Incredibly Rare Pokémon DS Game Appears On eBay After Being Thought Lost Forever

Isn't it strange how certain things can just arrive back in our lives after we thought they were gone forever? Sometimes it's a pen or a book that you bought when you were a kid that you find down the back of a board in the attic, or sometimes it's a friend that you lost touch with that you never thought you would see again. It happens in the gaming world too, when rare games fall into retro extinction and we don't think we're ever going to see them again. We saw a lot of this kind of thing when we went to visit Console Variations in The Netherlands - they have some seriously rare stuff!

Now, a super-rare Pokémon title that we all thought was lost has appeared on eBay. It was thought that PokéPark Fishing Rally DS was lost forever, so much so that for the last 20 years we've just come to accept that it's one of those games that has fallen into the void... especially as it was a game that was designed to delete itself after 12 hours. There isn't a ROM for this game that you can even go and download too - that's how obscure it's become.

ポケパーク釣り大会のソフトがebayに出てる！https://t.co/4MtM4R0lZA

2005年頃にイベントで配信されたソフト。https://t.co/p1SiRR8NyS pic.twitter.com/YfJKkrZdoW

— ティラミス (@Tiramisu090401) July 28, 2026

PokéPark: Fishing Rally DS was a demo for the Download Play service on the DS and was available to download for a limited time over a 4-month period in very specific areas of Japan. Add into the equation the fact that because it was a Download Play title, it would delete itself when the DS was turned off, and you can start to see why it's become such a rare title.

Players could keep five Pokémon on the game while playing. It was, as you might have guessed, a game where you caught underwater Pokémon. But as the game disappeared when you turned your console off, it all feels a little pointless. You can see why there hasn't been a rush to preserve it in a ROM, though there was a fan-made version of the game that attempted to recreate the action created by Manuel Matesanz.

The player can store up to five Pokémon in the game, but all data other than the high score sent to the server is lost upon shutting down the Nintendo DS system, as the game is only temporary.

Tiramisu writes on Twitter that the cartridge has the game title of Poké Park Let's Play DS, but doesn't know whether the cartridge can actually distribute the game itself. It could have been a cartridge that 'ranked reception and transmission'. Either way, this Nintendo DS Test/Development Cartridge is an extremely rare piece of kit, and its current asking price reflects that.

The Test Cartridge is currently listed for €7,999, which is around $9,104.06 and £6,847.80. That's a heck of a lot of money, but I suppose because it works with both DS and 3DS systems, you could say you're getting two for the price of one to make it seem a little better... doesn't really work, does it?