Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket aims to offer a new bite-sized take on the card battling experience, designed for briefer play with an emphasis on collection and special art. The game comes from DeNA, the same developer behind other mobile games like Mario Kart Tour, in collaboration with the Pokémon Company and Creatures Inc. Earlier this month, Screen Rant attended a special hands-on event that offered several hours with the game, giving a better idea of what fans can expect from the title when it launches later this Fall.

Though there have been concerns about an overlap between Pokémon TCG Live and Pocket, the latter distinguishes itself by leaning much more heavily into the collection aspects of the game rather than fighting. The game’s artists have very much embraced the possibilities the medium allows when it comes to card designs, pursuing ambitious art that’s only possible with a digital format. It’s much easier to browse and sort your owned cards in Pocket, and the competition aspects have been pared back to be more easily digestible.

During the event, a frequent sentiment expressed by the Creatures Inc. team was that the new game is meant to be a jumping off point for new fans. Ideally, for players that are perhaps more interested in the art and collection side of things will find Pocket much easier to dive into, especially if they've ever felt dissuaded from other titles because they aren’t familiar with all the ins and outs of TCG combat.

Collecting In Pokémon TCG Pocket

Cards Meant For Showing Off

At its core, Pokémon TCG Pocket is about collection, and it gives players ample ways to build their card dex and customize how they show it off. The first expansion for the game is Genetic Apex, and includes over 200 cards total of varying rarity. The rarity system in Pocket is unique to the title, with cards being ranked either one to four diamonds, or one to three stars depending on type.

Two packs can be opened per day for free, with each booster pack containing five cards. Though the game certainly leans into exploring designs that couldn’t work on paper cards, it also still aims to maintain much of the feeling that comes with opening physical packs.

Players will swipe to tear the top of each pack, then can swipe through each card they received, and each one can be slightly manipulated by touch to see the whole thing in a way that gives it a sense of thickness and depth. Swiping up then adds the acquired cards to the dex, showing where they fit in with what players have already collected.

Cards can be acquired faster through the use of Hourglasses, which shorten the amount of time until more packs can be opened. Players also get a certain amount of Wonder Picks per day, which is where they can choose a pack recently opened by another player to obtain a card from. This won’t take the card away from the other player - it’s just another way for fans to collection hunt, though the specific card players wind up with is random. Wonder Picks use their own stamina separate from regular pack opening, which can be sped up with Wonder Hourglasses.

The game blends classic card designs that will be familiar to fans of the physical game with new, digital expressions that really bring new life to existing characters. This is especially true for the immersive cards - of which the first set has three - included in the game, which take players inside an entire scene when players expand them. During my playthrough, I was able to collect Pikachu’s immersive card, which took me on a short journey through a forest filled with gorgeous scenery and other Pokémon, like a herd of Ponytas, Poliwags swimming together, and an adorable napping Pikachu.

Pokémon TCG Pocket’s Battles

Streamlined Combat In Bite-Sized Doses

Pokémon TCG Pocket doesn’t completely do away with the battling mechanics of the physical game, but instead has turned it into something more compact and digestible for “pocket-sized” moments of playtime. Instead of a 60-card deck, Pocket utilizes just 20, and energy cards are nonexistent in the title. One energy is generated automatically in the corner of the battle screen each turn and can be placed using the same rules as the physical game; if a player has a deck with multiple energy types, the type generated each turn will be random.

The bench now holds just three Pokémon, but the system of how it works in regard to switching out the active character remains the same. Prize cards are also a thing of the past - players will instead earn a point each time they knock out a Pokémon, and two points if it was an ex card, with the first getting to three points claiming victory. During my preview, I only played against the computer, but there’s also the option for head-to-head battles, as well as an auto-battling system for players who want to especially focus on collection and not combat.

Players have a few options when it comes to building Pokémon decks in Pocket. Rental Decks are prebuilt sets with a limited number of uses that can be earned by completing deck missions, which is a nice pre-fab way to jump in with a particularly-themed collection. Alternatively, players can build their own deck entirely from scratch, or use the Auto-Build feature, which can create a deck with of to two Pokémon types automatically from the existing cards within a collection.

Customization & Making Progress In Pokémon TCG Pocket

EXP, Missions, & A Myriad Of Currencies

As players battle and open packs, they’ll earn EXP to level up with, acquiring goodies like Hourglasses at each milestone. There are also several other in-game currencies to be earned from different sources: Shop Tickets, Emblem Tickets, Special Shop Tickets, and Event Shop Tickets are all used to buy various types of accessories. These are earned mainly from completing in-game missions that will be familiar to mobile-game players - they’re small tasks split into different sections, like Daily Missions to open a certain number of packs, or Deck Missions for building out certain collections.

There are a few main ways in which players can customize and show off their ever-growing collection: Binders are customized selections of cards chosen by players to showcase whatever they’d like, with different cover art options that can be obtained through missions or the shop, while Display Boards focus on a single impressive pull that can be set against different backgrounds. Coins, card sleeves, and play mats can also be acquired to differentiate profiles, and cards themselves can have Flair - special visual effects like sparkles - added to them via Shinedust, which is created by breaking down duplicate cards.

It should be noted that while the baseline game is free, there are multiple paid options available to players, though currently only in regard to the time it takes to open packs and special cosmetics. Poké Gold is sold in amounts of five and up for 99 cents, and can be spent to reduce the time it takes to open packs. A special for the game, which clocks in at $9.99 per month, ups the daily pack total to three, and allows access to missions that will come with special aesthetic rewards and cards with unique art.

Final Thoughts On Pokémon TCG Pocket

An Impressive Artistic Endeavor That’s A Great Introduction

There are still some lingering questions about the title, some of which even developers haven’t even fully settled on just yet. For example, when it comes to how long specific sets will be available to players, Screen Rant had the following exchange with the Creative Director at Creatures Inc. Ryo Tsujikawa:

Screen Rant: Can you talk a little bit about how long different collections will be available to players? Will there be a lot of cases of players missing out if they don’t play for a minute?

Ryo Tsujikawa: To be quite honest with you, we actually don’t have all the details finalized for exactly how that’s going to work, in the far future, what expansions are going to be available at any given time. Just to reiterate, the focus being on collecting all the Pokémon cards in a casual way, we do know the expectations of players are going to be that they can get those previous cards as well, so that’s something that we’re going to focus on and think about a lot when we’re coming up with how we operate the game.

I also walked away from the preview wondering what the future of in-game purchases would look like. There felt like an almost confusingly-large number of different currencies within the game, and while currently missions only affect things like the art and items available to players, it’s possible that it isn’t set in stone. It’s impossible to say just how much microtransactions will affect the game, but it’s certainly something worth keeping an eye on.

Regardless of lingering questions, as someone who has always been intimidated by starting a physical card collection due to space constraints, this game felt like an excellent solution to that hurdle. It serves as a great jumping off point for new players, too - while some may not enjoy the simplifications, as a newbie it was nice to be able to dive right into the game without having to absorb too much new information. Players will be able to begin building out their dex and jumping into battle themselves when Pokémon TCG Pocket releases at the end of next month.

Pokémon TCG Pocket will release for mobile devices October 30. Screen Rant attended a special hands-on event for the purpose of this preview.