I am sure that many of you have heard of Pokemon by now, either through the cartoon series or the Game Boy game. Pokemon has to be the best RPG released for the Game Boy to date. Three years ago when Gamefreak, Creatures and Nintendo of Japan released Pokemon, they had no idea of the craze it would start. Now you can get just about everything Pokemon, from hats to mugs to toys. There has even been a cartoon series produced about the game.

So what exactly is Pokemon? To put it shortly, it is a monster training game which combines RPG and strategy elements. You play the role of a young Pokemon trainer and begin the game by choosing one of three Pokemon: Charmander (fire Pokemon), Squirtle (water Pokemon) or Bulbasaur (plant Pokemon). There are around 150 Pokemon in total that can be found in the game which are caught using PokeBalls. What makes Pokemon so unique is that you cannot catch all the Pokemon on just one cartridge. As some Pokemon can only be found on a specific colour cartridge, you must trade with a friend using a Game Boy link cable. This encourages an element of teamwork not seen in many other games.

In the United States, two versions of Pokemon, red and blue, were released. These versions were translated from the original Japanese versions with most of the music and gameplay unchanged. The sales so far have been big and seem to be building strongly. The game can also be found emulated on the PC, but you must own the original game to legally use it. A bonus of the emulated version is that you can play it in colour. More information about Pokemon can also be found at the official Pokemon site, Pokemon World.