The Pokemon franchise has been around for decades, entertaining all ages with its many facets in the toy, animation, and video game industries. Given the recent Pokemon Presents presentation, which featured a look at the new competitive title Pokemon Champions and the upcoming Pokemon Legends: Z-A, fans have been blessed with new content in regards to the games as well as the Pokemon Trading Card Game. It’s hard to imagine a world of Pokemon without the reality of its trading system, which has been around since Pokemon Red & Blue. The ideation of this unique concept didn’t stem from The Pokemon Company themselves, though, but was inspired by a well-known role-playing video game series: Dragon Quest.
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Thinking about a world without trading in Pokemon seems absurd, especially for those who have utilized the system within the game for free or spent thousands (or millions) of dollars trying to get a one-of-a-kind Pokemon card like the Illustrator Pikachu. All of this stemmed from the original Red & Blue titles from Pokemon creator Satoshi Tajiri back in 1996, which is where this system truly landed on its feet thanks to the use of a Link Cable. Tajiri spilled the details of his time with Dragon Quest II on an old Japanese gaming variety show titled GameCenter CX, and it’s truly remarkable how this came about.
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In this particular episode, Tajiri noted how the choice of the Game Boy as his console for Pokemon stemmed from the fact that he wanted to trade for a Magic Hat (or Mad Cap) with his friend on Dragon Quest 2: Luminaries of the Legendary Line on NES. His friend, Pokemon character designer Ken Sugimori, had two Magic Hats, which were used to cut the amount of MP used to cast spells. The Magic Hats were difficult items to come across since only specific monsters dropped them. In particular, the Tyrannodactyl was Tajiri’s go-to for the source, which proved to be a challenge, considering the consistent sleep spells and fire breath attack that hit the entire party.
This frustration boiled within Tajiri for years, stirring back up in his memory during the production process of Pokemon Red & Blue. As such, he wanted to incorporate this trading functionality into the game. While he was eyeing the Famicom as his console of choice, the Link Cable function coming from the Game Boy is what led Tajiri to choose Nintendo, fulfilling his ideation of trading between friends. Over the last decade, the trading system has expanded from a simple Link Cable to global interconnectivity thanks to the advancements in wireless internet.
Of course, the world of Pokemon has shaped into a global success, certifying itself within the construct of media around the world. The trading system has revolutionized how many play Pokemon as others can now trade creatures and items at the touch of a button, whether that be in the video game or with trading cards.
