Gotta Catch ‘Em Live: ‘Pokémon Global Link’ Debuts Tomorrow

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Someday I swear I’ll get around to playing one of these games, but in the meantime, those of you racing to keep up with Team Plasma while kicking around “Unova region” (think bizarro-Manhattan) with Tepigs and Oshawotts on your Nintendo DSs can finally take your game global, starting tomorrow.

That’s when Pokémon (the actually independent company not owned by Nintendo–according to my source, Wikipedia has it wrong) turns up its Pokémon Global Link, a way to sync your game with a bunch of master servers and battle other trainers or just fool around with mini-games. For those of you with copies of the Black or White versions, this is where you pull out the manual and turn to page 52, right before the “troubleshooting” section you probably skipped.

That’s where Nintendo lays out esoteric-sounding modes like the Pokémon Dream World and Global Battle Union–both unavailable when the games launched early last month.

The Dream World’s basically a virtual home (one you can decorate) where you’ll tend a virtual garden, trade stuff with other players, or play mini-games to lure new (or classic) Pokémon only available here. I’m also seeing pictures of rainbow bridges that let you cross over to weirder-still locales–where you’ll have to venture to tease out those Dream-World-exclusive Pokémon.

The Global Battle Union lets you check your rankings and ratings against fellow trainers, or sign up for “Random Match Wi-Fi” tournaments against other players. I’m hearing you’ll be able to square off against pretty much anyone whether they’re in your friends list or not, that all Pokémon are level-capped at 50, that you have two minutes to select your moves before the match starts, and that matches can last for up to one hour.

If you’re game for any of that, you’ll want to hit the Pokémon Trainer Club to register for an account. The service lights up at some point tomorrow, April 13.