That's one of the problems with Nintendo's new $20 special-order-only GameCube release, Pokemon Box. The other is that the Box is largely useless.

Box is for the devout only. It's merely a pokemon storage tool, providing additional space and sorting options for all the creatures you've collected in your copies of Sapphire and Ruby. To really appreciate Box, you would have to have filled all of your existing in-game storage boxes, which totals to over 400 captured pokemon. The Box can store an additional 1000. I don't think there's a huge call for that. I pretty much just caught one of each species and was done with it. (Although I did move my 40-strong collection of triple-damned Horseas off the cartridge and into the Box, just to be rid of them.)

So that's why Nintendo has bargain-priced it and included the free mem card and link cable... although if you're in deep enough to want Box, you most likely already have plenty of both, thanks to pack-ins and pre-order bonuses from other games.

The tragedy is that all the features of Box should have been included in Colosseum, which would have gone a long way towards making that game more palatable.

Aside from the unnecessary largesse of the storage containers, Box also lets you play Ruby and Sapphire on the TV. This feature was present in the N64 Stadium games, disturbingly absent from Colosseum, and already available to anyone with a Game Boy Player. The word is that Box will only play Ruby and Sapphire, however, not FireRed and LeafGreen... although I would hope they include Emerald on general principle. Box also lets you take snapshots of anything and use the pictures as box wallpaper, which is marginally nice if that strikes your fancy.

Then there's this asinine showcase option, where you can build 3D displays of your Boxed pokemon. The whole thing reminded me of a lamer Smash Bros trophy collection. It's a cute, Colorforms sort of idea, but what kills it is that the "trophies" are nothing more than 2D GBA sprites tacked onto some weak mounted display. If they had included the full-on 3D figures from Colosseum, and gave you total control of placement and cameras, this could have been a lot of fun... especially when coupled with the photography feature. I would have liked creating 3D battle scenes with dramatic camera angles. A Roselia facing off against a Torkoal! A horde of Mightyenas ripping into a school of Horseas! But no.

One benefit, we do have sexy Brigitte as the host of Pokemon Box. She possesses about three frames of animation and gives you an egg.

Only new Sapphire accomplishment: evolving up an Aggron. Still no Dragon Scale, even after catching another handful of Bagons. Here's hoping they're easier to find in LeafGreen and I can trade one over.

Time: 153:46
Badges: 8
Pokedex: 191
Party: Metagross lv69, Tropius lv30, Egg, Snorunt lv33, Golduck lv57, Feebas lv20