I've been playing Pokemon Stadium again now that it's on Nintendo Switch Online, and it's funny now to think about how revolutionary it felt back then. This was the first time we ever saw full-motion, 3D versions of the original 151. To my nine year old eyes, it was the pinnacle of video game graphics. The Transfer Pak features that allowed you to bring your own Pokemon into the game and play Red and Blue on your TV were a technological marvel to young Pokemon fans. This was the Nintendo Switch of our day.
It's been a nice walk down memory lane, but it goes without saying Pokemon has moved considerably beyond what Pokemon Stadium has to offer. At the time it was a cinematic battle simulator, but it retrospect it feels pretty barebones for a full-priced game. There's no story mode, for example, and the four cups you can compete in only support teams of three.
It had some nice bonus features, but the actual battles aren't nearly as impressive as I remember. Each Pokemon stands still on its own side of the arena, even when it's attacking the other Pokemon. You hardly ever see the contenders in the same shot, and they never actually touch each other. The animations here are a lot flashier than the Pokemon battles in Red and Blue, but it doesn't have the energy or action you'd expect to see in a real Pokemon battle.
Some will take exception to this, but the Pokemon battles in Pokemon Stadium aren't that much different from the ones in Scarlet and Violet. The Pokemon are still lifeless, standing frozen on either side of the arena waiting for their turn to act. There's more camera movement and particle effects today than there were back then, but the action doesn't look any different. How hard is it to make a Pokemon actually tackle another one? Apparently it's impossible.
New Pokemon Snap does an incredible job updating and modernizing Pokemon Snap, and I think a New Pokemon Stadium could do the same. I want to see a leap in realism from Scarlet and Violet to a New Pokemon Stadium that matches the leap from Red and Blue to the original. Pokemon should move around and react to changes in the arena. They should run, jump, and try to dodge attacks the way they do in the anime. And when Pikachu uses Iron Tail on Slowpoke, I wanna see it slap that little hippo right in the mouth.
And don't tell me Pokken is the game I'm looking for either. There's a lot of great Pokemon battle action in Pokken, but Pokken battles are nothing like Pokemon battles. You would run out of PP in four seconds if you fought a real Pokemon battle like it was Pokken. I like watching Lucario drop flying elbows on Gengar, but I want to see the video game version of a Pokemon Battle from the anime.
I would be remiss not to mention everyone’s favorite part of Pokemon Stadium, so I’ll also bring up the potential new mini-games would have in a sequel. There’s nine mini-games in the original Pokemon Stadium and they’re all perfect. I still dream about how delicious the sushi looked in the Lickitung game, I get the Clefairy song stuck in my head all the time to this day, and I ruined friendships over the Rattata race. Everyone loved those mini-games, and 20 years later we still don’t have the Pokemon version of Mario Party? Make it make sense.
This is prime real estate for Bandai Namco, Koei Tecmo, or even Capcom. The roster would be limited by necessity, but I’d be happy with the original 151 again if that’s all we could get. With a focus on realistic battles and some fleshed-out mini-games, New Pokemon Stadium has game of the year written all over it.