Copyright nintendolife
About a year ago, I reviewed Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket here at Nintendo Life, awarding it a respectable 7/10, largely because collecting ‘mons from that initial set of packs felt kinetic and exciting. Sure, there was far too much monetisation in the form of multiple different currencies, and the battles lacked a much-needed strategic edge, but for a mobile game you can largely play for free, it scratched an itch that kept me from ripping overpriced real-world packs and connected me with a lot of friends doing the same. I’ve kept up playing since then, obtaining all One- to Four-Diamond cards of each of the 11 sets while also managing to pull each Immersive card. I’ve also reached the Master Ball rank in each ranked season. Yet despite being someone clearly still invested, my opinion on TCG Pocket has flip-flopped around like a Magikarp that can't decide if it wants to reach the water or perish on dry land. Every positive comes with a negative for this Coalossal gacha game. Over the last year, every key feature or update developer DeNA implemented to make the collecting and battling experience better has come paired with an attempt to fleece the player base for more real-world dollars. A good example of this (that later got ‘fixed’) is how you trade. TCG Pocket launched without the ability to do so — despite the name of the game — and when it did debut, it came with another new currency and restrictive rules around what cards you could trade, enticing you to spend more real-world money on packs, as gacha games are wont to do. Notably, you couldn’t trade cards from the current set, and you couldn’t trade Two-Star cards or above. If your favourite Pokémon is Dragonite and you really want that rainbow-border Dragonite EX, better break out that credit card because the Pack Points system isn’t going to get you there unless you spend a few hundred dollars, as you couldn’t trade a friend with duplicates for it. After fan backlash, DeNA course-corrected from this restrictive system. They first Axewed the trade-based currency and merged it with Shinedust. And sometime soon — perhaps even as you’re reading this — they promise you’ll get to trade Two-Star cards while also implementing the ability to gift Diamond rarity cards to friends. These changes will undoubtedly make TCG Pocket much more player-friendly, yet from my anecdotal experience, this is too little too late. Many people I know dropped it because it was far too stressful to keep up with the rapid release schedule of new cards. And despite improvements to trading, I’m not sure collecting is going to get much better. The most recent set — the limited-time Deluxe Pack EX — has players both happy and angry like a Morpeko. There’s no mechanically new cards in this pack; however, every pack has an EX card within. This makes it an absolutely amazing catch-up pack for players who missed key cards in past sets. At the same time, this set is impossible to finish without spending money before it leaves the game, until some time in the nebulous future when DeNA re-releases it. They went ahead and included 353 total cards, which is quadruple a normal pack of about 75 cards. It includes reverse holo cards along with regular reprints of common cards, making most packs full of fluff for those — like me — that have kept up with their collections. Worse, the cards from this set do not retroactively clear past sets despite being the same in every other way, meaning that if you want to grab those last few EX you’re missing to complete them, this pack is essentially useless. Many people I know dropped it because it was far too stressful to keep up with the rapid release schedule of new cards. While my opinion on the collection aspect of TCG Pocket has soured, I’ve come to appreciate increasing strategic depth to ranked online battles. I know many don’t agree with me here, but as someone who has regularly played online TCGs since Hearthstone’s debut, I find a lot of the matches require interesting plays and choices that keep me coming back to reach Master Ball every season. DeNA has done a great job targeting issues with the battle system, such as introducing Baby Pokémon that alleviate the disadvantage of going first if you’re running a deck with them. However, not everything is perfect as we’re mired in a Suicune EX and Greninja meta at the moment. DeNA does not rebalance their cards, instead choosing to power creep their older sets, which means the last pack mascot — Suicine — is dominating the meta, appearing in about 60% of my matches. Greninja is the only non-Trainer Genetic Apex card that still sees regular play. I was done playing against the blue dog and frog about a week into the September season. Even if the matches against it are often exciting, no new cards from the Deluxe Pack EX unfortunately ensured we got another month of their 'rain' of terror. Of all the people I know still playing TCG Pocket, I’m the only one who consistently climbs the ranked ladder every season. Most people just log in to rip their daily packs, check Wonderpicks, and move on. Every positive change DeNA makes to TCG Pocket either comes with or is in response to a negative, still. The Mega Evolution-themed set has three packs to open instead of one or two, making it harder to collect ‘em all. But immediate trading of that set means you can grab the meta-relevant cards or cards you want to build decks for quicker, making the climb to the Master Ball rank that much more exciting as more people will have cards to stay competitive with the Wailords among us. If the upcoming trading features bring a player-friendly breath of fresh air to the game, I could see myself enjoying TCG Pocket for another year or more. After a full year of updates, I wouldn’t change my review score; however, it'd be a 7/10 for different reasons. Battles are far more strategic now, but the collection aspect can oftentimes feel overwhelming, especially if you’re free-to-play. With additions to the trading system on the horizon, TCG Pocket might reach a place where it feels less like it’s a floundering Magikarp and something more like the raging Gyarados it was when it first launched. But as always with mobile gacha games, I don't have a lot of hope that potential will ever materialise.
