- JP release: 14th December 2000
- NA release: 26th March 2001
- EU release: 10th October 2001
- Developer: Nintendo
- Publisher: Nintendo
- N64 Magazine Score: 90%
Pokémon Stadium 2 is, once again, a great companion piece for the handheld games, this time for Pokémon Gold & Silver. All the Pokémon are lovingly rendered and animated in 3D, with some great tough challenges to take your ultimate squad through. Stadium 2 takes this one step further with the Pokémon Academy, which teaches you how to be better at the main games. For people who liked the handheld games, Stadium is a wonderful thing to dip into as you work your way through Gold & Silver.
There’s a bunch of new minigames, which are all decent. I quite like the Beyblade minigame, as well as the Furret minigame where you franticly use the D-pad to move balls into your goal. There’s also a quiz with a few difficulty levels. The easy is more about how fast you can be with simple questions, while hard goes in for technical details like asking you the weight of Doduo. All the organising features also return, making this a wonderful companion – it’s just a shame that it suffers the same rental Pokémon issue for those that just want a standalone game.
Fun
If you’re looking for something to give your pokémuscles a thorough workout, you need to look no further. There’s more than enough challenging scrappage in the game to while away those long winter nights. Battle long and hard enough throughout the various modes and minigames (and do a spot of trading) and you’ll be rewarded with a series of goodies to put onto your Game Boy game if you leave it plugged in.
Alan Maddrell, NCG Magazine #60
Remake or remaster?
You don’t really need companion pieces to Pokémon games now that there’s no console separation. Although a repackage of the various Pokémon Stadium games with better compatibility with currently available, or just greater options for selecting Pokémon would be good.
Official Ways to get the game
There is no way to buy a new copy of Pokémon Stadium 2, the only official way to play is to rent it via the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pak. It should also be noted that it has no Game Boy compatibility, so you’re stuck with the rental Pokémon.
Europe
Japan
North America
N64 Games by Date
1997: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
1998: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
1999: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2000: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
Pokemon Stadium 2 (or 3, if you live in Japan), is an excellent expansion pack to Pokemon G/S/C. But without that Transfer Pak support? It really is utterly crippled as a standalone purchase.
Luckily the minigames are all top-shelf, making it a worthwhile multiplayer party game on NSO, but without the ability to transfer your ‘mons back and forth between the GB games? You lose about 90% of its intended use. Real shame, because it compliments those GB games real nicely; and it was an absolute must-buy for fans of the GB games back in the day.
I had Pokémon Stadium 2 back in the day.
Really cool minigames (Mr.Mime’s is absolutely fantastic), incredibly challenging Gym Leaders (PS1 had some bullshit difficulty, but PS2 had some brutal, calculated difficulty, with well-thought teams), the fun Challenge Cup (where rental Pokémon were randomly assigned to you), and it even allowed me to use Mystery Gift on the N64 itself! For a kid like me without Game Boy Colour (the device’s infrared reader was required to activate Mystery Gift), that was a heck of a cool feature.
But now, the only reason I ever booted it up on the NSO was to play some minigames. Who knows, maybe some day I’ll get the itch to re-engage with the battle system, but it’s hard to tell.