5. Pokémon Trading Card Game
While there are video game versions of the Pokémon Trading Card Game out right now, the Game Boy Color game included an entire RPG that elevated it to near the top of this list. In premise, it’s kind of silly to imagine someone being more invested in the trading card game when actual real-life Pokémon are in this world, but the framing of trying to be a TCG champion gave me and others back in the day a great tool to learn how to play the card game through our Game Boy, and no doubt catapulted plenty of kids’ obsession with collecting the cards to new heights.
