If you want more to choose from you need to beat the Pokmon masters and take their cards. You get the same ones each time you start a new game and these Pokmon can't be traded, or levelled up. There are two to choose from at the start, each with a pre-packaged selection of six Pokmon. For you, foul peasant, she has only a Rental Battle Card. If, however, you don't have a DS, then Anna's cheery anime-grin barely disguises her seething contempt.
Oh yes, it's all VIP treatment, back rubs and free peanuts for the Pokmon faithful. You can also unlock exclusive new Pokmon to be ported back to your handheld, along with other unlockables and extras. You get a Custom Battle Card, which allows you to select your own preferred roster, and the option to use your DS as a wireless controller. If you answer in the affirmative, and have got Pokmon Pearl or Diamond, then Anna looks very happy, and goes on to show you how to transfer your carefully trained and groomed Pokmon to the Wii so you can see them battling in 3D on your telly. But before anything else, she has a very important question for you: do you have a Nintendo DS? The game uses a lot of split-screen to make things more exciting. You're then introduced to Poketopia thanks to Anna, a perky receptionist, who can painstakingly explain absolutely everything about the game in stultifying long-winded text descriptions. I know that Pokmon has a large kid audience, but if they can grasp the intricacies of the trading card game I'm pretty sure they know how to point at stuff. Things start with a rather baffling tutorial which teaches you how to use the Wiimote to select things on screen. Instead you get a bunch of Coliseums, set in the vaguely defined resort of Poketopia, and you must plough through tournaments in each and beat the resident Pokmon master.
Despite the title, Battle Revolution has none of that and so, remarkably, boasts less features than its direct ancestor from the console generation before last. At least the previous console versions had the good grace to include other things to do beyond endless turn-based fighting, such as mini-games, RPG modes and other assorted diversions.
The concept is much as it has been ever since Pokmon Stadium debuted on the N64 back in 2000, focusing on glitzy 3D Pokmon battles rather than the adventuring and collecting of the main series. However, while Zelda, Mario and Metroid all gave fans many good reasons to be happy, Pikachu and pals can only offer what amounts to a prolonged and expensive advertisement for the DS rather than a Wii game in its own right. With this, the first Pokmon game for the Wii, the last remaining member of Nintendo's holy quartet of heavy hitting franchises has finally reached the hand-waggling wonder and ooh, just in time for Christmas as well.