Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Just in case you are one of the four people in the world who doesn't own a DS (for shame!), here's what you may be missing out on in Pokémon Battle Revolution. With all the discussion on the game today, we thought it might be nice to spotlight the Wii game's handheld connectivity. Check it out after the jump.

Pikachu looks so sad here. A little forlorn. Poor little guy.

We don't think this is a controversial statement, although feel free to skewer us in the comments if it is: Pokemon Battle Revolution is not worth having if you don't own and play Pokemon on the DS. If we really wanted to arouse some vitriol, we'd say it's not worth having even then, but that would really just be flame-baiting for its own sake. We don't even actually feel that way.

What we want to know is, is it okay in your mind to have a game like this that absolutely depends on another game to be fun? It it okay for such a thing to be full price?

Obviously, if you're of the "gotta catch 'em all" persuasion who buys every Pokemon game regardless of quality, your answer is going to be a little different.

The Nintendo Media Summit may not have offered up the huge news, but it did give us one thing that's awesome -- a metric ton (less than a megaton) of trailers for all the games we'll be playing in the coming months. So we thought it might be a good week for a very special video spotlight, and instead of one or two videos, we'll hook you up with several. Dare we even say many? See for yourself after the jump.

Connectivity is back: the question is, does it really add anything? The Pokemon Battle Revolution demo available at GDC seems to suggest that DS-Wii connectivity does little to truly enhance the gaming experience. The DS is used as a way of inputting your commands without your opponent having a look, but seemingly offers nothing else.

At least Pokemon Battle Revolution looks good: it easily trumps the two Coliseum games on the Gamecube visually (although that doesn't say much). Although I only played a non-localized Japanese version of the game, the cinematic presentation and incredibly enthusiastic announcer really added a nice touch of realism to the game. Certainly, Pokemaniacs will enjoy the game's highly animated character models: obviously, the Pokemon come to life in a way above and beyond anything the GBA or DS games will ever provide.

Without being able to see any single player component, it's hard to gauge if Battle Revolution will feature any gameplay "revolution." From the looks of it, the game appears to be quite a derivative product of the previous Coliseum games. However, considering the continued popularity of the franchise, maybe that's enough to satiate fans.