After hand-painting the design, they sprinkle gold and silver onto the final image ... You can choose either Pikachu, Dragonite, or Ekans. Pikachu is the face of the franchise, and is a rat.
Instead, we got those moments from a pair of console games that were focused on serving up slice of life fun. The first, Hey You, Pikachu! was a pet sim — not unlike a Tomagotchi but with 3D graphics ...
Players received Pikachu as their starter Pokemon instead ... And sure enough, Pokemon Gold and Silver were released in 1999 for Japan, America in 2000, and Europe in 2001 following suit.