In the 90’s, the Pokemon Trading Card Game (TCG) took the world by storm. Little boys and girls from around the globe were collecting these pocket monsters and, instead of being in a big chunky GameBoy, they were actually in the kids pockets in the form of trading cards. From Pikachu up to Mewtwo – Then in the 00’s we went into Gen II. Later, it went into Gen III, then IV, V – And so on and so forth. The point is, it got bloody expensive. But what if you want to get into the hobby, but don’t want to pay a premium? The Pokemon Company have the solution for you.
Not too long ago, a colleague and I went on a lunch time break when I took the GeekOut Bristol Meet Pokemon cards in for a game. After reading the rules, we got them oh so wrong, because of how they were written down and assumptions. After we played though, we felt that our wrongly played version of the game made a really well-balanced game overall. After that, I became interested in the Pokemon TCG once again. I went online and found that the Pokemon TCG Online was completely free. Needless to say, my curiosity got the better of me, I downloaded the small game and got playing… And once I got over how terribly kiddy it looked, it ended up being pretty good.
When you log in, you get a daily bonus, allowing you to unlock more things. You can play against AI, or against other people. Either way, you’ll likely want to start off playing against the AI after building your very own deck. The standard decks are pretty terrible, but unfortunately you do have to use them if you want to play against the AI, as these are ‘Theme decks’ that get better the more you play. The game doesn’t like to hold your hand through making a deck, which is great to me – It meant I could put together a deck myself and try to learn what works and what doesn’t work. Even better is the game gives you a pretty nice range of Pokemon to add to your decks: From Pikachu to Zapdos – The basic range was pretty well catered for.
Once you get into a game, the interface explains everything to you. It even prompts you if you almost forget to do something, such as attack at the end of a turn (Which I almost forgot to do a few times). When you first download the game, it gets you to go through some tutorials, which are easy enough (Except the last one was a little bit of a pest, until it changed its order around, but this might just be me). Ultimately, once you get past those tutorial levels, you are then given full reign of the game. It looks simple (albeit very kiddy), but it plays incredibly well and it’s a great way to get into the Pokemon TCG without having to spend any money on the real game.
Well that’s it from us – Let me know what you think about the Pokemon TCG Online? Have you played it? Have you ever played the real Pokemon TCG? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below, or over on Facebook, Twitter or Reddit.
P.S: Did you know February 27th is ‘Pokemon Day’? February 27th is when Pokemon was first released in 1996 – So, go play Pokemon Go. Pikachu will be wearing Festive Party hats!
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