Today completed Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness for the first time. I didn't buy it on release and I only managed to find a cheap copy of it last month, hence the reason for not playing it until now.

It was much more fun than Colloseum, the purifying machine made the game so much less tedious to play. (Seriously, it took me forever to purify the 50 Shadow Pokemon) Though the battles were still pretty slow paced and boring at times, I often found myself browsing 4chan inbetween attack sequences where my Espeon proceeded to rape everything.

The selection of shadow Pokemon was a lot better, with Tauros/Chansey/Kangaskhan/Lugia being particularly great ones, given how rare they are. I'm still not sure why they decided to include Gen III 'mons as shadow Pokemon, given how easy it is to acquire them in either Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald.

My final team ended up as Espeon, Arcanine, Ampharos, Fearow, Parasect and Dusclops. The last few battles were a real challenge as I had no Water attacks and Parasect doesn't learn any Grass moves. Keeping my team alive whilst spamming snag balls at the high levelled shadow Pokemon was particularly fun.

Overall I'd give it an 8/10, I enjoyed not having some bimbo following me around all the time, and the addition of loads of new locations.

What did you guys think of it?

(Pic unrelated)