I stopped playing Pokémon TCG Pocket

I wrote about how Pokémon TCG Pocket felt like a waiting game back in 2024-11-02. I played — or more like waited — for another week and then forgot about the game.

The waiting aspect of it never actually got better. Apparently trading will be implemented at some point, which could potentially be fun. However, it's very unlikely that they will introduce a feature that's actually fun and reduce those carefully designed limitations — reducing the effectiveness of that Skinner box is bad for business after all.

For someone who's played the original format of the TCG, I found the simplified format in Pocket not very enjoyable. I haven't played nearly enough to make a fair comment, so I'm just going to attribute that mostly to personal preference.

Having said that, having played through the Lapras event and had ~40 battles against other players, I would say that it was a very pay-to-win experience when you take the waiting game into account. In fact, it felt even more pay-to-win than other gacha games I have tried in the past:

• Rewards from regular PvE are one-off and replaying feels "pointless".
• Rewards from Lapras event was time/money-gated.
• The higher difficulties of the Lapras event required a reasonable strong electric deck. The event is time-limited, card acquistion is time-gated... your wallet could fix those problems though!
• At that point of the game's lifecycle, playing against other players felt more like "Wallet, I choose you!"
• Realistically, even with a premium subscription, you still won't be on a levelled playing field compared to dolphins and whales for most of a banner. It's unclear what the major banner cycle will be like, but if they are anything like the size of the first one, by the time you can somewhat compete with people who have most of the cards, you'll have just a few weeks to enjoy PvP until you play the catch-up game again.
• Dupes are required for card flares (cosmetics).

Did I find anything good about the game?

Yes, the illustrations (both old and new) look absolutely fantastic and the card effects are amazing.

Overall, for someone who grew up with Pokemon, that's a pretty big chunk of disappointments.