Pokémon is mostly famous as a video game. In fact, in the almost 25 years since its launch, the series has had nearly two dozen entries, all with an increasingly large roster of the titular creatures, as well as increasingly complex gameplay.
However, the Pokémon franchise has also been prolifically licensed, which means that spinoffs from the game show up in practically every cultural genre, from clothing to movies to comics. And, of course, this includes tabletop games, which are sometimes better, sometimes worse. Of course, with the long-time that Pokémon has been out, some of these games have become quite rare. Here are ten of the top Pokémon tabletop games out there.
10 Pikachu Match'em Catch'em Game
This game has an exciting title that definitely fits in with the theme of the Pokémon games, epitomized in the catchphrase "Gotta Catch'em All." You'd think that this game would be about catching all kinds of different Pokémon, but, unfortunately, it's not.
The game is based on an 80s era game in which there's a monster spinner that randomly generates a monster made up of three different parts. Rather than make mixed-up Pokémon, the creators opted to just use Pikachu with different expressions, ear positions, and stances. Otherwise, there's some fun theming, and the basic dynamic makes for enjoyable, if limited, play.
9 Pokémon Sorry!
Sorry! is a fairly generic game. There's little in the original concept or theme that gets lost when you translate it into different IP. You can make any version of Sorry! And change nothing but the design.
Unfortunately, there's also little about Sorry! that adds much of anything to any IP, including Pokémon. But there's a little bit of the theme here. They took advantage of the diversity of Pokémon to separate out the different colored teams as different types, and each team then is made of four distinct Pokémon rather than just four pawns of the same color.
8 Pokémon Uno
Like Sorry!, Uno is a fairly generic game that can be easily adapted to numerous IPs with little modification. So what makes Pokémon Uno a better game? Well, not much. It's just slightly better because, first, Uno is a slightly better game than Sorry! The strategy is more complicated and the play more varied.
Plus, the theming is a little better in the Pokémon version. Having individual Pokémon on the different cards is a plus, and they are thematically matched. And there are some special powers unique to this game.
7 Guess That Pokémon
This is the first game on the list that really takes advantage of the diversity of Pokémon and asks players to demonstrate their knowledge of the creatures. Similar to the basic Guess Who? game, players will choose one Pokémon from the 24 in the game.
Players will then take turns asking yes or no questions to try to narrow down the identity of the Pokémon their opponent chose. Smart questions and quick thinking can make all the difference in the game, which also makes this the first game on the list that is based on real thinking.
6 Pokémon Battle Dome
This is a radical departure from the last game. Where Guess Who? is a calm game of deduction and reasoning, Battle Dome is a four-player competitive pinball game. The game will randomly send marbles down the chutes, and you try to rapidly deflect them away from your goal and into opponents' goals.
Every ball that gets through counts against you. There's very little of the theme in this game, and it barely counts as a tabletop game, but it's a lot of fun, and that's gotta count for something!
5 Pokémon Monopoly
While in practice, Pokémon Monopoly doesn't play much different from traditional versions of the game, it does better than most spinoff games in building on the theme.
The Community Chest and Chance cards are themed to Pokémon, and all the properties are based on individual Pokémon or Pokéballs (including Zapdos and Articuno for the power and water utilities). And then there are the moving pawns. In most versions of the game, these are small Pokémon pieces, which makes them a lot of fun to choose (but also leads to fights over who gets what--just like traditional Monopoly).
4 Pokémon Battle Chess
Pokémon Battle Chess is somewhat inaptly named. It has a chess-like strategy to it, in that the moves are limited, it's critical to control areas of the board, and you want to knock out the king, but the gameplay is more like Stratego than chess. That's because battles are partly resolved on the basis of the power of the different pieces.
However, in situations where you're attacking against strength, you can draw a power card and hopefully win. A battle loss doesn't knock a Pokémon out, either, but causes it to flip to its weaker side, with a second loss causing the piece to be removed.
3 Pokémon Master Trainer
Master Trainer comes in many versions based on the different game worlds. It's also the first game on this list that's really built around the Pokémon universe. In this game, each player takes the role of a Pokémon trainer and travels around the world collecting Pokémon in order to battle gym leaders and other players.
There are many different versions of the game, and the gameplay varies between the versions, with Master Trainer II (2001) tending to be the favorite because it offers more Pokémon and different game mechanics.
2 Pokémon 3D Adventure Games
These Pokémon games are based directly on the popular anime. They are built around specific story arcs in the Indigo Plateau series, so they're obviously older, rare, and hard to find. They're especially hard to find because they are fun to play but also easy to destroy.
These games create 3D adventures from the series, such as the ghost tower, the S.S. Anne, and Silph Co. You travel around the 3D boards, battling each other and enemies to collect the strongest Pokémon and win the game by defeating the final enemy.
1 Pokémon Trading Card Game
You really can't get away without acknowledging that the Pokémon Trading Card Game is almost as popular as the video games, and has an almost as rewarding play experience. The Pokémon TCG is made by Wizards of the Coast, and there are many similarities to Magic: the Gathering, as far as the use of different colors of energy or mana go, but the games actually play remarkably different.
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The variety of art in the game, and the ability to utilize all the different Pokémon that are available in the video games combine with the exciting competitive play to make this the ultimate Pokémon tabletop experience.