Pokémon TCG Pocket Is the Ultimate Collectible Card Game

by William Hernandez August 19, 2024

50 cards collected! Pokémon TCG Pocket is as much about collecting cards as it is about battling other players.

Thanks to the various presentations shown at the 2024 Pokémon World Championships, we finally have more information to share regarding Pokémon TCG Pocket. First and foremost, the game will release on October 30th. You can pre-register right now. You'll absolutely want to do so because the Pokémon Trading Card Game looks to have been masterfully adapted to mobile devices. The game looks insanely beautiful. More importantly, though, The Pokémon Company seems to understand what makes the card game so popular. It's not the gameplay that draws most people in, it's the card collecting that does.

The collection aspect of TCG Pocket is what the Worlds trailer really hones in on. The focus of this game clearly is based around the cards themselves — the gorgeous art certainly makes them worth it; however, the gameplay doesn't seem to have been sacrificed all that much. There hasn't been much about it that has been explicitly shown, but we do know that TCG Pocket will be operating its own unique format. Theoretically, it should be a lot more balanced than the current state of the official trading card game. Theoretically.

TCG Pocket's Most Impactful Feature — Trading

Trading has never been a staple of digital collectible card games for...perfectly understandable reasons. Pokémon TCG Pocket just doesn't care, though. You want to try and manipulate the system? Go right ahead. This is an experience designed with the users' interests in mind. It's just a lot more engaging for the consumer to have trading as an option. It's great to see The Pokémon Company revisiting this feature after it was lost in the transition from Pokémon TCG Online to Pokémon TCG Live.

Having the ability to trade cards, especially on a mobile game, could make this a perfect community experience. Just think about how great it's going to be to play with your friends. Honestly, this could be a global phenomenon just waiting to happen.

Lickitung and Slowbro getting traded for each other. The cards are different languages which means worldwide trading?

Collect 'Em All For Rewards

Just within the first set, Genetic Apex, there are 286 different cards that you can collect. That is quite the number. Not all of the cards are new so you'll see some familiar designs, but there is a lot of art that is unique to TCG Pocket alone. There's more than we can possibly quantify prior to release.

Interestingly, there appears to be some amount of benefits to collecting specific cards (and, probably, all cards). For example, we briefly see the background change in battle to show all the Eeveelutions when it becomes the player's turn in the trailer (insanely cool feature, by the way). We later see an album type of menu that shows the player owning all Eevee-related Pokémon cards. It's probably no coincidence and it's absolutely clever design to get people pulling for more cards.

Eevelution album has special art. Perhaps only when you have all related cards.

Pokémon TCG Pocket's Exclusive Immersive Cards

The "immersive cards" are what really make Pokémon TCG Pocket unique. The physical trading card game just has no way of replicating the digital space. We've not learned anything new about them, but we did get to see a new immersive Mewtwo ex. The effect is insanely cool. I can't wait to see how many more will be available at launch. There is no doubt that these will be the cards that everyone will be after.