Over the past week we’ve been writing all about our favourite Pokémon games, spin-off games, actual Pokemon and now we’re up to our favourite Pokémon thing!
I asked the team to share their favourite Pokémon cards, merchandise, plushes, toys – whatever. They’re below but we also want you to share yours.
Pokemon has been around for 20 years, but no matter if you’ve enjoyed it for just 5 we want to see what you love the most.
Share yours here on our Facebook page.
I might run a Nintendo website devoted to games, I may also love the Pokemon games but I also loved the Pokemon cards. I played casually but was more of a collector as you’ll notice below. I’m proud of my Pokemon TCG collection, it ends about as Neo Destiny which is about 2002. But between then and the original sets I have a ton of cards I really like, I have complete sets and expansions (some of which are first edition), I have a ton of promo cards, error cards. I even still have the original Base Set Charizard I paid $20 for in high school. It was a lot of money back then! Weekends were spent going around to card shops and markets trading cards, buying cards – I made my parents travel far and wide for these thing.
For this article I went to look up the list of expansions and there’s now more I don’t have – guess I’m just getting old.
My Dad asked me once “Will you ever stop playing Pokemon cards”?
Never!
I have two Favourite Pokemon things. I can’t choose which I like best so here are both of them! First up is this little Pikachu.
I got him for Christmas back in the late 90’s when Pokemon was all the rage. I say ‘all the rage’ and this might confuse you a bit, but this was right when the first movie came out. There were DVDs, videos, music CDs, games, trading cards and more merchandise you could think of to spend your money on. And this was just at your local department store.
I saw him sitting there on a shelf filled with a range of different sized Pikachu. Some where palm sized and others bigger than it’s cartoon world counterpart. Finally I settled with a modestly sized electric rat. If you were in my house and saw it there sitting on the shelf, I’m sure the first thing you would do is pick him up. Who wouldn’t? Then you’d ask me why it has a weird hard thing inside it. I’d then proceed to tell you that he used to squeak when you shook him.
Make no mistake people. Pikachu’s break when you shake them. I learnt that the hard way. His squeak wasn’t the first thing to go. I was pretty gutted when the string on his head broke. One of his cheeks is starting to fall off now too. He’s starting to discolour a bit but I guess that’s expected for something about eighteen years old.
My other favourite Pokemon thing is this Sentret card. I used to carry it in my wallet when I first got it in 2010. Now it lives in my phone case in the ID pouch, hence the damage in the middle. Every time I open the phone my finger rubs away a little more of it. It’s okay though. I have a spare.
When I was a kid and the Pokemon craze was on in full, one of the biggest aspects of the series was the Trading Card game. It was a unique spin on the battles of the games, and provided another avenue for fulfilling our collector urges. There’s few better sensations than tearing open a pack of trading cards, smelling that new card smell, and flicking through your spoils to see if you got something valuable. The game has evolved heaps over the years, but I recently got back into it and love it just as much now as I did then. It’s a much simpler TCG to get into than most, but stays engaging and strategic at higher levels. And the technical wizardry of the future allows you to play a virtual version of the card game online, so it doesn’t matter whether or not you have friends to play with.
Sometimes when I’m going through my things or cleaning my room, I’ll stumble upon an old card from my collection, and remember the good times I had playing and trading with friends. Other times I’ll find one of my rare cards lying around in terrible condition and feel physical pain in my gut.
Although I have never really been much for merchandise as I’m a bit minimalist in collections, my favourite Pokémon merchandise has to be the Celebi GameBoy Advance. This was a very limited one that came out in Pokémon Centers in Japan back in 2001 to tie in with the release of the fourth movie, where a Celebi GBA and a Suicune GBA were released, but I managed to get my hands on one a few years ago. It’s an awesome GBA with two little Celebi around the screen.
It’s the console I play any GBA game on now and is currently sitting in its box under a Celebi plush for safe storage.
These guys right here.
Dragonite is my favourite Pokemon, so a friend ended up buying me a plush. A few years later, another friend bought me a second one, hoping I didn’t already have one. I sure as hell didn’t mind, who could say no to two Dragonites?
On top of these fellas, I have a full set of Eeveelution figures, the tiny Tomy ones. I absolutely love Eeveelutions, even if I rarely use them in my party…
Some really great deals.
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