I am real Against trading card games. Love me some though Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! Since then, as a child and teenager, I have largely distanced myself from them. I played a few hands Hearthstone,I have never touched ArtifactI’m a total shit about any card game that’s incorporated into an RPG, except queen’s blood exist Final Fantasy VII Reborn. Maybe that’s the story I’ve seen of players spending tons of money to get rare cards out of booster packs, but this pastime seems to be dominated by greed and status rather than the strategy and interplay between cards that I’ve always valued. pleasure.
That’s why I didn’t start playing Magic: The Gathering Until a few weeks ago. I was going on vacation and knew I would be around someone who played the game, so I relented and gave it a try. As expected, I found magic It was very fun and rewarding, but when I texted my roommate who was playing the game, he warned me about the cost of it all. When I shared that I had successfully done this, so did my best friend magic– Pilling. Of course, that didn’t stop us from heading to a store that was running a ridiculous singles sale and buying about $45 worth of cards that I just thought looked cool and played a few more games before leaving town. My first attempts were a little rough, but by the second game I was able to take out another player in a way that even impressed me!
Considering this experience, and a (may I mention, victorious) game Pokémon card game Under my leadership, I plunged into Pokémon TCG Pocketthe mobile and gacha adaptation of the popular card game that has been killing my friends and their wallets over the past few years. Unfortunately, while this is fun, it feels like a trap.
slow tutorial pocket A good introduction to the basics: playing and evolving Pokémon, attaching power-ups to use devastating attacks, and using items and other support cards to draw cards from your deck and keep your critter standing. There’s a lot more to know, such as retreats, bench Pokémon, abilities, and more, but pocket actually a great place start If you want to get into real card games. It provides you with pre-built decks and single-player challenges that familiarize you with the ebb and flow of combat in increasingly difficult increments, eventually allowing you to challenge other players. The match schedules in these modes are quite relaxed, making them ideal for beginners dipping their toes into the game for the first time, with the winner being the first to three KOs, which happens faster than you might think. yes no Marvel Snapshotbut the battle is in pocket It’s not stretched out like in animation or video games.
However, all this is secondary pocketReal temptation and danger. Its main screen is made up of a bunch of icons, buttons, and panels, but the three largest ones in the center of the screen are booster packs, a feature called Wonder Pick, and a store. Let’s move on.
First up are the booster packs: There are three currently available, all within a larger promotion called “Genetic Apex,” and they’re centered around Pikachu, Charizard, and Mewtwo. (You can choose between these three packages at any time, and you can open one for free.) Clicking on the panel will take you to a screen where you can preview the products within each package, and crack them first. Way to get almost any XP at once. before you do anythingeven for combat, you have to open the booster pack and get familiar with pocketMany currencies and systems.
For example, cutting a pack open, accompanied by the satisfying sound and vibration of your phone, generates pack points that can then be used to pick out individual cards, whose value depends on their artwork, whether holographic Still holographic. However, the most prominent of these currencies is pockethourglass.
There are timers below the booster pack and Wonder Pick icons. The timer below the former is counting down until the next time you’re allowed to crack a pack – you can grab two per day, or basically every 12 hours – and the timer under the latter is counting down until the next purchase Wonder Pick can hold up to five charges. Wonder Pick lets you spend money to select a random card from a booster pack recently opened by a random player or your friend. (Don’t worry, they won’t lose the card.) Let’s say someone gets a particularly good haul. You can then spend the appropriate amount of your Wonder Pick fee (which will increase with the value of the included cards) for a chance to get at least one high-value pick!
Currently, I have two Wonder Pick charges and the third will be reinstated within the next eight hours. This limits the packs I can freely pick, meaning I can do three poorly rated drops, try a slightly better pack that costs twice, or wait and see if I can pull a three . Of course, these agonizingly long waits can be reduced by simply using the hourglass, which reduces the timer for each unit by an hour, and the game is sure to remind you of what you’re missing with extravagant pulls from everyone you know. On the “Wonder Picks” page.
The early training experience and teachings also make you full of hourglasses, so much so that I hit 100 in about an hour of playing. it want to You’ll spend a ton of hourglasses to speed up the timing of booster packs, reward you with some measly products and a full ART or EX card, and then let you reach that climax. There is also an offer in the game to upgrade to a premium pass, which allows you to open a third pack every day for free for two weeks and get premium missions with more rewards, such as card sleeves, game mats, coins, starting now Moment, there’s even an exclusive full-art Pikachu card. The obvious hope is that you’ll forget to cancel and become a full-blown substitute, or worse, offer it because you’re so obsessed.
None of these systems explicitly prevent you from jumping into single-player or online battles, but I’ve been in situations where I’ve just barely beaten players who clearly spent money (or just lucky enough) to pull EX Mewtwos and the like. At the same time, I’m playing with a fairly rudimentary deck and building my illustrated books and binders very slowly in comparison. I did feel a twinge of jealousy while surveying the cards my friends had drawn, so much so that I spent hundreds of hourglasses splurging on ten booster packs, which gave me a lot of cards but ended up with nothing .
pocketlike the base TCG and every gacha and service game in the world, relies on its systems to create these frustrations – these Pockets of FOMOif you choose – and nudge you to spend money so you can continue to enjoy the game. Since this is Pokémon You know, we’re talking about the largest media property in the world here, and there’s no way to predict the damage that it will ultimately cause.
I’m also worried about investing too much pocket Because, frankly, I don’t trust digital media anymore. Year Show removed from streaming servicealso The game is removed from the player pool and deleteda strong reminder that these companies are more than happy to sell you empty promises. Physical cards can at least be stuffed into an envelope or binder that you can safely put away and take out. The Criterion Collection movies I have in my entertainment center aren’t going anywhere unless I want them to. Those tangible things, whether cards or films, are things that have endured with the care and attention that I and so many others were willing to give them.
if only pocket Make Nintendo and The Pokémon Company richer and it will exist. However, once it no longer benefits them materially, I believe they will have no problem taking it away from us, and this awareness will inevitably impact my experience.
It’s a shame because I really enjoyed it pocket. It felt good to defeat that player with Mewtwo by simply outsmarting and outmaneuvering them. TCG version Pokémon This will look familiar to anyone who has played these games before, but there are only There are enough tactical shifts in energy and management of the party as a whole to sometimes facilitate judicious exertions of raw power. It’s too early pocketwhich means it’s impossible to predict its staying power, or whether all the issues I flagged will remain the same. Although it may bring a lot of joy, never forget to treat pocketAs well as its developers and publishers, caution should be exercised.
.
