Pokemon Trading Card Game

"Could Be Better..."

The Pokemon Card Game for GBC, in my opinion, surprisingly sucked! It has some good qualities about it, but there are a few things about it that were not good.

Gameplay - It is a great game if you love the Pokemon TCG from Wizards of the Coast. Many card players to play against in the game. All of the battles are basically the same, but it is an addicting game. One problem I had with my game is the saved game kept getting erased. The saved game erasure appears to be random, that is, not caused by an outside source. I returned the game 5 times, and each game I got back had the same problem with the saved game. I tried contacting Nintendo about this, but they were clueless as to why this was happening. Also, you can't customize the settings(Text speed, animation, etc.) until after the first battle. Because of this, the text takes a long time to get on to the screen, and the first battle takes longer than it should. You get to customize your own deck, but you can't have decks that share a card. You must remove that card from a deck to put it into another deck. You win booster packs from other card players, but you may have to battle for a while before you get the card(s) that you want. Also, you can let the game create customized decks for you, but you must have the cards needed.

Story - Similar to Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow. In this game, you are trying to obtain the legendary Pokemon cards. You go around to the different card gyms, battle the trainers and leaders, earn badges and booster packs, and when you get all of the badges, you can battle the elite four. Plus, you battle your rival every once and a while. One good difference between this game and the first pokemon games is that you can fight a person more than one time.

Audio/Video - The graphics are great on GBC, Pokemon and cards drawn and colored very well. The music is great, considering the fact that it on a Gameboy and not a T.V., very catchy music, in my opinion.

Replayability - Like I said before, this game addicting. The game can probably be beaten in under a day, but you can battle friends via cable link. Plus, you still have to get all of the Pokemon cards. Playability=Forever.

To buy or to rent? - If you are going to get this game, let me warn you, your saved game may get erased. You may also want to get a Game Shark with this game so that you can get the cards you want right away, without all of the cursing and throwing and breaking you may experience when all of your hard earned cards are gone because your saved game was erased. Plus, you may also want to get one of those saved game packs for Gameboy. I have not tested this since I do not have a saved game pack, but if you save the game to the save pack, this may keep your game from being erased.

To sum it all up, this is a fun game, but the game erasures can get annoying, so it would probably be best to save your money and annoy Nintendo with constant e-mails about why they couldn't make Pokemon Card Game so the saved game would not be erased.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 06/03/00, Updated 11/29/02