Between tournaments, Pokémon Stadium offers a recreational break: the Kids Club. This playground gathers nine mini-games that can be played alone against the computer or with one to four players, with no Transfer Pak or Game Boy cartridge required, and with no reward at stake: nothing to unlock, other than the pleasure of winning. In the mini-games, Pokémon from the game play in your place (Magikarp, Clefairy, Rattata, Drowzee, Pikachu, Lickitung and others), never your own. This page presents the mode, its difficulty rules and the nine games; detailed rules are in Timing and memory mini-games and Speed and skill mini-games.
How the Kids Club works
In each mini-game, four participants compete. You take the place of one or several of them and the others are controlled by the computer; you can also play with two, three or four controllers. The mode offers two ways to play:
- Single game, to practice or just for fun.
- Who Will Be the Best?, a mini-game tournament that continues until one of the players reaches a set number of wins. This is the mode used to unlock the Hyper level.
The computers play at three difficulty levels: Easy, Normal and Hard. A fourth level, Hyper, is hidden: it opens when you win five mini-games in a row in a game of Who Will Be the Best? against three computers set to Hard. A message announces it at that moment.
The nine mini-games at a glance
| Mini-game | Pokémon | Principle | Main controls |
|---|---|---|---|
| Magikarp’s Splash | Magikarp | Jump as high as possible to touch the counter at the top of the screen as many times as you can. | A to jump |
| Clefairy Says | Clefairy | Repeat an ever-longer sequence of directions written on the board. | Control Pad |
| Run, Rattata, Run! | Rattata | Run on a conveyor belt and jump over obstacles to finish first. | A to run, up to jump |
| Snore War | Drowzee | Use Hypnosis at the right moment to put your opponents to sleep. | A |
| Thundering Dynamo | Pikachu or Voltorb | Charge a dynamo faster than the others by pressing the button that matches the color of the bulb. | A or B |
| Sushi-Go-Round | Lickitung | Eat the dishes on a sushi conveyor belt to run up the bill. | Stick to move, A to eat |
| Ekans’ Hoop Hurl | Ekans | Throw Ekans like rings onto Diglett, in sixty seconds. | Pad to aim, stick down to throw |
| Rock Harden | Metapod or Kakuna | Use Harden at the right moment to withstand a shower of rocks. | A |
| Dig! Dig! Dig! | Sandshrew | Dig as fast as possible to reach the spring before the others. | L and R alternately |
Our verdict and a few pointers
- These mini-games are simple to explain and short. In our review at the time, we wrote that the mode “is mostly of interest in multiplayer”; the international press of the time was divided, some critics finding them too basic compared to Mario Party, others finding them fun despite their simplicity.
- Start on Easy to learn the controls. The first three levels keep the same rules; only the computers’ behavior changes.
- The Hyper level has to be earned over time: aim for the games you are most comfortable with (see our detailed pages) and save the most random ones, like Ekans’ Hoop Hurl, for the end.
- The Nintendo Switch Online version keeps the Kids Club, which does not depend on any accessory.
The mini-games are also part of the Stadium series’ style: Pokémon Stadium 2 will offer twelve, with a quiz mode as a bonus and the ability to play with the Pokémon from your cartridge.
