For Mobile Friday this week is i tried out Pokémon TCG Pocket from The Pokemon Company on my iPhone 14 Pro.
I've always been a bit of an admirer of Pokémon TCG, not so much because of the game but because of the artwork. i have never collected Pokémon cards before so i was looking forward to trying this out.
But Pokémon TCG never really matched my enthusiasm. it's a somewhat sterile experience. the excitement i felt of getting a cool looking card was never matched by the experience of getting it in the game. By having little to no fanfare, it comes across as a generic app even tho the experience of collecting is quite personal.
Thankfully, getting the cards is mostly straightforward with a decent enough tutorial on how things work. But there are Ui aspects that give the impression that not everyone was communicating with each other. the home screen has buttons on the top left that look like we can do something, but when you click on them it opens up and we can't. i don't understand why it looks like it's something we can use when we actually can't. it should be greyed out on the home screen or not there at all.
This lack of unity appears when battles are unlocked. i don't understand why some parts of the battle mechanics require us to touch a card, when others require a hold and press motion. there are times when you have to go from one style to another. so when the battle section starts, you'll see i get more frustrated with the overly complicated controls.
But to get to this part of the "game" you have to get to Level 3, something that can easily take 2 days due to the pack cool down timers, which are 12 hours. This feature is locked on the home screen, whereas the example i mentioned above isn't as clearly locked. i don't understand why such a big aspect of the game is locked behind player level, when it doesn't matter.
When you start the battle mode, you don't use the cards you've unlocked. you have to do the tutorial first and for this you're given cards. when you complete it you're given a deck of 20 cards, tho for some crazy reason i wouldn't be able to check out this deck for a while to come. when i stumbled upon the deck menu, i was given the opportunity to create my own deck with my own cards. This is what should've been put behind player level, not the whole game mode but this aspect.
Pokémon TCG Pocket isn't a great user experience. it doesn't feel cohesive, it doesn't match the emotion we the player feel, and it kinda feels a little old. If you want to collect packs, then it's fine. if you want to battle, it's fine. unfortunately, in it's current state Pokémon TCG Pocket is nothing more than fine.
Version 1.0.5 Played.
