Pokémon Trading Card Game 2: The Invasion of Team GR!

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Pokémon Trading Card Game 2: The Invasion of Team GR!
ポケモンカードGB2 GR団参上!
TCG GB2 JP boxart.jpg
Boxart of Pokémon Trading Card Game 2: The Invasion of Team GR!
Basic info
Platform: Game Boy Color
Category: Card game
Players: 1-2
Connectivity: Game Link Cable
Developer: Hudson Soft
Publisher: The Pokémon Company
Part of: Generation II spin-off
Ratings
CERO: A
ESRB: N/A
ACB: N/A
OFLC: N/A
PEGI: N/A
GRAC: N/A
GSRR: N/A
Release dates
Japan: March 28, 2001
North America: N/A
Australia: N/A
Europe: N/A
South Korea: N/A
Hong Kong: N/A
Taiwan: N/A
Websites
Japanese: Official Site
English: N/A

Pokémon Trading Card Game 2: The Invasion of Team GR![1] (Japanese: ポケモンカードGB2 GR団参上!, abbreviated ポケモンカードGB2 Pokémon Card GB2), is a Japan-only Game Boy Color game and sequel to Pokémon Trading Card Game. The game's story revolves around a new villainous team, Team Great Rocket, and contains nearly all of the cards from Base Set, Jungle, Fossil, and Team Rocket.

The game adds many new features not present in the original, such as new cards, the ability to play as a female character, a much larger in-game world, and a more developed story.

Copies of the game included Great Rocket's Mewtwo and Lugia promotional cards.

Plot

In Pokémon Trading Card Game 2, Team Great Rocket, led by Biruritchi, have kidnapped many of the Club Masters and attempted to steal the Legendary Cards. The player, assuming the role of Mark or Mint, must rescue the Club Masters and defeat Team Great Rocket at their headquarters on GR Island.

New features

  • Players may select either Mark, the protagonist of the original Pokémon Trading Card Game, or Mint, a new female player character.
  • Opponent Trainers now have varying sprites: when they are losing, they appear sad; when they are winning, they appear happy.
  • Event Coins replace Master Medals as tokens of achievement. These coins can also be used in place of the standard game coin in duels.
  • Most of the clubs, such as the Grass Club, receive a minor interior redesign.
  • In addition to all of the areas found in TCG Island in the first game, a second island, GR Island, is explorable as well.
  • When typing a player or deck name, lowercase letters are available, unlike the first game where only capital letters were available. The type symbols are also available as characters.
  • Minicom is a new option accessible from the menu: it rearranges the e-mail system and simplifies the access to the Deck Save Machine, still available in Mason Laboratory, and to the card catalogue.
  • Over seventy new prebuilt Decks are available in the Auto Deck Machines.
  • The GR Challenge Cup and the Grand Master Cup are two new Challenge Cup tournaments held in Trading Card Game Islands.
  • Dr. Mason now offers the player a Deck diagnosis, giving advice about how to build a deck and checking their current one.

Connectivity

This game allows players to send and receive cards and deck configurations or perform a Card Pop! between two cartridges via infrared, using the Game Boy Color's Infra-Red Communications Port.

This game allows players to duel each other using their own decks via the Game Boy Game Link Cable.

This game cannot communicate with Pokémon Trading Card Game.

Card Pop!

Main article: Card Pop!

Card Pop! is a 2-player feature that randomly generates a card for each player. When the Infra-Red Communications Ports of two Game Boy Color systems with the game are connected, each player will receive a random card. A player cannot Card Pop! with the same game again until both players have used the feature with so many others that their partner's ID is overwritten in both games.

This feature is the only way of obtaining the Phantom Cards Lugia and Here Comes Team Rocket!.

Card Pop! cannot be performed between Pokémon Trading Card Game and Pokémon Trading Card Game 2. Attempting to do so can result in glitches such as a game freeze or a loss of save data in Pokémon Trading Card Game.

Available cards

Main article: Card (TCG GB)

A total of 441 cards can be used in-game. This includes all cards from the previous title, plus cards from the Team Rocket expansion and most cards from the Japanese-exclusive Expansion Sheet series. Additionally, the 15 cards exclusive to the Intro Pack are available, as well as 13 more game-exclusive cards (some of which were released in card form around the same time). Only one card from Gym Heroes made it into the game, which was The Rocket's Trap. Additionally, Neo Genesis's Recycle Energy is included.

Expansion Sets

The following were the expansion sets available in the game.

Cards not available in Pokémon Trading Card Game 2

Like the first title, there are a number of actual cards that did not make into the game. Most tournament-legal Unnumbered Promotional cards released from 1996 to mid 1999 are included except for ones that are Owner's Pokémon or from best photo contests.

In addition, none of the spoof and non-legal cards from Expansion Sheet 3 are included, the only exception being Bill's PC (called Bill's Computer in the game). There are three additional cards in the game for Pokémon that were not from the first generation: Marill, Togepi, and Lugia.

Discrepancies between Pokémon Trading Card Game 2 and other prints

The following cards have different levels in-game than they do on their actual card prints or on other prints showing the card (in the case of cards that were not actually printed). This was likely done to differentiate them from other prints of the same Pokémon with the same level. Only four cards are affected by this from the Vending Machine cards and game-exclusive creations.

  • Charmander - The actual card is LV.10, but in-game is noted as being LV.12.
  • Moltres - While this is a card made exclusively for the games, the Japanese trading guide print shows the card as LV.37 while the game lists it as a LV.40 card.
  • Magnemite - While this is a card made exclusively for the games, the Japanese trading guide print shows the card as LV.15 while the game lists it as a LV.14 card.
  • Doduo - The actual card is LV.10, but in-game is noted as being LV.8.

Coins

Main article: Coin (TCG) → In the video games

Coins have superseded Master Medals from the first game as items which denote any significant achievement. Coins can be used to change the coin interface used in the card game, or may be used for access to certain areas of the map. There are 24 coins in total, separated into three sets: GB1 Island coins, GB2 Island coins, and special coins.

Locations

Returning characters

New characters

Staff

Main article: Staff of Pokémon Trading Card Game 2: The Invasion of Team GR!

Trivia

  • When viewing the details of Dark Raichu in-game, it displays the "GB" symbol. Dark Raichu was a Wizards of the Coast-created card first released as an English card in the Team Rocket set in April 2000. It was later included in the Japanese Crossing the Ruins... expansion, released in Japan in July 2000; Dark Raichu is the only card from Crossing The Ruins... that appears in this game.
  • This was the first game released that was published by The Pokémon Company (instead of being published by Nintendo like the earlier games). However, it was not the first game publicly announced by this company (for comparison, Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire were announced in March 7, 2001).
  • Approximately two months before the game was released in Japan, IGN called it by the English title "Pokémon Trading Card Game 2: Return of Team Rocket" and declared that an English release of the game was likely.[2] However, the game was never released outside of Japan.
  • The game is sometimes known as Pokémon Card GB2: Here Comes Team GR!, as the Japanese name mirrors the name of the card Here Comes Team Rocket! from the Team Rocket expansion.
  • This was the final Pokémon game released for the Game Boy Color in Japan.

External links

References

Pikachu series: Hey You, Pikachu!ChannelDash
TCG: Game Boy TCG series: Trading Card GameTrading Card Game 2: The Invasion of Team GR!
Play It! series: Play It!Play It! Version 2
TCG Client series: Card Game OnlineTrading Card Game OnlineTrading Card Game Live
Misc. TCG: Say Tap?Card Game: How to Play DSCard Game Entry Battle
Card Game GachaTCG Card DexDigital Raid Battle Assistant
Trading Card Game Pocket
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