Pokémon Trading Card Game

Pokémon Trading Card Game is a Game Boy rendition of the classic card game played on schoolyards around the world.

Capital letters
While all the text displayed is in capital letters only, it is in fact stored in the game in ASCII. There is a hidden switch in the game to enable the use of small letters, by using the Gameshark code. This also makes it the first game to spell Pokémon as Pokémon and not POKéMON, at least internally.

Unused Room
There is also an unused room located behind the duel room in Challenge Hall. It resembles some sort of storage room, and the doors may have led to it earlier in development. All that remains is a basic layout.

In-Game Debug Menu
The main debug menu was accessed from the in-game start menu. While the menu at was commented out before release – as evident by a single  – at least the look of it can be recovered by using the following Game Genie Codes:

Start-Up Debug Menu
There is also a start-up debug menu. While it can also be called in-game (since it has a quit option), the actual game boots using this menu's sub-routine. Use the following codes to activate it:

The debug menus of the US version and the European versions: Since the European versions are multi-language, you will have to either have a save game with the language set, or you will have to skip the menu the first time around, since it will display the wrong (gibberish) string, because the game doesn't default to any language when confronted with an invalid language setting. It's notable that in all versions, all options of this menu have been translated.

Power On
This will boot the game regularly.

Duel Mode
This switches between the two duel modes.

Continue from Diary
This option will skip the title screen and directly put you where you last saved. If you don't have a save game yet, this will start a new adventure.

CGB Test
This test seems gone for good. It calls a singe. Judging from the name, this options was there to test various color features.

SGB Test
The SGB test will test all SGB borders. There is even a debug border that puts a grid over the whole screen to better view tile boundaries.

Standard BG character
This will show BG tiles 0x80–0x7F on the screen. It's not too interesting, since half of it is going to show the menu anyway.

Language
This will show the standard language menu, either English-German-French or English-Spanish-Italian, depending on the version of the game.

Look at Spr
This option will start a sprite viewer: Navigation: A will change the animation of the currently displayed sprite. Left/Right will de-/increase the sprite number. Up/Down will de-/increase the sprite number by. Select cancels the menu.

V Effect
This test is also gone. It calls a single. Judging from the name, this option might have tested hdma effects or vertical windowing effects (as used in the credits).

Create Booster Pack
This menu allows one to generate random booster packs. This was possibly done to check if the random seed tables were correct and correct sets of cards were generated.

Credits
This will play the whole credits.

Quit
This option will quit the menu. If the menu was called from the boot-up code, it will reboot the game and then display this menu again. Else, it will work as expected.

Miscellaneous Debug Strings
More debug strings were left over, though: A                  TIME TO     (Change with Start) A+B: Stop Animation Select: Exit

Left

Right

WIN     Prizes Duel LOSE    with 

Use 's Deck

Substitute screen for receiving cards.

Substitute screen for sending cards by Link cable.

Substitute screen for receiving cards by Link cable.

Substitute screen for sending a Deck design.

Substitute screen for receiving a Deck design.

????

Ending Screen THE END

Was the data transfer successful?

(Person transferring data to)

(Name of Deck transferring)

Build Date
Hidden in the text for the game is the date that each game was built. They are located at (JP),  (EU), and  (US).

Unused Super Game Boy Borders
There are two unused Super Game Boy borders that can be accessed from the debug menu. will keep the selected initial border throughout the game. Turn on after the selected border is displayed or the initial border will be absent.

Unused Super Game Boy Border 1
An alternate palette likely leftover from testing from when they were deciding what palette to use. Game Genie code will load this border at starup.

Unused Super Game Boy Border 2
Used for testing border coordinates and palette usage. All palettes that were loaded into the SNES's VRAM while the border is loading will display on the SGB section of the border. Game Genie code will load this border at starup.

Unused Super Game Boy Functions
Hudson may have planned to disable palettes and use ATTR_EN to disable Super Game Boy border screensavers, and for some reason they decided neither were worth enabling..

ATTR_EN
Disables screensavers for borders. Very few games did this because it is pointless. Game Genie codes will replace the first instances of PAL01 with the unused ATTR_EN packet.

ICON_EN
Code ICON_EN. Icon Enable. Command. Primarily used to disables in-game palette and or controller selection schemes which can be disabled by the game developer; however border selection cannot be disabled. Palette disabling would serve games like Uno 2: Small World where custom Super Game Boy palettes are required in order to play. Games may have overlayed the action window with a custom SNES object or in certain instances where switching away from the intricate palette set would make certain elements of the game look glitched-out or distorted. Disabling controller menu selection schemes could have been used to prevent the player from abusing the A-button and cheating in certain games, or may benefit the player preventing them from skipping over answers in quiz games such as Tokimeki Memorial Pocket: Culture-hen: Komorebi no Melody and Tokimeki Memorial Pocket: Sports-hen: Koutei no Photograph, the only two games that solely disable controller selection schemes. Alternatively, palettes can be set to revert back to the original once changed by using Super Game Boy command packet and bit set to.

Game Genie codes will replace the first instances of PAL01 with the unused ICON_EN packet. For some odd reason the command was used instead of. Maybe an unknown file register function was meant to have been disabled.

SGB Border
The Japanese SGB border has writing on the PokéBall outline, which was removed from all subsequent releases abroad.