasing before Colosseum too since there's not any noteworthy story connections between the two games.

@Robot99 Oh geez, it sounds like maybe I had better wait. I've never played either of these games. Thanks for sharing that with me!

@Robot99 It's funny you mention Colo not being necessary to play XD, because my biggest memory of XD's story is the sheer amount of times you see "omg, this is like what happened 5 years ago in Colosseum, remember that??? wow..."

Can I enjoy this without having played Pokémon ROFLcopters: Hurricane of Lightness?

I was all over the mainline games of Pokemon back on the GBA, but never touched a Pokemon game on GameCube. So, I’m kinda looking forward to this.

I can't believe they didn't think of a way to make these compatible with Firered and Leafgreen though. But whatever.

I don't understand why they released FR/LG before R/S/E either given that we already have Kanto games on the Switch (and FR/LG originally released later), yet here we are again.

Just Coliseum and Sunshine to go before they’ve released all ten games announced at launch. And it will only take them a year to do. Likely one in April and the other in May.

As I'm sure most would agree would have preferred they add it to the eshop to buy it outright for $24.99.

@Don WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Party Game$!

History has shown that Wario cares not for schedules and plans.

@SillyG Why? Answer: Kanto sells more.

@CaptainQuo Yeah, the price increase on it is insane. Amazingly I managed to pick up a copy around Christmas time for £75 (complete with the manual too). I could have flipped it at that price, but I kept it for the collection.

It's a game I've kept meaning to check out but not really interested in doing so without a way of moving Pokemon to Home afterward, so while I'll likely check it out at some point it won't be NSO.

I still don’t get why they are releasing this one before Colosseum.

And to all the people saying this one is better, gameplay wise yes, but the story and atmosphere are better in Colosseum.

My biggest complaints with these re releases is the lack of connectivity with other games, they didn’t have to make them compatible with Home but at least with the re releases of FRLG and the inevitable RSE

I vaguely remember playing Colosseum and XD once each, and I enjoyed both at the time - even if they weren´t true console-versions of the beloved mainline Pokemon games.

But their lasting legacy to me is mostly in the Pokémon that I transferred from them to my GameBoy-collection. My living Pokédex on Pokemon HOME has several monsters that go back to these games - such as the Umbreon and Espeon that I got at the start of Colosseum. It's a shame these versions can´t interface with the rest of the Pokémon HOME ecosystem.

@kkslider5552000 Majoras Mask is one of the greatest games ever but it is NOT better than Ocarina of Time

@whmchrish i wasnt a pokemon kid growing up and always assumed these games were just like fighting games with pokemon but it looks like it has more exploration/story than that? in what ways is it not like a mainline pokemon game then?

those character models are ugly even by gamecube standards right?

Never played that one, will try it soon!

@pzadvance from fuzzy memory, the most obvious difference is how catching Pokémon work.

In mainline games, you roam the world and find wild pokemon to catch in tall grass, but in these games you have the ability to see a «dark aura» on other trainers monsters. These "shadow Pokèmon" are the only ones you can catch, and you only get that one chance mid-battle to do so.

Then they need to be purified in order to fully unlock, which is done by building friendship with them through battles (or just running around rubber-band-on-controller-style for a while).

The difference means you´re a bit more locked into what Pokèmon you get (since everyone just gets the pre-determined ones they manage to catch from scripted trainer-fights) and - to me at least - I felt a bit more... stress, I suppose, about not getting every monster I could. Made for some save-scumming when trainers challenged you back-to-back and you happened to knock out a catchable monster in one of the fights

There is a kind of random wild oasis-area unlocked late in Colusseum, if I remember correctly - but that had a pretty limited number of monsters available compared to what monsters existed - even back then.

@SeafTheFissh
Haha yeah, the game does do that a lot admittedly, but it doesn't mean as much as the game would like you to think. If you remove all of the instances of "this happened five years ago" the game should actually be perfectly legible. I think the only thing that would still be maybe slightly confusing is Miror B.

@wizzgamer : Hell, I'd have paid AU$90 for a physical double pack with this and Colosseum (similar to the Galaxy double pack). Bonus points if they'd have thrown in Battle Revolution as well.

But to merely rent it via NSO? Nah. I think I'll wait until I finally grab a handheld PC and play it there instead.

1080 snowboarding next!!!! (PLEASE)

@Robot99 I can see that, though I do think that, no matter what, a new player will get the distinct and unshakable feeling that this game is definitely a sequel.

@whmchrish The oasis zones aren't in Colosseum, they're in XD! And they unlock fairly early on, shortly after the first "dungeon".

@SeafTheFissh It's been quite a few years, so I must have mixed up some memories - thanks for the correction

Mirror b and his dancing pokemon are back along with groovy music.

Can't wait to use Bonsly in Battle Bingo again. It felt so awesome battling with a 4th gen Pokemon in a 3rd gen game back in the day.

It’s awesome that this game is getting put out - the original is a $250 video game. It’s a shame that they didn’t implement a way to use your Fire Red/Leaf Green Pokemon in it through some way to emulate the GBA connector cable, especially since they just put out FR/LG on the Switch, but maybe that’s asking too much.

Give us windwaker 4k instead please🙏

@Smithicus Majora's Mask is a better game than Ocarina of Time in a world in which future Zeldas and other games take and expand and at times improve upon Ocarina of Time, on top of adding one off strange ideas to it like Majora's Mask does.

Now if you tell me that no video game is better than Ocarina of Time was in 1998, I'd likely agree!

I got my GameCube with Colosseum because my much younger brother was into handheld Pokemon at the time. Never even knew about this or I would probably have gotten him it. (N64 and GameCube both had the lowest attach rates of any Nintendo systems for me. N64 because I needed US imports and GameCube because I just wasn’t really playing that many games at the time. Probably still about 15 though.)

I’m not expecting another update this month now.

@kkslider5552000 @Bolt_Strike The two are doing very different things and I think ultimately you can't really rank them against each other in that way, they both achieve what they set out to really well it's purely a case of what do you prefer. For me that's Ocarina, I too didn't like the timer stopping me exploring and making me start of over if I took too long for whatever reason. I also didn't super care for the darker tone, it felt at odds with the original overall to me. That being said, I 100% get why those very reasons would make MM the favourite for others.

Anyway Pokemon! I never played this one....don't know if it'll be worth going back to but I might if my backlog thins out a bit.

@cylemmulo a lot of them are ugly because they are reused models from N64

@SeafTheFissh as someone who only played XD, it took me years to find out that it was a sequel. I just thought about the instances of "5 years ago" of some kind of exposition. The story is fairly self contained.

@kkslider5552000 Majora's Mask is the better game. Never hurts to be reminded.