The Pokémon DVD Board Game | Champion Island

they may not be the best quality games but going back to the original Pokemon master trainer board game trilogy is some of the most fun I've had at my channel in the long time and I've been sort of out there looking to see if there's been any kind of spiritual successor to the Master Trainer line where games are fun pokemons fun and I thought it really would be a shame if this series ended in 2005 well I haven't found a perfect successor yet a lot of you guys recommended that I continue the story with pokémon champion Island after all it's full of fourth generation Pokemon it's got Pokemon chips but all in all this is a very different beast than the other Pokemon war games that we've reviewed after all it uses one of these let's check it out welcome to champion Island in this game you'll race around the board and interact with the DVD to answer trivia solve puzzles collect pokemons and learn three badges to become the champ in terms of component quality this is a godsend compared to Master Trainer 3 there's a big beautiful board again simple but actually illustrated and we're back to character standees for a 4 player game but at least these ones aren't tiny but most importantly we're back to pokemon ships beautiful colorful chips of pokemon across four generations yes this is what about waiting for and it looks like there's some more surprises here to these huge chips at the game's main attacking Pokemon you actually get a starter in this game based on the character that you played and you can earn others along the way and then these small chips are wild Pokemon that can be captured as you answer trivia and these squares are the game's equivalent of gym badges these badges are actually pretty horrible and quality compared to the other chips though so they aren't very exciting to collect and they rip ok so I am pumped that the chips are back but I do have a couple of issues for one the selection here is really strange the best Pokemon that you can collect in the entire game are like the second stage of evolution I thought this was champion Island not my Pokemon our level 19 island also I feel a little lied to when it comes to the front of the box I've been searching far and wide for a master equivalent for diamond and pearl and beyond but this game has like ten fourth generation Pokemon total and it doesn't even feature anything exclusive to suno seemingly all the anime clips used in the game's DVD plus the games professors come from just the first three generations Paul Candela right there on the box and nowhere to be found in the chips so it isn't really a diamond and pearl game that's fine it was 2007 Diamond and Pearl was just brand new to the West I get it but my least ever heard about these chips is that actually the way that they're used we'll get back to that in a second but I want to talk about how you actually play this game champion island is a weird relic to a not so distant past when I played a master trainer it's like hey it's a board game that isn't weird because I play board games all the time but I honestly couldn't tell you the last time that I played a DVD game while interactive video based games like Dragon's Lair been around forever these trivia style DVD board games hit peak popularity around 2005 inch with brands like scene it my boy when I work with a lot of different computers for our job but I realized that not a single one of them has a DVD player I actually had to purchase an external DVD writer to even capture the footage for this video and don't even get me started about capturing the footage for this video oh my god so HDCP makes capturing content from a DVD video really hard whether it's on your PC or on a console apparently Windows 10 doesn't even come with a DVD player which you have to buy for $15 are you kidding me and what free stuff like VLC does play most video DVDs fine it just doesn't work well for capturing this particular DVD game it stutters you can rip the video with it with something like handbrake but this is a DVD game and that's just gonna rip the video not show the gameplay the only working computer DVD player that I could find that lets you navigate the menus was with my MacBook but unfortunately Apple has built-in HDCP that makes it impossible to capture video when using programs like Camtasia I've captured so many bizarre game platforms over the years and this is the first time ever I thought a video was going to be done in by a freaking DVD I was this close to going full spirit of 2007 YouTube and recording it off my TV the solution was of course using a video game capture card to capture my Mac using my PC all the power of 2017 technology to relive again from 2007 oh hey we can finally play now the main gimmick of champion Island is that you roll your die and move and then select the kind of space that you landed on with the DVD menu to play along pokeball spaces allow you to catch a random small wild Pokemon ship if you win again these come in all kinds of difficulties ranging from usually hilariously easy to very rarely actually clever games include memory knowing Pokemon types who's that Pokemon or even straight a pokedex trivia which one of these Pokemon is like a black hole oh man I can only imagine how many kids got this wrong a decade ago but guess who's been making creepy pokedex entry video since 2011 this guy awesome got it one of my favorites is this one you have to find a line of three consecutive Pokemon all with the same type vertically or horizontally in this one you need to find a dragon and I bet there were a few people that were quick to click this row at the Gyarados sorry kids but just because Lance has it doesn't make it a dragon he's a fraud Pokemon Center spaces allow you to roll again usually with some ridiculous story explaining why Brock's pokémon food is especially delicious revitalizing everyone role again thanks Brock hope you made our four kids favorite doughnuts the Team Rocket space gives you a completely ridiculous situation where the game asks you a few own specific Pokemon types here comes Team Rocket in a giant Zapdos robot how can we stop this to water pokemon the game replies what man it's like the first turn of the game I made a Pokemon but the penalty for losing is just going back to the nearest pokémon center which is usually like two spaces away the punishment is so comically light that it doesn't even matter but you still have to listen to the Team Rocket theme every single time you land on this space and finally is your win condition your main plan is to challenge one of the three professors at the gym space if you land on the space directly you get a free pass in but if you land on one of the surrounding star spaces you have to earn your way in by winning a trivia game when you battle a gym you get to choose one of your Pokemon to fight oh I'm sorry did I say one of your Pokemon I meant one of the big chips only all those little Pokemon you collect along the way they only matter for maybe stopping Team Rocket from moving you two spaces and that is it ideally you bring your big Pokemon chips to gyms where there's a type advantage the gym battles are hilarious they show each Pokemon attacking but since neither of the two often had a direct one-on-one battle in the anime they just sort of cut between each one of them never showing both Pokemon in the same shop sometimes they don't even have enough clips to work with and just use floating still images like this bizarrely weird one with Wartortle in the end a winner is declared and if you succeeded you get to collect a badge and another big chit from the professor ideally one that helps you have a type advantage for the next big gym that you're headed to and here's my final complain about the chips and the game as a whole there's no real battling or trading or anything in between the players it's just you versus the DVD Gym Leaders and with only three types it just boils down to weakness and who rolls a bigger number to get to the next gym leader first some of these big chips are weird - what's up with Kadabra strong against nothing weak against nothing I'm pretty sure that's not how psychic works oh yeah I forgot the best part you aren't guaranteed to win even with type advantage sometimes the game just dumps on you and you lose anyways the games like yeah you did pick the right type but Professor birch is just better than you try again it's infuriating it's almost so unfair that it makes the game fun like the games already an RNG slap fest with dice why not go all in and have the game make no thematic sense while we're at it at least it gets a good laugh sometimes the game gets loopy and just starts playing the wrong audio tracks check out this loss [Music] professor Elm doesn't mess around even at a disadvantage his fire-type Pokemon were able to just barely win thanks to some sneaky TM attacks keep trying and you'll definitely win wait what those fire types no I had the fire times I used to Combusken sneaky TM attacks what on earth is this guy talking about actually gotten a loop where both of us just kept losing even though we picked the right type advantage it was just this endless stalemate until one of us finally decided to fight grass with grass that one of course so what does it take to be the champion of champions Island not catching pokémon since there's no battling with the small chips and Team Rocket is almost a noun threat not knowing the type matchup since sometimes you can just lose this by picking the right one just pure dumb luck there are some redeemable factors here I think the trivia segments are occasionally great with a good variety of formats and some really entertaining clips shown from the anime the game also runs very quickly at 30 or less minutes per game and virtually no complicated setup more rules the downside here is that the board game aspect is just weak it's good for a laugh but with no items or battles or anything that makes a pokemon board game feel like an adventure it just ends up as a product that has not aged as well as the other Pokemon board games I've revisited so far well I did have fun I've got to say that my search for a true successor to Pokemon Master Trainer still continues pokémon champion Island is a decent game at least over here but I think the stuff going on in the box is actually pretty unexcited it's not really a Pokemon adventure it probably would have been better off it's just a standalone DVD trivia game with more features in the disk but overall I am happy to own this and I am happy to report this is by far the cheapest game that we've gotten so far for our Pokemon board game series you can find this easily for 10 or less dollars all over the place on eBay or thrift stores or wherever so if you're looking for a cheap Pokemon thrill this definitely provides it but it does not provide a Pokemon adventure like the other three games I'm hoping that we can continue this series and continue to unearth all kinds of weird nintendo themed board games i've got a ton on the back burner that I can't wait to add but until next time thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you next time with more Nintendo content [Music] you

Channel: TheJWittz

Views: 747,271

Rating: 4.9284759 out of 5

Keywords: Pokemon, Pokémon, Master Trainer, Champion Island, Board Game, Chips, Retro, Classic, 90s, 1st Gen, 4th Gen, DVD, Trivia, Scene It

Id: TJ6CbVyBX6Q

Length: 11min 33sec (693 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 28 2017