When Pocket Pokemon Trading Card Game It was first announced a few months ago and seemed like just another mobile app aimed at cashing in on the physical card game. recent wave of unexpected popularity. With Pokémon TCG Live Once on the market, it was difficult to understand how The Pokémon Company imagined it. Pocket fitting into the larger franchise. And while titles like Marvel snap and Hearthstone have proven to be great successes, it was not clear that Pocket It could appeal to newcomers and die-hards alike. Pokémon fans alike.
There are still a few weeks left to go. Pocket Pokemon Trading Card GamePokémon's general release, but during my time hands-on with the game recently, I found it to be a promising (if slightly dispiriting) attempt to reinvent the classic card-collecting experience for a new generation of budding Pokémonmaniacs. Battles are faster, flashier, and clearly designed to be learned with relative ease as you fill digital binders with intangible cards that look like the real thing.
At times, the game's emphasis on making its virtual cards look and feel real makes it seem like The Pokémon Company's foray into the nft space. The big difference here, though, is that you can actually do things with Pocket Pokemon Trading Card Gamecollectibles in addition to looking at them on your phone.
In essence, Pocket Pokemon Trading Card Game is a game focused on giving people a new way to collect cards, display them, and use them to battle other players in fast-paced matches. For free, players can log in every day to receive two booster packs containing five cards each and then display them in customizable digital binders or specialized display boards. Much like the physical card game, Pocket Pokemon Trading Card GameCards differ in rarity (indicated by a new diamond and star rarity system) and feature a range of increasingly elaborate illustrations from a variety of artists.
Instead of relying on different physical textures or holographic foils to convey a card's value, Pokémon Trading Card Game introduces a number of new 3D effects to highlight rare jerks. Genetic apex —the first expansion players will be able to access at launch—includes over 200 cards, many of which reuse art from previously released physical sets. But what most players will love most are the new immersive cards, which allow them to dive into the art to see details that wouldn’t normally be visible.
Since collecting (rather than battling) is what initially draws many people to the physical card game, Creatures Inc. and game developer DeNa wanted that to be the game's main draw, particularly for people who hadn't been around the franchise in a while.
“There’s a broad audience of people who might not generally be interacting with Pokémon cards right now,” Creatures creative director Ryo Tsujikawa explained during a Q&A. “That’s what we were thinking about with (Pocket) By being in game or app format, we could reach a wider audience, including people who may have played when they were younger.”
Although Pocket shares a number of similarities with Pokémon TCG Live — another mobile game where users can redeem codes for physical packs to receive digital copies — the idea of an app focused entirely on digital cards began to take shape around the time Pokémon Go Corporate CEO Keita Hirobe said that making the game more accessible and keeping the barrier to entry low were two of The Pokémon Company's top priorities during development. And for those simply looking for a casual way to dip their toes into the world of technology, Pokémon waters, it can be as simple as opening the app and seeing what the RNG has in store.
Opening a pack by sliding your finger along its top edge is a satisfying enough experience, accompanied by a soft clicking noise that mimics the sensation of opening a foil packet filled with shiny bits of cardboard. The packs themselves (which aren’t as guaranteed to contain rare cards as their physical counterparts) can be turned over before you open them, giving you the option of revealing the last (rarest) card first. And while you can reveal cards one by one to build suspense, the game also lets you tilt them while they’re still stacked to get a peek at their edges, which are one of the indicators of a card’s rarity.
Although Pocket The game will offer players two packs a day (one every 12 hours) for free, while those coming from the physical card game, where booster packs contain 10 random cards, may balk at the mobile game’s five packs (a number that may change in the future). But for those looking to complete their cards more quickly, the game will also offer players the option to purchase Poké Gold, an in-game currency that can be used to buy more packs or reduce the countdown timer between receiving the day’s free packs. Poké Gold packs start at 99 cents. Additionally, there will be an optional $9.99 monthly Premium Pass subscription that grants players a third free daily pack and access to promotional cards.
While Poké Gold and subscription sales sound like key components to The Pokémon Company's plan for PocketFrom what I've seen, 's profitability is still quite accessible for players who don't spend. You can start learning the basics of the game's new, streamlined battle system by using pre-made rental decks and battling against computer opponents. And once you have enough of your own cards, you can start building custom decks to use against other players in the game's online mode.
While the traditional Pokémon Trading Card Game It involves two people facing each other with decks of 60 cards each. Pocket It streamlines things by making decks much smaller and simplifying the battle mechanics to keep things moving along at a fast pace. Damage is now automatically calculated by the in-game computer, and the first player to earn three points by knocking out their opponent's Pokémon (normal Pokémon count for one point, while EX monsters count for two) wins.
Although Tsujikawa emphasized that PocketThe development team at is primarily focusing on the collection aspect of the game at launch, they understand that more competitive play is something users may be interested in as new expansions are introduced. There are no concrete plans yet for Pocket to become a new fixture at the Pokémon World Championships, but it's not hard to imagine that the app will fit right in alongside Pokémon Go and the physical card game.
That might be necessary to give the game some longevity once the initial appeal of collecting simply wears off. And when Pocket Pokemon Trading Card Game It launches on October 30th, which might be enough to make the app a success.
