Fan-made ‘Ultimate Pokémon board game’ features whole of Kanto and takes 23 hours to beat
Don’t get Drowzee.
A Pokémon fan has created their own board game based on the beloved video game series that features all eight gym leaders, the Elite Four and takes over 23 hours to beat.
Posted by BZNintendo on both the /boardgames and /pokemon sections of Reddit, the unofficial tabletop title takes place on a board depicting the entirety of the Kanto region found in the very first generation of Pokémon video games and includes cards featuring the likes of Steelix, Venusaur and Charizard.
Alongside photographs of the fan-made title, the Reddit user included a description of what players do in the game - which involves them travelling around the board in search of Pokémon to catch, trainers to battle, gym badges to earn and an eventual champion to beat.
In a similar fashion to the video game series it’s adapted from, the ‘Ultimate Pokémon board game’ has players embarking on a journey across the Kanto region in order to become the best Pokémon trainer possible. Initially players will want to land on spaces containing wild Pokémon in order to catch and train them to use in battles against other trainers.
BZNintendo did not go into detail as to how players catch Pokémon, but they did explain that the battle system in the game works similarly to the one found in the video games - with players needing to remember type weaknesses, as well as take into account the differences between special and physical moves.
Battling and defeating the Pokémon of rival trainers will gain players’ Pokémon experience points that will enable them to evolve into stronger creatures. However, should players have any Pokémon that required items or trading to evolve in the original video games, then they will have to follow suit in the fan-made board game as well. Besides being used to evolve Pokémon, items can be utilised during battles in order to prevent a player’s Pokémon from fainting or suffering from status effects, alongside other uses.
Once players feel confident enough, they will be able to challenge the eight gym leaders spread across the board in order to gain their badges. With all eight badges, players can then make their way to the Elite Four, before tackling the game’s most difficult challenges - the Kanto champion. Whoever manages to defeat the champion first, becomes the winner of the fan-made Pokémon board game.
The post showing off the ‘Ultimate Pokémon board game’ follows the discovery earlier this year of a fan-made Pokémon version of the board game Wingspan. Also shared across Reddit, the digital board game mod for Tabletop Simulator includes all 151 Pokémon found in the first generation of the video games and features a system that works similarly to the original Wingspan, but replaces food with berries and bird eggs with the classic Pokémon egg design. Wingspan publisher Stonemaier Games gave the design created by Reddit user Lockwinghong the legal go-ahead, as long as it did not use any imagery or text found in Wingspan.
BZNintendo has yet to provide files containing the Ultimate Pokémon board game, explaining that it would be “a lot” to upload online.