Can someone fill me in on Pokemon XD, please?

[Stonewall]

I was debating on whether or not to get this game and I was hoping people would help me decide by filling me in on the info about the game.

I got Pokemon Collosseum because of the 3d battle system to battle other gameboy games, and the RPG was just a bonus. I was greatly disappointed because of this, becuase the person vs person battle system was just one single arena and there was no way to change it. The only way to get another arena was to play the challenges, however, you wouldn't be fighting other people then, and the prizes were pretty lame considering how much work you had to do to get them. The RPG itself while fun at first kinda of got boring just because there was a limited number of pokemon to catch, and with that shadow rush more often than not when you finally go the pokemon HP down to the red, it would often KO itself causing you to have to reset and start all over again. On the other hand, there was a lot of pokemon you could not get any other way, so the minor annoyance of the constant restarting was negated (for me anyway) by being able to catch Pokemon I couldnt' get anywhere else, including Jirachi with the Bonus disc. This all brings me to my point:

Is there anything new in XD? I mean, besides Lugia (sorry! Spoiler! lol!) is there any pokemon that you can get in this game that you can't get in Ruby, Saphire, Emerald, Fire Red, Leaf Green or Collosseum? Because it does seem like a lot of money to spend on a game to get one single pokemon.

In addition, I don't really feel liek starting a fifth new game all over again unless I get some really worthwhile bonuses (Liek the other games, I had to start a new game from scratch, IE, I couldn't use the pokemon I had trained in another game, but I got a fair to great number of exclusive pokemon only obtainable in that game, so it was okay. However, I don't know if XD would be worth it if all I can get for exclusives is Lugia. Even if You could pick from a variety of Battle fields in battle mode, that would be actually great news and would be enough for me to buy the game (because that's what I wanted in Collosseum, but never got. What idiot programmer thought that only one accessable colloseum would be good enough?) but I doubt that they would go to the trouble of adding different battle fields for a game that is focussed on the RPG element.

Another reason I didn't like Colloseum RPG mode was because going from place to place (phsyically walking from one building ot another, or riding an elevator or even accessing certain doorways took an overly long amount of time, and even the characters were stiff as they moved which isn't a big deal, but I found it annoying. Hopefully they sped up the interface and the character movement a bit.) was a tad laborious at times and to me seemed more like a chore than exploring. I mean, perhaps I am a little spoiled on the Gameboy Pokemon Games where you can just zip around and find items and explore new areas, but waiting for every single treasure box to open when you had to walk at a slow speed up a long corridor or around a building just for a potion was kinda boring, especially in teh same amount of time you could get halfway through a dungeon in the gameboy games. I would have liked a little more speed but oh well, I'm not here to complain abotu collosseum.

Long story short (I say at the end!) What, if anything, is new or exclusive to XD? is the character movement and exploration sped up from Colloseum, or is it still as stiff and slow as the previous game?

Does it still take a million years to get into a battle? (like during the colloseum challenges or Battle Mountain, where there's a big loading screen needlessly showing the challengers while that theme song plays and THEN the game allows you to choose your pokemon. I had no idea why they made that sequence so long, especially on battle mountain when you have to go through that 100 times)

In battle mode with your friends, is it just one arena, or can you choose from a selction of arenas?

Are there any exclusive pokemon other than Lugia?

Can you get a female Eevee if you restart the game enough times at the beginning?

I know there's no point in asking this, as I know what the answer will be, but is it possible to trade with your gameboy games from the beginning of the game, or do you once again, have to finish the game? (just once I wish Nintendo would make a game that allowed you to use your trained pokemon from other games from the beginning in the new game, and change the levels of the pokemon you fight to match the ones you are using accordingly)

Are there any battle mode liek challenges that let you use your gameboy games to win prizes or anything like Collosseum's battle mode did ? (only get better prizes?)

And finally Is there any way to get the pokemon from Collosseum onto XD without trading from Collloseum to a GBA game then to XD? (You'd think they would have though of doing that, especially with a Pokemon Game) well, that's about it. I was just curious if anyone could give me the info on XD! Thanks very much for your time!

[Abhorsen]

Ok, IMO XD was a stack better than Colosseum. I was heavily disappointed with Colosseum for the same reasons which you have listed there. These are my answers to your questions. If you dont wanta be spoiled, then dont read this...

1. There arent any new pokemon except Lugia. Every other pokemon is catchable in every other game except Celebi (not including the Ticket pokemon). There are a stack of new things in XD than in Colosseum but it would take too long to list them.
2. Alternate battlefields. I have no idea about them cause I havent versed anyone through link cable yet.
3. Character movement has sped up, a little bit. The elevators dont take so long but the walking speed, etc is still the same. There isnt any Bike or Fly in this game so you cant zip around the towns quickly. To leave towns you need to run ALL the way back to the entrance of the town to get to the next. Still annoying, especially near the end of the game.
4. New things, lol.
-All the shadow pokemon which you catch have moves which arent learnt in any other game, moves like Healbell, Baton Pass are put on pokemon which dont normally learn it. Serebii lists these somewhere.
-New shadow attacks. Instead of the plain Shadow Rush, there are about 15-20 new and different shadow attacks. They each have different effects. Shadow attacks are super effective on any normal pokemon and not very effective on other shadow pokemon.
-Getting into battles is still slow but faster than Colosseum. They dont waste as much time talking stupid things and send out their pokemon quickly. Still, it is still slow.
-Pokemon attacks. They changed the animations of a variety of pokemon attacks. They look much cooler than Colosseum had to offer, especially Icebeam :p
-You see 2 D/P pokemon and hear their cry's. That is Munchlax and Bonsley. There are 2 interactive parts involving them yet there arent any battles and you cant catch them.
-At the end of Mt Battle 100 (which I cant be bothered to do) you get a choice of one of the 3 Johto Starters. They also carry the Elementral Blasts. I.e. Frenzy Plant, Blast Burn, the water one which I cant remember.
-Shadows were ALOT easier to catch (for me at least). The only problem I had was with 2 pokemon in the final battle (not naming them so I dont spoil it)
-At the end of the game, there is a small mini quest. The prize... a Lucky Egg
-Wild pokemon are in it. They did it a stupid way though and there isnt a huge variety of them either.
-Saving. No more running to your PC to save. Save where and when you want on the spot.
-Purifying. You can purify up to 9 shadows at a time, easy.You also dont need to run to the Shrine in Agate to purify, you can do that in the Purifying Chamber very easily.
5. Nope, you need to finish the game before you can start trades from the GBA games. Most Shadow Pokemon are good enough for the RPG anyway so there's no need to get there faster.
6. How can you trade from XD straight to Colosseum? You'll need 2 GC's for that. But as I believe, you need to trade to the GBA games, etc.
7. Yes you can get a female Eevee but you need to try hard. Eevee has a 12.5% chance to be female so you need to restart alot.
8. Prizes for the colosseum battles. I think they're just TMs again. With Mt Battle, the pokecoupon prizes havent changed either, still the same ones.
9. Miror B has all the shadows that you fail to catch. He is easier to reach than the past trainers in Colosseum and the Miror.B Radar tell's you where he is.
10. I had to mention this. Miror B's theme song is the Best music in the game. Apart from that, the rest of the music is either the same as Colosseum or pretty average.

I think that's about everything new. I probably did miss something but you can just check Serebii since they have the whole game wrapped up in there site. Best place to check is there for things you want to know.

My 2 Cents.

[Stonewall]

ah well thanks that's very informative! I still might wait a bit to get some more information, but it does seem a little better than Collosseum so far. But as for trading between games, I guess you've never played Animal Crossing, but it could be done quite easily. Well, not so much trading, but XD reading the file from Collosseum and bringing the pokemon from that game over. They do it all the time in Animal Crossing. (You can put one town in one memory slot, then put the other town in the other memory slot, then travel back and forth between towns on both memory cards, or on Super Smash Brothers where the game reads the information on your memory card and gives you trophies if you have a Pikmin save file on your card, or a couple other games or even on the PLaystation where if you have an old Ratchet and Clank save file, the new Ratchet and Clank reads the file and if you finished the game, it gives you special prizes or discount on stuff int he current game, so it can easily be done, but I guess obviously XD didn't do it. Oh well.

[Pikachu]

Also, not that it's that important but they use it in NFS Most wanted also. The game checks for NFSU2 data and if it's present you get more money to start off with.

[RLRL]

Tiger Woods games do that, i got extra sponsorships and equipment for having the previous year's data... however with pokémon it would be kinda fiddley if you know what i mean... Remember, trading is an important part of the games

[Stonewall]

Also, can someone fill me in on what form Deoxys takes? I know in collosseum no matter what game it's from it takes the RUby/Saphire form/Stats, however does this change in XD? Can you see all it's forms? Like, if you had a Deoxys from FR, another from LG, and another from Emerald in your party, would they take on all three forms, depending on which deoxys was found in what game, or are all Deoxys STILL going to be the Ruby/Saphire form/stats? I would like to know because I am currently in the process of catching the Deoxys from LEaf Green and I was wondering if there was any point in saving a Deoxys from all three games and sending them over to Emerald, or just to keep one since they'd all be the same in a tournament anyway?

Also, How does Deoxys work in a link battle? Would the Deoxys in whatever game I'm using have the proper stats when fighting another version of the game, or would my stats become those of the deoxys in the other game version? (does that make any sense?)