If this game came out in the 2010s with smartphones, it would have been one hell of a fun app to have; the activities you can do in the game would fit more in a phone game than a console/handheld game.

The Pikachu in the game is male, btw.

The Pokégreat

It had been stated many times in different websites, but this game is very, very relaxing. The job is done really well by the very simple music. Despite being limited to being a piano solo, the theme of your room is great.

Pikachu is adorable, you can do a lot of activities with him other than watching TV, like playing ball, exploring areas, help him tend the garden, help him learn about other Pokémon, etc. His reactions while watching the TV are a joy to see, mostly because he ends up doing something completely random like leaping at it, randomly changing channels, laughing or even singing the tune of the intermissions.

Pikachu can actually learn, you can teach him to operate the TV and to recognize patterns to a degree... but it is not used for anything else.

The idea of playing the game in real time sounds great on paper. If a mission is completed, you get new content the next day. This helps a lot because playing this game for long easily becomes boring because of how limited everything is.

The game has a good reward if you have the European version, if you complete the game, the next day you can get a Jirachi that you can transfer to Pokémon Ruby or Sapphire if you have beaten the Pokémon League and the game has the same language as Channel. One warning though, I had seen reports that this Jirachi can be shiny... so it will be flagged as a hacked Pokémon by Pokémon Home even if it is legit.

The Pokélame

The game gets boring in long sessions, because you can't do many activities. So it becomes repetitive very quickly and it becomes a chore. No idea why they didn't add more activities.

Most TV channels are boring, the channels rarely change content, so you end up seeing the same things a lot. The anime channel is limited to the Pichu shorts and the final CGI cartoon with Meowth, for example; if this game was released in the 2010s as a smartphone app, this issue would had been solved.

Because the game has a real time clock, you have to boot the game up at certain days and at certain hours, so you can get certain Pokémon in certain locations. This can become problematic if you aren't willing to cheat by modifying the clock, plus some Pokémon only show up depending on the weather, so if you get unlucky with Slowpoke's Channel you have to wait until the next time period (Morning, evening or night) and try again.

The game is very long in terms of completion. If you aren't willing to cheat, beating the game at 100% can easily take a month, mostly because Squirtle in the shopping channel only shows three items, and they are randomized, so you have to check the channel over and over again hoping you can find something you want or need; and some stuff is locked until you beat the story.

Like I had been saying since the start, this could have been a decent smartphone app; had this game been released in the 2010s, it would have been a fun smartphone app.

Conclusion

Pokémon Channel is a cute game, but it has almost nothing to offer, it's fun to play it on short bursts and nothing else. I recommend the European version, so you can get a free Jirachi at the end.