GameCube Pokemon Game From 2003 May Finally Return This Month for the First Time Ever

A Nintendo GameCube Pokémon game from 2003 may finally be returning this month on Nintendo Switch 2 via the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack tier. This Pokémon game in question, a cult-classic and favorite among many Pokémon fans, has never been re-released or even playable on any platform console other than GameCube. In other words, fans of the Game Freak series have been waiting a long time for this one.

Last year, Nintendo announced that both Pokémon Colosseum and its sequel, Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness — two GameCube exclusive games — were coming to Switch 2 via Switch Online. Since this announcement in April of last year, it has been crickets from Nintendo. Many assumed the pair, or at least the first game, would be re-released by now, but they haven’t been. There’s been no word of them returning. Perhaps they are being saved for a special day, though.

Pokemon Day Soon

On February 27, Pokémon Day will commence like it does every year. Right now, Nintendo has not announced a Pokémon Presents for it, but the expectation is that the showcase will happen on the celebratory day, as it does every year. This will be the first Pokémon Day since the announcement of the aforementioned GameCube games for Switch 2. And there’s a very good chance both, or at least the first game, Pokémon Colosseum, will resurface and likely even be stealth-released as Nintendo Switch Online games often are.

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For those unfamiliar with this pair of Pokémon games, they are spin-offs. Pokémon Colosseum was released in 2003 as a GameCube exclusive, not by series developer Game Freak, but by Genius Sonority, who debuted with the release and is a studio that worked on the series as recently as 2020, when it released Pokémon Café ReMix.

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Upon release, the game earned a 73 on Metacritic, a bit low for the series; most fans agree this is a wild underrating of the unique and more mature Pokémon game. Coupling this, it sold a few million copies, which was enough to greenlight a sequel. This sequel is 2005’s Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, which earned a 64 on Metacritic and sold slightly fewer copies. Again, though, most agree that this rating and the number of copies sold don’t do the game justice. Of the two Pokémon games, though, Pokémon Colosseum is certainly the more cherished one.

All of that said, and as always, feel free to leave a comment or two letting us know what you think, or join the conversation over on the ComicBook Forum.