I’m not really looking for another hobby or living game in my life right now. Between day-to-day commitments and juggling games like Fortnite and Honkai: Star Rail, it’s hard to fit more games into my schedule. However, Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket has shimmied its way into the ever-shrinking window of time I have to play a video game daily. It’s not an adventurous Pokémon game, nor is it the deepest, but the low commitment has made it a new mainstay in my regular rotation of games.
Developed by DeNA, Creatures Inc., and The Pokémon Company and released on Oct. 30, TCG Pocket is a mobile game where players open card packs to assemble a collection of digital Pokémon cards. Each day, I log on, open a couple packs of cards, and log off. That’s really it. The game features an adapted version of the competitive trading card game, but you can still play the game even if you aren’t looking to battle a ton. Day by day, I gradually assemble a varied collection of digital Pokémon cards that includes anything from stunning full art of classic creatures like Bulbasaur to “immersive cards” that play a video cutscene for the art.
Image: Creatures Inc., DeNA/The Pokémon Company via Polygon
When you start out, the game rains loads of free packs. (TCG Pocket is free to download. I signed up for the free two-week trial of the paid premium pass, allowing me to open one additional pack daily.) I have not spent a single dollar in this game, but I amassed a collection of 400 cards, including duplicates. I’ve been lucky enough to pull six one-star, full-art cards and one two-star full-art Articuno ex. After I collect these digital cards, I sort through them and arrange them in a digital binder. As I drag and drop the cards, I try my best to create a pleasing, and balanced arrangement of all the different colors and art on the page — just like I did as a child.
If I want to look closely at a card, I can tap one and the game pops the card out from the array of cards for me to examine up close. I pull the digital card side to side, I observe the parallax effect on my rare Articuno card — a visual trick made possible by the digital format. It’s not as impressive as holding a physical card in your hand, since I prefer to see the vibrancy of a print in a physical card, but it feels pretty dang nice to see the Pokémon and sparkles pop from the card background behind it with the digital 3D effect.
TCG Pocket emulates the experience of opening booster packs, and with that comes some baggage. Just like with the real-life card game, you never know what you’re going to get, so some online worry that the gacha-like mechanics — or gambling — can be addictive. In my experience, it’s definitely something to be aware of, but I was pleasantly surprised that the free-to-play aspects were enough to keep me playing.
In the large-scale gacha RPGs I’ve played, you need to grind quests and daily tasks to earn the in-game currency you cash in for gacha pulls. But in TCG Pocket, the ability to open a card pack automatically refreshes every 12 hours, so you aren’t forced to grind the game at all to get your two packs a day. Additionally, it’s easier to collect specific cards with features like Wonder Pick, which allows players to pick one card from another pack that a friend or stranger has already opened. The card pull is random, but you can see what the pack contains before you choose.
Image: Creatures Inc., DeNA/The Pokémon Company via Polygon
I played a couple hours the first two days the game came out, but after that, my time spent playing decreased. I can play this game for five minutes, open some packs, and close the app feeling like I got something out of it. That doesn’t make the game necessarily special — I found the sterile UI and soundtrack contrast poorly with the brilliant card art — but the game still has its enjoyable moments. One night, I got dinner with friends, so we all opened our packs together and shared our pulls.
TCG Pocket is not the be-all, end-all way to experience Pokémon. It doesn’t replace the social elements of other mobile games, like Pokémon Go, nor the joy of physical card media. However, for now, TCG Pocket makes sense for my life. It has served both as a much-needed replacement for some social media scrolling time, and a chill activity to start my day as I lay in bed. So for now, I feel perfectly content to jump in and build a new collection of cards one pack at a time — so long as the developers keep up with all the daily freebies.
