Pokémon TCG Pocket needs these three things from Marvel Snap

Pokémon Trading Card Game Bag came out this week on iPhone and Android, and it’s a surprisingly clean and streamlined version of the card game after years of really bad alternatives. Pokémon is pretty much a license to print money, but TCG bag does a great job of highlighting what people love about the game – the cards themselves – and getting most of the other things out of the way. Still, as a big fan of Marvel Snap, there are a few things I wish the mobile game would take over from the 2022 comic book phenomenon Second Dinner.

Over the past two days, I’ve spent most of my time playing games when I wasn’t using my smartphone Pokémon Trading Card Game Bag instead of doom scroll Twitter or Taking AI Slop on Instagramwhich is exactly what I expect from a good, everyday mobile game. All of the currencies and sub-economies designed to get you to spend money on the otherwise free-to-play game are a bit complicated and difficult to parse, but the battles are fun and opening virtual booster packs by cutting open the packaging with a swipe of your finger is a surprisingly effective depiction of the pure joy of doing this in real life.

I’m not too obsessed with it yet Pokémon Trading Card Game Bag However, I was there for Marvel Snap, and I think there are three reasons for that. The first is the match length. Marvel Snap’s battles fly by, making starting another one feel relatively minor, no matter what’s going on around you. TCG bag is a little more complicated. Players have a cumulative timer of 20 minutes at their disposal, with countdowns for individual rounds starting at over 60 seconds. The clock is rarely milked, but games can still drag a bit as players stack their benches and build up the power of their Pokémon. More than once I’ve finished a game and thought, “That was great, but do I really have time for another one?”

The second one holds Pokémon Trading Card Game Bag

A little back for me are the match rewards. In addition to bite-sized matches, Marvel Snap features an ingenious progression that involves acquiring additional cards to level them up and earn points that can be spent on acquiring new cards. It’s a clever twist on the traditional booster pack RNG formula. TCG bagas an adaptation of an existing card game, does not offer the same luxury. Unfortunately, as things stand, the only rewards for winning matches are tiny amounts of XP that contribute to an overall level. A raise brings additional rewards, but none of them feel particularly pronounced. The result is that finishing games feels somewhat disappointing, rather than triggering the rush of dopamine that immediately makes you want to play another game.

Finally, there are the cards themselves. Aside from building your collection, Marvel Snap has the secondary goal of acquiring cool alternative card art for your favorite decks, sometimes through direct purchase. It offers something different to strive for and a way to express your own taste in a popular deck type. Again, TCG bag

gets into trouble here because it’s based on existing card art, and while there are multiple versions of certain cards to unlock, there aren’t many, and there’s no real way to track them directly. If you open a pack and get a full art variant, that’s great! If not, wait for the next random move.

It’s still early and TCG bag Otherwise it does a lot right, certainly more than probably any other digital version of the Pokémon Card game I have played in the past. There’s only one set of cards to collect at the moment, and there’s not much eye candy to get excited about in the paid in-game shop. I’m sure this will all change soon, but for now the game hasn’t quite conjured up all the magic of my early days Marvel Snap. Maybe that’s for the best. At some point I had to delete the game from my phone because it was taking up way too much of my free time.