Pokémon Box

Pokémon Box: Ruby and Sapphire, or Pokémon Box, is one of the Pokémon games on the Nintendo GameCube console. It was released in Japan (released on May 30, 2003). It was released in North America on July 11, 2004, but only through the New York Pokemon Center and its online store. More details are available on the official website [1].

Europeans can get it by purchasing it using points from Nintendo of Europe's loyalty program, VIP 24:7, or by buying the Pokémon Colosseum Mega Pak, which contains a black GameCube, an extra memory card, Pokémon Colosseum, Pokémon Box, and a cable to connect the GameCube with a Game Boy Advance.

Game features

Actually, Pokémon Box isn't a game in the strictest sense. Instead, it's a storage system for the Game Boy Advance Pokémon games. It allows players to trade and store Pokémon that they have caught in another version of Pokémon (specifically Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, Fire Red and Leaf Green) onto a GameCube memory card. There are 25 boxes that allow the storage of 60 Pokémon per box, allowing players to store up to 1,500 Pokémon on a single 59 block memory card.

Also, a player can view the stats of any Pokémon stored in Box or any Pokémon stored in the Game Boy Advance game that it is hooked up with. This is useful if a player finds that they have multiple versions of the same Pokémon stored and wants to make sure which Pokémon he or she is about to take out. This includes contest data and any medals that the Pokémon has earned. This information appears just as it would in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire and appears the same even for Pokémon from Pokémon Fire Red and Leaf Green.

It can hook up to a Game Boy Advance (or Game Boy Advance SP) via the GameCube-Game Boy Advance cable, which allows the trading between the Game Boy Advance games and Box.

Unfortunately, there is no way for Box to hook up with Pokémon Colosseum. This is mainly due to Pokémon Colosseum being a GameCube game as well. Instead, for a Pokémon from Pokémon Colosseum to be stored on Box, it must first be traded to one of the Game Boy Advance games and then traded.

Bonus Eggs

The game also comes with a special memory card, red and blue in color (after versions Ruby and Sapphire). By using this special memory card, players are given a bonus. When a certain amount of Pokémon is stored from a single game, Players are given special eggs. The eggs contain Pokémon that they can normally obtain through versions Ruby and Sapphire but now will hatch with a move already learned that the Pokémon wouldn't normally know.

The first egg, given when the Player first starts up the game, contains a Swablu that knows the move False Swipe. After storing certain numbers of Pokemon, players are given other eggs that'll hatch into Zigzagoon (with Extremespeed), Skitty (with Pay Day), and Pichu (with Surf). The Pichu however hasn't been 100% confirmed, as it is said to take the storing of 1,499 total Pokemon from a single game, which is a very tough feat even for the hardcore players.

Emulation

Pokémon Box also features the ability to allow players to play their Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire games on the television while it's hooked up to a Game Boy Advance (or Game Boy Advance SP) via the GameCube Game Boy Advance cable. However, it only allows this for Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire versions and not Pokémon Fire Red and Leaf Green versions.

Showcase Feature

Pokémon Box also has the strange ability to showcase the Player's Pokémon as figurines. Players can edit the features like the size and shape of the stage that the Pokémon are displayed on, control the height of the figurines, and even name the stage.

See also