amphibious_ReViews

After obsessively playing the Pokémon Trading Card Game on two different official clients for the longest time, I finally fell out of love with the competitive scene about a year ago. Since then, I've still enjoyed collecting the cards physically, but I don't have much disposable income to direct their way. The recently released Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket introduced an entirely independent TCG with a focus on collecting that scratches that itch without breaking my wallet. Impressively, it's simplified ruleset also allowed me to play competitively without navigating any of the issues I took with the official game. The elevator pitch for PTCGP is that you get to open two packs of Pokémon cards a day at no cost. While the digital cards aren't one-to-one with their physical counterparts, that's still analogous to a minimum $10 investment you're getting for free. While I appreciate that the other two live-service Pokémon TCG clients supported the full rules and...

I was beyond excited for TCG Live when it was announced. Modernizing the official Pokémon Trading Card Game client, easing access to competitive cards, and finally bringing it to mobile checked all of my boxes! I wasn't able to join the beta immediately, but eventually caved and started playing via VPN. At the start, I really enjoyed it! It was no longer the same chore it was in TCGO to try and get the deck you want, and the battle pass provided a lot of incentive to keep playing. Unfortunately, the cracks started to show pretty quickly, and after only a few weeks, I couldn't convince myself to keep playing. I actually wanted to wait for the official release before I wrote my review, because I know there's a game I want to play in there somewhere. However, after waiting for almost a year, I couldn't keep it in anymore. The Pokémon TCG Live client is The Pokemon Company International 's attempt to translate the physical Pokémon Trading Card Game for online play ...

It's hard not to accidentally review the Pokémon Trading Card Game itself when taking a look at PTCGO since it manages such a perfect virtualization of the official game. It even includes the main competitive formats sanctioned by The Pokémon Company , which is the major draw to the title. However, I think that PTCGO is worthy of recognition for all of the choices it made to improve the overall gameplay experience. The steps they took to make the card game itself more convenient, like highlighting playable cards or sorting the discard pile, are fantastic, but I'm more impressed by the decisions made outside of the actual gameplay. One of the biggest surprises is the complete lack of microtransactions. Because every real-world TCG product comes with a code to redeem it in PTCGO , the physical products are treated as microtransactions, and digital-only products can only be earned, never bought. That way, if you never buy real cards (and if you stay away from the second-hand cod...

The Pokémon Trading Card Game has evolved a lot since its initial launch, and with over 10,000 unique cards released to date, people have been able to do a lot in the competitive scene over the years. As exciting as that is for the modern player, it also means the original competitive TCG experience has largely been lost to time. Luckily, the popularity of Pokémon on the Gameboy prompted a videogame translation of the classic rules and earliest cards, giving curious folks like me the chance to play the game as it was originally designed without the hassle of rounding up a bunch of 20-year-old cards and finding someone just as crazy to play against. While the card game rules are just those of the TCG as they were in 1998, the developers added some context to your dueling in order to make the experience feel more like a videogame than a simulator. Right from the start, you'll probably notice that the goal was to imitate the mainline games, and despite the smaller scale, it does a ...

Although it was a relatively short experience, feeling a bit simple at times, The Sacred Cards somehow managed to keep me engrossed from start to finish. I admit, I had my nostalgia glasses on, as this was the first game that I ever actually bought for myself, but the fact that I played it all the way through most be some sort of testament to its quality. The Sacred Cards creates a unique character for the player and sends them through the majority of the show's second season. You visit a variety of locales in order to duel different opponents in the hopes of securing six "locator cards" that will gain you entrance to the finals of Kaiba's Duel Monsters championship. I believe that this biggest draw of this game is the fact that it forces strategy. Although buying or winning powerful cards isn't very difficult, higher value cards require a certain level of skill to be put in your deck. As a result, I found myself forced to plan my deck out between ever...