Pokemon Trading Card Game

"A good game, but too short and vague."

After reading reviews for this game today, I discovered not many people mentioned what I am going to. Today we review "Poke'mon Trading Card Game" for GBC, a 6 year old game.

Story
The story of this game is simple, you are a young boy who wants to start playing the card game that everyone else plays. You want to seek out these elusive "Legendary pokemon cards" that everyone is competing for. Your story starts out in Dr. Mason's lab (Who is kind of like Oak in Pokemon Red/Blue.)
8/10

Graphics
The graphics are not that bad for being made 5 years ago. Regular pokemon games have better graphics, but these are not bad at all. I have yet to see glitches, errors, or problems yet. Not much else to say.
7/10

Sound
The sound, is not horrible, but annoying. There are only around 6 different songs that you hear over and over and over and over all day long. The sounds of dueling are hardly noticeable and nothing to write home about. After a few minutes you may want to put your volume all the way down and listen to barney or teletubbies over this.
4/10

Gameplay
To anyone who knows the rules to the real pokemon TCG, they are the game here. After choosing a starting deck you go out to face whoever you want in 8 gyms (clubs). You are allowed to save decks you make into a machine and carry 4 decks on you that you can modify whenever you want. After beating someone you get 1-4 boost packs (90% of the people give you 2, your beginning buddy gives you 1 with only energy cards, Mason gives you e-mails with 1, and this one weird guy gives you 4) and after you beat the 3 students of a gym you face the leader in a 6-prize showdown. What makes it too easy is that everyone in that gym have a one type deck (i.e. the rock club has all rock decks pretty much) and all you have to do is change your deck to the type the gym is weak to (i.e. for rock you use leaf, for water you use lightning.) Doing this makes dueling easy and sometimes tedious throughout the whole game.
There is hope, though. Through out the game you face your rival many times, and in the lobby of every gym is usually 1 more person to duel who you don't know their deck. You are allowed to rematch anyone as well to get more cards. After you beat the 8 gyms you get to go into another building to fight for the legendary cards, and of course you don't know their decks.
7/10

Depth
I decided to show depth because this is where the game fails most. The only way to get cards is to duel someone, but there are a few exceptions. One person trades a lot but after a few trades he leaves and never comes back, and there are hidden cards you can find. They could have added so much to this game, but didn't. They could have had you gain money through out the game and have a pokemon shop with cards and packs, but didn't. They could have had more than 30 trainers in the game, but they didn't. They could have made gyms with mixed decks, but they didn't. They could have made more than 228 cards, but didn't. I think you get my idea. With changes I would have given this game a 9 or 10.
5/10

Overall
Overall with work and depth this game could have actually been really good, unfortunately without these it is just a mediocre game that pokemon fans will play for a few hours and set down. Don't get me wrong, it isn't a BAD game, it just is a little disappointing and how it could have been a GREAT game.
7/10

Buy or Rent
If you find this game for rent, rent it. You can beat it in around 5 hours playtime usually if you don't do anything extra. If not I would suggest buying it at a gamestop used for 5-10 dollars, but this game isn't worth over 10 dollars.

Peace out.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/15/04