At the end of the century, Pokémania invaded every schoolyard with lo-fi ultra-compressed roars from the children's GameBoys. Naturally, every enthusiast had been waiting for the inevitable console release that is on many pipe dreams. While we got Pokémon Snap first, we still wanted something that would get us to feel the excitement of the battles. Pokémon Stadium delivers exactly that. The problem is, it is JUST exactly that.

Pokémon Stadium is not a bad game by all means, it merely worked primarily more of a companion accessory for the GameBoy releases to bring your team from the compact unlit pixelated display to the big 4:3 screen, spiced up with voice acting that would be announcing the events of the fight like a major sports event. All this is good and well, but then again this does not make it a full Pokémon experience, including the lack of wild creature catching and a fully written story.

All this said and done it does not mean Pokémon Stadium is not worth your time, it is a fancy experience with an embedded campaign mode and even 4-player mini games that actually make a hell of a fun party experience.

It may not have been exactly what we were all waiting for back then, but it is still a one-hit-KO.