"Pokémon Battle Frontier vol. 1" Boxset Review Thread

[Lil Brother]

(Turns out this image is incorrect... Sceptile's been replaced with Grovyle and the little "x amount of episodes on x amount of discs" blurb is on the top, as always. All of the characters' placements have been slightly shifted around; Swellow's right wing is now completely behind Ash, for instance. I would have opted to make Ash smaller and to put Swellow *above* Grovyle instead of below, but whatever!)

That thread Sunain started (it was Sunain, right?) about this set being released earlier than expected seems to have vanished into thin air (or my searching skills suck), and I didn't see any review threads already. So... here we go! I apologize if I'm making a repeat thread here.

I thought this was going to be released next week, but I looked it up and it turned out to be this week. So I headed on over to Wal-Mart to pick it up. It's with thinpacks like the OI set was, which anyone could tell you was going to be the case. I skimmed through it a bit for a few minutes. The menus are as good as ever, and the picture quality's a-okay.

It, of course, uses the "correct" versions of the episodes: Max saying "Ground-type" instead of "Earth-type", actually spelling Combusken's name right on the title card for Spontaneous Combusken, and playing the instrumental version of Gotta Dance in King and Queen for a Day (although you can still hear Whismur). This is the first time I saw that scene using the instrumental version; I think I liked it more with Maddie Blaustein singing, for whatever reason.

My major complaint with this (aside from lack of Japanese track)? This set contains 24 episodes. The second set has 23. This set ends with the first of the two Anabel episodes. Wouldn't it have made more sense for the first set to have 23 episdoes and the second set to have 24, so volume 1 wouldn't end on a cliffhanger? *shrugs*

Spoiler

Also... holy crap, I forgot about how bad the new voice actors were in the first few episodes! XD Thank Arceus they got into their roles so quickly.

EDIT: Oh shit, never mind, found it!

 

[Wonder Happiny]

This is good news.

I wonder what the average price for this box set is going to be?

 

[Cybersai]

RE: Now that you mention it, Lil Brother, looking back at the voices now after a year has passed:

Spoiler

I actually don't think any of the voices were bad, even back here, aside from early Ash and Max.

Team Rocket and Brock sound mostly the same here as they do now in DP, and I thought May/Drew/Harley got great new voices. No complaints there whatsoever.

Max's voice sucked but since he has such a minor role this season it doesn't matter. Ash's voice gets better as you go on, and I really did like most of the actual Pokemon voices.

Anycase, I'll pick this up eventually.

 

[AtoMan]

I had NO idea they "fixed" the song...

 

[Cybersai]

Heh, I really wonder if Ash will ever have a team for a full season again that was as strong as his Battle Frontier lineup.

One of the best things about this season is Ash kept most of his powerhouse Pokemon from Hoenn and brought back all his strongest Pokemon from Oak's lab. My only regret were that Kingler and Muk weren't used, it really disappointed me.