Calling all Pokémon Trainers!

If you are a Pokémon master, then throw down your Pokéballs and prove it!

The Pokémon Video Game Championships have returned with the release of Pokémon Heart Gold/Soul Silver. These championships give aspiring masters a chance to show what their team is made of in a worldwide competition. Heats are taking place all over the globe with some already completed in the States, more to follow in Spain, France and Germany but most importantly the UK heats take place in Birmingham on the 29th of May. For one day, the Birmingham NEC will be crawling with Pokéfans willing to prove that they have what it takes to make it to the finals in Hawaii this August.

For those who didn’t realise that Pokémon – that game with the Pikachu, is actually worth a competition you may be surprised. Pokémon has been going for over a decade and is the second most successful video-game based franchise in the world, the first being a certain moustached plumber. The game revolves mostly around raising a strong and varied team in order to overcome any challenges that will be thrown at you in battle. The beauty of Pokémon’s battling lies in the varied Pokémon types and move types, kind of like a more complicated game of Rock, Paper and Scissors. Each Pokémon has a type weakness, so you’re going to have to be careful which ones you choose to be on your team and possibly exploit some crazy movesets that will surprise your opponents.

The championships allow you to enter a team of six Pokémon with up to six items to battle against other entrants and make it to the top. It takes the spirit of the game and makes it much more real by putting it into a proper competitive context, since in the game building a team to fight strong but semi-predictable computer characters can get boring. If you’re battling against real people with just as much Pokémon knowledge as you, it’s bound to be more interesting as well as more challenging.

There are limits to which Pokémon you can bring, for example, some of the most powerful legendary Pokémon are banned from play, but with certain powerful legendaries still able to participate as well as the hundreds of other Pokémon to choose from, the possibilities for your team are still pretty open. A full set of rules for your perusal can be found here. There are also two divisions based on age: ‘Junior’ for those born in 1998 or after; ‘Senior’ for those born in 1997 or earlier. There are limited spaces in each division though with short registration times so you’d better get there early!

For those like myself who are more interested in the collecting side of Pokémon rather than the battling side, and who also like shiny things, there is a shiny Eevee available to all who attend the event. Shiny Pokémon are extremely rare and pretty-looking so you can walk away with something worth showing off. Shiny Pokémon also stay shiny when they evolve, which gives you lots of choice since Eevee currently has seven different evolutions. Such choice!

So if you think that team you’ve been raising since the days of the original Gold and Silver games is good enough, give it a shot! If you’re sure that your movesets are immaculate, come and prove it! If you’re certain that your strategies are superb and your Pokéknowledge is top-notch, then bring it on! If you don’t make it into the actual competition, there’ll be plenty to watch, plenty of people to play and trade with, and one or two huge cuddly Pikachus wandering or floating around for photo opportunities.