Pokémon TCG Pocket Genetic Apex Impressions

Pokémon is back with a brand new concept: Virtual trading cards. Pokémon Pocket allows users to get the pack opening high without spending the pack opening money. Once every twelve hours, players can open a pack of five cards for free, or they can use hourglasses to speed up the countdown (one hourglass = one hour, you can save up to two pulls before maxing out).

Pulling the cards

Genetic Apex lets players pick from the Pikachu, Charizard, or Mew Two packs to pull. They have most of the same common cards, but the real difference is the special full arts. With so many cards to collect, each pull was enticing while waiting to see if there was a new card in the pack.

There are a lot of cards to get. Rarity will have you pulling and pulling to get those super rare immersive ones, but breaking down the levels makes it less daunting. The common cards range from one diamond to three diamonds, and all standard EX cards jump up to four diamonds. Full arts introduce one to three-star rarities. These depend on the type of full art cards, the illustration full arts make up the one and two stars, and the illusive immersive cards make up the three stars. One last rank are the beautiful gold cards that have their own crown rarity.

Just like in physical packs, there are different types of packs. Normal packs have you lucking out and only getting diamond cards. When luck builds up and starts to overflow, you can get a God Pack where all five cards are gorgeous full arts.

Wonder Picks

Friends far and wide play Pokémon Pocket and sharing is caring. So, scroll through your Wonder Pick to see if there are any cards you would want a copy of. Every twelve hours, gain a Wonder Pick point (up to five points at a time) and test your luck. Each Wonder Pick will show all five cards pulled from the pack, how good the cards are determines how much the Wonder Pick costs (between one and three points). This can be a great way to get some cards in packs you aren’t pulling on or at least a slightly better chance of pulling a certain card.

Collecting and Showing Off

Each set will have its own catalog to show off all the cards you’ve collected (which makes it a lot easier to see how close you are to completing a set). If you pull some cards that you really love and want to show off, you can put them in display boards. You can earn or buy (both in-game earned and real currency bought) different displays. These boards allow you to showcase a single card and it will show in the community tab (touch a bit on that later). Collections have the same concept as display boards, but they allow you to have multiple (up to 30) cards in a single collection.

The community tab lets you boast your best pulls and collections to a bunch of other Pokémon lovers. You can see other players’ display boards and collections. It’s not a huge part of the app, cut it is a nice little feature.

Battling

If you are new to the TCG battle, don’t worry, you can battle bots in solo battles. The basics are gone through in the tutorials and are a bit of a twist from the physical game, but just as enjoyable (if not a bit more because this version has more simplistic rules). In the app’s version of battling, one energy is created every round, so you no longer need to worry about pulling those energy cards! Have a full board with one active Pokémon and three on the bench and then start attacking. There’s nothing for the player to keep track of, anything available will be highlighted. This system is perfect for anyone new to the TCG, the ease of options makes the most daunting aspect of choosing the deck you want to battle with.

The options for players are solo battles against bots, this also gives the auto-battle option which can be helpful when events roll around. This section has levels from beginner to advanced which can be useful to get into the swing of battle before changing over to the PVP mode. The PVP mode has you battling other players, pretty self-explanatory. This mode also has frequent events. While Solo has events with time-limited currency to participate in, you can auto the battles and gain rewards. The biggest reward from these events is limited promo cards. For PVP events, you need to defeat opponents and either get a certain amount of wins, or chain together wins. The rewards for these events are emblems to show off in your profile and before battles start.

Overview

I think this is a great app for Pokémon TCG fans who both like to collect pretty cards to show off and those who want to build decks and battle others. The simplified battling system might not be some in-depth fan preference, but I think this can help get more people interested in Pokémon TCG battling. This app, even being gacha, can be fully free-to-play (that’s how I play) and still gives immense satisfaction of pulling packs twice a day. Hourglasses are abundant in this game and Wonder Picks give a slightly higher chance of getting that Full Art card you have been wanting. This has become my quick game to pick up and play a few minutes twice a day and I have loved how I don’t have to sit and grind away to make progress or feel forced to spend money.