Nintendo is known as a company that’s fiercely protective of its properties, and that’s especially true for Pokémon. The Pokémon games are console sellers and a mainstay of the Nintendo games catalog. Basically, to play a mainline title in the beloved franchise, you need a Nintendo console. The upcoming Winds & Waves, for instance, are only available for the Nintendo Switch 2.
Aside from a few hand-crafted and carefully curated mobile titles, there is almost no chance that a Pokémon game will ever appear on another console or on PC. Except it’s already happened.
I’m not talking about a mod or a fan project, although several have recently popped up that port the games to PC for a wider audience. I’m talking about an official Pokémon TCG game that launched for computers in 1999 and 2000, which is both a fascinating project and complete nightmare fuel. And it wasn’t developed by Nintendo or Game Freak; it was developed in collaboration between Fluid Entertainment and Wizards of the Coast.
How The Only Official Pokémon PC Game Came To Be
In 1999, the Pokémon franchise was still a new IP just starting to gain ground. The first games had launched, and an anime and manga were already finding popularity. The young Pokémon Company had been printing their own tie-in trading card game cards in Japan, and they needed someone to translate them and bring them to an English-speaking audience. The company chose the Hasbro-owned Wizards of the Coast, best known today for their work with Magic! The Gathering.
In 1999, Wizards of the Coast released the very first localized Pokémon TCG set, the now-iconic “First Edition Base Set.” There was just one problem: How do you get an entirely new audience to learn how to play a new trading card game? The solution was Pokémon Play It!, a PC game that introduced the rules of the cards.
Developed by Fluid Entertainment and backed by Wizards of the Coast, Pokémon Play It! came bundled with the TCG Base Set. It worked so well that a second version was created a short while later, and released alongside the Thunderstorm Gift Box (or the Tempest Gift Box, as it was known outside the US).
Pokémon Play It! Introduced Fans To The TCG
Pokémon Play It! and Pokémon Play It! — Version 2 had players play the card game against a peppy trainer named Julie. The game went through progressively more challenging rounds, using different, pre-made themed decks.
The game taught players the ins and outs of the cards through the different modes and challenge battles. Even though it was a free game, Wizards of the Coast didn’t cut any corners with it: Pokémon Play It! featured voice acting and even pulled in calls from Pokémon the Series: The Beginning for every Pokémon card present in the game.
Pokémon Play It! even came with a few special extras. Players who completed two quizzes (one about the TCG and one about the franchise as a whole) even got to download and print a special certificate. Bringing these certificates to a local Pokémon League earned fans a few special coins that they could use on exclusive desktop wallpapers. (It was a simpler time!)
Wizards of the Coast continued to produce the English version of the Pokémon TCG cards until 2003, when the Pokémon Company decided to completely internalize the process. Today, both versions Pokémon Play It! games are still available around different corners of the Internet. Officially, though, the games might as well not have existed.
The Pokémon franchise has come a long way from its beginnings in the late 1990s. This year, the series celebrated its 30th anniversary. The tenth generation of the mainline games releases sometime next year, and the franchise is a well-known name around the world.
Pokémon Play It! was probably an anomaly and definitely a product of its time. We’re unlikely to ever see a (non-mobile) Pokémon game on PC or otherwise outside the confines of a Nintendo console. But sometimes, it’s fun to look back on the origins of the series, and celebrate the forgotten stepping stones that launched a gaming empire.
- Video Game(s)
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Pokemon Red and Blue, Pokemon Yellow, Pokemon Gold and Silver, Pokémon Crystal, Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, Pokemon Sapphire, Pokemon Diamond and Pearl, Pokemon Platinum, Pokemon Black and White, Pokemon Black and White 2, Pokemon X and Y, Pokemon Sun and Moon, Pokemon Sword and Shield, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, Pokemon Winds and Waves, Pokemon Legends Arceus, Pokemon Legends Z-A