Pokemon Colosseum offers a excellent change of pace for the series, but with some problems
So the story is that a traitor of the Team Snagem, blows up the hideout and steals the Snag Machine, which allows the user to take a trainer's pokemon. After awhile, you'll rescue a girl who was kidnapped by a sinister organization. After rescuing her, you find out she can see these so-called "Shadow pokemon." These pokemon are evil and can attack trainers. These are the only pokemon you can catch but there are plenty of them. Before you can actually use these guys you have to purify them by opening the door to their hearts, which basically means battle. Even though the story was pretty good, it was pretty short. Unlike past games, you could probably beat in under a week.
Most people may think that the gameplay is exactly the same, but it isn't. You can't choose starter pokemon, as you start with a Umbreon and Espeon. The game is also more adventuring and less battle, but there are plenty of battles to satisfy. Battles are pretty much the same except their always played in a double battle. Plus, as I said, you can only capture shadow pokemon. There aren't any wild pokemon to capture, and you can't capture regular pokemon from trainers. Also, you can only travel to different areas on your bike, so if I wanted to move from one city to a rural town, I'll have to find a opening away from the city, and that brings up the map. You'll have to unlock new areas as the game progresses by finding out new information from the dialogue, which is 30 percent of the game. Battle mode is as the title says, Battle Mode. You can import your pokemon from the story mode, or from Ruby/Sapphire. This probably the only time you can change up the battle formula, because you can choose to play a single, double, or multi battle. This mode was fun, but you'll spend most of your time adventuring, where there's more variety to the mix.
Sound is excellent, music was done perfectly, just wish that Nintendo put in some voices instead of just a scrolling text box. Graphics are great for Gamecube era. It really showed that the Gamecube can pull off some amazing graphics.
So Pokemon Colosseum, should you Buy, Rent, or Skip? I'd say buy, this is a great Pokemon game for anyone, because it has more elements that a normal Pokemon game has. Great for anyone.
Goods-Great graphics and sound, unique to the franchise, good story, breaks away from the normal Pokemon formula.
Bads-Short, Battle Mode is not all it's cracked up to be, only can snag Shadow pokemon