Games worth discovering

Pokemon TCG Live - TCG Online, REPLACED By TCG LIVE!

2K View2023-06-10

Pokemon TCG Online was replaced by Pokemon TCG Live as of June 8th 2023 and Pokemon TCG Live has officially taken it's place. If you go to the website of Pokemon TCG Online, it will automatically redirect you to the TCG Live website instead. Pokemon TCG Live is a brand new Trading Card Game that can be played on both Mobile Devices as well as on your PC, with the game having it's very own PC client for players to download.

Gameplay wise Pokemon TCG Live seems pretty straight forward at first. You make your own character and are taught about the various card moves you can do. But if you're not a Pokemon TCG plager in general and are new to the TCG genre as a whole, this is where it may get pretty overwhelming. There are cards for your energy, basic pokemon cards, evolved pokemon cards, trainer cards, pokemon tool cards, item cards, and supporter cards.

There are so many variations of cards to use and to hopefully gain the upper hand in the game that for someone like me who has only played the pokemon games on the Gameboy Color, and the 3DS, this all felt very overwhelming. The learning curve for this game is super steep unless you're already very familiar with the card games. So keep that in mind when you jump into this. However if you are unsure of your strengths in the game, you can always play the casual matches instead of the ranked matches.

The character creator is pretty detailed, allowing you to do customizations for your face, hair, glasses, hats, tops, bottoms, shoes and also your catchphrases and poses. The game also lets you change gender whenever you want. So you can customize both genders and swap around if you so choose for extra variety. The visuals of the game overall are what makes the game suffer a bit if you ask me.

While the floors of the matchs change frequently depending on what pokemon has been played, the effects when casting abilities are very underwhelming. With very little done in terms of super cool effects which I think is a big missed opportunity in a game such as this. The characters you can create a super high quality however, being full 3D models and while you can't fiddle too much with the graphics settings, the characters do look very detailed and of a high quality.

I just wish the combat matches were better in the visual department. Overall I'd say that Pokemon TCG Live is a fun game and will probably be even more fun if you are a big fan of the card games in general. While I did enjoy my time in TCG Live, I did have moments of boredom over too many things to read and getting overwhelmed with what to do next with all these cards.

If you're a fan of these types of games, you should give it a shot though. I will probably play this on and off as a casual player. It's at least fun enough to keep me somewhat invested.