The Incredible Pixel Art of Pokemon Trading Card Game

An artistic and technical analysis of Pokémon TCG's iconic 8-bit cards, and their lesser-known variations.
Want to create your own pixel art Pokémon cards? Here's a tutorial I made! • Create Your Own Pokemo...

[@Whitepawprint]

The pixel art from this game is so nostalgic and gorgeous to me, that I've been painstakingly physically cross stitching them for the past two years. It's a long process, but they look incredible all put together and it just warms my heart looking at them

[@Fuzmonster59]

You got somewhere we see that? Sounds quiet cool!

[@gorescale3151]

Yeah you can't just tease us with that, show us the goods!

[@chairwood]

Pls show cross stitch???

[@Maverick274]

Adding to list of people that wanna see 👀

[@taylordcraig]

Me 5.

[@Lyra]

I always thought the Pokémon TCG GB game art was fantastic as a kid. Replaying the game as an adult, the amount of care and detail that went into recreating the original cards is ridiculous! It manages to be both faithful to the original art yet super readable on the GB/GBC. In my opinion, adding an outline to the Pokémon does a lot of the work and is the smartest decision they made. Thank you very much for going deep into this topic. Turns out, they went even further than I thought! This was a great video on a great game :'D

[@DeltaSeeker]

Wow thanks so much! I've been a fan of yours for a long time and love your videos!!

[@robertbeisert3315]

It was so well done that I never noticed there were only ever 4 colors on the cards.

[@TourFaint]

Both of the tcg games are easily in the top 10 gameboy games ever, the level of quality and hard work put into them is insane.

[@RyanonBasss]

Both?!

[@TourFaint]

@@RyanonBasss well the second one is better, because it has the expansions, but yeah, both are great.

[@HybridAngelZero]

Pokemon Card GB is a game that always needs more appreciation, it's just a wonderfully designed game. Thanks for your great work on the video!

[@Ovyron]

Fully agreed. And the soundtrack has the best pokemon music I've ever heard, better than the original pokemon tunes that keep being remixed to this day.

[@Zyklon_B_still_and_know_God]

Had soooo much fun with this back in the day

[@kevinf8439]

Agreed. I'm not a big Pkmn TCG fan, but I loved the game

[@johnmartinez7440]

It's a 10/10 game, played it endlessly as a kid. Only recently realised there was a sequel that was only released in Japan.

[@mhead1117]

I'm playing the 2nd one on an emulator rn and it's even better.

[@mjdxp5688]

A little known fact: Pokémon Gold and Silver actually are compatible with the Super Game Boy. It works more like Pokémon Red and Blue did, with areas being given the same color palette rather than the more colorful Game Boy Color graphics. Also, at night, everything turns a dark shade of cyan/teal, which looks really unique. It's a really interesting and unique way to play, and I definitely recommend it to everyone. Edit: A lot of people are talking about how they want to see this for themselves, but they don't have a Super Game Boy to try it with. Most Game Boy emulators are able to emulate the Super Game Boy pallette, so you might want to try that.

[@sofiacalado8836]

Huh that's neat, even though it would make sense it works because it's a GB game, i never thought of that

[@dragon-id5uj]

yeh that's how we hadto emulate it with only the first percent of dialog translated back in the day (prior to the English cartridge dropping)... ahh memories... of not knowing WTF I'm clicking

[@jeancarlodelaluz6415]

Now I need a super game boy lol

[@MishKoz]

I love the look of Gold/Silver on the Super Gameboy. Sadly, there's barely any footage of it on KZbin, at least compared to the amount of footage of it being played on the Gameboy Color.

[@garrettlee9511]

I'd love to be able to see that some day.

[@StegDarkhorse]

The things people pulled off on the Game Boy are still impressive to this day.

[@JC20XX]

I _really_ like this video. Retro art that actually used hardware limitations is always more interesting to me than just regular pixel art. Would love to see another video about this kind of thing.

[@Myagic]

The pixel art versions of cards have become of my favorite features of the game. It's really impressive how they made so much work with such limitations. It makes me sad we'll never have another game like the pokemon tcg games

[@Turabbo]

Dude that wasn't all over the place at all, that was an incredible video. You're such a great explainer, and you made such great explanatory graphics through the whole thing. This must've been a ton of work, and I learned a bunch of cool stuff!

[@CoolJosh3k]

The artists doing these conversions are very talented.

[@ktvx.94]

The art and music of this game are insane and it's disappointing to see so little talk about them. I could literally notice which cards were illustrated by Mitsuhiro Arita even though I hadn't seen the original card before. They recreated the different styles of illustrators and 3D renders with impressive accuracy.

[@Zengar_Arcanos]

Sick break down of the pixel art in these games! Pokemon TCG was probably the first game that really had me admiring pixel art, so it's cool to see what goes into it

[@UndefinedVibe]

Thanks for showing off how special and intricate the artwork in the game is - and for explaining it in an entertaining way that everyone can understand. Most of us probably never would have realized how much effort went into these graphics without this video!

[@SaturnnsStash]

I've come back to this video like 5 or 6 times since my first watch, really inspirational for me artistically not just seeing the art for the game, but the process behind it, thank you!

[@TetraBitGaming]

Been really enjoying your videos this week; keep up the good work!

[@gododoof]

Nice to see some love for the TCG RPG.

[@eddiemejia2685]

this is badass dude, being able to analyze how they transform the card into pixel art and explain it so cohesively, great job truly

[@oliviastork1811]

I've been making my own GBC game from scratch and boy, I can imagine how difficult that yugioh art must have been to put together. I have so much more appreciation for these games now!

[@ImWithTheIdiotpilot]

What an excellent video. I appreciated you exploring the more technical aspects and limitations as well as the creative decisions. Can’t wait to see more!

[@LightningCrabz]

I'm amazed that KZbin managed to recommend such a cool video to me. Thanks for making this! It was a very fun and interesting watch!

[@luckycat2398]

That was an awesome video 😃. I never really thought or knew about those limitations. Makes me appreciate retro graphics so much more.

[@HellaKetchup]

Really glad I was recommended this video. I love the artwork in the TCG game and this made me appreciate it even more. Thanks for getting right to the content and not wasting any time with an intro or outro.

[@thisguyerik_]

this was such an awesome video. i do a lot of pixel art myself, and being a fan of the TCG game for the gameboy made this all the more interesting. the way that the developers had such limited possibilities with making the artwork but still managed to pull it off amazingly is really fascinating to me. stuff like this is what keeps me motivated with making pixel art. thank you for making this, it's not only really informative but also super interesting as well to see this process be taken apart into all of it's steps!

[@Murasame]

This video is so nice yet so detailed. You deserve and I'm sure you will get more subs, I love finding channels like yours!

[@firytwig]

The end caught me so off guard, I'm so used to the classic youtuber "like, comment, subscribe" outros or an ending card that just doing nothing made me stop and replay that to make sure something didn't go wrong.

[@firytwig]

Also if you couldn't tell by my pfp I absolutely love pixel art and this is giving me a reason reason keep on getting better

[@togedemaweabookun759]

Thank you for sharing this! Beautifully edited and such an informative video! It’s so easy to overlook and take for granted the effort it took to work around the limitations in older tech.

[@robertcrist6059]

Great job. I couldn't begin to think how this process is done. The editing of this video, showing us all the examples must have taken a while. Thank you for the video, this was very neat.

[@F_C...]

Very good analysis of both the artistic and technical sides. Good presentation too. This video deserves more attention than it has currently.

[@Kalazt]

You are back! Let's goooooo 🥳 glad to see you are making these TCG bangers. As someone who really is invested on this topic, these videos are really a treat! Thank you for making this video! And please note that I don't ever expect you to hurry with the videos. They are timeless classics for me, and I'm just happy to see them whenever they arrive :)

[@GentleBaller]

This was so cleanly edited and informative! Thank you 😊

[@rzgbrmpf37]

The editing of this video is insane! Loved this video from start to end!

[@rixbrux1994]

This video is so awesome. Beautiful how the card pics and the dither effects are displayed.

[@theoroderick782]

When I got this game on emulator a few months back I was stunned by how cool the art looked

[@pyro2708]

This was pretty interesting, I love understanding how GB games were done, they did some amazing things with the technology they had available.

[@pickler_pickler]

this is an incredible video. I've never seen such a concise and well explained video on 8 bit color graphics.

[@monster3339]

i love this game so much, both for the gameplay and the beautiful graphics. im happy to see it get the recognition it deserves!

[@tonycrimes]

just binged like, every video you've made. i love pokemon tcg, especially the gameboy games! keep up the great work

[@Dave01Rhodes]

Another fun feature of Card GB on the SGB is it uses the SGB border to track the medals you’ve earned. Every time you earn a new medal, the background is updated with that medal’s artwork. The amount of detail and care that went into Card GB makes it quite the underrated gem

[@nickrousseau3552]

This is the best video I’ve seen on KZbin in a very long time

[@ultiomos]

as both a gameboy dev hobbyist and a huge pokemon fan, i think this video was really well done! the explanation of how gb graphics work was really good. im glad you talked about gb2's art as well. i wasn't sure actually if they used the yugioh technique of sprites or just more bg palettes, so it's good to know now!

[@BeeBwakka]

As someone who loves pixel art, Pokémon, and GBC/GBA history, this was a very great video. I've always loved the TCG video games and I think they're so underrated. I would love to see you continuing to do the types of direct sprite analysis you do in this.

[@benellis8844]

Found this channel and omg so many amazing gems. Great videos. Love the indepth dives into old games

[@JannisSicker]

such a good video, covering something from my childhood really well satisfying to watch

[@CB-L]

It was so magical to see all those elusive vending sheet card sprites in GB2

[@derskusmacher]

Thanks for this video! I love hearing about how these early systems really put restraints on developers and the resulting elegant blend of technology and art that results from those restraints.

[@DREAMSQU33ZE]

Pokemon Trading Card Game is a hidden gem. The soundtrack is absolutely gorgeous too

[@kylespevak6781]

I never thought about how insane this was. I think I didn't understand tech enough at that age

[@KirbyJason210]

Very interesting! The music in the background is very nostalgic to me...

[@kingsimba8970]

You got it. Forgot I was listening till it ended and snapped me back. Very “listenable”

[@dungeonpastor]

This game was my childhood. And my teenage years. And adulthood. We need more TCG video games from Pokemon.

[@hilariousskullnamedcatzo647]

I would like to see a video on the 3d renders in the pokemon cards, they've always been real eye catchers when next to the traditional hand drawn or sculpted card images, and the video could include interesting stuff like the first one made, how they are made and overall any interesting history (or any controversies if they exist)

[@apokelink]

Really hope to see more from you, you make some really great stuff.

[@taylorswan8587]

Extra cool to see the pixel version of vending series cards

[@Luxcy]

In the future, can you cover different pokemon card art and how they changed over the years? Would love to see you discuss/explain Yuka Morii cards

[@DeltaSeeker]

Maybe! I was thinking of profiling some of the best-known PTCG artists like Arita, Himeno, etc., so Morii would be another good candidate!

[@mdnghtppl0000]

@@DeltaSeeker yes pls!

[@ThatDamnRaccoon]

This was amazingly narrated and demonstrated

[@Silphwave]

Beautiful presentation and description of the processes.

[@JackPitmanNica]

This was my first video by I watched by you, I loved it! Glad to meet you!

[@goopthekid]

just wanted to say i just found your channel and i love it!! im so very into the esoteric details of the TCG, and was the pokemon card master at my old job. i have a really cool "art of the pokemon trading card game" book that interviews quite a few of the artists, and i really love it. if you ever need a mascot or something, hit me up! excited to see where this channel goes :)

[@renkitty]

Awesome video! Love seeing coverage for old GBC card game video games, especially to analyze for the one I'm making too. This is great!

[@jfatsnorlax]

I just wanna say, the voltorb at 8:24 looks great

[@ProfessorRex]

Bingeing all your content & im absolutely in love with your video format 💙💜

[@deignt923]

And the soundtrack was absolute 🔥. The grand Master battle theme was so damn good

[@WreckItRolfe]

Played this game a as a kid but only just realised how accurate the Diglet card looks.

[@strawberrylemonadelioness]

I've always loved the art in Pokemon, both in game and on the cards

[@barneystinson2382]

This is already one of my favorite channels ever. Please keep doing more videos, I'm loving all of them

[@dnm.design]

for me it's crazy how good they're those images, AMAZING!

[@Weregoatee]

Amazing video tbh, I loved it! People are so inventive and talented.

[@naylunna]

Wow I love this video! To think about the work l they went thought to translate the original cards with such limitations and to see they work so well... This makes me feel even more passionated about pixelart and 8/16 bits sprites 😍

[@guzel9823]

I played both gbc tcg games several times and always wondered what made these game so good (despite the lackluster card effects). It turns out it was the amazing pixel art and the banger music, great video and an awesome lesson for a pixel artist

[@NiteSaiya]

I forgot this game even existed but I spent hours on it as a kid. It was great.

[@BMApaullo]

This is such a cool topic/area to explore. I really enjoyed this topic and now I feel like going to make some pixel art lol. Earned my like and sub

[@chadstruzynski]

The video I never knew I needed to see. That was awesome!

[@MrFunnyXD]

i appreciate the detail and effort put in to create this video, great job!!

[@thesehandlesarestupid271]

Your channel is wildly underrated. Keep up the awesome work!

[@DigitGarage]

Way cool, so glad I found this channel!

[@gazkel6803]

this is one of my favorite games, thanks for making this video!! it's awesome :D

[@xAngelsOfHellx]

Anyway this was kind of all over the place but I hope it was interesting *cut to black* that sudden cut off made me laugh for whatever reason haha, good stuff

[@angelpardo1530]

Wow, I played both the different GB games of Yugioh and both games of TGC pokémon so I found the whole video very interesting. Now I understand why I felt there was something off/different with the second game of Pokémon in regards to the art of the cards. Also, I cannot believe that was the reason behind the attacking cards being face down in Yugioh the whole time! For a limitation of the game, it was an extremely clever way to overcome it. I would have never notice, it looks very like an artistic choice mostly.

[@Hysteria98]

The Pokemon TCG had no right being brilliant as it was. I rebought it on the 3DS eShop and had just as much fun as I did when it first came out. And to think the soundtrack is somehow even more accomplished than the mainline games were is incredible in its own right. The final boss theme is like 4 minutes long and absolutely insane to hear coming out of the Game Boy sound processor. This video gave me even more of an appreciation than I already had- I knew the pixel art was supremely faithful, having indulged in the Pokemon card craze when it first kicked off, but to understand how it was made and unique it all is is just something else. Amazing study, and brilliant editing as well, well done. Love the abrupt ending too- that needs to be a regular thing, lol.

[@ATthemusician]

Pokemon TCG on Gameboy is one of my favorite games of all time, I just recently got a boxed copy of the Japanese exclusive sequel but I've owned the first since I was 5 or so

[@hv433]

At 9:40, I thought of Dark Golbat and how it has a similar issue as Charmeleon, where colors of the Pokemon actually 'bleed out' into the background. Dark Golbat is a worse offender though, because it's purple and blue are very apparent unlike the Charmeleon's small zone of red pixels. Although I don't know a single player that would use Dark Golbat. It's such a bad card, and I don't think the AI uses it either.

[@SilverDrakez]

I loved this video! I never played the games as a kid, but I did emulate both of them out of curiosity a few years ago and had a blast. It was a joy to watch you analyse and appreciate the amazing art that went into it. I wish they would make more single-player TCG campaigns.

[@StarfieldDisarray]

Mystery Voltorb is a standout artwork from these games for me. It's so striking both in its limited color palette of GB1 and the more accurate color palette of GB2.

[@skatemancory222]

I am soooo glad this video hit the algorithm and was recommended to most of us here! This video and your tutorial video are extremely well-made and immensely helpful that it was the kick of motivation I needed to get over my mental block of not wanting to try to make my own TCG romhack. As someone else who doesn't consider themselves an artist, it was honestly not too hard to pick up to get something done that looks pretty decent that I'm content with, even with it not being perfect or anything. (Thanks for liking/RT'ing my first attempt as well 💚) Now, if I can somehow use my programming skills to get over the last mental block of figuring out how to make decent AI use the new "re-balanced" cards I'm planning on designing, then the gates are fully open to making my dream a reality. Hoping I can report back soon enough once I'm done or close, and best of luck with your own TCG/Mystery Dungeon game you're working on that I'm super curious about too! 👀

[@ravenfive3864]

This is incredible. As someone who works on a game engine in 2023, i feel INCREDIBLY privileged!!

[@reneezmp]

Thanks for producing this very interesting video. Pokémon TCH was part of my childhood and it’s so nice to look back and discover further details about it

[@nonanimeprofilepic]

that yugioh dss segmant blew my mind, very good job on making this video

[@Suedeash]

Your videos are extremely underappreciated, I much prefer this kind of TCG content over the stuff that everybody else churns out. Thank you!

[@alistairinwonderland]

loving the channel dude! u have such an interesting way of looking at a subject i know next to nothing about, i'm hooked

[@notKingVoulo]

During the dithering section, you can turn the youtube video quality down to 144p, which shows off dithering really well. Those sharp patterns blur together and you can really appreciate the blending!

[@SoDamnMajestic]

Amazing video! Love the term half and quarter dithering! Gonna fit that in to my everyday use when doing pixel art!

[@imablisy]

This is such a good video! 10/10 I love it. History of the art of one of my favorite games.

[@EmerDCP]

Just found your channel and binged all of the videos! I learned a lot about the TCG that I didn’t know before! I hope you’ll keep uploading!

[@poweradereal]

your channel is hella underrated!

[@CLEANDrumCovers]

Great video. One of my favorite old GameBoy Color games.

[@StarsAndSticks]

Neat video :) I wonder why Pokemon IP decision makers never invested in another TCG game. Why miss out on the opportunity to market the cards? I guess it's a moot point now with the online game.

[@F_C...]

I think you should make more videos the way you're doing. Content like this is of excellent quality and imo will really take off once the algorithm works in your favor. After watching this video I was surprised this wasn't a 200-400k subscriber channel.

[@bentayman]

Great editing!!!! Loved it!

[@BlackKraya]

This is one of my favourite gameboy games. Just a fantastic translation of the TCG into a video game.