Coming this October is the sequel to last year’s Pokémon Colosseum. Expect more of the same from this game. Once again you’ll be taking the role of a young trainer who must snag Shadow Pokémon from their evil trainers and open up their hearts to return them to normal. Anyone who played Colosseum will know exactly what this is all about and will catch on quickly. For those who haven’t, Shadow Pokémon are Pokémon that have been corrupted to attack anything in a furious rage, trainers included. Your job is to steal (being politically correct, snag) them back and purify them to return them to normal. You do this by battling and calling them when they enter Hyper Mode. Odds are there will be items you can use to speed up this process just like there were in Colosseum. Rumor has it there are upwards of 80 to collect and purify. That’s almost double compared to the original.

The story revolves around a Shadow Lugia that is causing havoc in Orre. The game starts off with the evil Lugia hauling off a ship filled with Pokémon that you’ll have to go and save. How Lugia got to be a Shadow Pokémon or who did it is still a mystery that you’ll surely unravel by the game’s end. By the sounds of it, Miror B. and Team Snagem make a return so it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to guess that they’ve got a hand in it. You begin the game at Pokémon HQ where you live with your mother and sister. It is here that you get your Snag Machine to transform Pokeballs into the special Snag variety. So far, it’s just like the plot of Pokémon Colosseum with just new characters taking over the story.

Added to this adventure is at least one brand new Pokémon: Bonsly, the pre-evolved form of Sudowoodo. From what I hear you can’t play as the little shrub, but it will be in an upcoming movie. Also in the game are Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres. Odds are you’ll be able to capture them, but who knows? For those that already have them in Pokémon FireRed/LeafGreen, well, now you can have doubles. Of course there is Shadow Lugia in the game, but from what I’ve heard you might not be able to purify it.

Speaking of doubles, double battles are the big thing again in XD. What started as a novelty in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire is now the only way to battle in this game. Double battles offer their fair share of advantages and make it a little trickier to make up a good battling strategy, but it can be worth it. Apparently there’s a practice room in this game where you can brush up on your double battling skills.

Instead of starting with two Pokémon this go round gives you only Eevee at the beginning. Of course, this Eevee can evolve into any of its five forms, however, which one you get is entirely random. At some point in the game you’ll receive a gift that will make your Eevee evolve into one of its five possible evolutions. This gift might depend on choices that you make in the game, but I can’t say for sure yet. We’ll know more once the game comes out.

Graphically this game looks the same as its predecessor which isn’t a bad thing since the first one looked pretty good. My only concern is if they fixed up the character models some more. In Colosseum a lot of the old Pokémon looked pretty shoddy compared to the characters from Ruby/Sapphire. Based on what I’ve seen, though, the Pokémon look darn good.

Battle mode makes a return for the fourth time on a Nintendo home console. Like always you’ll be able to transfer the Pokémon from your Gameboy to Pokémon XD in order to battle it out. Hopefully you’ll also get to bring your team into the story mode as well. This mode will probably play out like it always has; play against the computer in some Stadium challenge or against your friends. There’s little information to say what else to expect in this battle mode. Imagine what it currently is and you will have a good idea of what it will be.

Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness is shaping up to be a lot like Colosseum. This is both good and bad since Colosseum was an interesting game, but disappointing because it sounds like little has changed. Having 80 Shadow Pokémon to collect makes up for the lack of changes and leaves lots of speculation as to what they are. Pokémon fans are guaranteed to love this game. I know I can’t wait.