Pokémon Trading Card Game (play)

Navigation

The player controls the hero named Mark (although he can give him any name at his discretion). The game has several locations , moving between them through a world map - a kind of menu , where there is a choice of the place where the protagonist will go. In each location there are non-player characters , many of whom can be summoned to a card duel. By analogy with the games of the main series of Pokémon, the player must receive eight Masters of Clubs, strong players, having received their badges, and then four Great Masters ^[1] .

Battle System

Two players participate in a duel, each has 60 cards in a deck. Cards are divided into several types: Pokemon cards, evolution cards, energy cards and coaching cards. There must be several energy cards in the deck, without which the Pokémon are unable to use their abilities, in addition, they come in eight types - different types of Pokémon use different types of energy cards. Coaching cards have a different effect on the course of the battle. Evolution maps allow you to develop pokemon into stronger forms at a certain stage. Non-evolved pokemons are called “basic”, and only they can be entered into battle ^[1] .

At the beginning of the battle, players shuffle the decks, and then each draws seven cards from his. If there is not a single “main” Pokémon among these seven cards, the cards are returned to the deck and shuffled anew, and then seven cards are taken again. In addition, each player draws from two to six cards for his own half (depending on the match) - these are the so-called “prizes”. Each player puts his pokemon card to a duel. Each pokemon has abilities that can attack an opponent, inflict a status effect on him or otherwise influence the course of the battle, but to use them, you need to give a pokemon an energy card, if the pokemon has the right amount of certain energy cards, he can use. During the course, you can give a Pokémon only one energy card ^[1] . Pokemon have a type: it can be vulnerable or resistant to a certain type of attack. During the course, you can also use the coaching card or put on the battlefield another Pokémon who will not fight, but under certain conditions they can be replaced by the one fighting, there can be a maximum of six PokГ © mon on each side. Each pokemon has life points , with their complete loss, the pokemon, along with all the energy cards that he has, is sent to the “graveyard”. In order for the pokemon to evolve, it is required to put on the pokemon a corresponding evolution map, which has a different appearance and better abilities. You can turn Pokemon only once per turn, in addition, there is a condition that the Pokemon must be at least in combat at the very least.

If a player defeats an enemy Pokémon, then he must take one of his prizes. The one who took all his prizes or defeated all of the opponent's pokemon wins the fight.

Maps

In total, the game has 226 types of cards, which include cards from the first three sets of a real card game, as well as cards that do not exist in real life ^[2] . If a player wins in fights, he is given boosters , packages in which cards are randomly laid out. Using the infrared port on the Game Boy Color, players can change cards or fight each other ^[3] . If players change cards, the Card Pop !, function becomes available to them, which allows you to get cards unavailable in the game ^[4] . Game Boy Printer allows you to print images of maps on special paper ^[5] .

The Pokémon Trading Card Game was developed by the Hudson Soft development team and was released in Japan in December 1998 under the name Pokémon Card GB ( Japanese GB пок ケ モ ン カ ー пок GB pokemon ka: dzi: bi :) , a month before the English version of the card game ^{[ 6]} . In September 1999, Nintendo announced the English version of the game and its name: Pokémon Card ^[7] . Although the game was originally planned to be released in the winter, the game was released in April 2000 : the IGN site suggested that this was due to the localization efforts of the Pokémon Stadium for Nintendo 64 , so the game was put off to the western market ^[8] . In February 2000, the game was shown at a toy fair in New York , in addition, there was announced Pokémon Gold and Silver , as well as an animated feature film " Pokemon 2000 " ^[9] . When the game was released, an exclusive Pokemon Myauta card was included with the purchase.

In the game there are types of cards that are missing in reality: Ditto from the Fossil Set and Electrode from the Base Set. In the game of episodic roles appear The President of The Pokémon Company Tsunekadzu Ishihara and the musician Tomoaki Imakuni under his pseudonym Imakuni? ^[ten]

In Japan, by the end of 1999, 607,193 copies of the game were sold, making it the twentieth sale in the region at that time ^[12] . In America, over the year after the release, more than 1.51 million copies of the game were sold ^[13] , thanks to which it became commercially successful. The gaming press praised the game, so the Pokémon Trading Card Game received 82.39% on the Game Rankings site, which indicates mostly high marks ^[11] . GameSpot called the Trading Card Game “a good and pleasant adaptation of a collectible card game,” concluding that the gameplay is very interesting, although less so than the games in the main series, because “collecting all 226 pieces of cardboard is not as fun as catching all kinds of pokemon " ^[2] . IGN , in turn, decided that this game is worth taking, because it is very well conveyed the sensations from the card game. The site called the plot “primitive,” and the gameplay is “heavily dependent on luck,” however, adding: “you can love or hate these damned PokГ © mon ... But if Nintendo continues to make games of this series with such high quality, these creatures will be forgotten not soon ” ^[1] . In a retrospective article on the Pokémon series of games, the same IGN wrote that “if we could ask Nintendo to develop some kind of spin-off series, then it would definitely be a Trading Card Game ” ^[14] .

• Official site (jap.)
• Official site (eng.)