Funny enough you'd think something like this would be a reskinned Panel de Pon, replacing Lip and friends with a Pokemon skin but no, this is actually the original game, made with the Western 4kids dub world of Pokemon. Must've been interesting when the Japanese finally got to play this one on their NSO and see Takeshi and Kasumi called Brock and Misty.

It's still a pretty good game. I managed to beat Normal without a loss, but Hard I could only get up to Giovanni and do that so many times before I caved and started using Continues to plow through Gary. I like that there is no penalties for unlimited attempts, but your continue counter will show up on your Records (if you don't exploit the real infinite tries trick anyways).

The whole thing is a big nostalgic package for me, given I grew up during Pokemania. All the music is remixed from the show, so sometimes you can't help but sing along, like Erika getting What Kind of Pokemon are You? or Blaine getting My Best Friends. I think my only issues with the music are Bruno and especially Giovanni getting the goofy ass chase music, and that it goes in and out of the Danger variant constantly.

You can choose your Pokemon to go into battle with you, they don't really do anything but they provide an extra bit of flavor during some of your attacks. I think they ran out of time or something though because some like more notably Nidoqueen just get stock animal sounds that don't evoke the Pokemon at all. But it makes you feel like a team at least.

If you're from the Pokemania era, this is definitely a game for you. If not, hey, you can't go wrong with a version of Panel de Pon that has a Pokemon flavor to it!