TheOlorunSpawn's review of Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness | Backloggd (2025)

So, I have a fun story tied to this game. I was going to plan on playing this (and Atelier Totori) in December, but Xenoblade X Definition Edition happened, and I spent most of December on Xenoblade 1. Despite that, I wanted to start playing a Pokemon game, so I quietly started a Pokemon Marathon with the original Pokemon Blue, which I had brought on the 3Ds Eshop many years ago. Unfortunately, when I did boot up my 3Ds to resume my file for another session, my save file got deleted and I was pretty bummed out about it and shelved that project for now. However, it gave me the mood to finally go back to playing a Pokemon game, so I finally played Pokemon XD, hence a review.

Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness (a funny title name) is the direct sequel of Pokemon Colosseum and the last game to take place in the Orre Region with the concept of Shadow Pokemon. Just like with Colosseum, XD was a game I wanted to play since it was one of my earlier exposures to Pokemon after Pokemon Conquest and Pokemon White 2. From what I heard, XD is still considered a good game like Colosseum, though some Orre fans prefer Colosseum over XD. From the 25 hours I played, I can say with no hesitation that XD is the much better game and it gave me proof that Colosseum was way too overrated of a game after years of high praise of it.

Starting the game, the player is asked to name the protagonist (who is relatively as young as many other Pokemon protagonists). He is canonically named Michael, but I went with the mostly reliable Levin (who in the mind of Olorun is always body-snatching bodies in any universe). For the record, I have seen Colosseum fans take points off against XD because the protagonist is the classic, generic young Pokemon trainer of the mainline games compared to the older Wes of the previous game. While Wes has the cooler design and his first three minutes of screentime is iconic, he is still just as generic as other Pokemon protagonists with the only thing he has going for is his shady background as a former Team Snagem member. Otherwise, both Michael and Wes are just nothing characters since they are both the player characters that represent the player.

The game starts off with the S.S. Libra cruising through the sea. Suddenly, helicopters surround the ship before they summon a darker-colored Shadow Lugia. Codenamed XD001, Shadow Lugia is the first ever Pokemon to be immune to purification. Shadow Lugia used its dark power to raise the S.S. Libra - knocking down the captain and a crewmate. Left by the sea, they witness the ship (with the rest of the crew and their Pokemon passengers still stuck) being abducted in the night.

It transitions to Michael involving himself in a simulation battle in the Pokemon HQ Lab. It has been five years since Wes took down Cipher in Colosseum and the Orre Region has been relatively at peace. Crime has gone down since Cipher’s downfall and the lands of Orre start to become more hospitable to the point of wild Pokemon finally starting to appear. Despite that, there is always a chance that Shadow Pokemon would one day resurface, and thus did two scientists - Professor Krane and Michael’s father - establish the Pokemon HQ Lab to not only research various aspects of Pokemon such as their ecosystems and battling (hence the Battle Simulator) but to create devices to counteract the threat of Shadow Pokemon such as a Purify Chamber that efficiently purify Shadowmons more effectively, and the Aura Reader and Snag Machine which allows one to identify a Shadowmon and snag them without the risk of accidental theft.

After dealing with a sidequest involving Michael finding his little sister, Jovi, he obtains the Snag Machine from Professor Krane and is almost ready to perform a battle simulation when the professor gets kidnapped by unknown assailants. With the help of his Eevee, Michael clashes with one of the assailants and snags their Shadow Teddiursa. With Cipher now officially back with even grander ambitions, the team at the HQ Lab requests Michael to give them a part needed to finish the Purify Chamber before heading out around the Orre Region to find the whereabouts of Professor Krane. Eventually, Micheal finds out he is in the old Cipher’s Lab and launches a successful rescue of Professor Krane and defeating one of the new Cipher Admin. With his rescue, the HD Lab eventually succeeds in completing the Purify Chamber and now Michael is tasked to foil Cipher’s plans, snag any Shadowmon, and purify them.

The gameplay of XD shares the same gameplay loop as Colosseum. The player will traverse the many locations in the Orre Region, battling a lot of random trainers and Cipher Peon Grunts in battle doubles, and catching over 83 new Shadowmons. Despite that, there are several new systems that make XD a much more enjoyable game.

The first is the system of catching Shadowmon. The biggest problem with catching Shadowmon in Colosseum was that they have the Shadow Rush move which causes recoil and they get themselves washed - messing up the player’s chances to catch the Shadowmon. While this was slightly alleviated with the Poke Ball glitch (switching item positions causes a Poke Ball to never be used which made it possible to use Ultra Balls and the rare Master Ball infinitely), it was an annoying aspect in Colosseum that I gave it flack for. XD solves this by getting rid of Shadow Rush in general and replacing it with Shadow Moves, which are super effective for all Pokemon except other Shadowmon. This makes it easier for the player to consistently catch the Shadowmon without the risk of it jobbing itself up. I did have some concerns when the late-game Shadowmon had the Shadow End move though their recoil damage is half of their HP. The battles I encountered with them consistently damaged my team, but they never knocked themselves out.

The second is the system of being able to obtain every Shadowmon even if the player knocks them out in a fight that isn’t able to be rematched. Mirror B. (a former Cipher Admin who is now just a wanted criminal with even dripper fit) will stylishly appear in several places such as Poke Spots (more on that later), in a match in one of the many colosseums, and in the end at the tower in Gateon Port. For every Shadowmon initially failed to catch, your boy Mirror B. will claim it to his team and he’ll always have them in his teams full of Lombre (later Ludicolo). Though, you’ll need to rely on the Mirror Radar to find his location which will take a bit. I recommend always catching the Shadowsmons on the first attempt, but Mirror B. is always a convenient fail-safe - especially during peculiar Cipher Peon and Admin fights. The only Shadowmons that’ll never be captured by Mirror B. are the six Shadowmon and Shadow Lugia encountered during the final boss (which can be rematched anytime). A last note to point that due to an oversight, if the player loses the first Mirror B. fight, he’ll leave his first location, and his Shadow Voltorb (if not caught) will never reappear, costing the player to be locked out in catching a late-game Shadow Dragonite which would be the last Shadowmon to catch in the game.

The third is the ability to catch wild Pokemon. Colosseum had no wild Pokemon and thus team-building was limited to the Shadowmon the player caught on their quest. Granted, XD’s selection isn’t that high, but it is convenient for some more builds and the process of purification. The only requirement is for the player to leave out Poke Snacks, wait for a bit in other locations, and the player will encounter a relatively low-leveled Pokemon. The only drawback is that there is a 10% that a Munchlax (which got its first appearance here before Gen 4) will eat the whole plate, though the player is compensated by gaining ten more Poke Snacks and a healing item from the Munchlax’s owner from Gateon Port.

The fourth is the process of purification. In Colosseum, the only method to purify Shadowmons was to always have them present during walks and actively battling to get their Shadow Heart Gauge down - with the only area to purify them being Agate Village’s Relic Forest. Those systems still exist, but they are outclassed by the Perify Chamber. Only available after the Cipher Lab section and defeating Cipher Admin Lovrina, the Perify Chamber is hands down the best thing to come out of the game as it makes the process of purifying all 83 Shadowmon so much quicker and simpler.

At first, there isn't much to do as the player would only have purified very few Shadowmons and usually those Pokemon happen to early-game teammates. To start, the player needs to place a Shadowmon in one of nine set chambers. Next, the player needs to add a purified or caught wild Pokemon in one of four slots. Afterwards, the player can leave it alone and after lots of footsteps, the Shadowmon will be ready to be purified. The rate of how fast they will be purified will depend on the flow which can be affected by type weaknesses in a clockwise style. For example, you can have a Shadow Snorunt in a set chamber with it facing toward a Gloom (which is super effective due to its Ice type). From there, you can have the clockwise order of Gloom -> Lantaurn -> Murkrow -> Chimecho back to Gloom. The more effective the type match-up between every Pokemon, the greater the flow which makes the Shadowmon’s Heart Gauge go down quicker. It’s difficult to do this consistently early on, but the more Shadowmon caught and purified, the quicker the player will be able to purify up to nine Shadowmons. The last thing to note is that if a normal-type Pokemon is facing another normal-type mon, then it will count as a super effective match-up.

One last new feature that makes all of this even more convenient is the ability to save anywhere and everywhere. Colosseum made the strange decision to make saving only available to the Pokemon PCs. XD’s save system makes backtracking less of an issue and the player can afford to make fails in catching Shadowmon as long as they frequently save.

All of these systems help make the game way more enjoyable than Colosseum by default. However, the one thing that XD needed to fix from Colosseum was the bad difficulty spikes between Cipher Admins. In my old review, my biggest issue with Colosseum was the terrible spike of difficulty between the relatively easy trainer and Cipher Peon battles and the Cipher Admins and the final boss. The latter for both were way too overleveled to be fair that you’ll need to use Mt. Battle to consistently grind up levels which killed the pacing of a relatively short adventure. I can happily say XD’s difficulty spikes were much nicer, though the late-game area of Citadark Isle and post-game fights after the last Mirror B. fight made it fall into the same grinding pitfalls. In fact, the post-game spike was so absurd that I ignored the rest of the postgame as I only did the capturing of the last Shadowmon, Dragonite, from Mirror B, purified all the Shadowmons, and defeated the final boss again - counting that session as the end of my Backloggd run.

Since this is a Pokemon review, I’ll give my shout-outs to the team that made this run work in the end. Forgive me if the nicknames are a bit on the nose.

As the first Pokemon by default, Eevee and their evolution were always going to be the vital part of formulating a team in the first place. While I would’ve chosen Espeon since it was my favorite Pokemon, I already used an Espeon in Colosseum and I was going to use one in another Pokemon game. Thus was I left with the option of Vaporean, Jolteon, Flareon, and Umbreon. Umbreon was out by default of me using one in Colosseum and its move set was limited with Dark-type still being special until the Gen 4 physical-special split. Flareon unfortunately had a low special attack and thus fire-type didn’t work well with it. Vaporean is a solid choice, though I wanted to prioritize a team that efficiently was able to catch many Shadowmons consistently. Since it was fast and was able to learn Thunder Wave, Joltean was the clear winner.

Arthur the Joltean was a valuable core of the team since he was delegated to Thunder Wave any threat that would outspeed most of my team and any Shadowmon that made them easy to catch. He wasn’t a powerhouse since he had Thundershock, Bite, and Double Kick for most of the journey though it helped weaken the paralyzed Shadowmon frequently. It took me until arriving at Citadark Isle that I realized that I missed the TM for Thunderbolt and he basically shocked everything to death. Overall, he’s my goat.

Teddiursa is the first Shadowmon to be caught from Spy Naps and is always the default second slot since the player will only have Eevee at that point. Like with the Shadow Makuhita in my Colosseum Backloggd run, I already was planning to use Teddiursa due to the novelty of using one and I just happen to like bears as animals. Largo the Teddiursa was mostly slow with his Lick and Metal Claws, but his normal-type stab + Friendship Return made him deal lots of damage. When he became an Ursuring and I gave him Brick Break, Largo was an unstoppable bear that washed everything. The only thing messing him up is his relatively slow speed. He is goated for tanking so many hits during the final battle, so he deserves all the well-deserved respect that he rightfully deserves.

Houndour was a Shadowmon being held by Cipher Peon Redsix in the Cipher Lab. When deciding on a fire type, I knew Houndour was an easy pick since I liked dogs and dark + fire type can serve as a valuable asset in destroying Psychic mons. Aida the Houndour later Houndoom had a bit of a tough time killing anything weak to fire due to her only having Ember as her only good fire type until I got the Flamethrower TM. Otherwise, she burned down all Grass and Ice mons, bit all Psychic mons, and consistently flinched many Pokemon with Bite.

Spheal is another Shadowmon found in the Cipher Lab - this time held by Cipher Peon Bluesix. Since Vaporean was out, the only other good options for water were Spheal, Carvanha, Seel, Shelder, Golduck, and Poliwrath though the last four came by later. Thus, Spheal was chosen for its utility with ice. Nephenee the Spheal to Sealeo to Walrien followed her namesake as she struggled early on to get consistent kills before learning Water Pulse and evolving made her equivalent to a Part 2 Radiant Dawn Nepheenee (without transfer bonuses). She still performed alright by the time I arrived at Citadark Isle, though it wasn't until after the Cipher Admin Snattle fight that she became a Walrein. While she didn’t get to shine much like a late-game RD Nephenee, she saved my ass in the Cipher Admin Ardos and Gorrigan fights due to her bulk. For that, she fulfilled her namesake’s destiny.

Shroomish is another Shadowmon found in the Cipher Lab - this time held by Cipher R&D Klots. Shroomish was only chosen for two things: its fighting type as a Breloom and for it being the only Pokemon to know False Swipe (always leaves an opponent at one health). Needless to say, Aurelia the Shroomish to Breloom was always in the front alongside Arthur whenever a Shadowmon showed up. As a Shroomish, her slow speed did get her bodied a lot, though her speed increased as Breloom made her survive much more. Mach Punch helped early one, but Sky Uppercut made Aurelia a second powerhouse next to Largo.

Lastly, there was Ralts who was being held by Cipher Peon Feldas in the ONBS Station in Pyrite Town. I know I wanted a Psychic mon on the team and between three options of Baltoy, Ralts, and Hypno, I choose Ralts due to Baltoy’s slow speed not synchronizing well with my team and Hypno came too late in the game to mean anything. Like with Largo, Nephenee, and Aurelia, Cecilia the Ralts to Kirlia struggled in the speed department which made her the one teammate to get washed the most mid-game. However, when Cecilia became Gardevior, her survivability was better and her Reflect set-ups were crucial in many of the Cipher Admin fights.

Overall, the team performed in what each needed to do, and thus will they be memorized in Backloggd for how excellent of a team they were.

Visually, XD uses a lot of assets from Colosseum with the difference being the lighter tone in color, the U.I. being smoother, the animations on attacks being slightly different, and the oddly slower frame of the Poke Ball appearance whenever the player performs a snag (Wes did that animation way better). The lighter tone does represent the relative five years of peace in Orre, though Colosseum’s grimier and crime-heavy tone is still the most unique vibe in the series (behind the Mystery Dungeon games or Pokemon Conquest).

Storywise, XD is basically a repeat of Colosseum since the goal is to stop Cipher. Character designs are alright (though Mirror B. clears everyone out in terms of character design) and character names are just as goofy. Out of all the names I can recall seeing from the game, the most normal ones were Lily, Marcia, Megg, Biden, Johnson, Vander, and Willie while I laughed at names such as Chobin, Lovrina, Snattle, Naps, and Greevil. The best thing to come out of XD’s story is Shadow Lugia because the design is straight-up badass.

Pokemon XD uses a few themes from Colosseum, but the majority of the OST are entirely new. The composer of the Orre games is credited to Tsukasa Tawada. Tawada has done sound design in Dragon Quest III (SF Remake), VI, VII, IV (PS1 version) before composing the music for the Orre games. Afterwards, he composed music for Pokemon Battle Revolution, Pokemon Trozei!, Pokemon Shuffle, and is series composer of the Harvest Moon series since Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley. Some of the best songs of XD include Title Screen, the Standard Trainer Battle Theme (banger), Pokemon Lab, World Map, Theme of Suspense , Heroic, Gateon Port , Cipher Peon Battle (banger), Cipher Admin Battle (banger), ONBS Building (banger), Poke Spot, Battle Wild Pokemon, Cipher Command, Battle SIM (absolute banger), Mirror B’s Theme, Mirror B. Battle (absolute banger and best song in the game), Citadark Island, Shadow Lugia Battle (banger), Final Battle (banger), Purify Chamber (banger), Colosseum 4 (a slightly different rendition of Cipher Admin Battle from Colosseum), and the Staff Credits. It still is a great soundtrack, though Colosseum had a soundtrack that did slap harder (rest in piece the Under as you were canonically caved in).

Overall, I am glad I got around to XD after a long wait from my Colosseum run. As expected, I liked XD more for the obvious quality-to-life features and the much better-balanced difficulty (except for late and post-game). In terms of a retrospective analysis of both Orre games, I’ll be blunt and say both are fun games to play the first time around, but their charm wears off afterward. Colosseum is 100% overrated while XD is too underappreciated. If you want a Pokemon game with something different in terms of mechanics, tone, and difficulty, the Orre duology fulfills those criteria well. Otherwise, I can’t really see myself ever coming back to them. Either way, Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness gets a minimum of 4/5.

TheOlorunSpawn's review of Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness | Backloggd (2025)

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