Let’s take a look at one of the lesser known Pokémon spin-off franchises.
If you’ve never heard of this game, I don’t blame you. The Pokémon Trading Figure Game was short lived and, at least in the American markets, unpopular and plagued with problems. I even forgot its existence until I was digging through some of my old Pokémon figures the other day and found one of these figures, a Charizard. Noting the figure’s similarity to the Charizard Duel figure that I use regularly on my Pokémon Duel team, I decided to take a look into the Pokémon Trading Figure Game. Today we’ll be discussing what it was, the mechanics, why it failed, and how it connects to the popular mobile game, Pokémon Duel.
The Premise
The Pokémon Trading Figure Game was a two-player game played with collectible Pokémon Trading Figures made by Kaiyodo. It bore a lot of similarities to other figure games like Mage Knight and HeroClix as well as the Pokémon Trading Card Game itself. It uses a lot of the same terminology and type and rarity symbols. These types of figure games were extremely popular during the early 2000s and this was likely Pokémon’s main attempt to capitalize on the trend and rising popularity of games like Heroscape.
It was released in Europe, Australia, and Southeast Asia in fall 2006, and North America and Japan in 2007. One-player starter sets included three Pokémon figures with bases, one Trainer figure with base, a two-sided playmat with a green 6-on-6 arena on one side and an orange 3-on-3 quick start arena on the other, a two-sided collector’s sheet with a how-to-play guide on one side and a figure checklist on the other, a rulebook, and three trainer cards. Two-player starter sets are a combination of two one-player starter sets with an additional figure. In Australia, booster packs contained two random Pokémon figures without bases. They may also sometimes have a Trainer card. Elsewhere, boosters came with 1, 2, or 3 figures. The 1 figure boosters contain 1 visible figure. The 2 figure boosters contain a visible figure and a secret figure. The 3 figure booster contains a visible figure, a secret figure, and a promo figure of one of the Sinnoh starter Pokémon. The bases were changeable so that in theory, if you bought enough packs, you could change the base colors to be uniform across your team and distinguish your team from your opponent’s.
In addition, the packs may include rare crystal and pearl figures that had different color schemes similar to shiny Pokémon. Pearl figures were available internationally, which featured figures as an off white color. The USA also exclusively got crystal figures, which had the figures made of a see through plastic material.
The Mechanics
The mechanics were fairly simple, akin to capture the flag. The objective of the game is to be the first to land on one’s opponent’s Goal space on the playmat. To do this, players move Pokémon figures around on the playmat itself. Battles could take place with either parties of three or six depending on the playmat size.
Each turn, a Pokémon can move from one adjacent spot to another as many times as it has Move Points (MP). Besides the Goal space, the playmat tentatively has a Pokémon Center space, a bench, and a battlefield. Pokémon start on the bench, and move to the Battlefield. If they lose a battle, they go to the Pokémon Center spot. They do not return to the bench until another Pokémon is sent to the Pokémon Center. Each figure had a spinning mechanism and a number of colored areas it can land on. When Pokémon are on adjacent spots, both players will spin Pokémon and they will have a battle.
The colors are organized hierarchically to determine the outcome of the battle. Blue spaces beat all and the Pokémon dodged. Purple beat White and any Purples with fewer stars. Purple areas typically had additional effects on either the player’s Pokémon or the opposing Pokémon, such as inflicting a Special Condition like confusion or burns. White beat weaker Whites, and will knock the opposing Pokémon out, forcing it to move to the Pokémon Center space. Gold areas were set to appear in the Unnamed Third Set. Based on the moves detailed in these areas, and how they function in Pokémon Duel, it is theorized that they were intended to be an increased-priority move of sorts; how they would have worked with the existing mechanics is unknown, however. Red was a miss and lost to everything else. Any ties resulted in nothing happening. In the event that a Pokémon was surrounded (i.e. all spots around it are occupied by an opposing Pokémon), it was Knocked Out without battling.
Trainer cards also had a small role in the game as well. These were not the same cards from the Pokémon Trading Card Game, though there are some similarities in their design. These work with Trainer figures, which were spun to make sure the Trainer card works, to create various effects in the battle. The trainer figures had mostly success slots, but there was a small chance of a miss that could cause you to lose the turn. That said, these figures were rather unique in that it was one of the few times you could collect figures of characters like Brendan and Red as well as Gym Leaders.
Why it Failed
Following the initial test phase in the European and Australian market, the TFG’s American transition was plagued by delays. Coupled with the cost of the figures and an arguable lack of support within the Pokémon Organized Play program, the TFG was officially discontinued on June 2, 2009 following an announcement by Organized Play director Dave Schwimmer. Only one set, Next Quest was released, and a second, Groundbreakers, was announced, but remained unreleased. It was set to be released sometime in 2008, but was continually delayed and pushed back for months until the entire game was cancelled altogether. An Unnamed Third Set was also set for release in 2009 as stated by go-pokemon.com to include the figures pictured above, but like Groundbreakers, this also was unreleased. Figures from the Groundbreakers set did end up making it to some store shelves, but they’re very hard to find nowadays and only hardcore collectors have managed to gather most or all the figures for the set. The Third Set also saw a few figures surface in the gray market, but other than that no new figures were ever officially released.
Unlike trading cards, figures are much harder to transport. They’re also more expensive to buy and produce since unlike normal plastic figures, these came with the detachable rings and spinners. As a result, figure games in general were on a decline by 2009-2010, with many of the major franchises such as the Star Wars figure game or Heroscape being cancelled around the same time. Had Pokémon produced these figures earlier in the 2000s, it is possible more sets may have been released. However, due to the expenses in producing the figures and overall lack of popularity from the fanbase, the set never saw any expansions.
The lack of popularity was not entirely the game’s fault though. Pokémon had originally intended to try and have the game go competitive in tournaments like the card game. However, due to the expenses for the figure game as opposed to the card game, players were more inclined to try their hand with cards than figures. In addition, many attribute the spinners, which were a unique feature to the Pokémon Trading Figure Game, as another reason the game was never able to go competitive. The spinners are supposed to add an element of random chance, which added a luck based element to another otherwise strategy based game. This was not very popular with a lot of TCG fans but the spinners also raised concerns with officials as well. People theorize had the games gone competitive, people would actually practice their spins to ensure they got the best results with each spin, and it’s unreasonable to have a third party spin the figure for the player. Thus, competitive officials were concerned that the spinners actually introduced an element of cheating that was very difficult to monitor and police properly.
Pokémon Duel
Many years after the series was cancelled in 2006, a new mobile game called Pokémon Duel hit the app store internationally. The game is a free-to-play digital board game set in the Pokémon franchise and is heavily based on that of the Pokémon Trading Figure Game. In fact, the gameplay mechanics are practically identical to that of the original. Many of the figures maintain the same or similar base spinners, such as Salamence whose spinner saw no changes between the physical and digital game, or Charizard which saw an MP increase, a power increase for Fire Spin (from 50 to 60 damage per spin), and a move change from the 60 power Iron Tail to the 100 power Dragon Tail.
Instead of purchasing figures like in the original TFG, figures are obtained through a gacha system and various other events. New figures of varying rarities are constantly being added and made available, so it is not hard to obtain fairly rare figures the more you play without having to spend any money on microtransactions. The game also features a single player quest storyline that has yet to be fully released but allows the players an AI based training ground to practice with their teams. It also offers online multiplayer gameplay along with a single-player campaign where the player participates in the “Pokémon Figure World Championships”. For multiplayer, the player holds overall and monthly ratings which are boosted by victories and reduced by defeats, using an Elo rating system. Regardless of which mode is chosen, the game requires a constant internet connection to play.
As previously stated, the gameplay is nearly identical to that of the original TFG. While the boards saw a slight alteration and as did some of the figures, the mechanics behind attacks and priorities stayed the same. Gold Attacks were included as priority moves that outsped purple attacks. One major change though was the loss of trainer figures. While trainer cards still remain, you are no longer required to spin to use a card successfully. This provided a new level of strategy which allows players to stall and use other similar tactics that wouldn’t necessarily be possible with the trainer figures. In addition, as new mechanics have been introduced in the main franchise, things like Mega Evolution and Z-Moves have also been introduced that obviously were not included in the original TFG. This game also fixed one of the major competitive issues that TFG faced in that the spinners are entirely random, making competitive battles cheat proof in that manner.
Pokémon Duel overall is not exceedingly popular but the game does have a fairly active fanbase. The game still has regular events such as Team Battles and Queen’s Cups that provide various rewards such as rare figures or materials. Shiny Pokémon have even been introduced in a similar fashion to Crystal and Pearl figures. There is no denying however that this iteration of the game is more popular than the original TFG and it is good to see the game get a second chance at success and popularity in another medium.
