Pokémon TCG Pocket - A New Way to Play!
19-09-2024 13:00 UTC by Joe Merrick (Serebii).
In a world where the Pokémon TCG is growing at a massive rate, in February The Pokémon Company announced their next mobile venture, Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket, an adaptation of the Pokémon TCG and it is almost here. The Pokémon Company International was kind enough to invite us to their headquarters to get some hands-on time with the brand new game and go deep into the mechanics, gameplay and more.
What is TCG Pocket?
A common thing I see online is the query of why Pokémon TCG Pocket exists while we have Pokémon TCG Live on PC and mobile. Pokémon TCG Live is intrinsically tied to the physical TCG, with obtaining cards largely being tied to the booster packs and products you get in real life and the battle system is intended as a direct conversion of the actual TCG.
Pokémon TCG Pocket, however, is a clearly built up experience designed for mobile device. From the opening of cards to the simplified battle system, this is 100% a designed for mobile experience and it varies massively to the Pokémon TCG as a whole. It's entirely separate and its own thing, so there is no connectivity with TCG Live.
Pack Opening
It goes without saying that the bulk of the game and what people are expecting is the opening of Pokémon Trading Card Game packs. The game at launch will include one set of cards, Genetic Apex, which contains over 280 cards within it and to get these cards, you simply open booster packs.
Each pack you open will give you five cards, but unlike the main TCG there is no guarantee of a card of a certain rarity or higher. One pack I opened gave me nothing higher than a 2 Diamond card while others had a rare one. There is also a small chance of a Rare Pack which includes far more rare cards
However, in a change to how the Pokémon TCG normally works, the booster pack you select will have a different selection of cards from the set. For example, the first pack that I selected would not give me any of the cards in the set featuring Bulbasaur, so in order to get the Bulbasaur card, I'd have to open a different booster pack artwork.
Luckily, the game does show you the Offering Rates for each booster pack before you open, which shows you what cards are in it, separated by rarity. Each individual card has got a percentage shown given meaning the game is incredibly transparent with the opening. The examples we saw gave a 2% chance for 1 Diamond card, a 0.357% for 3 Diamond a 0.333% for 4 Diamond cards, 0.32% for 1 Star, 0.05% for 2 Star ex Art, 0.22% for 3 Star and so forth, but this is of course all subject to change and may even differ between packs.
The rarities are basically set out where 1 Diamond is Common, 2 is Uncommon, Three is Holo, 4 is ex, 1 Star is Illustration, 2 Star is Pokémon ex artwork or Supporter artwork and 3 Star is an Immersive Art card.
The cards themselves are a mix of old artwork from the Pokémon TCG, such as the Base set Pikachu, the Neo Destiny Hitmonlee, as well as a variety of new artwork and all the Illustration cards are new. You will see so many new pieces of artwork from so many of the artists that create artwork for the cards in the Pokémon TCG such as Teeziro, HYOGONOSUKE, Kouki Saitou, sowsow, Anesaki Dynamic, GIDORA and so many more, so if you're a collector of certain artists, you'll want to check out the cards here. I found myself just staring at so many of the illustration cards when I pulled them as they were just stunning to see on the screen, seemingly designed to pop on a phone screen rather than when printed on a card. I'd argue that some of the artwork we see in this game is amongst the best that has ever existed in the Pokémon TCG as a whole.
For all players, you can open two packs every 24 hours, specifically with a pack recharging for 12 hours. You can't stack these packs so once you hit 2 available, the counter will stop until you next open them. There are items that allow for you to speed it up, Pack Hourglasses, which reduce it by an hour. You can also pay to open 10 booster packs at once. This will basically cost 60 Poké Gold, the paid currency which we will get to in a bit.
There is also a new feature called Wonder Pick, which has its own stamina system. This feature will allow for you to see packs that have been opened by other people and give yourself a chance to select their pack and get one of the cards they opened. This is an equal 1 in 5 chance for all the cards and the other player does not lose that card. There can also be special Wonder Picks including items and promo cards in the future. This basically allows for you to possibly hunt down a card you need that you have seen other people get. The Wonder Hourglass can be earned and will reduce the time.
As you open packs, you will also get special Pack Points, these can be used, once accumulated, to purchase any card that you want so if you have a chase card you want, such as an illustration card or you really want one of the Immersive Cards, you can eventually get it manually through this. It costs 35 for 1 Diamond, 70 for 2 Diamond, 150 for 3 diamond, 500 for 4 diamonds. 400 for 1 star, 1250 for 2 star, 1500 for 3 Star.
Of course, the cards everyone wants are the Immersive Cards like the Pikachu shown at the reveal and the Mewtwo ex card shown at Worlds and more. These cards are stunning when you go into them, and not only do we get to see such expanded artwork, there are also audio elements to it so you can hear the Pokémon in the card, hear the surroundings and it truly feels immersive, but there is a catch. These are basically videos that take you through vistas, there's no interactivity. Despite that, they will undoubtedly be the chase cards for people, even for me.
It's also worth noting that the set doesn't include any Trainer cards outside the Supporters. These are all actually in a separate set, a Promo set and can be purchased in the in-game shop for Pack Points and other currencies depending on the card but we didn't see any Stadium or Tool cards.
Progression
Much like most games, Pokémon TCG Pocket has a progression system. This system is basically done through experience and you gain experience by opening booster packs. As you open more booster packs, your level will increase, and you will gain some items such as Hourglasses just for levelling up.
There's also a variety of missions for you to complete. These missions include Daily Missions such as Logging in and opening booster packs, Beginner Missions which will help you learn the game and more. As you complete these missions, you will also get additional rewards for full completion. These rewards seem fairly simple and offer many items to keep going. There are also Card Dex missions based on the cards you can get and Themed Collections.
Themed Collections are based on the set and will give you items for completing. These missions are ones such as collecting all Pokémon that can be found in the Safari Zone, or all Kanto First Partner Pokémon and so forth meaning there's always a goal to hit.
The rewards did seem plentiful from our short time with the game but that could just be how it starts when you start the game, and they get a bit scarcer as you're more complete with the set.
Collections
So you've got your cards now, what can you do with them? The game has added multiple different ways to look at them. First you can simply look at the card through the card dex with specific filters to hunt down cards you have. The cards here have got some 3D physical weight. It doesn't look like just loading a JPG up on your phone but they look and feel like cards; There is a holographic sheen to some of them, and the rarer cards even have some 3D effects. For example, with the standard Charizard ex card, when you move it around, you will see the fire effects bursting out of the card.
This can be taken even further. If you have multiple of a card, you can add some personalisation using the Shinedust item that you can get from completing missions. With the Shinedust and exchanging the duplicate cards, you can get special flair on your card. This flair is built towards the card, primarily focused on the card's type, so a Venusaur will have some leaves added as flair. This helps add some personalisation and you can even see the flair while you are using the card in a battle.
There's also a binder option in your card collection. With this, you can put together various cards, themed however you do so wish, and even add some special covers that are obtained in missions or bought in the shop to fully sell the scene. Display Boards also are a feature used where you can put a single card in a display with again, unique backdrops such as a card display in a museum or other different backgrounds. These can then be shared with your friends and other players in-game. You can only save 15 Binders at once, though we were unable to check to see if this amount was able to be increased.
A small note we were also given is that you can collect cards in other languages. If you open cards in one language and then change your game to be a different language, say Japanese, you can then collect the Japanese variants of the card, in addition to the English versions you have.
Finally, there's also some customisation you can use in terms of Playmats for your battles, sleeves for your cards and the coin you use in battle. These are all obtained through missions and in the shop so you can customise to fit your cards how you see fit.
Battles
Battles are a fundamental element of the Pokémon TCG, and Pokémon TCG Pocket does bring battles to the fold. These battles can be played either against the computer or with other players locally or around the world, but this isn't quite the Pokémon TCG you know. This system has been rebuilt from the ground-up in order for the battles to be quick. Unlike the Pokémon TCG where at Worlds you may see a match go to 70 minutes before game 1 is even finished, here the matches will unlikely take more than 10 minutes, and that'd be pushing it.
To start off, your deck is built out of 20 cards, a third of the standard Pokémon TCG. You start the game by drawing 5 cards and there are no prize cards involved. Instead, the battles are a first to 3 Points system, where a KO is 1 Point and a KO of a Pokémon-ex is 2 Points, which makes using Pokémon-ex cards even riskier as losing one of them can easily cost you the game. You can also only have up to 3 Pokémon on a bench and your hand can never exceed 10 cards in it. In addition to that, Resistance is also removed and Weakness, rather than being a *2 scenario, is just an increase of 20 damage.
The most noted change with this game is the Energy system. Rather than including energy into your deck, you have a special Energy Zone which, each turn, generates a basic Energy, and shows you which Energy will be generated next. These energy do not stack so you have to use the Energy currently in the Energy zone to then get the next Energy next turn. Of course, there are some Supporter and Trainer cards which will give some Energy acceleration effects, but these will just generate the Energy ad-hoc as the card needs it, rather than searching your deck. If an Energy is used up by the effect of an attack or used as a Retreat Cost, then it's gone forever.
The battles we did were very quick and smooth, with some neat animations when you use attacks. The Hit Points are done through a HP bar that automatically goes down as moves are used so you don't have to worry about that, and it's all quick and snappy.
The cards in the game at launch are not amongst the most complex compared to the main Pokémon TCG, so you're not going to be stumping people with complex mechanics here. Even prints of cards which exist in the main Pokémon TCG are different; Poké Ball for example will just grab a random Pokémon out of your deck and put it in your hand as opposed to flipping a coin to search for a specific Pokémon. The ability to search your deck for specific cards in card effects or abilities is not available in the game. Pokémon are also limited in that standard Pokémon cards presently only have one attack while Pokémon ex can have two, with as always some Pokémon having an Ability as well. This is all clearly designed to make the games snappier and more suited for a mobile device and to make even the non-rare cards potentially viable in a competitive sense.
That said, the core fundamentals of the Pokémon TCG are here, so if you have played it before, aside from these small changes, you know what you're getting into but if you're new to the Pokémon TCG, this is a fantastic jumping in point so you can learn the basics, especially as there's an Auto Battle mode which will show you how the battles work using your deck. That said, as the game grows there's definite potential here for some creative battles and deck building strategies, so I am very excited to see how this will go as the game releases and gets more cards added to it.
The game has a feature that allows for you to auto build the decks. If you haven't got enough cards to build your own decks, there are Rental Decks that you can obtain through missions, but these have limited uses and you do not keep the cards.
Monetisation & In-Game Shop
Pokémon TCG Pocket is a free-to-play mobile game, and despite the free packs that you can get each day, there is a paid element.
The main paid currency is Poké Gold. This currency can cost anything from $0.99 for 5 Poké Gold, up to $99.99, though this is subject to change. Poké Gold can be used to purchase some accessories such as Playmats, Custom Binders & Display Boards and so forth which will cost between 45-115 Poké Gold, but it's primarily going to be used in conjunction with Pack Hourglasses to skip the wait time for opening packs. Each Poké Gold will take 2 hours off the wait time. This means if you were to open 10 Booster Packs at once with your Poké Gold, it would cost 60. There is a limit, however; you cannot use more than 720 Poké Gold to skip the wait time per day. This does mean you can only open up to 120 Booster Packs paid a day, but doing so would cost a significant amount of money so may not be worth it for most players.
There is also a paid subscription service in the game. For $9.99 you can get the Premium Pass. This pass gives you an additional booster pack a day to open, as well as unlocks Premium Missions which include some Promo Cards and items like sleeves and coins. While this could be seen as pay to win initially, there's been reassurances that the promo cards you will get in it presently will just be alternate art versions of cards in the sets, so it gives no inherent advantage to use those promo cards. There is a small perk in that players can access the Premium Pass for two weeks for no cost to see if it is something that would interest them.
Away from the paid elements, there are a number of currencies obtained by free through completing missions. There's a Shop Ticket which is obtained in missions and battles that can be exchanged for playmats, sleeves and coins. An Emblem ticket is obtained by completing Dex Missions and Themed Collections which allows for you to get an Emblem of a card to put on your trainer profile. There's a Special Shop Ticket obtained by exchanging high rarity cards and is used to get special accessories and finally, in a confirmation that there will be periodic events in the game, there are Event Shop Tickets obtained with Event missions that can be exchanged for limited time display boards and binder covers.
There's also a Daily Gift that you can get just by visiting the shop which includes items such as Hourglasses.
Summary
From what I played, Pokémon TCG Pocket has a lot of potential for players and collectors alike. Opening packs is extremely satisfying and the new card artwork is absolutely gorgeous. I can already tell people are going to have so much fun with the binders and displays, especially as more and more sets come out.
The amount of currencies in the game is a bit confusing, and it's a shame that it means you can't necessarily pick and choose what to spend your rewards on, you're kind of pigeonholed into spending it on specific things, and I do worry the daily paid usage limit may be a bit high and could give some an advantage but we were given assurances that the core gameplay is available at no cost, and that paying is just a means to potentially expedite the play. We'll just have to see if this is how it goes throughout the game's life.
That said, the battles are a lot of fun and I can see myself doing them while waiting for a bus or while on a train, more so than I can see myself jumping on TCG Live for a full Pokémon TCG battle. The shorter timeframe and the smaller deck just makes it a perfect mobile experience. With the collecting and battling all immediately satisfying, it is definitely something that leaves me wanting more.
With the assurance that sets will come with a regular release cadence, and the confirmation that there will be events that provide unique rewards, it does feel like it will be a game that will have people coming back again and again, even if it's just to open their daily pack.
I am looking forward to October 30th in order to fully dive into this game.
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