Did anyone else here attend any of these Summer Training Tours? I know they rolled them out for a couple summers in a row. Would be cool to hear other people’s stories as well! Here’s mine-
My Father and I road-tripped to the Kansas City mall as I was 15 at the time. Got there early and it was already packed. Made quick friends with the guy in line in front of me after trading some cards we each needed for our TCG decks. He had some grass / status ailment deck he was working on. My deck was a Dragonair / Poliwrath energy draining deck. Both of our Dads agreed that they had no idea what was going on. Both also agreed that they were glad it wasn’t drugs 🤣
When it was finally our time to battle, my new found friend and I made our way down into “The Cable Club” battle arena. (Seated area where you physically linked your Game Boy to another’s across the table from you). We sat side by side as our opponents took their seats across from us. Our opponents were friends as well and fist bumped each other. “REMEMBER WE TRAINED FOR THIS!!!” they exclaimed as they took their seats. I thought I was about to get absolutely destroyed. 🤣💀
My opponent and I swapped consoles to review each other’s team of 6 to select our battle squad of 3 for the 3v3 battle. He opened with “I won’t use my Mewtwo if you don’t…” Cool. I only had Mewtwo in the 6 in case the other person did as well.
Que battle music. Don’t remember exactly everything that happened as I was high on adrenaline with this being the first time I’d ever link battled anyone. However. What I do remember was the skies parting and the god of critical hits smiling down upon me for both matches. Zapdos was my MVP (most valuable Pokemon), the only Pokemon I used to his Chansey, Gyarados, and Moltres trio. Win #1.
My friend lost to his friend, so we decided to flip flop opponents. Que the battle music once more. My new opponent led with the same “no Mewtwo” line and also led with the same Pokemon, Chansey. His next Pokemon was Articuno. Thunderbolt landed. It wasn’t a crit…. BUT IT PARALYZED and Articuno couldn’t attack 🤯 I think his last Pokemon was a Gyarados? Win #2.
The Nintendo staff selected the guy on my other side to go battle the Nintendo employee “Gym Leader” as he had also won both his matches. The “Gym Leader” got absolutely smashed as it was his first week at Nintendo 🤣 Andddd first week playing Pokemon 💀 All his Pokemon were level 40-50s against level 100s.
When I rejoined with my Father and told that I swept with ONE Pokemon, idk that I have ever seen him so shocked and proud of me before. I was ear to ear smiling the entire ride home, just staring at my badges the whole way back. Absolutely my all time favorite childhood memory with my father.
TLDR: Once upon a time in the land of Pokemon, you had to meet up in person to battle Pokemon with a cable cord. They had promos events like the Summer Training Tour to bring players together, which was awesome. Zapdos is also awesome. This is my favorite memory with my father.
by InquisitorZac
2 Comments
Shiit. I’d have nerded out here back in ‘99
I played in this, but in Philly and I was around 7-8 at the time. I believe we played with a rule that the Pokemon couldn’t be over level 50 or 60 (I forget which). I also managed to win both my matches with a team of Pikachu, Zapdos, and Gengar. Gengar was under leveled, Pikachu did nothing, but the kids I fought against didn’t have a great grasp of the meta either. So I walked out with both badges. I didn’t get to fight the gym leader, but one of the packs of tcg cards I got there had a base set Charizard in it. They also were handing out Mew at these events. Great memory, thanks for bringing it up.