ReviewSunday, 17th November 2024 by Mike

At first, I didn’t get why Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket existed. Now I do, but most people still shouldn’t play it

In which I finally answer the question, “Wait, why are there two official Pokémon TCG apps?!”

In December 1998, Pokémon and Wizards of the Coast (the D&D and Magic: The Gathering people) brought the Pokémon Trading Card Game to the west. It’s a very different beast to the Pokémon video games, offering a slower-paced, more thoughtful take on the series’ trademark creature battles. While the video games are only as strategic as you make them — you can barrel through the main campaigns with just your overpowered Starter Pokémon, if you want — in the TCG, it’s not enough just to use the “best” cards with the “most powerful” moves.

Of course that still helps; no one would buy Booster Packs if you could just use any old shite. But you still need to plan a coherent, 60-card deck — with the right Trainer cards and Abilities to help you find and set up your powerful ‘mon, enough Energy cards to power up their devastating attacks, and probably a handful of expendable Pokémon you can play with until it’s your MVP’s time to shine. If your toughest Pokémon evolves from something else, you’ll also need to stall for time while you play the other cards in its evolutionary line, one turn at a time.

If you’re very clever, you might even use Stadium cards to alter the game’s very rules, or Tools that attach to your Pokémon and buff their powers. This game can get very complicated; it can take a long time to play a match and, when you’re up against a similarly-skilled opponent, it can be a really exciting back-and-forth, right up to the final seconds.

I fucking love it. And I’ve spent a lot of time over the years playing Pokémon Trading Card Game Live (formerly Pokémon Trading Card Game Online) on my phone and laptop.

A tale of two TCGs

That’s why, when The Pokémon Company (this isn’t a Wizards of the Coast game any more; they were shit) announced Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket in February, I was… baffled. TCG Live had only just had its big relaunch in June 2023, so why on earth did we need another mobile-based take on the Trading Card Game? They both involve collecting cards, building decks, and battling randomers online — sure, TCG Pocket would have special “Immersive Cards” that turn into cute, full-screen dioramas when you tap on them, but why not just add those to the existing game? If I couldn’t bring my existing card collection with me, why should I bother?

Well: Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket is now available on Android and iOS and, having spent more than two weeks with it, I’m happy to say I’ve pretty much figured it out. But I still don’t think this is the TCG most people should be playing.

“Shiny” and new

That isn’t to say Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket isn’t well made. Developed by Creatures Inc. and DeNA, the company behind Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, Mario Kart Tour, Pokémon Masters Ex, and others, the game has a gorgeous, neumorphic design that puts the focus on the cards themselves. There’s definitely more of an emphasis on the collecting aspect of Pokémon, at least compared to TCG Live: there was such a focus on opening Booster Packs at first that I forgot about battling altogether.

The Booster Packs themselves are delightful, with realistically rendered and animated foil packaging that you get to “slice” the top off of with your fingertip. The cards themselves are clear and colourful, with sharp text and decently high-resolution artwork. If you’re lucky enough to get a shiny or holographic card, you can drag it around to watch the light play off it at different angles.

In battles, there’s a focus on simplicity that I really appreciated. Text is large, clear, and concise. TCG Live is prone to fits of intimidating wordiness, but here everything makes sense at a glance.

In both games, moving your cards around is gesture based — you hold your finger down and slide through your hand to see a zoomed-in view of the selected card, then drag it to the centre of the screen to play it. Even on a small phone screen this works well, with clear, deliberate animations and subtle, colour-coded glows that do a good job of drawing your eyes to the right places. And battle animations, though they’re not as flashy as the Booster Packs themselves, feel fluid and satisfying.

The soundtrack is great, too, and I love how the music kicks into higher gear as you (or your opponent) get closer and closer to pulling off a win. Great music is par for the course with this series, mind you — every single track since Pokémon Trading Card Game on the Game Boy Color has been a certifiable bop.

That’s the “Trading Card” bit, but what about the “Game”?

There are really two sides to TCG Pocket’s gameplay. The first is unlocking and unwrapping Booster Packs and organising your collection of cards. Like all “freemium” mobile games, this starts off super easy but quickly becomes a pain. After drawing you in with abundant freebies and rewards for your first week or so, the game folds its arms and says, “Right, that’s it. One booster pack every 12 hours from now on.” Even the £7.99-a-month Premium subscription only grants you one extra pack. And, just like the real thing, there’s never a guarantee that your chosen Booster Pack will contain anything new or rare. You’ll end up with a lot of dupes — although, if you can be arsed, they can be turned into Shinedust and used to add animated “flairs” to your favourite cards — kind of like the Ball Capsules and Seals in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl.

You can also “Wonder Pick”, usually a couple of times a day (this, too, is locked behind a punishing timer that requires two in-game currencies to speed up), which gives you one random card from a Booster Pack another player has opened.

At time of writing, there’s only one set of 226 cards to collect (namely the “Genetic Apex” expansion), plus a small handful of Promo cards obtainable through timed solo and multiplayer events. I’ve collected 190 of the Genetic Apex cards since the game launched on 30th October, but I have 783 cards in total — so you can expect about 75% of everything you unlock to be stuff you’ve already seen.

More Booster Packs are expected to launch in-game by the end of 2024, according to a Tweet by the game’s developers, while “certain cards” will be able to be traded starting in January 2025. They also say they’re working on “other new features”. The more you know! 🌠

Trainers’ Eyes Meet

The other side of the game is, of course, battling — which can be done privately against friends, randomly against strangers, or offline in a fairly limited single-player campaign. Outside of timed events, there’s currently no sign of proper “ranked” matchmaking — there are just “Beginner” and “Trading Card Game Player” rooms and, as far as I can tell, there’s nothing stopping the most experienced players mixing with people who’ve only just downloaded the game.

The battling itself is also markedly different to other versions of the TCG; it’s a simplified, pared-back experience, similar to what Pokémon Go and Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Let’s Go, Eevee! were to the main series of games. There’s no calling the coin-flip so the winner can decide who goes first. No concept of taking mulligans if you don’t draw any Basic Pokémon cards at the start of the game (it’s just rigged so that never happens). No Prize Cards — it’s just first to three points, with tougher “Pokémon ex” cards giving two points when they’re knocked out — so rounds are usually a lot shorter. No penalty for not having any more cards to draw at the start of your turn. No cute little emotes to help you communicate with your opponent. Decks only contain 20 cards, instead of 60. Energy is doled out turn-by-turn from the “Energy zone”, so there are no Energy cards in the game. You can only put three Pokémon on your bench, instead of five. And, at time of writing, I haven’t encountered any Stadium or Tool cards, both of which are staples of the “true” Pokémon TCG experience.

It’s clearly intended to be a more approachable, accessible experience for newer players, but I can’t help feeling it’s just a bit hollow compared to the full-fat experience offered by Pokémon Trading Card Game Live. Especially when you factor in how stingy this game is with its rewards — in TCG Live you gain experience points after every battle, even if you lose or concede to your opponent. And, thanks to the timed “Battle Pass” ladder (which would have an optional paid tier in any other mobile game — here, it’s all free!), you can easily open a whole bunch of Booster Packs in a single play session. There’s less of a focus on admiring and showing off your cards, so TCG Live’s unwrapping process is admittedly less satisfying than TCG Pocket’s, but at least you can make easy progress without spending money.

In Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket, on the other hand, you only gain experience when you win a battle, and it takes a lot of wins before you level up and gain some rewards. Worse, outside of the timed, ranked events, there aren’t really any rewards on offer — if you’re really lucky, you might get a paltry amount of one of the many in-game currencies every now and again. And it probably won’t be nearly enough to be useful.

In short, Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket has worse matchmaking, worse battles, and way worse rewards than Pokémon Trading Card Game Live and — considering TCG Pocket isn’t even teaching its players the “real” TCG rules — I honestly think the vast majority of players should just steel themselves and play TCG Live from the start. It might take a little longer to wrap your head around the game’s more complicated aspects, but the game does a pretty good job of explaining things and has a decently meaty single-player campaign to help newbies get started. It also has a PC version, which I appreciate.

The verdict

On its own merits, Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket is a well made and charming take on the long-running card-’em-up — with a particular focus on building a collection, showing off your favourite cards, and dipping your toe into the world of Pokémon battling.

Sadly, compared to Pokémon Trading Card Game Live, it’s a hollow experience and far stingier in terms of the rewards on offer. In a sentence: those who can, play Pokémon Trading Card Game Live.