Pokemon Trading Card Game

"Weren't card games portable to begin with?"

Well, after recently picking up the Pokemon TCG Game used, i'd figure why not write a
review. And thats what this is.

Gameplay: Eh, its kinda fun. I mean its a card game, you already know its not
going to last long. Your basically on a quest to gain 4 legendary cards, not much depth
there either. The controls are fairly simply, the D-Pad allows you to walk, while pressing
A allows you to talk to people, and continue their messages, and B is cancel. Start pauses,
and I haven’t found anything important of select...yet.

Story: Like I said in the second paragraph, theres not much depth to it. Start off
naming yourself, your enemy is automatically named Ronald. You have to travel from
gym to gym and battle gym masters. After you receive 8 medals from them your off to
battle the so called ''masters'' of the game, and defeat them to earn the cards.

Audio and Video: If theirs one thing I liked most about this game was its great
soundtrack..if thats what you want to call it. I found my self with the volume maxed,
humming along to the tunes. Very enjoyable if I do say so myself. The graphics are fairly
decent, not up to par with the more recent Gameboy Color games, but its really what you
would expect of a pokemon game. What scares me is that some of the characters don't
have mouths...

Replay Value: Not much in my opinion. While the game is fun when you first
play it, it gets old fairly fast. If you have someone to battle with, I can see how you'll
never want to put the game down. But with the almost impossible chances of getting
every card, its really not worth it.

Buy/Rent/Don't Bother: If you can get it used, why not? Its worth the play the
first time around, but it really won't keep you busy. If you want, you can also beat it
under 5 days, so renting wouldn't be a bad idea. If you happen to have a Gameboy
Advance, maybe wait, and pass over the game, and spend your money on something
better, like Tony Hawk or Bomberman.

My final thoughts? Well, for starters the game could have been much harder, but the
reason I gave it a 7 was because I couldn't put it down while I had it. Its music also helps the rating too. Theirs something about the card game thats keeps me interested. Call me bias, but the game was fun, and buying it used was a good idea.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/17/01, Updated 09/17/01