Looking back at Pokémon spinoffs

[Glen-i]

Golly gee guys, it's another thread where I go on and on about a Pokemon topic that doesn't really matter because I'm a massive nerd!

@Dcubed was recently talking about Pokémon spinoff games with a friend of his and it got me thinking about them and how they've changed recently..

So, with a huge franchise like Pokémon, there's bound to be a lot of spinoffs to capitilise on it's huge success, but I noticed an alarming trend with the majority of them, especially the older ones. They flat out don't exist anymore.

I'll start with the beginning. Because I heard that's a very good place to start.

Pokémon Trading Card Game was first released on the Game Boy in 1998. Based on the real life Trading Card Game's first three sets, the goal of the game was to obtain all 8 master medals and beat the four Grand Masters to obtain 4 special promotional cards. Yes, the object is to get 4 pieces of plastic.

The game enjoyed great success with 3.7 million sales as of 2014. Making it the 5th most successful spinoff. I can see why. It's an enjoyable simulation of the TCG and it was released during the intial Pokemon craze. Despite Hudson Soft being one of the co-developers, they're never credited with the development of this game on the box, cartridge or title screen. They're only mentioned during the ending credits.

BTW, this game got banned in Saudi Arabia for supposed Zionism.

Naturally, this popular game got a sequel.

Pokémon Card GB2: Here Comes Team GR was a Japanese only release for the Game Boy Color in 2001. A direct sequel to the first game, it added the 4th set of the TCG game and had a larger world to explore. Due to it being a Japan only release, it's hard for me to find sales numbers on it, so it's hard to guage how successful it was.

There was an obvious reason why it wasn't released over here though, the Game Boy Advance was already out in America. Sure, you could play this on that console anyway, but Hudson and Creatures clearly didn't see a benefit to a worldwide release.

After that game? That was it. The Trading Card Game was never seen on consoles again (Outside of a 3DS Virtual Console release of the original). And it's hard to pin why. The actual Trading Card Game is still trucking along.
But could it come back? I doubt it. Hudson Soft doesn't really exist anymore and the Trading Card Game has an online edition that can be played on the Pokemon site.

So what did you think of the Digital Trading Card Game? I think it's a solid title and a great alternative to actually collecting the cards. It's a shame it never really continued. I would have liked to have seen more.

Well, I'll just leave this entry with some really catchy music.

 

Edited August 4, 2023 by Glen-i

[Hero-of-Time]

Still breaks my heart we didn't get the sequel over here. I loved the original TCG and was chuffed to bits when it got released on the 3DS VC.

[MindFreak]

I have a friend that's very fond of that game and really wishes for another installment. Which is long overdue if it's going to happen.

Even though I find the idea of a digital card game a bit weird ..

[Glen-i]

20 minutes ago, MindFreak said:

I have a friend that's very fond of that game and really wishes for another installment. Which is long overdue if it's going to happen.

Even though I find the idea of a digital card game a bit weird ..

Convenience was a big selling point for me. Not having to carry around your deck, playing mat and coin (Because every good TCG player had their own coin on them. I used the Aerodactyl one) is pretty nice. Not to mention, having the game around let you easily make decks and switch them around for any multiplayer sessions.

I should know, I dabbled in both back then. I even went so far to as to join the official Pokemon Trading Card League. Got all 8 badges as well, because I'm super cool.
I kinda fell out of it after that though, too many cards were getting released and I lost interest.

And now whenever I see @Ugh first aid's collection, I'm just overwhelmed by the obvious power creep and new rules introduced.

I probably would buy a modern day TCG video game though, despite that.

Edited October 20, 2018 by Glen-i

[Ashley]

2 hours ago, Glen-i said:

Naturally, this popular game got a sequel.

[Glen-i]

Don't worry, @Ashley I'll get to that in due time.

It's one of the stranger games in this catagory.

[Ashley]

Just now, Glen-i said:

Don't worry, @Ashley I'll get to that in due time.

It's one of the stranger games in this catagory.

Are you confirming that there's a sequel coming?

[Glen-i]

Just now, Ashley said:

Are you confirming that there's a sequel coming?

When Todd Snap gets into Smash. Guarantee it!

[Mandalore]

Other Pokemon spinoffs not already mentioned that I really enjoyed, Pokemon Pinball and Pokemon Conquest. 

I gave the online trading card game a try a while back. It's really low budget and bare-bones unfortunately. If they put the same amount of effort into it as something like Hearthstone or Gwent, it could be really great. And follow Gwent's example with a fully fledged single player campaign. 

[Ashley]

Anyway silly jokes aside, I vaguely recall liking the game for reasons you picked up on @Glen-i; it was more convenient (if not as complete) than carrying cards and collecting more. 

I see there's a mobile version but seems like its gotten unfavourable reviews.

[Ike]

The game was great back in the day (and still holds up). But the appeal was definitely being able to build proper decks without having spend money you didn't have on a box of cards (buying single packs sucks). I think the sequel was getting a fan translation. I don't think we'll get a new one due to TCGO being a thing where they can get money from that I believe. Actually I wouldn't mind just having a Switch port of that.

8 hours ago, Glen-i said:

Well, I'll just leave this entry with some really catchy music.

I hate you for putting that song back in my head. Not really.

[WackerJr]

1 hour ago, Ike said:

The game was great back in the day (and still holds up). But the appeal was definitely being able to build proper decks without having spend money you didn't have on a box of cards (buying single packs sucks).

I completely agree.  I remember going back to the game a few years after I originally completed it and was quite happy to play through it all again.

It’s a shame it hasn’t received (& seems unlikely to receive) a worldwide follow-up. The original was probably a little too light, and so a follow-up would’ve had so much scope to expand.  I understand that not wanting to risk sales of the actual cards.

I know others have already mentioned Pokemon Snap & Pinball.  Along with the Trading Card Game these were the three games that immediately spring to mind, and I enjoyed all of them.

[Dcubed]

I will never understand why they chose not to continue the TCG RPG series.  It was hugely popular, the TCG itself has continued uninhibited ever since it started (meaning that cross promotion would still have been a big deal) and there's nothing else like it in Nintendo's library.  There's also plenty of scope to expand the gameplay (hell, just the inclusion of the new cards alone would justify a new game!)

 

Absolutely baffling that they chose to let it rot.  It's not even like Hudson weren't available to work on these games! (Or indeed, their spiritual successor, NDCUBE).  And while we did get e-Reader support with the physical TCG, the lack of an e-Reader or AR Card/Amiibo Card powered rendition of the TCG RPG series on GBA and 3DS is such a huge missed opportunity!

 

Such a terrible shame that the only digital representation of the TCG we've seen since is that awful TCG Online garbage.

Edited October 21, 2018 by Dcubed

[Glen-i]

Pokemon Snap was first released on the N64 in 1999 developed by HAL Laboratory and Pax Softnica. A First Person Rail Shooter where the gun is actually a camera. You played as Todd, who's invited by Professor Oak to Pokemon Island because apparently, he's a really good photographer, despite failing to get a decent picture of a Mew recently. Professor Oak has a sneaking suspicion that Mew can be found on Pokemon Island and sends Todd off to shoot it's face many, many times.

The game is split into a bunch of levels with amazingly imaginative names, such as "Beach" and "Cave" And you're encouraged to take nice, large pictures of Pokemon that are looking at the camera, maybe doing a cool or funny pose. It also doesn't hurt to have more than one of the same species in the same shot. The whole game takes place on rails, as Todd is restricted to a totally inconspicuous Buggy on rails called the ZERO-ONE. And because Prof. Oak only needs one picture of each species, he'll only keep your best pic. So the game encourages you to outdo yourself and get higher scores. Naturally, most Pokemon just won't co-operate. But as you progress, you unlock various tools such as apples to help get your perfect shot.

As of 2014, the game sold 3.63 million copies, putting it just under Pokemon Trading Card Game as the 6th most successful spin-off. But considering this was on the less popular N64, that might be more impressive. Depends on how you view it.

Anyway, nerdy knowledge time! This game was originally meant to be a 64DD game. But because of the utter failure of the 64DD, it had to be notched down a bit to fit on a normal N64. This is probably why only 63 of the original 151 Pokemon in the game actually show up in Snap.
But here's where things get stranger. If you watch the Pokemon Snap intro, you might recall a weird moment.

Some of you must have wondered what the hell "JACK and BEANS" meant. Well, it turns out it's the original project name for this game. Because Pokemon Snap wasn't originally a Pokemon game. Hell, it might not even have been a photography game! It was going to be a game based on well-known story "Jack and the Beanstalk" The only thing we really know about that is it was listed as a "Simulation" game, whatever that meant...

Anyway, more about it being not a Pokemon game. Satoru Iwata actually talked about this a bit, stating that when the game became a photography game, there were still no Pokemon in it. But people at Nintendo (Including Iwata) was worried that there wasn't enough incentive to get good photographs, so in the end they made a "Somewhat forced Switch" to including Pokemon. Obviously, this was a good decision in the end, but it did meet some resistance initially. Some people at HAL were not too pleased that the characters they designed were being replaced by Pokemon. They grew to like Pikachu and it's stupid friends in the end though.

When the game came out, Nintendo did a cross-promotion with now-vanished Blockbuster shops to provide a method of printing off pictures you took in Pokemon Snap. If you bought your cartridge to one of the shops you could use this monstrosity to print your pictures as stickers.

They're proper collectors items now

This feature was somewhat revived with the Wii Virtual Console release, as you could post your pictures on to the Wii Message Board and send them to people on your friends list. Making Snap one of the few VC games to get enhanced features.

It's also worth noting that this is one of the few spin-offs to be based off of the anime. It doesn't happen as often as you'd think. Voice actors from the anime reprise their roles in this game and Todd ended up showing his face in a few episodes at one point.

And yet, after all that. Snap never got a second entry. (2023 EDIT: Ahahaha! Yeah... Uhhh... I'll get to that soon) Which is just all sorts of bizarre. The demand was definitely there. When Shigeru Miyamoto asked fans what kind of game they'd like to see on the WiiU, A new Pokemon Snap polled the 2nd most popular suggestion. And it honestly made so much sense to do so. The Gamepad was a great fit for that kind of game, but for whatever reason, it wasn't to be.

But could it come back one day? Well, I wouldn't say it was impossible. But I get the distinct impression that time has passed. If the WiiU wasn't the perfect time, I don't know what could be. I think Todd might just be doomed to retirement forever...

We've already had a few people mention Snap, but what did you guys think of this Pokemon shoot-em-up? I loved it! In fact, I still do. It's a novel idea that holds up pretty well today, and out of all the one off spin-offs the Pokemon franchise has, I feel Snap would benefit most from a sequel. And no, that half-baked minigame from Sun/Moon doesn't count! With well over 500 Pokemon introduced since then, there's plenty of potential.

Man, that's a bit sad. Let's lighten the mood up with my favourite non-photo based pastime on Snap. Charmander Pinball!

 

Edited August 4, 2023 by Glen-i

[Ashley]

Certainly one of my favourite. I remember renting it from Choices but I don't think I owned it until I was in uni and we got a N64.

As I've said before, I would like a sequel.  I think not having every Pokémon in it is fine, but an update would be good. It's a nice relaxing game and we need more of those.

Did Todd appear in the game or anime first?  This seems to suggest both:

Quote

Voice actors from the anime reprise their roles in this game and Todd ended up showing his face in a few episodes at one point.

Or was it that Oak reprised his role and Todd was then added to the anime? 

Anyway, I also want to say I can't help but see this thread title and get looking back at when we first met, I cannot forgive and I cannot forget stuck in my head so thanks for that.

[ArtMediocre]

I never owned the game, but I remember the summer when it was released. I spent every day during my summer holidays riding my bicycle up to the closest electronic shop (about 7 km away) every morning, and played Pokemon Snap on the display N64 for 3-4 hours. Every. Day.

 

...it was the best summer ever.

[Glen-i]

3 hours ago, Ashley said:

Or was it that Oak reprised his role and Todd was then added to the anime?

Well yeah, isn't that what I said?

You gotta remember the Pokémon count as voices as well.

EDIT: Oh right, I getcha! Todd appeared in the game first.

Edited October 21, 2018 by Glen-i

[Jonnas]

Excellent topic I love these retrospectives

Pokémon TCG is an old favourite of mine. Like many kids, I used to play the card game, and this game provided an outlet to use cards and build decks I never could irl (to this day, I will never understand why Machamp was ever exclusive to the starter deck). Furthermore, there were some cards that could only work in a videogame (like the random effects from the Legendary Birds), so a good case was made to have a videogame version of this real-life card game. Best "traditional" deck in the game was either the tried-and-true Rain Dancer, or the super annoying Energy Removal strategy. The real best deck was this cheap-as-hell strategy that consisted of only having two Legendary Zapdos in your deck, plus a ton of potions and energies, abusing the hell out of his 70 damage thunder.

But above all, it was just a really good game. You could save decks in the computer, there were deck suggestions in the machines, you could replay against any opponent in the game... Plus, great music. I put a lot of hours into the game, trying out deck ideas and putting self-imposed challenges on myself (beating the Water club with my fire deck was nigh-impossible, but feasible). And this is why I'm all for more entries into the underappreciated "TCG" genre of videogames, as I think the genre is addictive and rewarding in a good way (other than Gwent and Hearthstone, the only ones I can think of are Card City Nights and the obscure Capcom vs SNK Card Clash series).

(Also, regarding the JPN-only sequel... I actually played a fan-translation on an emulator when it finally released in 2011, I think. It's a better game than the first one in virtually every way. Tons of GB-exclusive cards, lots of challenges and difficult opponents that force you to use a variety of decks, and even an endgame opponent who uses the broken Zapdos deck I mentioned! It's a shame we never got it)

Pokémon Snap I have less experience with. I definitely loved occasionally playing the exhibition copy at the nearest Toys'R us, but that's the extent of my experience with it. When I finally got an N64, Pokémon Snap was nowhere to be found. I do think it's a terrific idea, both as a game and as a Pokémon Spinoff, and it's a shame it didn't get any sort of follow-up.

[Blade]

I really enjoyed both Pokemon Snap and Pokemon TCG.

Particularly with TCG, as at my school I didn't know anyone who played it with the actual cards. Instead kids just collected them. As a result, I had no idea how to play.

The gameboy game taught me how and gave me the experience to play which was great. I wish for an updated game.

[Fierce_LiNk]

10 hours ago, Blade said:

I really enjoyed both Pokemon Snap and Pokemon TCG.

Particularly with TCG, as at my school I didn't know anyone who played it with the actual cards. Instead kids just collected them. As a result, I had no idea how to play.

The gameboy game taught me how and gave me the experience to play which was great. I wish for an updated game.

The cards were huuuuge at our school. But you're right, nobody ever played the game, so the cards were just used for trading. My youngest brother figured out quite quickly that he could trade some of the better cards for actual money, so he ended up going door to door and sold them. Was half jealous of the idea (plus the money he made) and half impressed.  

[Glen-i]

Pokémon Stadium was a Japanese only game released on the N64 in 1998. Made by HAL Laboratory, it's a Battle simulator game that allowed people to battle some Pokemon in 3D for the first time.
Yes, Japan only. This is a weird one.

Using the N64 Transfer Pak, players could transfer their Pokemon Team from Pokemon Red and Blue and battle them in 3D with either another person or a CPU controlled trainer. There was also a Tournament mode which pitted your team against a series of trainers. There was also a feature that let you play your Game Boy game on the TV.

The key question here is "Why does this count as a different game?" Well, compared to the one you know, this version was severely lacking. Only 42 Pokemon were actually able to be used here. Most of them were Pokemon that were used in real-life tournaments plus a handful of others for balance.
The trainers you could fight in the Tournament were based off of some of the teams used in those real-life tournaments. This had the unfortunate side effect of making the game really hard! Which is a common criticism of this.

Now for the one some of you expected...

Pokémon Stadium (Pokemon Stadium 2 in Japan) was released on the N64 a year later and came bundled with a Transfer Pak. Using the original game as a base, this game allowed all 151 Pokemon from the first games to be used, lowered the difficulty of the Tournament mode (Although a harder difficulty could be unlocked), new rulesets, a mode that pitted you against teams based around the 8 Gym Leaders from the GB Game and a selection of surprisingly fun Minigames.

A weird feature is that you could have 4 player battles. Although these were still in the Single Battle format, each person controlled 3 Pokemon.

I want to talk about the development of these two games. It's an interesting story. The late Sotoru Iwata flexed his developer's genius and transferred the battle logic used in the Game Boy games to Stadium. The impressive thing about this was that there were no reference documents to go on, so he analysed the Game Boy Source Code and still nailed it. He even fixed a few glitches there while he was at it, all in about a week. Amazing stuff.

Without your own copy of the Game Boy game, this game lacked much of a selling point. While the game provides Rental Pokemon for you to use, most of them ranged from bad to flat-out terrible, making progressing a torturous affair. Despite that, the game sold 5.46 million copies, making it the 2nd most successful spin-off to date.

There really isn't much else to say about this... Well, apart from how dreadful that Blastoise render on the boxart is. Jeez!

Pokemon Stadium 2 is the sequel to Pokemon Stadium 2... Wait... (It's known as Pokemon Stadium Gold/Silver in Japan) It's pretty similar to the first game, but is compatible with the second generation of Pokemon games (Gold/Silver/Crystal) This means there's 251 Pokemon to use. Apart from that, it's pretty similar to the first outing with the same kind of modes. There was a new Pokemon Academy that taught the player some advanced techniques and the ability to see your bedroom from the Gen 2 games in 3D.

This combined with general sequelitis would probably explain why it sold only 2.54 million. Still pretty impressive for a spin-off.

I guess I should mention Pokemon Colosseum. But while it does have a similar stadium mode to these games, I still feel like that's a whole different kind of game, so I'm gonna leave that for a future entry. Instead, I'll move on to...

Pokémon Battle Revolution was a Wii title made by Genius Sonority in 2006. This game communicated with the DS games Pokemon Pearl and Diamond to allow more 3D battling. And that's about all it did. Compared to the games that came before it, it was woefully feature-lite. No minigames or extras like that. The single player consisted of beating a number of colloseums, each with different gimmicks to them. It also allowed people to battle each other online.

The sales for this game were surprising, 1.95 million. Lower than Stadium 2, but still decent. I think the Wii's huge success might have helped with this title. Because it's pretty underwhelming.

And that does it for the Pokémon Stadium series. Apart from the weird first entry, there really isn't much to say about this series, so sorry that this entry doesn't say much.
I think the average Pokemon fan isn't really lamenting the loss of this series, not these days. The actual Pokemon games are in 3D now, so there isn't much of a selling point with the "See your Pokémon in 3D" aspect. So it probably won't be coming back, and I'm fine with that.

Did you play any of these battle simulators? What did you think? I remember spending hours trying to take my hard trained Pokemon through both of the original games. I guess those games are what got me into competitive battling in a weird way. If you have the Game Boy games, they're great! And those minigames were solid!
I never played Battle Revolution though. Seeing Pokemon in 3D was kinda played out at that point, so I never bothered.

[Ashley]

You mentioned Pokémon Stadium 2 without mentioning the mini games. 

How dare you!

[Glen-i]

5 minutes ago, Ashley said:

You mentioned Pokémon Stadium 2 without mentioning the mini games. 

How dare you!

Mentioned them in the first game, then said that Stadium 2 had the same kind of features. It was implied.

[Gourmetsalt]

13 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

Mentioned them in the first game, then said that Stadium 2 had the same kind of features. It was implied.

The mini-games from the second game are so far better that it is an insult not talking about them separately.

Aside from the Clefairy one.

Edited October 25, 2018 by Gourmetsalt
CLEFAIRY

[Ashley]

That's all I'm saying