I choose you Pikachu card

2 years ago the Pokemon trading card game was huge, while it's still big to the people who actually know how to play the game, has for me I have just been playing the game boy game. It's a lot of hassle to take care of a lot of cards, the gameboy game has the first 3 editions of the game, plus a GB edition cards.

Story.
Your a young kid that like's to play the Pokemon trading card game. The elite four card trainers have just started a contest to decide who gets to keep the legendary Pokemon cards. To enter a person must collect 8 medals (badges) from the 8 clubs (gyms) on the island. Of course it's not that easy you have a snobbish kid named Rodney who is always one step ahead of you, and always getting in your way.

Graphics.
The graphics aren't the greatest in the world on the gameboy color the graphics aren't that great. The game is overhead and looks a little bit like the Pokemon RPG games. The colors in the clubs and outer world are pretty basic, you got the greens, the blues but nothing really to write home about. In the duels the cards look like the cards from the different series, they capture the pictures pretty well. However the colors are pretty monotone, and they just don't have the colors of the real cards.

Nintendo of course increased it my adding a few basic effects to the attack. You get the usual small explosions from the Pokemon attacks, lighting effects for electric attacks, and ect. There extremely basic and you've seen better on the original RPG.

On the super gameboy they’re not much better. You get one color per gym, and the Pokemon cards are all very monotone. The borders due to something special, the border has slots for all your medals, and they fill in whenever you win one. It also turns blue to gold when you beat the game.

Sound.
The sounds are basic music, each gym has it’s own set of music. Then there is the battle music, like the Pokemon battle music that will drive you if you listen to it. The overall music in the game is OK for game boy, but it wouldn’t hurt you to hit the mute button in a crowded room.

Gameplay.
After you choose one of three decks you’ll start on collecting badges. You get to choose one of 8 clubs. Each club has it’s own type of cards, the water cards use water Pokemon cards of course. Of course in order to win you have to make a deck full of Pokemon cards that are strong aganst the club members cards. Each club has 3 or 4 members, plus a club leader. Do battle the club leader you’ll have to fulfill some sort of requirement, beat all the club members, get a certain amount of cards etc.

To get more cards you have to duel opponents and win, these will give you two booster packs with 10 cards in it.

So how do you duel.
You spend most of your time dueling, or playing the card game. Now unlike what you have heard from the know it all who have never played the trading card game, you don’t give up any cards in regulation game, and you don’t have to sell your soul to win.

You have to build a deck of 60 cards out of these 3 types of cards.
First there are 3 types of cards.

Pokemon cards: this one is fairly obvious on each card there is a Pokemon, what it evolves into, it’s evolutionary level (basic, stage 1, stage 2), what it’s weak against (double damage taken) resistant against (-30 damage.). There is also a set number of HP per card to, this is how much damage a card can take before it gets knocked out.

Trainer cards.
These cards have special attributes that can turn the game to your favor. They can let you draw cards, heal Pokemon, or draw a new hand. When you build your deck I suggest putting a bill card and a Prof.Oak card (discard hand and draw 7) and a couple of bill cards (draw 2 cards) these can improve your hand a great deal. The most worthless card is in the GB only, and that is the imakuni card, this confuses and injures your own Pokemon so it’s not worth putting it in your deck.

Energy cards. In ever Pokemon card there is a color symbol next to there attacks, each color symbol has a energy card. To do the attacks you have to put the right energy cards on the Pokemon. The exceptions are the white symbols here any energy cards will do.

Playing the game.
Begin by drawing 7 cards and putting down prize cards, you will then have to put down basic Pokemon cards. Flip a coin in the game starts.

1st draw a card
Then you can do these things.
Put down basic Pokemon cards on the bench.
Attach one energy card on one Pokemon.
Evolve a Pokemon by putting it’s stage 2 card on top of it.
Retreat Pokemon back to the bench.
And finally attack, when you attack the damage in the effects will automatically be applied in the game. If you knock out the opponents Pokemon you get to draw a prize card.

The two players will keep this up into one of these happens
A player draws all his prize cards win.
A player who has no basic Pokemon on the bench to switch with knocked out Pokemon looses.
A player who runs out of cards in his deck looses.

Longtivity.
If there is a bad thing is that most of the computer players loose if you build a deck to the right type, say the water gym can be blasted through with a good deck of electric cards. And there are only a few people per gym, so you get through them in a couple of hours. However the elite four posses another problem entirely these guys are awfully hard and it took me several hours to build a deck that could defeat them. It should only take about 10 hours to beat the game, and about 15 to collect all the cards. The game is better if you have a friend who you can game link with because there is just not enough challenge in facing the computer.

Recommendation.
If your into the Pokemon trading card game then I do recommend this game, if your not well then you probably haven’t gotten, and your not going to. Oh if you plan on trading with a friend your going to have to get GBC, it needs it’s infra red link at the top, something the GBA just doesn’t have.