The popular Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG) came to the United States at the beginning of 1999, a few months after the original Game Boy games and simultaneous with the anime show. One year later, on April 10, 2000, the first digital implementation of the game arrived in the form of a Game Boy Color game. Although it features only the first three sets–just over 200 cards–and a low-resolution interface, it is a complete and faithful reproduction of the card game.
I've played Magic: The Gathering, the world's first (and best) TCG, since 1994 but only got into the Pokémon TCG a couple years ago thanks to the free digital version. As a teenager I dismissed Pokémon as too simple, but the game is a lot of fun. I no longer see the simplicity as a drawback. There is plenty of strategy, and tournament-quality decks can do crazy things thanks to powerful deck-searching cards.
A skippable tutorial teaches you how to play the Pokémon TCG. Players use their card collection to build decks of exactly 60 cards, with no more than four copies of any given card (except basic Energy). You begin with one starter deck (your choice of three). All matches are 1v1. Each player lays out six prize cards face down, draws a hand of seven cards, then places one basic Pokémon from their hand face-up in front of them. Up to five additional Pokémon may be played to the "bench." Each Pokémon has a certain number of HP, between 30 and 120. When your active Pokémon receives that much damage, you discard it and activate one from your bench (or lose), and your opponent draws a prize card. Whoever draws all six of their prize cards wins.
Every Pokémon has one or more attacks. You must attach a certain number of Energy cards to a Pokémon to use its attacks, and you can play only one Energy per turn. Pokémon and Energy come in seven types: lightning, fire, grass, water, fighting, psychic, and colorless. Most Pokémon are weak against one type, receiving double damage, and some resist one type, reducing damage by 30. Most attacks have special effects, too. These often involve coin-flipping. For example, Nidorino's Double Kick requires three energy: you flip a coin twice, and for each head it deals 30 damage to the opponent's active Pokémon. There are negative status effects ("Special Conditions"), too: asleep, confused, paralyzed, and poisoned. When a Pokémon is asleep, for example, you flip a coin after each turn: it wakes on heads. As long as it's asleep, it can't attack or retreat. Retreating lets you bench your active Pokémon and replace it, usually at the cost of discarding one or more of its Energy cards.
Basic Pokémon can evolve into more powerful forms. A level-1 Pokémon card can be played only on top of its corresponding basic Pokémon, covering it up. Likewise, a level-2 Pokémon replaces its level-1. So, for example, the basic Charmander evolves into Charmeleon, who evolves into Charizard. Charizard has 120 HP compared to Charmander's 50, and his powerful Fire Spin deals 100 damage, whereas Charmander's Ember does 30.
The final card type, Trainers, have various one-time effects and do not cost Energy. For example, Potion heals one Pokémon 20 damage. Computer Search lets you search your deck for any card at the cost of discarding two cards from your hand. Energy Removal discards an Energy card from a Pokémon of your opponent. Gust of Wind swaps your opponent's active Pokémon for one from their bench. Winning decks play many powerful Trainer cards.
The game looks like an RPG, although the world is very small. The map contains twelve areas, all accessible immediately. Eight of these are "clubs," each of which has a "master." The other areas are Mason's Lab (starting area), Ishihara's House, the Challenge Hall, and Pokémon Dome (final area). At the Challenge Hall, you face three random opponents in a row. Some club masters can be challenged immediately. If you beat them, you earn their medal. Others require you to complete certain tasks first, such as defeating everyone in their club or having two medals. Medals also give you access to prebuilt decklists for that club, though you have to first possess all the cards in the list; they don't give you any cards. The goal of the game is to beat the four Grand Masters, who can be challenged once you have all eight medals. Defeating a Grand Master earns you a special card unique to the Game Boy game.
Despite the RPG trappings, the game is almost entirely playing the Pokémon TCG. Each area is tiny, with a few NPCs you can talk to and duel against, usually with only four prize cards. Whenever you win, you are rewarded with two booster packs of ten cards each, one being rare. This is how you gain new cards, and it's slow. If you want to build a top-tier tournament deck (not at all necessary to beat the game), you will have to play many games to accumulate all the rare cards you want! In fact, there's no guarantee you will ever get them, since there is no "duplicate protection." You could open 10 Charizards and no Blastoise. You can't use a card in multiple decks. So if you, for example, wanted four copies of Double Colorless Energy in five different decks, you would need twenty copies! You can have up to five decks, though you can also save decklists.
There is another way to get cards. By linking your system to someone else's, once per person, and doing "Card Pop!", each of you gets one random card. (This feature works over the internet in the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack version!) There's a less than 1% chance the card will be the Game Boy-exclusive Phantom Mew, who does random damage.
The thing that's most impressive about the game is how successfully it implements the full Pokémon TCG on the Game Boy Color's tiny screen. You can even play on an original Game Boy, though it runs more slowly! Straightforward, intuitive menus let you examine your hand, individual cards, the play area, and the discard piles. There are even a few shortcuts, such as holding ↓ and pressing B to view your Pokémons. When selecting a card, you can usually first "check" it to read it. There are, however, a few situations where you can't "check" first. The thin font is a bit hard to read. To accommodate the large amount of text, two letters are fit into each space by making them half-wide. The graphical interface, which shows the two active Pokémon, how much HP and damage they have, what Energy they have, is clean and effective.
If you were to play this game long enough, you might wish there were more than 30 NPCs, especially some with top-tier decks. Building new decks and trying new strategies keeps things fresh: for example, you can try to make the best deck you can for each of the six types. However, with only the first three sets in the game, you may eventually wish there were more cards. The game got a sequel in Japan with twice as many cards. Despite these limits, compared to other Game Boy and Game Boy Color games from the 2000's, the replayability here is immense. I'm sure many kids played it for hundreds or thousands of hours. I don't have nostalgia for it, but I like the Pokémon TCG, and I recognize that, for its time, this game is amazing.
I do wish you could get cards more quickly. I want to make top-tier decks, but acquiring all the rare cards takes opening many, many booster packs. The most you can do to speed it up is to determine which of the four types of packs (Mystery, Colosseum, Evolution, and Laboratory) the card you want is in, and then duel opponents that reward that type. For example, if you want Venusaur, you need Evolution packs. I understand that this slow approach (two packs per victory) made sense at the time. The game is not about tournament-level play. If you could immediately build the best decks, this game would be worse, because it would short-circuit the growth process. This is a kind of RPG: grinding up your collection is part of the formula.
I recommend this game to Game Boy fans who like the Pokémon TCG. If you're not into Game Boy, there's not much reason to play this old version. If you know you dislike the Pokémon TCG, this is obviously not for you. If you've never tried the game, I'd recommend it.
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| Grade: A- |
Linked Review
"The lack of outdoor environments and the uninspired club designs are admittedly a disappointment, but if you’ve come for the gameplay — and you should — then there’s no shortage of duel opportunities here."
— Nintendo Life, Conor McMahon, 8/10
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