Pokémon Colosseum and XD: Shadow Pokémon, or the Art of Stealing Instead of Catching

There are two Pokémon games where you don't catch anyone. On the GameCube, between 2004 and 2005, the series produced two RPGs nobody saw coming: a grimy desert, villains who are genuinely scary, and a mechanic unique in the entire franchise — snatching Pokémon right out of their Trainers' hands. Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness invented Shadow Pokémon, creatures whose hearts have been artificially closed off, and made healing, not collecting, the real goal of the game.

Contents

• Two GameCube RPGs unlike anything else
• Orre, the desert region where nothing grows anymore
• Shadow Pokémon: the closed heart
• Snagging: stealing a Pokémon, not catching it
• Purification: the real point of the game
• XD's Purify Chamber and the Lugia case
• Colosseum: a former thief seeking redemption
• XD: Michael, an Eevee and a volcanic island
• Why this mechanic never came back
• Colosseum and XD at a glance
• Frequently Asked Questions

Two GameCube RPGs unlike anything else

Pokémon Colosseum was released in Europe on May 14, 2004 on the Nintendo GameCube, six months after Japan. Its direct sequel, Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, arrived on November 18, 2005 on the same console. Both were made by the studio Genius Sonority, not by GAME FREAK — which explains a lot.

Colosseum is the first true Pokémon adventure in 3D, whereas Pokémon Stadium simply strung battles together. But the real break lies elsewhere: the story is serious, the shimmering colors give way to dark settings, the difficulty climbs noticeably, and the villains aren't clowns in uniform like Team Rocket.

The second game's acronym, XD, stands for eXtra Dimension. It takes place five years after the events of Colosseum, in the same region, and keeps most of the mechanics while fixing them. Both titles belong to the third generation, that of Ruby and Sapphire.

Technically, they also link up with the Game Boy Advance cartridges. Thanks to the GameCube–Game Boy Advance link cable, you can import your team from Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald, FireRed or LeafGreen — and, above all, send the freed Pokémon back there once the job is done.

Orre, the desert region where nothing grows anymore

Both games take place in Orre — called Rhode in the French games, an official name in its own right rather than a variation on the English. Orre is a desert, grimy and rocky, with no tall grass: the first place in the series where you simply never run into a single wild Pokémon. A scenery detail that is actually the whole logic of the game.

In Colosseum, you travel through Phenac City, an oasis in the middle of the desert, Pyrite Town, a town full of thugs, Agate Village, a village of retired Trainers, and The Under, an underground city. Add to that the Outskirt Stand, an old locomotive standing alone in the desert, and Mt. Battle, a training ground for Trainers.

🧢 In Orre, you go from the oasis of Phenac City to Pyrite Town, the thugs' town, across a rocky desert where not a single blade of tall grass grows; for your own treks under the blazing sun, our Pokémon caps beat shading your eyes with your hand.

XD reshuffles the deck by opening up Gateon Port, a bustling port town, and by setting the player up at Professor Krane's lab. You also visit the stranded cargo ship S.S. Libra, and above all Citadark Isle, a volcanic lair that serves as the enemy's headquarters.

The big difference in the sequel: XD introduces Poké Spots, areas where you can finally catch wild Pokémon the normal way. In Colosseum, that simply wasn't possible: the only way to grow your team was to take Pokémon from someone else.

Shadow Pokémon: the closed heart

The official English term is Shadow Pokémon — Pokémon Obscur in French. A Shadow Pokémon is not a Shiny, a regional form or a status condition: it's an ordinary individual whose heart a criminal organization has artificially closed off to turn it into a fighting machine.

Visually, they're surrounded by a purple aura that only certain characters can see. In battle, they swap their usual moves for Shadow moves, including the famous Shadow Rush, and obey only grudgingly. Their Nature, Ability and stats stay hidden until you've healed them.

Above all, a Shadow Pokémon can snap in the middle of a battle. In Colosseum, this burst of rage is called Hyper Mode; in XD, it becomes Reverse Mode. Either way, the Pokémon becomes uncontrollable, may refuse your orders or turn on its own side — and you have to call out to it to bring it back to its senses.

The tally is precise, and worth a look: Colosseum has 48, all from the second and third generations. XD offers 83, this time drawing heavily on the first. Each one is numbered in the order you encounter it, which turns the game into a long checklist of rescues.

Snagging: stealing a Pokémon, not catching it

Here's the mechanic that exists nowhere else in the franchise. The hero wears a device on his arm, the Snag Machine, which modifies Poké Balls so they can catch other Trainers' Pokémon. The operation is called a Snag.

In practice, you throw a Snag Ball at the opposing Trainer's Shadow Pokémon, mid-battle, exactly as you would at a wild Pokémon. It's theft, pure and simple, and the game makes no secret of it. In Colosseum, it's even the one and only way to catch Pokémon in the entire adventure.

This twist has a moral justification: you only ever take a Pokémon that has already been stolen and scarred. The rule is strict — only Shadow Pokémon can be snagged. An ordinary Trainer with a healthy team is off-limits. So the Snag Machine isn't for getting rich, but for rescuing victims.

On top of that, almost all battles in Orre are Double Battles, with two Pokémon on each side. That makes the job a lot harder: you have to deal with the partner, weaken the target without making it faint, and throw the Ball before the opponent recalls their Pokémon.

Purification: the real point of the game

Snagging a Shadow Pokémon is only half the job. The real goal is its purification, which means opening its heart again. Every Shadow Pokémon has a heart gauge that has to be emptied before the ritual can be performed — and that gauge only goes down with time and attention.

The methods are deliberately gentle: walking with it, taking it into battle, calling out to it when it enters Hyper Mode or Reverse Mode, giving it a scent massage, or leaving it at the Agate Village Day Care in Colosseum. Winning a battle, on the other hand, changes nothing: it's presence that counts, not performance.

Progress comes in stages. At 20%, the Pokémon gets back its first normal move; at 40%, its Nature is finally revealed; at 60%, another move comes back; at 80%, it slips into Hyper Mode more often, a sign that it's fighting back; at 100%, its heart is ready to open.

The ritual itself takes place at the Relic Stone in Agate Village, a standing stone that reacts to the Pokémon you bring before it. In Colosseum, it's the only place you can do it. Once purified, the Pokémon gets back four normal moves, receives in one go all the accumulated experience since it was snagged, and can finally be given a nickname.

One extremely rare item lets you cheat: the Time Flute. Played near the Relic Stone, it summons Celebi, which purifies any Shadow Pokémon instantly, even if its gauge is still full. It's one of the most beautiful appearances of a Mythical Pokémon in the entire series.

XD's Purify Chamber and the Lugia case

XD adds a second, more mechanical route: the Purify Chamber, installed at Professor Krane's lab. The Relic Stone is still available, but this machine becomes the player's main tool, and it changes the very nature of healing — you no longer pray, you optimize.

The Purify Chamber is made up of nine purification chambers. You place the Shadow Pokémon in one, surrounded by healthy Pokémon whose types match or complement each other. The better the combination, the more the chamber's Tempo rises, and the faster the heart gauge drops, without you lifting a finger.

🗂️ Nine purification chambers, and in each one the Shadow Pokémon has to be surrounded by compatible types to push the Tempo up. Your cards can be sorted by affinity too, page after page, in our Pokémon card binders.

This machine has a narrative reason to exist. Cipher created a Shadow Pokémon designed to be impossible to purify: XD001, aka Shadow Lugia — the game's crowning prize and the origin of its Japanese title.

Saving it takes the whole setup: XD001 can only be purified by placing it in a chamber while all nine chambers are at their maximum Tempo. It's the only Pokémon in the series whose healing requires an entire installation — and probably the best game design idea in either game.

Colosseum: a former thief seeking redemption

The hero of Colosseum is called Wes in the English version — French players know him as Michael, and the French version also offers Vincent or Éric as default names. He's a former member of Team Snagem, a gang of Pokémon thieves, which he left by stealing the Snag Machine and blowing up their hideout.

🎒 Wes left Team Snagem by stealing the Snag Machine and blowing up the hideout: he walked away with the gear, not the crew. You don't have to blow anything up to put together your own; just head over to our Pokémon accessories.

In Phenac City, he meets Rui, a young girl who can sense the aura of Shadow Pokémon — without her, there's no way to spot them. The duo then follows the trail of Cipher, the organization that closes Pokémon's hearts and hands them out to Trainers to sow chaos across the whole region.

The path leads through Cipher's Shadow Pokémon Lab, where Pokémon are transformed, then on to Realgam Tower, the group's headquarters and the hub of a mass distribution plan. Admins Miror B., Dakim, Venus and Ein take their turns there, before the showdown with Evice, the leader.

A detail few games can claim: Wes starts out with two starter Pokémon, Espeon and Umbreon. They're the only starters in the series that are already evolved at the very first battle, and the first Psychic- and Dark-type starters — a distinction no other entry in our overview of the starters can claim.

XD: Michael, an Eevee and a volcanic island

Five years later, the player takes on the role of Michael, the youngest Trainer at Orre's Pokémon HQ Lab — in the French version he's Florent, while Michael is the French name of Wes, the hero of Colosseum, which makes for a nice bit of confusion between the two games for anyone switching from one language to the other.

His starting partner is an Eevee, and the game quickly forces a choice: picking the item that will decide its final evolution for the rest of the adventure. A deliberate nod to the Espeon and Umbreon duo from the first game.

The Cipher organization is back, better organized, and it has stolen an entire ship full of Pokémon. Michael is surrounded by Professor Krane, inventor of the Snag Machine, and the very eccentric Dr. Kaminko. Shadow Pokémon production, for its part, has been moved to the Cipher Key Lair.

The adventure climaxes on Citadark Isle, a volcanic fortress that serves as the hideout of Grand Master Greevil. That's where the capture of XD001 plays out, in the arena on the top floor, right before the final showdown, which forces the player to snag a legendary at the worst possible moment.

Why this mechanic never came back

A purified Pokémon doesn't stay locked inside the GameCube. It receives a National Ribbon certifying that it came through the ordeal, and its Trainer Memo says it comes from a mysterious "distant land". Transferred to a Game Boy Advance cartridge, it keeps that mark for life, like a signature of origin no other game hands out.

XD goes further, offering certain purified Pokémon exclusive moves, impossible to get any other way — Helping Hand, Heal Bell or Follow Me, all built for Double Battles. For years, those specimens were the only ones of their species that knew them.

So why has the series never brought snagging back? Because it rests on an idea that is hard to generalize: if stealing Pokémon became the norm, the whole moral balance of the franchise would collapse. Theft works here only because it is strictly limited to the victims of a crime.

Still, these two games pulled off a real feat: making healing, rather than collecting, the point of the game. You don't fill a Pokédex here, you repair damage. Thirty years of Pokémon games later, Colosseum and XD remain the only titles where finishing the adventure literally means giving their souls back to one hundred thirty-one Pokémon.

Colosseum and XD at a glance

Frequently Asked Questions

• What is a Shadow Pokémon?
  It's a Pokémon whose heart Cipher artificially closed to turn it into a fighting machine. It is wrapped in a purple aura, uses Shadow moves, and can enter Hyper Mode in Colosseum, or Reverse Mode in XD.
• How many Shadow Pokémon are there across the two games?
  Forty-eight in Pokémon Colosseum and eighty-three in Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness. They are numbered in the order you meet them.
• How do you catch a Pokémon in Pokémon Colosseum?
  By stealing it from its Trainer. The hero wears the Snag Machine, a device that modifies Poké Balls so they can snag. Only Shadow Pokémon can be snagged, and in Colosseum that is the game's only way to catch anything.
• How do you purify a Shadow Pokémon?
  You first have to empty its heart gauge by walking with it, taking it into battle, calling out to it when it loses control, or treating it to a massage. The ritual then takes place at the Relic Stone in Agate Village, or at the lab's Purify Chamber in XD.
• What is the Purify Chamber in Pokémon XD for?
  It's a nine-chamber purification machine installed in Professor Krane's Lab. By surrounding a Shadow Pokémon with well-chosen healthy Pokémon, you raise the chamber's Tempo and its heart gauge drops faster.
• Why is Lugia a special case in Pokémon XD?
  Because Cipher designed it to be impossible to purify. This Shadow Lugia, known as XD001, can only recover its heart by being placed in a chamber while all nine chambers of the Purify Chamber are at their maximum Tempo.

In short

Pokémon Colosseum and Pokémon XD never had any real descendants, and that almost makes sense: the series never tried again to turn the player into a Pokémon thief. Yet these two GameCube games remain the only ones where you win not by catching, but by repairing — 48 rescues in the first, 83 in the second, all the way to that Lugia everyone thought was lost. Twenty years on, the Orre region is still the darkest, and the most tender, corner of the whole Pokémon universe.