So, how did I even get into this?
Obligatory first question for these posts. Like with my Staraptor collection, I’ll split the answer into two parts: Why I chose to collect Pokémon Battle Revolution and why on earth I decided to collect all different versions. The latter part was basically just a combination of me being interested in collecting international stuff with cards anyway and the fact that the game isn’t too expensive, so it was both a fun and somewhat feasible collection goal. The former part is a bit more nuanced, as a kid I had Pokémon Battle Revolution for the Wii, but didn’t quite like it, as there were only battles and they were after a certain point a bit too challenging for younger me (note that I had a Wii way before I was allowed to own a handheld, so I could play with rental Pokémon only). In the wake of the, to put it mildly, somewhat controversial Sword & Shield release, Pokémon Battle Revolution started to get some spotlight though, mainly comparing it’s animations to the SWSH ones. With that attention and me recalling that I did at least like the atmosphere and the look of the game I went out to reacquire a copy after I sold my old one years earlier as a kid. I bought it in the morning on the release day of Sword and Shield before school and went on to play it on stream the same afternoon. Since then, I replayed the game and finished it rental Pokémon only and later even did a fun challenge run which not too many people have done with that game. As not a kid anymore, I of course saw the criticism that Pokémon Battle Revolution in contrast to the Stadium games or Colosseum / XD was lacking additional content, but I also was and still am of the opinion that purely for battles, Battle Revolution is still the ultimate experience in terms of atmosphere, music and execution. Anyway, due to my then newfound appreciation of the game, I started to buy a few additional German copies just for fun, since they were very cheap (like 10-15€ usually) anyway. During that process, I noticed that there were multiple different German packaging versions and that got me curious in researching about international variations too. Combine that with me being in international collecting mode with my Staraptor collection anyway and you know where that leads. I of course prioritized the TCG collection, but whenever there was not much progress on it and I had spare money, I bought a few more copies of Battle Revolution here and there, which eventually lead to me possessing all of them that I know of (except for one Spanish version that might exist).
The different versions
Now one might think that a game that despite carrying the Pokémon brand and being released on a very successful console only sold somewhere between 1 million and 2 million copies wouldn’t have that many versions, but you’d be wrong. To my knowledge there are 27 (!) different retail versions of this game, which has a lot to do with the time frame it was released in, but I’ll get to that later, for now enjoy a picture of all of them, before I cover the individual releases:
Japanese release
To start off, I’ll of course go with the first version that released: The original Japanese one. To my knowledge that should be the only Japanese version, but I can’t read Japanese, so I might have missed nuanced differences, if you know of any version not listed in this post, please definitely let me know!
Article number: —
Disc: RVL-RPBJ-JPN
(North) American releases
Version A
As you can see below, this version has the interesting perk of coming with trilingual packaging. I’ve seen bilingual before on games, but even though this seems to not be unusual for ESRB rated Wii games, that was the first time I encountered English, Spanish and French being on one video game back cover.
Article number: 6351A
Disc: RVL-RPBE-USA
Version B
Article number: 6351B
Disc: RVL-RPBE-USA
Apart from the layout of the text on the front being different, the article number is also different and the right barcode has 101 instead of 100 as it’s number. I’m not sure why this revision exists to be honest, but it does exist.
Australia / New Zealand release
Article number: —
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR
Just like Japan, this region to my knowledge only got one version. What’s interesting is the PAL color coding in the bottom left on the back, which you can also see on the European versions (though it’s on the side there), I’ll get into that later.
European English release
Version 1
Article number: —
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR
This version was mainly for the UK (and presumably Ireland), it features English text on the back and, with the game coming to Europe in December 2007, carries the pre 2009 PEGI age rating logo.
Version 2
Article number: 2122346T1
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR-B0
As hinted at with the version before, in 2009 PEGI updated their logo, leading to new retail versions of the game being produced for many European regions. Apart from the PEGI changes and new article number, the lower left side of the back also got a new warning and the Made in Japan line was removed.
Version 3
Article number: 2122346T2
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR-B0
After just about a year from adding color, PEGI decided to change their logos again, now opting for a solid color background and docking their domain directly to the logo. The only other change apart from the new article number is the “Please retain the packaging” now also being printed in Russian. This particular copy is also interesting, because it apparently was sold so late in store, that they had to add the sticker informing about the impending shutdown of Wii online play to the front.
French release
Version 1
Article number: —
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR
Version 2
Article number: 2122347T1
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR-B0
As with English, after the PEGI logo update, a new version was produced that also added an article number and a new warning on the back while removing the “Made in Japan”.
Version 3
Article number: 2122347T2
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR-B0
Unlike with English, there is no Russian text added, presumably due to this version releasing earlier. So only the PEGI logos and article number are changed from V2.
Italian release
Version 1
Article number: —
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR-1
As you can see, in Italy Wii games apparently got some kind of security seal above the age rating, as all my Italian copies have it.
Version 2
Article number: 2122349T1
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR-1
Alongside the new PEGI logo, we have the usual adjustments also seen in the English and French versions.
Version 3
Article number: 2122349T2
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR (possibly a mixup, these were all bought used after all)
No Russian added here either, so it’s just the PEGI logo and article number being changed again.
Germany release
Version 1
Article number: —
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR
While most of Europe uses PEGI, Germany has it’s own age rating body for video games (USK), so you’ll see the free for all ages rating on the copies sold in Germany instead of the 7+ rating it got for most (yes, we’ll get to that) PEGI countries.
Version 2
Article number: —
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR-1
Well, the difference on the front is quite easy to notice and not exactly nice to look at (especially for game collectors I suppose). Due to new requirements in 2008 for the USK logo to be a certain size (which are a rabbit hole of their own dating back to a huge debate about violence in video games in the 2000s after a 2002 school shooting), a new retail version of the game was made, that otherwise features no changes (so the backside is 100% identical). At least they did adjust the cover art to not cover Torterra too much.
Version 3
Article number: 2122340T2
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR-B0
And what would a European age rating body be if it didn’t change its logos in 2009? So of course USK did that too, leading to a third retail version in Germany. On the back we now also have the addition of the warning against modding your console and the one before that has been revised to remind the user that only the latest firmware will run the game. An article number has also been added next to the barcode.
Austria & Switzerland release
Version 1
Article number: —
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR-B0
Yup, that’s right. As I said, Germany uses a different age rating system, but that doesn’t mean that all countries with a sizeable German speaking population do. Austria (except for the state of Salzburg for whatever reason) and Switzerland use PEGI like most other European countries, so there was a special German text, but PEGI logo retail version for them.
Version 2
Article number: 2122354T
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR-B0
The changes on the back apart from the PEGI logo are the same as with version 3 from Germany, but the different elements were additionally partially rearranged here. This game was one of the hardest to acquire for me. After seeing one for sale and not buying it, I had to wait around a year until another copy finally showed up on Willhaben. So I figure this is probably one of the rarest versions of the game due to having such a regionally limited release and releasing relatively late into the lifespan of the Wii. By the way, shoutout to the search agent feature of Willhaben which sends you a mail with pictures every day that new listings on your saved search term show up, super useful and I wish other platforms did that too.
Spanish release
Version 1
Article number: —
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR
Version 2
Article number: 2122341T1
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR-B0
The usual changes for the first PEGI logo update apply to the Spanish version too. As mentioned, perhaps a version with the current PEGI logo exists too, but if it does, I couldn’t find it so far.
Portuguese release
Article number: —
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR
Now we leave the realm of the packaging being in a language the game is actually available in with Portuguese, therefore it is also noted on the back that the game is available in English and Spanish while the manual is in Portuguese. Another interesting thing is something I hinted at earlier: While Portugal does use the PEGI system, until 2021 it mandated 4+ and 6+ instead of the usual 3+ and 7+ PEGI ratings, leading to a unique rating among the other versions of the game.
Dutch release
Version 1
Article number: —
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR
Like Portuguese, the game of course also wasn’t released in Dutch, although I’d have loved for it to be for the voice lines of the announcer alone, after all I do like what Nintendo did with Star Fox recently. That’s again therefore also noted on the backside.
Version 2
Article number: 2122348T1
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR-B0
The PEGI logo change lead to a new packaging for The Netherlands and Belgium too that adjusted the logo, removed the Made in Japan line, added the additional warning and an article number as well as replacing the Nintendo Wifi domains with the Nintendo support one.
Version 3
Article number: 2122348T2
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR-B0
And the Dutch version was indeed updated a second time for the newest PEGI logo. This version interestingly, like English, also added the Russian retain packaging line, indicating to me that it was also released later than French or Italian. The support domain was also removed on the back, the model number moved to a different place and the article number was of course updated.
Russian release
Article number: —
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR
Next up we have the Russian version, which besides the last Austrian one was certainly the hardest to get for me, so huge shoutout to @zyxxke for making that possible! Now Russia did introduce and mandate the use of their own age rating system in 2012, but that didn’t lead to a new packaging being produced, because at that point that wouldn’t have been worth it. Retailers did have to cover up the rating of with new stickers though, which I saw on Avito and found interesting.
Scandinavian release
Article number: —
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR
So originally, this whole post was meant to be made weeks ago, I legit had everything ready as a draft and was about to create the topic. But when I wrote the last section about the NOE color codes and checked the spreadsheet I linked there for some codes I hadn’t encountered with this game, I quickly noticed after searching online that two additional versions of the game exist that flew under my radar before. This Scandinavian version was sold by the local distributor Bergsala in Scandinavia and contains both a Danish and a Swedish description on the back. Despite that, this is also the version that was sold in Norway and Finland, where I got my copy from thanks to the help of @joponnes
Greek / Balkan release
Article number: —
Disc: RVL-RPBP-EUR-B0
This now final version too is attributable to a specific distributor, in this case Nortec, the distributor for Greece and the Balkan countries at the time. Therefore, the back has both a Greek description for Greece and an English description for the other countries.
The discs
Now as you might have seen, I included the disc version that was in each copy. This may not be necessarily 100% accurate since they were used copies and there might have been switchups at the previous owners, but I found it interesting nevertheless. The other regions only got one, but for the PAL regions, there are three different discs, labeled RVL-RPBP-EUR, RVL-RPBP-EUR-1 and RVL-RPBP-EUR-B0 on the front:
As you can see, EUR and EUR-1 as the two earlier versions look mostly the same except for their name, but EUR-B0 as the last version changed from a glossy to a matte finish and updated the USK logo to the post 2009 one. RVL on these discs stands for Revolution, the project name of the Nintendo Wii, RPB seems to be the game code for Pokémon Battle Revolution and the J (Japan), E (Americas) and P (PAL) seem to be region codes, alongside the last part of the designator. Now if you turn the discs around, you’ll notice that the same code on the front doesn’t always mean that the back is 100% identical, as there seems to be a number probably noting which specific production batch the disc is from, which can, but doesn’t have to match:
NOE color codes
As you saw on the first photo, it was pretty colorful due to Nintendo utilizing a color code system for the PAL region games, each region getting it’s own color. I initially thought the colors weren’t really documented that well online, but then after a bit of research stumbled upon this pretty up to date spreadsheet. So that’s nice to see, as I always like when collecting things in different languages also gives you different looks apart from the text, which is for instance also the case with Pokémon code cards. So now after introducing you to the color codes, here’s a picture of all the ones available for this game to my knowledge:
From right to left we have: Bright Yellow for Portugal, Dark Green for the UK and Russia, Light Blue for The Netherlands and Belgium, Blue for Italy, Red for France, Burgundy for Austria and Switzerland, Pink for Spain, Magenta for Greece, Purple for Scandinavia and Deep Purple for Germany. The Brown for Australia / New Zealand can only be seen on the back due to the age rating being where the color code is on the side of the European games, but you can scroll up again to have a look at that too. This color coding by the way isn’t exclusive to the Wii, but was also used before and after which you can see with a few DS, 3DS and Switch games I have:
loved the super detailed post, and really really liked the fact that the different versions were colour coded, i’m sure there’s some practical use for them but no matter what’s the reason this a perfect way to differentiate things as at least for collectors like me those kinds of details are pure eye candy and there isn’t too many instances of combined practicality and collectability 