Pokemon TCG Pocket brought me right back to my childhood in the best way

When Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket was first announced, I wasn’t that convinced. Even though I collected the cards religiously as a kid and played the Game Boy Color game for literally hundreds of hours, I didn’t really see how a gacha game could recapture that magic.

After playing for a few hours, I’m happy to report I was wrong. Focusing almost primarily on the collecting part of the Pokemon TCG allows it to sidestep most of the pitfalls of mobile games.

Sure, there’s still a battle pass and plenty of monetization, but the overall experience is much better and more relaxing than I expected.

Gotta collect ’em all

From the very beginning, the game makes it clear that the main goal is to collect cards. When you open the app, the first tutorial has you open a pack. In fact, you can’t even battle until you’ve opened three or four packs by exploring various menus.

By default, you can unlock two packs per day, once every 12 hours. Through gameplay you can get a currency to reduce the time required and open more packs per day. After the initial missions, however, don’t expect much more than two packs per day. There’s also a battle pass, with the main reward being an additional pack per day, bringing the total to three.

For some, this might sound strange. A game where battling takes a back seat? Why would anyone play that? Isn’t this just a pack opening simulator?

The simple answer is that this isn’t a game for hardcore competition. And that’s fine!

There’s a separate Pokemon TCG title for more serious competition called Pokemon TCG Live. It’s been around for years, with a client on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Google Play (although the mobile app is objectively terrible). That game gives you a number of meta decks right away so you can hop into battles.

But Pokemon TCG Pocket takes a much more relaxed approach. Opening packs is more about appreciating the artwork on the cards than it is about building a powerful deck. You swipe to open the pack, and you can even turn the pack around before you open it to reveal the cards face down. Once you unlock them, you can drag them around to see the 3D effect on EX cards.

Plus, the language of the card matters. There are nine languages supported, so if you trade with someone in Japan, for example, you will have a Japanese version of the card in your collection. It will change to your default language in battle, however.

As you collect more, you can also make display boards and binders for your favorite cards. Binders! That one brought me right back to the 90s.

I wish there were a way to zoom in on the art, but overall, the system is satisfying for casual (read: aging) Pokemon fans like me who aren’t interested in competitive play.

Simplified battle system

Once I unlocked the battle system, I was glad it wasn’t overly complicated. Decks only contain 20 cards, and you win by getting three points (rather than prize cards, like the standard game). Defeating a normal Pokemon grants one point, and defeating an EX Pokemon grants two points.

This means that most games can be finished in a few minutes, but you can’t finish matches in one turn. I only played against AI opponents in my time with the game, but if you want to play competitively, you won’t get demolished in the first turn. That’s something that really turned me away from other card games like Yu-Gi-Oh or Magic: The Gathering.

True to form for a mobile game, there’s also an auto-battle mode, where the game plays cards for you. This can be a good way to farm resources and open more packs, although the AI makes many poor decisions. Don’t rely on it in a pinch.

It’s too early to tell whether or not Pokemon TCG Pocket will evolve into a more competitive game, but I hope there’s always a more relaxing, solo side to things.

Plenty of room to grow

While the initial launch of Pokemon TCG Pocket is impressive, there are still a lot of missing features. The biggest one is trading, which is a shocking omission considering it’s the first word in the acronym. For what it’s worth, it is listed as coming soon in the Social Hub tab.

I also didn’t like how long some animations took. Although you can skip them with a long press, the menu has no option to speed up animations. This means that everything from battles to opening packs takes way longer than it needs to.

The game also feels a little light on content. There are daily challenges for rewards, but as of now there aren’t any active special events. I don’t plan on spending more than a few minutes a day opening packs and looking at my collection, which is a nice change of pace from most mobile games that try to take over your life.

There’s only one set of 226 cards at the moment, called Genetic Apex, plus a handful of Trainer cards. As time goes on, I can see a world where there are tons of collections with far too many cards to parse for new players. That seems to be what happens with every card game.

For now though, I’m enjoying this relaxing trip down nostalgia lane.