I wipe my brow, my erratic hands shaking like a junkie's. "Just one more pack. Please. I need this," I find myself muttering, desperate to feed the dopamine receptors in my lizard brain. I'm watching the "free card pack" meter fill. "How do I have to wait TWELVE whole hours?!" I silently scream in anguish. I go about my day, pretending to be engaged with everyone and everything that I encounter throughout the course of the day, but truthfully my brain is keeping track of every single second counting down to that sweet release of "earning" a free pack of Pokemon cards. No, I did earn this. Hours pass. Finally, it's time to slide my finger across my phone screen, carefully slicing open a digital pack of crack to reveal its sweet, sweet contents. I note a few familiar faces; cards that I've pulled several duplicates of already. Then the ecstatic, addicting hit of finding a rare card washes over me as I pull out some beautifully illustrated Charizard card, and the craving to open a new pack starts all over again; thus is the experience of playing Pokemon TCG Pocket.
The Pokemon Trading Card Game has received a few digital iterations over the years, dating all the way back to the Game Boy Color. There have been massively popular versions of the game on PC as well; a surprising but nice move from a Nintendo-adjacent company. The most recent Pokemon Trading Card Game release has instantly proven to be a smash hit, in the form of the mobile exclusive Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket.
Pokemon TCG Pocket is a wonderful digital adaptation of the hobby. Collecting Pokemon cards was an enormous part of my childhood. Ripping open a pack of cards and thumbing through them to see if your favorite Pokemon was joining your collection, or if you had managed to get a rare card was an endlessly fun activity as a kid. I had probably a thousand cards divided into intricately organized binders and tucked into shoeboxes in my closet. I loved flipping through my binders and ogling my favorite cards and admiring the gorgeous and creative artwork. Pokemon TCG Pocket recreates that feeling in a wonderful way. Twice a day, you are eligible to tear into a card pack. There are 5 cards to a pack and after you open it, they get registered into your collection. Once you get enough cards, you are able to start organizing them into binders that can be displayed on your profile. You can also select individual cards to showcase in a display on your profile, if you're particularly proud of a lucky pull that you had. There's also a unique feature called Wonder Pick that shows you the packs of cards that your friends recently opened and lets you pick a random card from their pack. I have pulled marvelous, rare, full art cards from Wonder Pick, and I've also pulled absolute garbage that I have ten copies of already. It's totally up to chance, and a neat feature that allows you to get even more cards for your collection.
This first set of cards, dubbed Genetic Apex, features 286 unique cards, with 60 of those being "secret rare" cards to keep an eye out for. There are three different packs available to choose between, each with different cards in their possible pools. Some of the secret rares are jaw-dropping, and they come in a few distinct forms and styles. There are immersive cards that play a full cutscene animation when you first pull them from a pack. I pulled a beautiful immersive "Charizard ex" card (ex means extra and it is a designation on cards to signal that they possess additional abilities) and when the cutscene started, I was utterly confused. Nothing like that had happened in the game up to that point, and I was honestly thinking I had somehow beaten the game or something. Another stunning variation of secret rare that you will find are "full arts" where the artwork featured on the card extends all the way to the borders, giving you a look at a full illustration rather than a tiny window framed around the Pokemon. Just the hunt for incredible card designs is a satisfying enough reason to play the game. But, it's missing the other half of why the hobby is so popular: battling.
An enormous reason why the physical version of the Pokemon Trading Card Game is popular is because of the battling that can be done with the cards that you pull from your packs. This mobile version of the card game is no different, though the battling in Pocket is simplified just a tad. Every card that you pull from a pack has some sort of function for use in battling. Some cards are Supporters or Trainers, that enable you to draw more cards from your deck or let your Pokemon do more damage for a turn. Other cards are items that can heal your Pokemon or force the other player to shuffle their hand back into their deck, which can be majorly disrupting to any sort of flow they might have been trying to set up during their turn. The vast majority of cards though, are the iconic monsters themselves. The fun thing if you are a collector and a battler, is that you can try to find room in your deck for the amazing artsy cards that you love showing off in your binder. It feels like such a flex when you play some beautiful, rare card and wipe the floor with your opponent, or when they do it to you, which honestly happens more often. There is Solo battling as well, that involves you against a computer player, typically with difficulty options to make it potentially more challenging. Some of the Solo battles are genuinely extremely difficult.
I won't explain how to play the game here because frankly that's uninteresting, and the game teaches you how to play. I will say though, as someone who collected a lot of Pokemon cards, I never even attempted to play the game itself. I was intimidated by it for some reason. Upon learning it though, I can truly say that it's no more difficult than classic card games like Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Hearthstone or Duel Masters. Now battling has become my favorite element of Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket, for specifically the reasons I listed above. I love finding some insane looking rare card and finding a spot for it in my deck to show it off in battles. And there's something deeply satisfying about carefully doctoring a deck to find roles for your favorite cards and then effectively utilizing them in combat.
The last element I'll briefly touch on is the game's approach to monetization. So far, the game is completely playable and fair as a free-to-play experience. They are generous with the frequency of packs that you can open, and constantly give you "hourglasses" that deplete the time that you have to wait to get your next dose of dopamine. Unlike many free-to-play mobile games, Pocket doesn't seem to lock you out from being able to play the game at any point. Even if you were out of hourglasses and several hours away from your next pack opening, the entire battling portion of the game is available to you and is never sealed away behind a timer. You are also constantly completing challenges that give you more hourglasses and shop tickets. Shop tickets are where you can buy even more hourglasses, as well as a few basic Item cards and one Supporter card - Professor Oak. Beyond those few things, the monetization is basically entirely cosmetic driven. The shop features a few binder covers, like the Eevee Evolution binder cover in the picture above (though that specific binder cover is actually free.) As well as a few other items that require specific currencies from events. I haven't felt the game urging me to spend real money on anything yet.
That being said, there is a Premium Pass that costs $9.99 a month. The first time that you sign up for this, it can be cancelled within a 14 day trial period. Having this pass unlocks loads of extra challenges for you to complete, which grant more hourglasses and premium currency that can be used to buy cosmetics like card sleeves, binder covers, play mats, etc. You also get an additional card pack every day, which could be worth it alone, if you're a die-hard player of the game. I could see myself signing up for this if I remain as invested in the game as I am right now. The current items in the Premium store as of the time of writing this review are quite rad - if you're a Mewtwo fan.
I'm thoroughly impressed by Pokemon TCG Pocket so far. The game looks sleek and has a wonderfully intuitive design. You can tell a lot of thought and care went into making this into a high-quality mobile game, which is not typically a phrase that you associate with mobile games. While collecting physical cards will always be superior for me, I am surprised at how satisfying collecting these digital cards has been. The battling looks and feels great and is presented in a digestible, easy to learn format. Trading is a listed feature that is expected to be added to the game soon, which will add a new, fun layer to the game. I for one have loads of duplicate cards that I could swap with my friends. I can see myself being invested in this title for the long haul, especially with the cold, steel hooks of addiction gripping me and begging me to rip open more packs. In fact, I've been mentally counting down until I can open another free pack the entire time that I've been writing this. Excuse me while I go feed the beast that fuels me. Cross your fingers for me that I pull something awesome.
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