Pokemon Trading Card Game

"Outdated, easy, but still more fun then violence with hammers."

POKEMON TCG REVIEW
Introduction:Ugly to Easy
This is not your average Pokemon game. You don't have Pokeballs to catch them all, and you don't have a camera to snap them all. Instead, you have a deck of seemingly scrambled up cards to defeat 8 gym leaders (That's a new one) and the legendary 4 (Seems familiar...) and the champion (Hmmmm....). Your goal: To become the best card gamer in the world (Wow, a brand new concept). Does that seem familiar? It should, since that is the basic premise of the story of the main Pokemon series. Although the story is familiar, the way the game plays out it different.
The game starts off with your character receiving your ''deck'', which is, in comparison, a very poor deck, hardly serviceable in battles. You get an extremely tedious tutorial, which will give you ample time to take a nap. From there, you will fight other card players to get ''packs'' of cards, containing three types of cards for your player. So, that is all the background information you need to know, now on to the next part of the review, the visuals.

Visuals:What do you expect, it is a handheld card game
Well, welcome to the Bland Gym! At this gym our masters specialize in using the graphic type cards, of course though, we do not actually use the good cards of the graphic type. Our favorite cards in the gym are the ''still'' card and the average rank ''GBC'' card. Our color energy cards are not very powerful, but they work really well. The ''lame sparkly effect'' trainer card complements our gym's decks well. Enjoy your stay at our Bland Gym.
OK, that was just my joking introduction paragraph, now, for the normal part of the visuals review. The overall game is about as average as you will get on the Game Boy Color. It looks very similar visually to, well, the Pokemon series. The characters look very similar to the Pokemon series of characters, meaning that they can be identified as human, but they aren't anything impressive. The environments (The Gyms and World Map), are average, nothing will disappoint you, but none of it will wow you either.
Now the cards, they look like their real-life counter-parts, which is very nice. As a former Pokemon card game veteran, it was very pleasing to see I could tell if I had my Scyther card out or my Beedrill without actually looking at the name. Now, my one complaint with the cards is small, but it is that the Holographic effect (Which in the world of the Pokemon TCG, are called Holos, where the background of the Pokemon is shiny, signifying a rare card) looks extremely bad in my opinion. Not much to scoff at though.

Summary:
Props:
Cards are accurate
Nothing is very disappointing

Slops:
Bad ''sparkly'' effect on holographic cards.
Nothing is very impressive
Looks TOO much like the main Pokemon series

Audio:Sounds like.... you guessed it, Pokemon
At this point of the review, you are likely wondering why I gave this game an 8. Well, this section on the audio of the game.... will not tell you why I gave it an 8. The audio is about on par with the visuals, mediocre and not really original.
Now, I will admit the games music is original (As in not copied), and not taken from the Pokemon games, so it is a plus it is at least original to my knowledge. The first thing the overall sound reminded me of is the golf games with the background music, fairly mellow and happy. It will put you at an ease, but will not lull you to sleep, fairly good, but not very original (Style), pretty mediocre but appropriate for a game such as this.
The other sound effects, as everything else so far, is bland. There are little sound effects for the attacks, but nothing that will be noticed by anyone that isn't writing a review. Little choosing noises (Such as sounds for picking your cards) are inserted in there basically to clarify you did something in the game.
Next Up, the part of the game that earns the game it's eight, the game play.

Summary
Props:
Music is new and not taken from other Pokemon games.
Fairly relieving background music
Nothing terrible to note

Slops:
Nothing innovative
Little good to note

Game playPlays like....you guessed it, Pokemon TCG in real life
OK, this is the best part of the game, bar none. It follows the trading card game closely, so well that it is a very acceptable substitute for the real thing, at least when it was released. A very strong electronic representation of the card game, not to mention the packs don't cost 3 dollars a piece.
To start out, the game includes the first three sets of Pokemon cards, the Base Series, the Jungle Expansion, and the Fossil Expansion. For those who don't know, the expansions on any card series release new cards for usage in games. The game includes all the cards in those three series, and a fair amount of promotional cards, bringing the overall in-game total to a whopping 226 different cards. At the time of release, it was adequate since those three series were the only ones on the American market, but since then, 5 or 6 new expansions have been released, lowering the value of the game from a 9 to an 8.
Now, in the game, you use decks, which are groups of 60 total cards, to fight against your enemies in the game. This game's difficulty will depend on how well you construct your deck. Decks are the main focus of the Pokemon Card Game, and having the correct combination of cards will make the game extremely easy. Now, to the meat of the game play, the collecting, organizing, and battling.
The battles follow the real life experience very well, and require strategy to win. I have only seen one deterrent in battle, which in all honesty, is a foil to cheating. This one unrealistic feature are the rigged coin flips. All the coin flips, no matter how many times you reset your game, will always be the same. For instance, if a coin flip attack poisons you that coin flip will not change if you reset it. That is it that is the only major problem with the battle set-up itself.
Now, here is the good paragraph or two on battling. The games that you play go along extremely smoothly, which is very pleasing. The computer AI is fast with their decisions, which allows a quick game, a must in most card games. Surprisingly nice and it made me very happy to play a lot of battles.
Another thing that made the battles a joy to participate in is the amazing organization and easy to navigate menus. There are only 6 choices of things you can do during your turn, Attack, look at your hand, check your cards status, retreat your Pokemon, check your ''Pokemon Power'', or finish your turn. It is that simple, and it works amazingly well. Games more often than not are around 3-5 minutes since the menus are done so well and the AI is so fluent. My final praising is the fact if you need to shut it off in a battle because you have something to do immediately, you can shut it off, and you can start from where you left off in your battle, a nice touch.
Next up on the for me to review is the collecting aspect of the game. Whenever you win one of your battles, you will often get 2 packages, which contain cards to use in your decks. In all, there are 10 cards in a package of cards, which include 1 ''rare'' card, which are often the better cards. Then there are 3 ''uncommon'' card, which once in a while serve a purpose, but some of them are worthless. From there, 5 ''common'' cards find their way into packages, and most of them are bad for anything but collecting. Then to finish it off, there is one energy card, which is used to power your cards.
There are a total of four sets, not including promotional cards won in tournaments, acquired in trades, or won in other battles. There is a different kind of pack for the four sets. That is the end of the small section on collecting, now on to arguably the best section of the game, organization.
The organization ability of this game is extremely strong. The menus out of battle are just as good, if not better than the ones in battle. The Pokemon Trading Card Game makes it easy to make a deck and easy to find your cards. The computer is also pretty easy to use. There is nothing wrong with the ordering and finding of items.

Summary
Props:
Fast battles
Great Organization
Collecting aspect is well done
Menus are just plain good overall
Computer AI is very fast
Easy to make decks

Slops:
I guess the card game is a little simple

Difficulty:As difficult as turning your GBC on near the end
This will be a short section ragging on the overall novice ability of the AI in the game. This game's intelligence is pitiful. Anyone who has even had a small amount of competitive experience in this card game will school any deck in this game. After you are able to get a respectable deck together, any challenge this game may have had has suddenly evaporated. Honestly, the most challenging aspect of this game could be playing against friends.

Summary
Props:
Easy for beginners

Slops:
WAY too easy for anyone else

Well, that is the end of my review of the Game Boy Color Game, Pokemon Trading Card Game. The game is dated and easy, and will become even more dated as time goes on obviously. Still, this game is worth a look if it is cheap, or if you have an interest in trading card games. From what I hear, this is usually used as an early stepping-stone to the acclaimed Magic series. Still, final verdict

Score: 8/10
Buy/Rent/Ignore: At least rent if you like card games, buying is a decent option.
High Point: The Card Game itself
Low Point: The pitifully easy difficulty

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/15/02, Updated 07/15/02