
Using the stylus to tap cards reveals information about the nearest Voltorb. Voltorb Flip has been described as “a cross between picross and minesweeper”. Rather than produce another version of the game for that region omitting the mechanic (which still exists in the original Japanese release), they opted to create a game to replace it. Voltorb Flip, meanwhile, really only exists because of a technicality.īecause of restrictions in gaming laws in Europe, the typical slot machines that exist in older titles cannot be featured in the PAL versions of the game without bringing up the ESRB rating. The varying stats in each game encourage you to use Pokemon sitting in storage that might not have seen the light of day otherwise. The mini-games themselves are quite simple, but offer plenty of variety in how you approach the games, and what Pokemon you use. Game Freak have not made much of an effort to create a similar feature since. The Pokeathlon is a series of mini-games you could use your Pokemon in you play the games, you earn points, then you exchange those points to unlock hard to obtain items. The Pokeathlon replaced the contest system from the third-generation games, and offered significantly more involved gameplay compared to contests. Two things that were truly unique to these games were the Pokeathlon and Voltorb Flip.

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One of the other back-of-the-box features was Pokemon that actually followed you around, letting you interact with them. Connecting your Pokewalker with other players' would allow you to mix records, unlock their current player info and active party in the trainer house - a nondescript building in the latter stages of the postgame.

If you ever used a Nintendo DS during its lifetime, you will remember what a nightmare it was inputting peoples' friend codes in order to play with them online. The device also made interacting with other players effortless. By earning ‘watts’ through regular pedometer usage, players could catch Pokemon and find items that could be transferred over to their Nintendo DS.
