Pokémon Stadium

Unlike the previous games in the series, Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow, Pokémon Stadium does not have storyline-driven gameplay. Stadium takes a more battle-focused approach with its gameplay, which functions similarly to Red, Blue, and Yellow. Players select teams of six Pokémon to battle. These are either Pokémon collected from Pokemon Red, Blue, Yellow usable via the Nintendo 64 Transfer Pak, or Pokémon with pre-determined movesets included in Pokemon Stadium.

Six Pokémon are chosen as the party. Only three of them can be chosen for individual battles. Pokémon are depicted in 3D and have unique animations in-battle. The game also features an announcer, who says voice lines in response to actions that occur in battle.

Pokémon Stadium was developed by Nintendo EAD. Producer Shigeru Miyamoto explained in 1997 that Nintendo EAD was then a group of 20 to 30 staff each devoted to every title. Within EAD, a programming group called SRD involved a separate company of about 200 people working exclusively for Nintendo. Nintendo EAD had previously produced Pocket Monsters Stadium, the prior entry in the series.

Pocket Monsters Stadium was initially set for release on the cancelled 64DD console and was planned to feature every Pokémon from the Game Boy games. This number was reduced to 40 during development and eventually released on cartridge for the Nintendo 64.

Pokémon Stadium received mostly positive reviews from critics, attaining a score of 78.60% on review aggregator GameRankings based on 26 reviews. The connectivity features between Pokémon Stadium and Pokémon Red, Blue, and Yellow were considered highlights of the game, with GameSpot writer Jeff Gerstmann stating it to be the game's "main hook". IGN writer Peer Schneider felt that the main appeal was seeing Pokémon in 3D, and highlighted other features, such as being able to play the Game Boy games on a television, but elaborated that, without Pokémon transferred from the Game Boy games, the battles felt meaningless to him. Game Revolution staff also felt the reliance on Game Boy features made battles feel more hollow, as otherwise players were forced to rely on unreliable rental Pokémon. RPGamer writer Ben Martin was critical of the game for similar reasons, criticizing the game as being an "add-on" to the Game Boy games.

Game Revolution staff believed that the game expanded upon the competitive mechanics of the main series games, but also felt that the gameplay quickly became repetitive. They felt that players would lose interest unless they played Pokémon series games "religiously". Martin felt that while it was easy to understand for young players, the lack of a plot or significant goal made battles quickly lose meaning. The mini-games received negative reception from critics such as Gerstmann and Schneider, who found them too simple, with Gerstmann comparing them negatively to the mini-games in the Mario Party series, while Schneider felt some games were better than others.