(Pokémon Trading Card Game received a rating of E for Everyone from the ESRB.)

It’s the video game about a trading card game based on a video game! Yes, you read that right.

If you were born in the early to mid 90’s, you grew up with Pokémon. Even if you didn’t like Pokémon, you couldn’t deny it’s popularity – Pokémon cartoons, toys, movies, video games, books, and even a trading card game, which, in turn, led to the creation of a video game based on said trading card game. I shuffled the opponent’s deck, flipped a coin to check for paralysis, and took all the prizes for this review of Pokémon Trading Card Game.

Plot – The Story

You are a young boy, interested in the Pokémon Trading Card Game. After receiving your first deck of cards, you must challenge and defeat all 8 of the Club Masters, and then best the four Grand Masters, in order to attain four rare and powerful Legendary Cards and prove you are better than your rival, Ronald.

Playability – How The Game Feels In Your Hands

This Gameboy Color game is a virtual version of the popular Pokémon Trading Card Game. Since you don’t need to perform wall jumps or aim a rifle in a card game, the controls are very straightforward. You use the D-Pad to move your character and navigate menus, press A to select things, B to cancel, and Start to pause. That’s all there is to tell about the game’s playability, really – it’s extremely simple and it works.

Presentation – How The Game Looks And Sounds

Pokémon Trading Card Game‘s visual presentation is nothing to write home about. This does not mean it is bad, simply average. The visuals are alright, with basic colors, and simple animations for things such as walking or using an attack in-battle. The one thing that stands out visually are the recreations of the cards’ artwork. An example of the well-replicated images is displayed below.

Top: Artwork from two real Pokémon cards – Bottom: Screenshot from the game featuring the two above images

The music, however, is above average. The standard battle theme features a lighthearted and extremely catchy tune, which I often find myself humming out of the blue. For more challenging card duels, such as dueling a Club Master, the music shifts into a more serious tone, the strong bass riff and drums helping to build the tension and really make you feel like you earned that victory. I recommend giving these songs a listen, they make good use of the Gameboy Color’s limitations.

Performance – The Sum Of Its Parts

As a child, I collected Pokémon cards, as did many, many others. A common lament among children of the time, however, was nobody seemed to want to actually PLAY the game. I always had a deck of cards built in case I ever found a friend that wanted to challenge me to a duel, yet I rarely had a chance to try it out. That’s where this game comes in.

This game captures all of the fun of the Pokémon Trading Card Game. The point of the Pokémon Trading Card Game, and in turn, this video game, is to knock out your opponent’s Pokémon by attacking them with your own. There are seven different card types, being Water, Fire, Electric, Grass, Fighting, Psychic, and Colorless (no type). Most types have weaknesses and resistances to other types, adding a level of strategy to the game. For example, Fire does double damage to Grass, yet Fire takes double damage from Water. At the start of the game, you’re given a deck which features either Water, Grass, or Fire types. While you can go and immediately crush the Club which uses the card type weak to yours, you’ll need to eventually build your own deck if you want to get very far. This adds a whole new element to the game: customization.What types should you focus on building your deck to compete against? Do you want your deck to feature multiple Pokémon types? What about the specific style of Pokémon – do you want lots of weaker Pokémon that do not require much setup and can quickly start dealing consistent minor damage, putting pressure on the enemy? Or do you prefer stronger Pokémon, which require a lot more time and preparation to use, but can obliterate the enemy?

Building your deck adds a lot of user-input into the game, and seeing how well your creation fares against the enemy is fun. However, in order to build a deck, you’re going to need to do a lot of card dueling. Every opponent you beat gives you a pair of “booster packs” containing random cards you can add to your decks, with a general “theme” based on the Club you’re in. For example, if you started with the Fire type deck, as I did, most likely you’ll want to head over to the Grass Club, because Grass is universally weak to Fire. Once you beat a Club member, you’ll earn your two packs of cards. While the cards inside are for the most part random, they will feature Grass type cards most prominently, since you just bested a Grass type player. The same goes for all of the other Clubs – if you beat a Fighting type player, your two packs of cards received would feature Fighting type cards the most. If you want to build a Grass – centric deck, you’ll need to do a lot of dueling Grass Club members to get enough cards to make your deck perfect. While it is a little bit of a grind to do this, It’s still fun and challenging nonetheless.

The actual card battling in this game is wonderful. The intelligent computer has no remorse for you, and is always a challenge to compete against – rarely is the computer unfair, unless it’s your fault, such as playing with a bad deck of cards. While a lot of the game is a battle against luck, with your fate often being decided by a coin flip, there’s still a huge amount of challenge in altering your tactics and adapting to the new situations luck offers. Being able to think ahead is a must, as is a properly built deck for your situation. The whole experience this game offers is very fun, and still holds up to this day.

Postlude – Final Thoughts

Pokémon Trading Card Game filled a void in many children’s lives – it allowed you to actually experience the fun of using cards in competition, if simply collecting them was not enough. Since I could never find a friend who wanted to test his mettle in a game of Pokémon cards, I always busted out the old Gameboy Color and popped this gem into the system. It’s been years since I’ve touched a Pokémon Card, but I always find myself coming back to this game. It’s just as compelling to try to beat the four Grand Masters and your irritatingly cocky rival Ronald as it was ten years ago. If you can get a hold of this game, and enjoy tabletop card games, never had a chance to try the Pokémon Traing Card game out as a child, or simply want a great time killer, I whole-heartedly recommend trying it out.

DSBwizzardscall, 1/26/14