Pros: Interactive, Goal Oriented, Non-violent
Cons: Kids may spend too much time playing

The Pokemon Trading Card Game is a very well thought out program for children of all ages. Not only does this program offer an excellent tutorial and practice area, but it also allows for multi-player interaction, presents the user with wonderful graphics and provides many goals for the user to reach.

NOTE: Prior to buying this program, my children had no idea how to play the trading card game. We once bought a booster deck of cards but were unable to play it as it advised in the instruction booklet that we needed to buy one of the beginner decks to learn how to play the game. That is as far as we ever got with the trading card game, but this program has now made my kids Pokemon trading card experts.

Once the game is started, the user is asked to enter their name. The user is then presented a choice of three decks to start "dueling" with and is strictly guided through a practice game or "duel" with another player/character by Dr. Mason, an expert.

The entire purpose of this program is for the user to beat 8 Pokemon clubs, including the club members and the club master of each club. Each club is a different "type" of Pokemon club, such as the Rock Club, Psychic Club or Science Club. The type of club also indicates which type of Pokemon the club members and masters specialize.

After the user has successfully mastered the clubs, he/she then has to compete with the "Grand Masters." The "Grand Masters" are located in the Poke Dome and if the user succeeds, he/she is then awarded the four "Rare Legendary Pokemon cards."

There is also a secondary goal which goes along with the main goal. When a user duels with various club members and characters, he/she learns what cards work best with each other and which types of Pokemon are stronger/weaker than other types of Pokemon. Each user will have a different experience and therefore, a unique deck of cards. It is a personal goal to develop the best dueling deck.

The user is also allowed to have more than one trading card deck which allows for the user to have specialized or specific types of decks.

This program is also compatible with infrared interaction as well as with the cable link. The users are allowed to "Card Pop" which is unique in that when two users get together and select the "Card Pop" option, each player will get an additional trading card to use in their decks. The users may also use the cable link to duel with their friends, etc.

The graphics presented in this program are better than the graphics in the Pokemon blue and red versions. The colors are vibrant and make the characters come to life.

This program is also compatible with the Game Boy printer which helps a user keep up with their trading card decks.

There is no violence involved with this program other than a few fight moves called "bite" and "stomp," which is a plus.

The only drawback I see with this program is that the users may spend an awful lot of time playing the game and I would not recommend it to parents who don't allow a lot of time playing computer games, etc.

The Pokemon Trading Card Game is a very interactive program with a high replay value. The graphics are also superior to the past Pokemon Game Boy games and the price is a lot lower. I would most definitely recommend this game to parents of Pokemaniacs or even adults themselves who are looking to broaden their experience with the Pokemon characters.