Handheld video game:Nintendo Game Boy Color Pocket Monsters: Crystal Version

"Gotta catch em all!" First issued by Nintendo in 1996, this challenge sparked a Pokemon craze that led to a successful television series, trading card game, and full-length movie. Since its initial release, Pokemon has become the second best selling video game franchise worldwide, and the best selling role-playing video game (RPG) of all time.

Nintendo released the first Pokemon games for the Game Boy in Japan as "Pocket Monsters: Red & Green." After proving successful, the games came to North America in 1998 as "Pokemon Red" and "Pokemon Blue." The games provide a simple premise: A single player travels and catches Pokemon while fighting other trainers and their teams of monsters. The player's ultimate goal involves winning Pokemon battles against eight Gym Leaders and entering the Pokemon League to battle the Elite Four, while simultaneously completing one's Pok퀌�dex, which contains a record of all known Pokemon. Although it is a single-player game, players have the opportunity to trade or battle Pokemon with other Game Boys via a Game Link Cable.

Even though Peter Bartholow, a Gamespot critic, described the graphics and audio of the original Pokemon games as "somewhat primitive," other critics praised the games for their innovativeness, as well their promotion of imagination and creativity among the children playing them. Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of Pokemon, modeled the monsters after the insects that he collected as a child. He did this to provide a new generation of children with the opportunity to collect insects and creatures while stimulating their sense of exploration and ingenuity.

After Pokemon Red and Blue proved successful in the United States, Nintendo continued to release new and updated versions of the game. The company published "Pokemon Gold" and "Pokemon Silver" in 2000. These games introduced 100 new species of Pokemon, as well as many new features including a real-time internal clock, Pokemon breeding, and additional items. The two new games broke many records with their pre-order sales, and sold more than 6.5 million copies. The new Pokemon and plot lines introduced in "Silver" and "Gold" also appeared in the television series and trading cards.

Similar to "Pokemon Yellow," which Nintendo released in 1999 as a special edition to "Pokemon Red" and "Pokemon Blue," Nintendo published "Pokemon Crystal" in July 2001 as an update to "Gold" and "Silver." This became the first Pokemon game designed specifically for the Game Boy Color, and as a result included many enhanced graphical features. It also became the first Pokemon game to allow players to choose their character's gender. In previous games, the character always took on male form. Critics and fans received "Pokemon Crystal" very well, leading the game to sell 1.65 million units.

In 1999, Pokemon appeared on the cover of Time Magazine in a story titled "Beware of the Pok퀌�mania." The so-called "Pok퀌�mania" was sweeping the nation via trading cards, a television series, toys, websites, and the original Game Boy games. By 1998, "Pokemon Red" and "Pokemon Blue" sold a combined 9.85 million copies in the United States and spawned many sequels. It is evident that even decades later, the "Pokemon flu" that struck America's children with the release of the first games has still not subsided.