Vol. 1, Issue 32 - Memories of the Pokemon League Summer Trainer Tour 99
We share a special memory from Jim Roszel, who attended the Pokémon League Summer Trainer Tour in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the summer of 1999. We have more Pokémon news, and more from the mailbag!
Issue 32 of the Johto Times is now ready for your viewing pleasure! We’ve got a great Pokémon memory this week from Jim Roszel, plenty of Pokémon news, and even more content from the Johto Times mailbag. Let’s HM08 right into it!
Editor’s note: Usually this would be another successful pun, but HM08 doesn’t really work unless I emphasise that it’s based on Generation 3 and not Generation 4…
News
The first part of Pokémon Scarlet & Violet’s DLC, The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero, is now available! Part 1: The Teal Mask takes place in the land of Kitakami, and features a new story and brand-new Pokémon, as well as many returning Pokémon that were not previously available in the base game. Part 2: The Indigo Disk is still due to release in winter 2023. More details on Pokémon Scarlet & Violet and their DLC can be found on the official Pokémon website.
Source: Pokémon
A new Pokémon distribution is taking place to mark the release of the animated Pokémon miniseries Paldean Winds. From now until August 31st 2024, players can obtain a Cetitan by redeeming it via Mystery Gift using the following code: L1KEAFLUTE.
Source: Serebii.net
A new animation, An Oddish Tale has been released as part of the "Discover Pokémon Together" campaign, which periodically highlights a particular Pokémon and is accompanied by merchandise. Oddish was also the star of the Pokémon: Path to the Peak animated series, which aired recently, and a special promo card based on the Oddish seen in that series (date TBC). For more details, check out the source below!
Source: Pokémon
The mobile application Pokémon TCG Card Dex will be deactivated and removed from mobile store fronts on September 20th 2023. The app, which allowed players to check off their card collections, will no longer have sets added to it. This decision was made so that resources could be prioritised towards Pokémon TCG Live. Full details can be found on the source below.
Source: Pokémon
Finally, a Nintendo Direct was announced just as our newsletter was being prepared for release, and has been scheduled to go live at the exact time this newsletter will be sent to subscribers. Due to the unfortunate timing, we won’t be able to cover any breaking Pokémon announcements. Rather than delay the newsletter, we have chosen to include a link to the Nintendo Direct broadcast below. If any Pokémon-related news is announced, we will go over it in our next issue!
Feature: Memories of the Pokemon League Summer Trainer Tour 99
The Pokemon League Summer Training Tour ‘99 kicked off in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on July 10th 1999. It was the first stop on a tour of nineteen different cities in shopping malls across North America. Anyone fortunate enough to attend the events between the ages of seven and fourteen would be able to participate in one-on-one tournaments on Game Boy, provided they brought along their copies of Pokémon Red or Pokémon Blue. They were also able to try out the newly released Pokémon Pinball game and the upcoming Pokémon Snap, and had the opportunity to watch a demonstration of the upcoming Pokémon Yellow title, games which wouldn’t arrive in North America until later that year in September. There was even a designated area for trading card players and collectors, and many free gifts were given away.
Jim Roszel was fortunate to attend the Pokémon Summer Training Tour when it arrived in Ohio, and he has kindly shared his memories of the event with us.
The event took place at Tri-County Mall, north of Cincinnati, Ohio. It wasn’t exclusive, though, it was a multi state stop at shopping malls. At the time it was the perfect place for this sort of thing, in the summer months between school years, indoors, a seemingly safe place to drop your kids off for hours during the day. Now this mall is closed. I imagine a lot of the others are too.
I don’t recall how I heard about the event. It might have been in the newspaper. The Cincinnati Enquirer had a section devoted to entertainment and events in the area called “Metro” at the time; I feel like this is the most likely place for me to have learned about it.
It was the first “big” Pokémon event I went to and I remember lots of crowds, people wearing hats like Ash’s from the cartoon. Lots of excitement around being able to play the game against other people. I knew the game was popular, [since] it was hard to escape the hype, and I had just finished the 8th grade so I wasn’t completely naïve, but I hadn’t seen this many people gathered before. My only previous “event” for Pokémon was running into the Volkswagen Beetle Pikachu cars at the Zoo and getting to try the game out on a TV and Super Game Boy that was in the rear hatch of the car (sounds pretty weird now!). That was all pre-release and it wasn’t until I got home and realized, “Hey, that’s the game that’s been mentioned in Nintendo Power as coming soon.”
Most of the event was set up in the center of the mall, on the first floor near a large fountain. This was the portion of the mall that would be devoted to other visiting dignitaries (local television personalities like the WSTR Star64 Kids Club hosts, Mr. Clean, Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, etc.). There were corralled off groups of tables for various play, lots of televisions with games and cartoon content, and one of the Volkswagen Beetle Pikachu cars. The TCG area was around a bend, near a glass elevator (a memorable landmark) in the mall.
The tour had a video game tournament for Pokémon Red and Blue. Tables were set up in a portioned space and people played Game Boy to Game Boy via Game Link Cable. I believe it was a single elimination format. The top players competed against each other in a separate corral on TVs via Super Game Boy 2, the Japanese only revision to the Super Nintendo Game Boy adapter that included a Game Link Cable port. The TVs were set back to back on a platform on an elevated stage, so the players sat in high top chairs for spectators to see. By participating in the game tournament, you could earn two “badges”: Brock’s Boulder Badge and Misty’s Cascade Badge. Both were artwork of the gym leader’s face and the badge itself on a Pog-like cardboard disc.
There was also an area for the TCG, another large corral with tables set up for playing and trading. I don’t believe there was an organized tournament, but there might have been. At this point the Jungle Expansion would have been brand new, still several months from Fossil being released. There was a promo Jigglypuff card available, I believe (I hope I’m not confusing this with another event).
There were columns set up with TVs built into them, showing gameplay of Pokémon Yellow, Pokémon Pinball and Pokémon Snap, the upcoming additions to the Pokémon game library.
I am first and foremost a fan of catching them all. I love the collecting aspects of Pokémon. Battling is fun, but I have never been someone really knowledgeable about the metagame. My Charizard at the time had a move set like Flamethrower, Firespin, Rage and Cut. Not a contender.
All this to say is I do not recall where I placed. I only saw the Super Game Boy 2s from the floor watching others.
A huge thanks to Jim for sharing his memories of this event with us! It was so cool to read about one of the early Pokémon tours across North America! We hope Jim will one day be able to extract the photograph of him and Pikachu from the floppy disk!
Mailbag
Want to be a part of our newsletter? You’re welcome to submit content including (but not limited to) questions, fanart, short stories, your cherished memories, photographs of your collection, and anything else you think you want us to see. Today we received a letter from John Camou, who wanted to share a nostalgic anecdote with us from his childhood.
The year was 2016, and me and my sister were visiting a family friend with our parents. Their teenage son was also present, and since there wasn't much to do while we waited for our parents to wrap up their conversation, we got to talking about our hobbies and favorite video games. It turns out that he was actually a pretty big Pokemon fan just like me! I had never been able to [make] use of local multiplayer due to none of my friends or family having any of the games, so I seized the opportunity and challenged him to a battle on the off chance he had his DS with him.
It was my lucky day because he actually had brought it to entertain himself during this trip and he said he'd do a few battles with me. After that, we [promptly] booted up our games and headed over to the Union Room, him on his copy of Diamond and me on SoulSilver. We agreed to do best of 3 with the free battle style. I distinctly remember being very confident in my abilities and thinking that I would win 3-0.
That delusion was quickly shattered upon entering the first battle; my team was around LV45 with my ace, Ampharos, being only LV59. This was in contrast to my opponent whose Pokemon were all LV100 legendaries with competitive movesets.To make a short story even shorter, I was absolutely curb-stomped in all 3 rounds. I saved a video of the last one, although unfortunately the file this story happened on was deleted a few years ago.
Although I lost, he was really chill about it and wasn't a sore winner. We did some trades after that and enjoyed the rest of our trip. We haven't been able to meet since this incident, though, mainly because he's a lot older than me and works in Japan now. But it's still a nostalgic story that I'll sometimes think about when I'm getting curb-stomped in [Pokémon Scarlet & Violet] like I was 7 years ago on the DS.
John Camou, United States
Hi, John! Thanks so much for sharing your memories with us! It’s fantastic when you can meet a stranger and share a hobby you’re both passionate about. I hope that he also has some good memories of the event, and maybe the two of you will eventually be able to meet again and talk about that time you both met to play Pokémon together!