With the influx of digital card games gaining popularity over the years, it’s no surprise that a fresh one pops up here and there. With that in mind, seeing Pokemon release a fresh digital card game with the Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket has some fans confused – myself included. With the existence of the Pokemon Trading Card Game Live, the crossover is pretty obvious, but The Pokemon Company and Creatures have a different goal in mind for this fresh game. From what I’ve seen so far, Pocket is less about the competitive meta of the physical Pokemon card game and more about the collecting aspect of the pretty cards that fans know and love – and that’s not a bad thing.
After a brief introduction, I got my phone with Pocket installed and played around with it for about two hours. Much of the early parts are similar to many mobile games. This involves completing tutorials to better understand the menus, in-game currency, and the gameplay loop for both opening packs and battles. Learning all of these fresh menus and currencies can be daunting, but it’s not too far out of the norm for mobile or Gacha games. As you level up in various quests, other parts of Pocket become available and you collect more free goodies to boost your card collection.
First and foremost, PTCGP is focused on the card collecting aspect. Keita Hirobe, who is the executive director of The Pokemon Company, told me in a video interview that one of the goals of this fresh digital card game is for players to “focus on the fun of opening packs and collecting cards” and ultimately get to know the card game. A substantial part of the commitment to playing any physical card game is the cost of acquiring cards and the experience of playing matches frequently, which are substantial barriers to entry. So being able to just land on the Pocket homepage and see a substantial button that opens a free pack is an uncomplicated way to get into the world of the Pokemon TCG. From selecting a booster to swiping up to cut it open, all the feelings of opening a pack and seeing what you’re getting are there. If you come across a very uncommon card in your pack, the music changes and the card spins around a bit, showing off the effects of the digital card.
The first set currently consists of over 200 cards, and this particular set has three booster versions representing Pikachu, Mewtwo, and Charizard. The versions matter because some cards will be unique to a specific version of the booster. For example, if I decide to open only the Pikachu booster pack, I have the chance to pull out a Pikachu immersion card, which takes the player inside the card in a nippy little cinematic tour of the card’s art. One of the coolest experiences of the event was seeing someone pull out an immersion card and everyone crowding around to see the full effect of the card. It was very reminiscent of childhood when everyone would show each other their foil Pokemon cards, or when someone would pull out a uncommon full art card in a draft with their friends.
This isn’t the rarest card in the game though, as I quickly found out thanks to Pocket’s mercy system, Pack Points. For those who don’t know, the gacha game’s mercy system allows players to guarantee a specific character or item if they haven’t managed to obtain it through normal means. If you earn enough Pack Points by opening packs in Pokemon TCG Pocket, you can apply those points to craft any card you want for your collection or perhaps your deck. I found that the highest rarity so far are the Crown cards, which are full-art gold cards. These Crown cards cost a whopping 2,500 Pack Points, so players have to commit to saving up if they want to guarantee one of these cards. Another captivating option for obtaining cards is the Wonder Pick. Players can receive one card randomly from a booster pack that has been opened by another player. These players’ packs also rotate, so this is another incentive to check Pocket daily. Once you’ve pulled out all the sweet-looking cards, Pocket has options to display them in a binder or on a board as part of your profile. The customization options are very similar to Pokemon TCG Live, such as swapping coins, sleeves, and playmats, but there’s a fresh option to add custom animations to your cards, similar to what Marvel Snap offers. These custom animations, or flairs, can be created using Shinedust, a currency that’s collected by converting duplicate cards. Otherwise, getting fresh cards to fill out your card dex seems like a wait-and-see approach.
When it comes to earning booster packs, you have a variety of options to do so, but the main free-to-play option is to check in for a free booster every 12 hours. Players can only accumulate a maximum of two free booster packs this way, so you’ll want to open them as often as possible. With that in mind, there’s an in-game currency called Pack Hourglass that helps shorten the refresh time of the next booster pack that can be earned through normal play. If for any reason you run out of booster packs, Poke Gold or real-world currency will cover the rest. In my demo, I was able to phony a purchase of Poke Gold, which I then used to open packs to see what I could get. Five hundred gold for $99.99 was the highest available in the store, so I spammed that a few times to see if I could pull out a uncommon, immersive card unique to Pocket. In addition to opening one pack at a time, you have the option to open ten at a time if you decide to hoard your pack hourglasses or apply 60 Poke Gold. In my case, I cracked about 50-80 packs before I got my first immersion card. I felt like I opened fewer packs before I finally got my second immersion card. The Pocket shows the draw rates for the cards, with some of the rarest having a 5% chance to be drawn. Ultimately, it’s a lot of luck, which isn’t a fun factor to base the main gameplay loop around.
On the other hand, one feature I finally got to see in more detail is the battle system in Pokemon TCG Pocket. Unlike the physical Pokemon TCG, Pocket simplified the rules of the TCG to keep the gameplay fast-paced. It focuses on teaching the basics of Pokemon TCG without the complexity of some of the meta cards or game routes. For example, instead of six prize cards, the player who earns 3 points or defeats a Pokemon worth 3 points first wins. Another departure is that the deck is only made up of 20 cards compared to the normal 60-card deck, so stacking the deck isn’t a condition for losing. There are also no energy cards to blow up the deck. Instead, energy is generated automatically, giving players the chance to add one energy to any Pokemon once per turn. If you plan on using multiple types of energy, there’s a maximum of three types, and energy is generated randomly in battle. Among these changes, the cards themselves have also been changed for the format. It’s not uncomplicated to kill a Pokemon in one shot, and even Poke skills and Trainer cards have had their effects reduced. For example, a Trainer can draw two cards, but in the basic physical game you usually discard your hand and draw seven. All of these changes can effectively shorten the normal game, but there’s still room for matches to last a bit longer, since each player has 20 minutes to make their moves in PvP. Honestly, I don’t think matches will ever have a time limit, but I thought it was captivating that there was room for such long games.
As a fan of both digital and physical card games, I was excited to check this out. At some point, I can see people who ultimately want to focus on the Pokemon TCG moving on to the digital Live game or playing the physical card game. But that leaves Pokemon TCG Pocket primarily as a place to collect cards, and maybe that’s all it needs. Pokemon Go already sees similar collecting behavior in its players, so this is basically the card version of that. So as someone who recently got back into the Pokemon TCG meta, especially with the recent World Championships, I’m looking forward to checking out more of Pocket later in the year.
