Highlights
- Pokemon TCG Pocket aims to challenge Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links' dominance with daily free packs and trading options.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links lacks key features such as trading, while Pokemon TCG Pocket promises new immersive gameplay.
- Pokemon TCG Pocket may force Duel Links to step up its game, setting a new standard for mobile trading card apps.
The world has most certainly changed a fair bit since the days that the Pokemon Trading Card Game and the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game dominated school playgrounds, back when both franchises first gained their footing. Now, Pokemon TCG has dealt with incredible scalping issues and Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links dominates the mobile trading card market without its biggest rival. Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket, however, aims to challenge that.
Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket doesn't need much of an introduction as it serves almost the same purpose as its Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links counterpart, offering two free packs of Pokemon cards per day, along with the options to battle and trade with other players. While this isn't the first time the Pokemon TCG has made a jump to digital it's rather clear that The Pokemon Company wants to capitalize on the space Duel Links almost takes up single-handedly. This may spell trouble for Duel Links which may let players reap the rewards.
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Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket Finally Gives Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links Competition to Better Itself
Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links is Still Missing Incredibly Critical Features
Originally launched in 2016, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links features the iconic cards of the trading card game on player's phones, allowing them to play it in a shrunken-down and slightly simplified format on the go. Using gacha mechanics, players gather in-game gemstone currency to buy and open packs to get cards of different rarities that may or may not match the real-world game itself. Players can battle NPCs and other players in a designated arena, play as characters from almost every Yu-Gi-Oh! anime, and play through events with the same cast of characters.
After seven years of Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links becoming a pillar of the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game at large, it serves as one of the best ways to interact with YGO's history as a series and a card game currently available. Duel Links is still missing important key features to this day, though, including how it's a Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game application, and yet, its cards cannot be traded.
Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket Is Late Yet Still Ahead of the Game
Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links has been around for quite a while with very little opposition, but Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket is walking in with features that Duel Links has failed to deliver from presumably day one. The announcement trailer for the new Pokemon TCG app showcases that it will have the trading that its counterpart lacks, as well as movable, real simulated holographic art, and immersive card art that extends the illustrations.
This sets a new precedent for games like Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket and Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Links, and PTCGP isn't even out yet. While there's plenty that's subject to change once the Pokemon mobile game arrives, the promise of these features has already been made clear to those looking forward to the game, meaning a variant if not what's directly promised will most certainly be included. Of course, two of these features are purely cosmetic, but they're still leagues better than what Duel Links currently offers.
Since the Pokemon TCG is known for being less convoluted than Yu-Gi-Oh!, Duel Links may have to adopt some of the things that the newer application adds in order to keep up. By the same token, however, both of these games are built with their specific audience in mind, which leads one to wonder just what kind of overlap would there be for any real changes to occur due to one app over the other. Whether Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket truly competes with Duel Links or not, it most certainly played the long game to become something truly spectacular comparatively by the time it arrives.
