Hey big monster people, its Chibi Pinkie again with a brand new post. Earlier Princess Pinkie send me a bunch of pokemon toys to look at. Stuff that we do not actually own but for the sake of this story will pretend too. Yet it was still fun to pretend! Though there are a lot of toys I did not really understand.. when I asked Princess Pinkie she just laughed really hard behind her fan thing! Maybe you can figure it out?
The Pokémon Finger Skateboard
Now this one was still a bit fun to play with.. but it’s like super retro like. So once upon a time before fidget spinners were cool and like whatever finger thing is hot right now… like way way way before… back in the late nineties the cool people like unwinded from all their stress by playing with a skateboard for your fingers. It was the age that people went crazy for Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, the video game and everyone wanted to ollie and grind. So to relax there was this skateboard you could move right and left while wiggling your fingers. The coolest people out there could do tricks with them as well, like kids with Yoyo’s could walk the dog with their Yoyo .. people could do flips and stuff with their fingers. Which was a lot nicer than breaking every bone in your body. For some reason the pokémon company thought , well the finger skateboard market is something we need to get into or maybe it was the finger skateboard companies that thought.. we gotta use pokémon for some ‘sick’ deck designs. I think SICK was used as a good word back then. So they made some skateboards with pokémon on them.. for your fingers of course. Among a few other pokémon they chose clefairy and pidgeot to feature on their boards because that’s what the cool kids wanted. A dancing moon fairy and that bird Ash gave away. Kinda weird!
The Snorlax Bed or Pikachu Bed
Now this one was sold on Etsy once as a custom product, never officially licensed but it got kinda famous. So famous in fact that there was a more mass produced Pikachu version of it. I think that one had an official licence but I can’t be sure. You see in Japanese the beds are very different from ours. They are oftenly called Fuuton .. or something like that. They are more like rolls or those big soft things i always crashed into when we were having gymnastics at gym class. Their beds are always like on the floor without any feet or wooden casings .. you just plonf it there. Snorlax and Pikachu are those kinds of bed.. but do they look comfy I would totally get on. Princess Pinkie told me that I would not be able to hide dirty magazines under it.. but I don’t read a lot of magazines and why would they get dirty? At worst there are some crumbs on them and you can like wipe those off easily. With this bed you can sleep in Snorlax Belly or on Pikachu’s stomach sort off.. there’s like a flap of clothes you can lie under and their head is filled with … well you actually decided cause you have to buy that separately But yeah you can turn their head into a pillow. That’ nice I bet that is a whole lot better than my pillow. These bed thingies cost you about $350 dollars without the filling and without shipping so I guess compared to our beds they are pretty cheap as well. That’s like the price you pay for a mid quality mattress and those do not look as cute! Sleeping in this Snorlax is definitely a dream for me…but it’s kinda weird you slide into his belly.
Pokémoan
The princess told me that if I ever should get one of those beds I would need to get these toys as well. I do not know what they are but they look like silicon rods based on the kanto starter pokémon. The name is also spelled wrong so maybe these are like bootlegs? At first I thought they were like decoration.. like some of those african statues.. but when I displayed them on my windowsill people got really upset and embarrassed for some reason so I don’t think they liked them. According to the princess these make you feel good when you are alone and no one wants to give you special hugs, these will make you feel like you are getting special hugs. I don’t really get it though. One is shaped like a charmanders tail, which is kinda cute.. but I just hope they did not cut it off a charmander or it would die. The Bulbasaur one has the bulb on a green stick which confuses me even more.. why not make Ivysaur’s flower? That be prettier than just a seed right? It would make me a lot happier if it was blooming at least. The squirtle one kinda looks like a squirtle so I found that one the most fun to play with! But It did not have a face so I had to draw one on there. The pikachu one is really weird it’s thin and edgie and looks very frail. It has some weird bulbs and protrusions everywhere so I am not sure what to do with it.. it kinda looks like a toy dagger.. but I don’t like daggering. For something that doesn’t really look like a toy.. but claims itself to be a toyy.. they sure are expensive. They cost about $70 each.. with some a bit pricier and some being cheaper. Oddly enough there is this website Geekysextoys that sells them combined for $119 dollars. I dont know what a Geekysex is but they have a lot more toys that as confusing as these ones. There was a nice pink octopus I think his name was Burt Plug ..but he was expensive and for some reason I could not buy anything unless I was like 18+ (Thank Arceus I could write his in character. Pinkie Prime)
Pokémon Dakimakura
This one has like a difficult word in the name but it’s like a weird two sided pillow featuring several pokémon. The weirdest one I found was the dragon ground pokémon Flygon. I like how the pillow it’s depicted on is pink but it kinda looks like it has been hit by toxic. It kinda looks sick staring at you feverishly.. like it is out of breath. This one sold on that Etsy website again. Aside from Flygon there is also one of like Lopunny who mega evolves if you flip the pillow over and vaporeon there’s even one of Sylveon and Glaceon. The last one is kinda cute.. but they kinda all take weird poses. They have these weird look in their eyes..something wild, I can not explain it but it scares me a bit. Like they really wanted to get a belly rub or something. They are made by some studio named Lemon Creme, who are still active on Etsy.. people really like their stuff as they have gotten a five star rating. These pillow casing are made of something called peachskin polyester and will cost you about $70 dollars. I asked on the forums why every poiémon looked like they had a fever but I only got a reply saying ‘no kink shaming’ I think they must not have spoken english very well and that they meant to say .. no Klink.. that’s a shame! A klink is a cogwheel pokémon that is a steel type.. so it would be immune to poison moves like toxic. So I guess that kinda makes sense but not really. If you know please let me know in the comments okay!
Pikachu Panties
I like Pikachu but this Pikachu underwear seems a bit unpractical. There’s like ears attached to it and I dont get why you’d want that on your underwear. It seems like a really weird way to cosplay Pikachu , going out in your underwear. It’s made by a japanese girl I think who promises on her website that if I am in love while I buy these I will have sleepless nights. So somehow these panties have the power to bestow insomnia, but only when you are in love. I guess it could be neat if you are still in school and have to study all night for a test or something.. and kids in school these days are like always in love but still it confuses me and seems extremely situational. The Pika ears have a really soft inner lining though so does the panty itself so apparently it is quite comfy. I just don’t get why you want a Pikachu right there.. if a other person sees what’s underneath they’ll usually be shocked anyway.
Uncle Hulks Pokémon Spandex Suits
I like cosplaying and lot of people like it with me. There a lot of pokémon Kigurumis which is like weeaboo for onesie. It’s nice to wear but on a convention you don’t really stand out in one of those. A nice man named Uncle Hulk must have thought the same. So he began crafting all sorts of suits. Unfortunately for Uncle Hulk I do not think these work out that well… they are kinda creepy and weird looking. It kinda looks like a character from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure poached a pokémon than wore their skin as a suit. If a pokémon ever would try to enter a Pokéleague looking like that they would be dragged off for X Attack abuse. The lucario one also looks kinda cross eyed. They would fail a doping test harder than Lance Armstrong would.. which is quite bad. So even though Uncle Hulk means well I think unless you want to scare someone so hard that their soul exits their body these bodysuits don’t measure up.
Slowpoke Tail Plushie
W-W-Why? Why would they do this? It’s a plushie of a severed pokémon part which you can buy for about $15 dollars. You can see the blood and the bone still being there. While I know that slowpoke tail as a delicacy and item in the pokémon world it seems kinda weird to make a plushie of it. You can’t eat it after all. I don’t think many people would be happy with a severed arm plushie.. so why a severed tail Plushie? It seems rather horrifying. In Pokémon Gold and Silver we discover that Team Rocket has taken over the slowpoke well and is cutting of the tails to sell them off at huge prices so it is a quest line. The item is even depicted with an icon that looks like it in the later games. Yet a plushie is usually collected because it is cute. I do not really think the concept of this tail is cute.. nor would I feel any need to hug a severed tail.. and I am me! I’d hug my bags of garbage to say goodbye to one of my beloved mugs that fell or I’d hug a sponge because I imagined it alive while cleaning the house. Still a severed tail is not going to happen for me.. even if I feel bad for the tail now that I say it. There is also a keychain variant/lucky charm for t and oddly enough that one I kinda get… but an actual plushie is kinda spooky. The item is sold on Etsy by a shop named SewMeARiver if you are interested. It’s a lot soften nicer and cheaper than those other stick things at least, even if its a severed limb plushie!
Question to my Readers:
Which one of these would you get?
Now there still are quite a few pokémon oddities to find out there, in fact the weirdest isn’t even on here yet. I do hope you enjoyed our little peek in the weirder pokémon goodies out there and Chibi Pinkie’s views on them. Do note that all these goodies have been found without bypassing any age restrictions or the likes I crawled in the mindset of Chibi and this is what a little time of google and adjacent pages had me find!
The Pinkest Poké Blogger is blasting off again! XO Pinkie
Now Pokémon is already a pretty cutsie franchise. Of course there are some though ferocious beasts to deal with as well and quite a few world ending schemes to be had but overall we can still say a majority of our pocket monster pals can be deemed cute. Now what if we told you this cuteness can be put in overdrive? A game so sweet hat 9 out of 10 dentist recommend that you do not play this game. Chibi Pinki’s teeth might have rotted away.. she can’t stop smiling! It’s time to review Pokémon Sweet version.
The Concept
This game is sooo fun! It’s like super cute and amazing and sweet, but it’s also a bit tricky to get. You see Pokémon Sweet version is a Romhack.. that means it used to be a rom for a gameboy emulator and some pretty nifty egghead people changed it around into a new game. Kinda like how you would find a person you like well enough but are a bit tired off.. then peel off all their flesh leaving just their vital systems intact and then building a new person from it..but less bloody. So it means you have to download an emulator and the rom. If you are unlucky you’d have to download an emulator , the original rom and a patch file taking you about 10 to 15 minutes or so. That’s longer than my attention span.
(Hehe I got Blue Balls)
Anyway in Pokémon Sweet version.. which is free to play, you travel to CandyLand, where roads are made out of fudge and the grass is not covered with dew but with frosting. Instead of trees cupcakes will grow and instead of fences people use candy canes. You live in rural Cookie Village where the road has been eaten by a woman. Because you are bored you decided to walk inside Professor Cinna’s lab, who was wanting to give her three apprentices a so called pokésweet. Yet one of them overslept.. your friend and rival ‘placeholder name Garysprite’ so she decides to give you a pokésweet instead. Pokésweets are like pokémon..but sweeter they like to be eaten and grow back after they do. You can choose from Brownisaur the Cherry and Chocolate flavoured brownie, Strawmander the strawberry headed and tailed lizard and Squirpie the apple pie with a turtle body. Alongside your Pokésweet you are sent on a mission to catch all the other sweets to complete the cookbook for the good professor. Meanwhile you can obtain some gym badges from other pokésweet users so you can compete to be the pokésweet champion housed at Cake Castle. Pretty sweet right?
Well not everything is great in the land of Candyland! An evil team named Team Sour is after the secret of rare candies and wants to manipulate the two deities of the land , who happen to be two chocolate bunnies, to get their evil ways. It is up to your to salvage the rare candies and save Chocobun and Dark Chocobun.. the last one is like Chocobun but edgier. Team Sour is not the only obstacle in your way though, there is also the dreaded Candy Pirates who want all the pokésweets for themselves and their pink little outfits. Instead of pokémon typings each pokésweet has flavours, including but not limited too, vanilla chocolat , blueberry lime and orange! As flavours clash you’ll have to create a good enough flavor profile to overcome even the toughest of trainers, while harder than the original fire red.. victory in this game is double as sweet
The Atmosphere
While Candyland is basicly Kanto but from Candy one would suspect a bit of a lazy copy past but nothing is further from the truth. This game is such a treat to play. With a lot of attention to detail. There’s about 150ish pokésweets but rather than the original 150 it takes pokémon from all across the first five generations to create the ultimate sweets. A lot of moves have been renamed , retyped and refitted to pokémon for optimal enjoyment. Instead of Snorlax knowing Rest and Snore.. we get Smorelax.. the marshmallow pokésweet that restores his health by using Zest, and while it sleeps it can use the move S’more to harm his foes. Strawizard learns to use Fruit Punch and Squirt Pie can use Apple Toss. While a Pokésweet can still get burned , fall asleep or be paralysed they would not go poisonous as it would harm the flavour of the world. Instead a Pokésweet can go hungry and will begin to nom itself.
There is no ocean to swim on.. instead the sea is replaced by cream.. the lakes are filled with grape juice. Not a single element is out of place in Pokémon Sweet version. The number of items has been drastically reduced, most of the unnatural stuff is gone, replaced by extra rare candies, lemonades and berries. Berries can be used in the regular way to heal status or health.. but they can also be used to BAKE new Pokésweets. That’s right some Pokesweets you can only obtain by gathering the right ingredients and baking one. Every single cookbook entry has been customly made and they are all adorable! Spinacake for example spins vanilla cake for unwilling visitors. Piestoise has grown candy cane cannons which it uses to fire muffins at his opponents to make them happy again.Chocowool loves hugs.. but when you hug it it can leave blobs of chocolate on your clothes. It’s all just how it should be. Very sweet!
The people are loving and helpful and help to flesh out this quirky world out greatly. The custom soundtrack can be a bit repetitive. The Mario Kart Snes music plays a bit too oftenly.. but I kinda like it. It makes the journey feel cute rather than epic and that is exactly what it should aim for. At times you feel it has been made by a small team and they went like… just fit this in here and it’s going to be fine but that is perfectly understandable and excusable for a romhack. I’ve seen rom hacks break down regions and completely building their own.. but such a journey was never these guys ambition nor would it have worked this well. This game is so different that the safety of where to go next felt like a warm blanket. This game is about the pokésweets and gathering them.. not to tell a compelling and grand tale. Team Sour and Candy Pirates! This game knows what it is and what its want you to do… and it does that very well and in it’s very own charming way.
Technical Thingies
Now Rom Hacks are a bit different when it comes down to judging the technical thingies. They are not professional games, but unlike fully created custom games the skeleton is there so there should not be to much errors there in the first place anyway. Yet at the same time because it’s not their own code .. things can conflict much easier. Overall I’d say Sweet Version does a great job. The flavor system ..which is way more than just a name swap from the other games (as there’s only 12 flavors) and all weaknesses are custom. For example Banana and Lemon are weak to each other, which we’ve never seen in a regular pokémon game. The game feels mostly balanced though the chocolate type is quite powerful and the orange flavour has quite a few weaknesses. I am not sorry how the balance is as I can not play with every little sweet and the type chart is a bit more ungraspable than the typing chart.
I can imagine why water beats fire.. or how grass beats water. Deducing why Apple beat Orange or why raspberry beats blueberry is somewhat less natural. As a result the sense of balance is gone a bit.. but I do not mean that in a bad way…it’s like pokémon battling without the training wheels. The game definitely spiced up in terms of difficulty but in a good way. Trainers who stick to one pokésweet will usually outlevel you if you commit to a entire team. This make sense because in a way it enforces the rules of the game on the npc’s. Solid design but it does mean you’ll need a bunch of items or a lots of trips to the pokésweet center. Baking the Pokésweets works perfectly which are new mechanics they build in.. now you get locked into a gym and have to finish it in one go works like a charm and all those little things work wonders. Dialogue however has a few oversights. Quite a few trainers have their old dialogue intact. Mostly the one you never really notice unless you talk to them after combatting. But because this world is so new I talked to them all.. and I noticed quite a few of them slipped up and broke the suspense of disbelief. Some stores are a bit glitchy because items have been added or removed. Since emulation can already result in a few glitches I am not sure what I can and can’t blame on them so since it’s nothing that stops me from playing or even hinders me I don’t mind it too much. It just looks a bit sloppy. Like a bit of whip cream spilling out of desert. Still tastes good even if it doesn’t look like it’s supposed too.
The Gameplay
Delicious as this game might be, it is not for the faint of heart. Pokémon Sweet version is pretty hard. I try to spend as little money on items as i possibly could but in Sweet version I carry a lot of medicine on me because the game wants me too. Not only do we get locked inside gyms and whiting out means repeating ALL the trainers also the moves we work with are drastically reduced. Pokésweets are less offensive than Pokémon, they have limited good attacks. Instead nearly every sweet gets access to status inducing moves. Nearly every trainer battle is also a double battle, meaning you have to be prepared for two types or even two attacks onto a single sweet. With all that cream filling flying about I guess hitting moves is a lot harder as well because accuracy has proven to be quite a bit more of an issue. Not only can you toss sprinkles in your opponents eyes to make them less accurate, a lot of the 100% hitting moves are simply gone for more risky moves. This means you have to think a lot more about your actions and that’s good.
I enjoyed this battle system so much, reminding me more of classic rpgs where you rarely get a new attack other then a support type move here and there. I love how they changed obstacles around though. HM’s are as good as gone with only fly and surf still existing, though these other obstacles are all non consequential the no hm method allows us to be so much more free in what sweets we carry along. Gym’s are infinitely repeatable making grinding up levels a breeze as long as we skip those with annoying gym puzzles like the Blueberry gym. When I say skip I mean for the grind of course you have to complete it once. The game has been thusly altered that you can basically complete the entire cookbook yourself. All starters will become available and there are no trade evolutions. I still have to discover how to evolve some of these but it’s just a delight to see your babies grow up and read all their adorable pages. The plethora of status can be a bit annoying when you start but these are pokésweets not pokémon.. they don’t like attacking so it’s something you will just have to get used to. It’s different.. not worse..as long as you carry medicine at least.
It’s a long game, longer than the same run would take you in Pokémon Fire Red (the rom it’s based on), a lot longer. Pokésweets are super cute and you will be very tempted to try them all out the way they designed the game also means that you actually get better things to put on your team as you get along. Some sweets will get outdated or outclassed or just outlived. You’ll need to level quite a bit more than in the legitimate game but you’ll be given plenty of options for it as well. So while it does require some effort of you as a player this game features enough content to sink your teeth into.
The Verdict
Okay this game will not be a 10 out of 10 but it’s definitely something special. It’s something we will NEVER EVER see again and it’s something I have never seen before it. While other Rom Hacks change the game.. in some cases better than this little game, Pokémon Sweet version reinvents the entire concept. Recognisable to keep the old charm while innovating enough to add a whole lot of sweetness. I can not in good conscious gave a game as cute as this where you walk onto a pink world anything lower than my highest ranking! This game is my soul emulated. Feel free to disagree .. but this game is sweet.
What do you think about Pokémon Sweet Version? Did you ever play a rom hack? Do you have any suggestion for me to play? Let me know in the comments and I will see you all in the next post!
The Pinkest Poké Blogger is blasting off again! XO Pinkie
We haven’t been feeling all that nicely lately.. a bit sick.. though that isn’t unusual for us it really made writing a bit difficult, but hey at least I Chibi Pinkie got to catch up with a lot of games I needed to play. I really managed to get some progress in the Pokémon Masters game as well, and even though we haven’t completed the story yet i’d say I’ve played enough to give you a good first impression of the game.
The Disclaimer
For this review , no money will be spend on Pokémon Masters to see how playable it is without spending money on the game. Any money I might invest will be kept out of my verdict. For the story playthrough I will only use trainers I acquire through the game or that I farmed with free credits. Keep in mind though that should I have gotten any duplicates with payed credits it could level up my free partners so there might be a SLIGHT difference in difficulty. At the same time I will not tell you about my monetised pull because I can not do a lot of them, therefore until I see more online content about them (which I haven’t seen to much) there i no way to tell how lucky or unlucky I have gotten. I will not be reviewing the multiplayer.. right now the game is not available in my country so my friends don’t want to download it .. so I can not try it. I might bring that to the table in my re-review. Finally, even though there is a stigma on mobile games still, I will not talk about if this is a good platform. I will evaluate it like any other Gacha Mobile game as well any other Pokémon game but we won’t talk about if Nintendo should just focus on Switch of the sorts. Hence it will not be marked down for being something that promotes microtransactions as that’s part of its DNA.
The Concept
In Pokémon Masters you “create” your avatar by picking a gender, hair colour eye colour and skin colour. Like in Pokémon Go the model of your hair is set, but unlike it’s older brother for now there is no way to customise your avatar further. The protagonist version of you, you just made travels by boat to the Pasio Region. Where the PML will be hosted. The Pokémon Masters League. A tournament where the great of the greats gather to compete to be the strongest of them all. However in Pasio , there are no wild pokémon to capture nor can participants bring their entire team of Pokémon. In Pasio you fight only with your partner pokémon. Since this would be unbalanced and the super effective typing would always win the PML is fought in teams however. PML teams can consist out of hordes of trainers but in official battles you can only fight three on three. So you will have to build creative teams from trainers and pokémon for each stage and setting.
Trainers and Pokémon share a four set movepool, with the Pokémon dealing damage and trainers being able to give out buffs or healing. After battling alongside each other trainer and pokémon have build up enough energy to unleash a devastating Sync Move, which to those in the know are basically a lot like Z-moves. The game tells its story in a almost visual novel like style, but very simplified, with some simple branching dialogue options here and there. You can encounter three types of stages. One being the story stages, your basic exposition scenes with dialogue options mentioned before. The combat stages speak for itself, you get one or two encounters to get trough and you just have to be the very best. The last type are the investigation stages. These are a bit of a mix of the two earlier ones, except you can look around freely on usually about 4 different screens to look for additional lore and some items. In doing so it puts on a much more cinematic concept compared to other gacha games. With a lot more focus on exploring facets of the pokémon world rather then just forcing you to pull as many units as you can.
With Pokémon Go being a simplified version of catching and raising Pokémon, this game can be described as a simplified version of the battling concept of Pokémon. It puts on a charming narrative with each stage providing a logical step in your trainers journey and a lot of fanservice…..in the nostalgic non lewd kinda way. It’s quite the happy little game that does drop the ball on some occasions. Badgeholders you defeat usually end up tagging along with you.. because there are others that hold the batch as well, and the rules of the PML would allow them to. That’s just odd to me. I mean I love Flannery in my team but I would have much rather seen for example narratives of Flanery trying to take Blaine down who was the gym leader and after you done so .. she decides to follow you. The fact that others hold the same badge just harms the world building just a bit for me.. getting a badge is no longer a sign of overcoming a challenge..but that you find the weakest gym leader. The fact that the story gives you free gathas (pulls) that are usually helpful in the next part of your journey though I can only be happy about.
The Atmosphere
By far the games strongest aspect is the atmosphere. Pasio is a beautiful place that comes alive through the spot on visuals and nicely remixed tunes. The Pasio Pokécenter is a place where you are going to spend a lot of time managing all your stuff. It’s design is neat and feels vibrant with all your collected team mates as well as people you battled showing up, with plenty of cute dialogues. tips pokémon lore and more. As a result your ‘home’ feels super comfy. For fangirls like me it’s a delight to see Whitney show up talking about herself being so cute, or Korina giving you an empowering speech. I do hate when Crasher Wake shows up though.. but that’s personal.. he is kind of intimidating and I got him in a free pull… now his swoll bod keeps blocking up my screen all the time as he shouts and laughs like a D&D dwarf. It’s not really a negative.. his personality pops out and I don’t really like it so he annoys me.. in a way he feels alive. Every character has these typical japanese style voice acting bits where they aren’t fully voiced but have ‘emote’ like shouts they usher at certain emotions. They also introduce themselves when you pull them and such. Because of that I do recommend everyone who played the games to use the english voice setting. Though not all voice actors are as good as the japanese ones it really doesn’t scratch the same nostalgia itch to see Misty introduce herself as Kasumi.. it doesn’t line up with the text either. The english dialogue is ..passable enough but taglines can get a bit annoying on extended play. Whitney and Rosa for example have higher star rates, and thus higher maximum levels, on free play it means you’ll use them a lot and Whitney’s : Ain’t I a cutie can get obnoxious when she tells it to you for the 46th time.
Of course you can choose not to read the dialogues in the center .. but they are often so cute and charming you’d be missing out. The music is nice even if not very memorable, this to me is a good thing though. The game can be bit of a grind meaning repeating stages are bound to happen. I never got annoyed by repeating music throughout any of my grinds so that’s a good thing.
Though the story unfolds in a visual novel like style, the models are all 3d-ish models who can show a lot of emotions. Not just the humans but the pokémon as well. Little choices like how a pokémonon delivers it’s cry oftenly when their trainer talks about them makes the world feel even more alive. In fact it’s so alive that I’d say just talking to the trainers and finding out about the bond with their pokémon would be my favorite part of the game. DeNa the developer provided me with a perfect chance to enjoy this in the form of Sync Pair Stories. Cute little stories all over the island featuring the many characters and their most beloved pokémon in the pokéverse have gotten to know each other. Lucario is no longer a static pokémon that by level we know to be Korina’s ace.. no we learned that in the beginning they did not really get along that well at all because of Korina’s personality. We see Liza , one half of the psychic gym twins, miss her brother now being seperated for the first time but finding solace in her pokémon. Characters never feel reinvented these people we see moving and emoting now like we never saw them before we knew them already and this is not a new model wearing their skin they all keep their old personalities and their development. Barry is still fining people millions of dollars for each thing they do wrong in his eyes.. but now we find out why. The game presents everyone in nice and rich colours which make the pokémon blend in really well.
Now onto the negatives of the atmosphere, and note this is not a gripe to me, which is a bit difficult to explain. DeNa (I am not using the emote in the name because wordpress turns it into a smilie) clearly loves the POkémon games there is so much reference there is so much that is spot on from the games. Every single character IS the one you encountered in the games. Now for those who don’t know anything about pokémon this will result in the game having a lot of fluff dialogue. Barry saying that if you don’t show up in time he will fine you a million poké might sound serious or you’ll go like.. what the frizzlesticks is that blonde kid going on about. Flannery being shocked that she will have to face gym leader Norman is inconsequential. These reactions and dialogue arcs are catered too those who have played the games. While the main story is enjoyable to both old and new players this is definitely a legacy game and a lot of story elements are a lot better if you know the games. Secondly this game loves the games, not the anime or the manga.. but the main line games. This means Brock and Misty aren’t anything like the shouting red-head and the lovable goof you might have seen on tv. Brock is focussed determined and tactical, Misty is bubbly and happy and somewhat naive, she respects Blue though hates his arrogance. Brock and Misty are also designed after their more recent models so they don’t even look like their most know counterpart that much. For a lot of kids who saw the show or for those wanting to pick up Pokémon again this might seem a bit confusing. So as alive and good looking as this game is you REALLY need to keep in mind where it’s coming from, for those who really know nothing about the game should wonder if they should start with a LEGACY game.
The Technical Thingies
Though apparently there were a lot of troubles for Android users, i can honestly say I never really experienced any trouble. While a little over halfway through the game I did not encounter majors bugs weird glitches or anything. My game crashed only once and that was on busy hours during an event. I found the game plays nicely, the controls are smooth and your input is accepted accurately and quickly.Technically it’s quite a solid game , though I wish some things would have been made differently. Most of these gripes are in the form of information provided towards the trainer. For example to upgrade your trainer’s stars you need items much like any other Gacha.. but unlike most of its peers never does an item state where or how you can get it. Other games I play like Dragon Ball Legends allow you to access stages to get required material with a single button press. You just select your character tab it to level and select the item you lack going straight into a mission after which you go back to the upgrade menu. Back in our game, if you want to upgrade Misty’s passive ability you first have to open your sync pair dex, select misty, click on the little plus to find misty’s role, back out go into the training stages, find the right training stage for her role that’s in a tab within a tab , grind it out, move towards the trainer select abilities, move to passive abilities and than purchase it.
The game however , half way in never even told me about these roles. They do tell you how to upgrade your attack, but never mention there is a second tab there , easily to overlook. When learning an offensive move.. the effect of the new attack is hidden until purchase. Now these effects are the same as in the main game so I am fine with that but I doubt every pokémon player in the world, let alone every pokémon masters player knows what the move close combat does. It means rookie trainers could spend resources into upgrading an attack that is not really worth it. Never is it explained that the burn stats halves strength stat of it’s target.. yet it does. There is a FAQ section and a trainer tip section in the menu to help you…but once again you are never told about them.
What they they do do right is how they communicate what pokémon to bring. Each stage has two advantages types. The most advantageous in the first slot the supportive in the second. If you follow the advise stages are quite passable. I intentionally played a bit worse than I could (not focussing on abilities I know would work well together but on what superficially seems okay) and the stages are quite clearable. Grinding is going to be needed but it’s kind of fun the game chose to not have an energy system .. so this actually feels like a game. It’s just a game that if you want to play it properly you might need to do some reading up on.. because the game doesn’t tell you a lot and from a kid friendly game we might not expect that.
The Gameplay
Overall I find the gameplay enjoyable but to do this properly I will divide the gameplay in a couple of main aspects. Battling your way through the stories, interacting with other characters, leveling up and training and finally collecting new trainers. Incidentally there are also events. We shall discuss these one by one.
First let’s talk about the combat , the main selling point of this game. While I do not agree with the entire combat system I do feel it’s a rather unique interpretation that does feel like pokémon and trainer are battling together. It feels close enough to the core series gameplay while still feeling fresh enough. For example Dragonball Dokkan Battle is a bad game in this regard, it feels very little like dragon ball and the collecting itself feels like a main part of the battle gameplay. Though team members can sometimes boost each other and it might be smart to create synergy in between your trainers, it’s not always needed nor possible. Marley for example uses an Arcanine as her trainer and her abilities allow to boost everyone’s speed which is neat. Rosa is a grass type trainer who boosts everyone’s special attack. You would think these go well together but in truth not that much. Rosa’s special attack buff is neat.. but Arcanine prefers physical attacks , so he doesn’t benefit from her boost. Marley’s speed boost is not very effective alongside Rosa .. because she has the ability to cheer and energise everyone.. (which makes speed a bit unneeded) .
Even with their conflicting abilities however it can be advantageous to have both on your field due to type advantage.. or in some cases even with type advantage you are better off creating a different team because it’s really specially resistant or something. What I mean to say is, unlike most Gacha’s there isn’t a perfect team, the game encourages you to swap. You can play with the highest rank trainers all you like.. if they lack the abilities or typing you need it might just be better to swap it out for lower levels. Yet the game never goes that brutally difficult that you can never bring your favorites either. Unlike plenty of other games in the genre
Battling works quite simple. On the bottom of your screen you have an energy meter which contains 4 , but upgradable in quantity , blocks. Each attack of your pokemon costs an amount of blocks to use. For example energy ball costs two energy and ember costs 1. Each attack has a base damage and an effect, the higher the cost the more damage, or the better the effect. The speed stat of your pokémon determine how fast your energy bar fills. Trainers can use their actions without spending energy but each trainer action can only be used twice. These usually are items from the games in the first slot you get.. like potions. x attack/defence/etc (all or single) full heal’s or dire hits. The second upgradable spot usually holds a big boost like how Rosa can fully bring your energy meter to full. Opposed to normal pokémon, every pokemon only has one weakness, for you as a trainer they are set, for npc’s they can vary per stage. In one stage Swanna is weak to electricity in the other it’s weak to rock.. all so you can see different type of pokémon.. and softly urge you to make some pulls.
The alternating weakness is something I do dislike, Swanna in reality is quad weak to electricity, I do feel with 926 pokémon to choose from if you design a battle where they want you to fight with rock and grass, you pick pokémon whose primary weakness ARE that, not let you attack with better options available. I do get why they chose it to be this way as not every battle is just three pokémon but it does feel super weird to me when a swanna takes more damage from a Torkoal then from a Pikachu. Resistances do not exist. All in all it’s an adequate battle system that feels comfortable and simplified enough for new players, yet at the same time there is so much for the fan present in the other aspects that it feels a bit unnatural but that is only if you know the type system by heart…so in actuality it’s fine… this is just weird for fans like me.
Interacting with other characters is to me the most fun part of the game. People react like they should and are given the depth they lack. I love their stories and they are nice to follow. I do question some of the dialogue options you get though. At times people will ask you ‘Will you help me?’ sort of questions. The game decides to give you the possibility to answer at times but a lot of times they are only an illusion of choice.. quite obviously. ‘Will you help me?’ at times can be answered by either ‘Yes’ or ‘Sure’ alternatively. One might be read a bit more enthusiastically but in the end there’s a lot of choices like this. ‘Tell me how you met’ .. ‘so how did you two end up together?’ It feels a bit to samesy to me. I do know in Japanese there is probably more tonal distance but still. Ever since Nugget bridge your choices did not matter in a pokémn game so this might just be some odd wink. Other then an occasional odd eyebrow raise i really love this aspect of the game. Except for Crasher Wake… he’s so swole!
The leveling up and upgrade characters is done okay. It’s behind a bit of a grindwall, but an easy one at that. Experience quests give a lot of leveling up items, even on the easiest level. Need to raise a character too about level 50 is easily doable in a few minutes. From what I have seen so far the higher levels will never be painstakingly slow. Do note that I absolutely hate grinding so me saying this is definitely saying something. If you have still new characters to watch sync move animations with it can even be fun to knock some experience out. Like I said in technical thingies already though, finding the correct items initially can be a major slog. Trainers with a fist Icon need items from the Strike Course in training, trainers with the exclamation mark are those of tech quality and those who bear the symbol of a heart belong to the support role. Strikers get red tonics, Techies get green and Supporters get all the blue drinks. Grinding these out is less fun and not as fast. Finding enough megaphones (which bestow moves) can be even trickier. Though it requires some searching eventually you can easily overcome it and once your a bit familiar with it leveling up is kind of a breeze.. except from starring up. Which is a lot trickier.
Pulling for characters is a important part of every gacha game and doing that for free in Pokémon Masters is absolute Trubbish. This is where the game falters… BIG time. Daily Discounts ..are only available with PAID credits. Guaranteed Pull banners… only with PAID credits. Yes this game has paid and unpaid gems/credits for pulling. A decision I have mixed feelings about. I do not think it’s that bad of an idea to reward those who decide tro pay for your free game. In fact I’d be all for it if buying credits wasn’t as expensive as it is. A multi summon (10 scouts) is 3000 diamonds, mid game I gathered up a little over 5000 I’d say. To buy 3200 diamonds costs you 30 euro’s .. probably 30 dollars as well respectively. For 10 cards spend 30 dollars. Now truth be told.. undiscounted this is about the same as Dragonball Legends with the latter only being 3 euro’s cheaper. But we would not talk about money today.. grinding out the credits in the latter is a whole lot easier. Plus you can get the summon discounts on free credits. I played Pokémon Masters for a week.. and managed to pull a multi scout once.. alongside some single attempts on the Blue banner to find out. On my free banner, I managed to boost Whitney a Four Star a bit.. but other than that.. my free pulls were really bad. I spend a week.. only to make my Crasher Wake my most powerful three star. Swole….
The Verdict
In my re-review where I will come back to see how this game has developed in awhile I will discuss on if events add something. So far the game brings a lot to the table and definitely is in the running to be my favorite gacha in terms of gameplay. It’s the absolute winner in terms of charm and feeling and it’s quite a solid pokémon game. Would it not be for the low level cap on three star units and the lackluster information provided I would definitely love it… well there is one thing that makes me rank it down as well…as far as as a collection game… this one is the worst I’ve ever played. Gotta catch…just enough so I can finish the story.
Whoops got a bit carried away by this one! I mean.. uhm oooh no Crasher Wake made my post swole as well. There just was a lot for me to tell. Still I haven’t said everything I wanted to say…so if you play maybe we can be friends in the game! This blog was written on saturday but pain prevented me from finishing it. There was little news to report on anyway after my thursday post. Next week we are going to try a more liberal schedule for our content. You can expect to see a lot of Chibi Pinkie next week, a trainer profile about myself and a Sunday Special where I talk about lovers in Pokémon for OWLS. Hope to see you there. The pinkest pokémon trainer is signing off again!
Chibi Pinkie has been wanting to talk to you all about the Pokémon Trading Card Game with you for a while now. With a new set releasing called Hidden Fates, which is a genuine treasure trove a goodness it would be nice to ramble about but since most of our readers aren’t to aware we will start with a post on how to play the game first. So in the future we can let you refer to this. Not only will this post feature the basic rules but also some practical tips about them.
i WANNA BE THE VERY BEST
Hi big people monsters, Chibi Pinkie here and today , even though I am a bit sad, me and Fun the Mime Jr will teach you to play PTCG, thats short for Pokémon Trading Card Game and the official term for it. PTCG is one on one card battling games with some faint familiarities to Cardfight Vanguard and Magic The Gathering. Like in Pokémon the video games this is done by one on one Pokémon duels and you can win a match by completing one of three conditions. Be the first to claim six prize cards, clear your opponent’s field of any pokémon or deck out your opponent. Although little old me doesn’t really think decking out is all that viable.. as the game is relatively fast to play with little room for THAT creative tactics. Clearing the opponent’s field is hard and requires some heavy RNG thingies..so think of it more as an bonus winning condition than YOUR goal. Claiming six prize cards is the way to go. You can claim prize cards for knocking out your opponents pokémon in battle. Though the game would want you to believe this is normally one per knockout but in special cases two in reality more often than not you are facing the special cards. Knocking out a plain monster will net you one price card, taking out an opponent’s EX- GX-Tag Team or soon to be.. V cards equals a double dip in the price pot. Given how these cards are so much better than the regular monsters though, nearly every deck you are going to encounter while playing this game is featured around the big hitters. So to beat your opponent you just have to beat down everything he brings.
LIKE NO ONE EVER WAS
In PTCG everyone builds their own deck or buys a starter deck. No matter how you build, your deck always has to contain exactly 60 cards. Another official rule is that a card can never have more than four copies in the deck. In fact you can’t run more than four cards with a single name in your deck. So you can’t run 4 pikachu’s from set A and use four Pikachu’s from set B! You can however run 4 mewtwo’s AND a MEWTWO GX. On rare items there might be a single card limit. A deck can contain several types of cards.
-Regular Pokémon Cards -Special Pokémon Cards (EX-GX-Tag Team etc) -Energy Cards -Special Energy Cards -Items -Supporters -Stadium’s
All Pokémon Cards and Energy cards can exist in eleven different colours representing typings or a group of typings. Pokémon cards exist in three tiers as well. Basic, Stage 1 and Stage 2. Stage 1 and Stage 2 function as evolutions and can not be played right away, Pokémon have to be evolved over time. Basic Pokémon can be played once in your hand. Energy cards are comparable to mana in magic but rather than playing them on the field they are attached to a pokémon and thus much more a limited resource. But more on the rules in later parts. Special Energies can only be attached to a Pokémon whose card colour is equal to that energy colour(except for colourless) and you are limited to having four of them in your deck. Special Energy however do activate special effects to power up your Pokémon’s offence or defence.
Item cards are comparable to magic cards in Yu-Gi-oh, you can activate them from your hand allowing various weaker effects to incur like switching a pokémon or preforming a deck search. Supporters are themed like people in the Pokémon world and are powered up versions of items, they will allow you to search for better cards or more cards. allow you to influence your opponent in a way you pick rather than himself etc. Basically everything items do, they can do better. As a drawback you can only play these once per turn while items have no such limitations. Stadiums are very much like field spells in Yugioh, they determine the battlefield only one stadium can be active and a newly played one destroys the old one.Using these tools you build yourself a deck. Usually you want to run either a single colour deck or two colours.
Most starting decks are two coloured decks but every starter deck is pretty much useless against someone who at least had one or two lucky pack pulls. Starter decks are insanely lackluster. So if you just want to buy a deck, buy one of the world championship decks , each year they release a few special decks based on the competitive meta. Not tournament viable but if you want to play against some friends with actual decks this would be the way to start.
However a big portion of the fun is creating your own unique deck in this game. It really is a collectible card game in that aspect. Unfortunately to properly play means to properly invest. What to use and not to use as well as aspect ratios for energy to pokémon vastly differs per deck. Is your deck hero a Tag Team Card (whose mechanics work on excess energy) you’ll run an energy heavy deck. Does your deck hero revolve around certain effects you might want to run more items to keep it healthy or take it off the field to retrigger it’s effect. It is however important to build your deck around the mechanics of your cards they have to be a team. It generally is a bad idea to run a deck with multiple strategies. Commit to one and build support around it.
TO CATCH THEM IS MY REAL TEST
Now that you know how to build a deck it is time to discuss how to set up the game. A game usually starts with a coin flip oftenly replaced by a dice roll (odds and evens) . The winner determines who starts the game. Speaking of dice, it is generally a good idea to keep a set of about 10d6 as you play for damage calculations before you play. Some decks work better when starting first (but this player can not attack on their first turn) some decks work better if they can come out swinging right off the gates. After the turn order is determined players shuffle their decks and draw 7 cards. If the player draws at least one basic Pokémon they can select which one they make their active Pokémon and put it face down in front of them. Should a player have no basics, they are forced to reveal their hand and mulligan. Reshuffling and drawing seven cards, repeating this process until you have one basic at least. Each time you mulligan your opponent gets the choice to draw an extra card.
After the active Pokémon has been set both players can choose to play other basic Pokémon to the bench. This is your back row of Pokémon which can contain up to five monsters at the same time. When facing a serious deck it is wise to at least play one or two on your bench if you have the option, as long as these cards have over 30 hp. A few cards allow your opponent to send back one of your monsters allowing for a turn one knockout if you only play an active pokémon. Keep in mind your effects though, abilities that trigger when played to the bench do not trigger turn 0.
After both have at least an active Pokémon, both players place the top six cards of their deck face down separated on the upper left side of your playing field (your deck generally would be on your lower right side and discard pile just above it. These are your prize cards. You can only obtain them by knocking out your opponents pokémon. Which brings me to our next deck building tip. NEVER build your deck around a deck hero you only have a single copy off. The way PTCG is played, you usually have on champion in your deck.. the pokémon that ties everything together.Because the price-pile is a thing there is a 10% chance of your deck hero being locked off from you if you run a single copy. So even if your deck is build around drawing it from your deck (which anyone should) there still is a fair chance your strategy is sealed away from the start. Since price cards are face down coming back from this mistake would be very hard to do and would rely on a lot of luck After the price pile has been formed players flip open their active pokémon (and bench if you played those face down) and the first player takes their turn.
TO TRAIN THEM IS MY CAUSE
So now that we have your field setup its FINALLY time to get into the action. Each and every turn begins with a draw and ends with a pokémon attack or the turn being passed around. As soon as your active Pokémon attacks.. the fat lady sings …at least for that turn. As soon as you have drawn you have a few possible actions. You have a few ‘limitless’ possibilities. These actions you can take as often as you want.. or more likely as often as you have the cards for it. These include:
-Playing item cards -Use a Pokemon’s abilities -Playing new basic Pokémon to your bench. -Evolve a pokémon that has at least sat on the bench for one turn. -Withdrawing Pokémon. -Playing a Stadium
As long as you have the proper cards you can take these actions. Item cards basically tell you what they do on the card art and you can play them as long as you hold cards in your hands. Upon activation of an item it is either equipped to a pokémon or sent to the discard pile to release it’s effect.. like the special pokéballs that let you search your deck for pokémon. Items are very important to every pokémon deck and are key in keeping it consistent. They improve your card cycle , offence or defence in a quick way. Crucial in all three of my decks you want to feature them in your deck plentifully.
Using a pokémon’s abilities isn’t THAT important depending on your build , there are only a few cards that have an active ability. Though two decks of mine rely on this most meta decks don’t rely on active abilities to much. Though in the 2018 season it was a staple with Tapu Lele GX being a play it to grap a supporter card. That has since faded into obscurity a bit. It generally is smart to use pokémon with abilities though, PTCG does not have any trap cards like yu-gi-oh does and these pokemon abilities are probably what comes closest to that, allowing you to redirect attacks, negate damage at times or draw. Every single deck of mine relies very heavy around the abilities of pokémon, though there s plenty more straight forward sweeping decks as well.. starter decks tend to have no or few pokemon ability cards. Just like I said, abilities you have to activate like my sweet Ariados One punch deck, are rare, abilities themselves are not.
Pokémon come in few varieties. Basic, Stage 1 , Stage 2 and Mega Evolutions. Basic Pokémon are the ones you can play directly to your bench as long as you have one of your 5 bench slots available that is. You can not play a basic from your hand into the active pokémon zone. As soon as a pokémon leaves the active zone you have to immediately replace it with something that is already is on your bench. If you can’t .. you lose the game. As long as you have slots you can play basic Pokémon.
On a basic pokémon you can play either a stage 1 evolution or a mega evolution.. play a stage 1 or a mega evolution on a basic is allowed if the pokémon has at least spend 1 turn on the field (bench or active) For player 2.. turn 0 counts towards this as well.. for player 1 it does not. Meaning player 2 can evolve in their first turn. A stage 2 can be played on any stage 1 that has been on the field for at least one turn. There are items that bypass stage 1..but those are far and few in between and only reliable in certain decks (like my fighting one). Playing a Mega evolution generally leads to your turn ending unless a specific item is equipped to that pokémon. Mega evolutions are however not really viable cards anymore. I just thought I’d tell you about them as their card design is really cool and older sets are often quite a bit cheaper to construct decks with.
Each Pokémon has a retreat cost depicted in the lower right of the card , this is the amount of energy you have to discard to move your active pokémon back to the bench (you can not move it to your hand without items) as long as you can pay the cost you can technically do this as much as you need to. A pokémon that is under status conditions is harder to retreat if not impossible. You can not withdraw your pokemon if you don’t have anything on your bench to replace it with.
Placing a stadium card is free as well.. should you have a hand filled with stadiums in theory you can play them all in rapid succession.. it’s stupid but you can…Stadium cards are almost like field abiltiies. Some allow certian pokémon to heal.. other change how status works and yet again others improve damage. Only one field can exist at the same time and you and your opponent share the same statdium card slot on the field.. meaning your opponents new card sends your old one to the discard pile and vice versa.
Then you have a few actions you can only use once per turn.
-Play A Supporter Card -Attach an Energy card -Attack
Suporter Cards make the world go round.. this is the big reason why many of the starter decks fail so hard. They lack ANY good supporter so they are very unreliable. Pitting starter decks against each other is very unfun in my opinion due to how slow and clunky everything feels. Like any card game PTCG relies on luck of the draw.. but items and even more so supporters mitigate that problem.. you build your deck to draw or search.. but not in starter decks.. they offer you the bottom of the barrel supporters to heal damage counters or give you lackluster effects. A proper deck needs proper supporters. Throughout these you gain your momentum.. and thusly you are also only allowed to play one. If your opponent plays three supporters by the time you have played one.. you will notice there is a shift in power.
Attaching Energy and Attacking I will discuss in a single paragraph because to attack you need energy .. and the use of energy is to be able to attack, so in a way they are two sides of the same amulet coin. Once per turn you play an energy card (special energy counts towards this as much as normal energy) and equip it to a pokémon. Each Pokémon card holds one or more attacks it can do depicting an energy cost. As long as this cost is equipped to this pokémon they can attack. White energy can be replaced by ANY form of energy Attacking does not consume the energy unless the attack effect mentions cards have to be removed. So think of it more like training up your pokémon for battle. Attacks cause either an xx amount of damage (always a tenfold..unless REALLY old and useless) which is then placed on the opposing pokémon as damage counters (usually we use dices where each dot on the dice represents 10 damage) when the damage counters exceed the hp that is depicted on the pokémon card, that monster is knocked out and you take the appropriate amount of prize cards. Prize cards are added from your price pile to your hand, but as soon as your attack is finished your turn ends so you can not play those cards you obtain that turn anymore. Claim all six of your prizes to win the game.
The Power that’s Inside
And basically that is how you play Pokémon the Trading Card Game. Now a lot of these rules have some slack because of the many abilities, special status conditions enhancements and much more. For example there are a few status conditions like sleep, confusion, paralysis, burn and poison. These are either dots or stuns of varying degrees. However since these are very situational and their effect can vary depending on fields items and even the pokémon themselves i’d recommend reading up on these if applicable. They are feature that you do not find in every single deck with burn being virtually useless and confusion and sleep being RNG heavy. What I do want to discuss here is HOW to start your PTCG adventure .. because if you haven’t noticed.. I am NOT a big fan of starting decks. So I am giving you a few options on how to get into it.
Option 1 : I have no friends interested in playing and I do not want to spend a lot of money. Way to play: Download PTCG the online game. It’s basically free to play with packs a fairly easily in game grindable currency. It can be a bit of a slog to get a proper deck to start with but there is an online market for cards to ease your burden a bit.
Option 2: I have no friends interested but I might play at cons or just collect it and I have a bit of money to burn Way to Play: Download PTCG the online game and learn how to play with a starter deck, find out what card series of recent you like in online matchups and then go out and buy an IRL Elite trainer box. These boxes cost you around 50 dollars for 8 packs ,which would be too expensive, but these boxes feature 60 fancy (but very sticky) card sleeves , a set of dice and energy of all kinds. Which makes it a good starting position. Usually a box like this has one or two GX cards in them.. and using your pulled ace you construct a nice deck around it. With little money to burn you want to look up your staple cards and buy them online directly. Most cards can be bought form a few cents up to a few dollars. Make deck recipes in the online game and use it as a shopping list, a few of the latest sets have had VERY bad pull rates or huge card pulls meaning the chances you draw what you need is slim. By far the most homeworky way too create a deck but at least you get all your supplies + code cards to enforce your online account as well. Each Pokémon card pack irl has a code you can redeem in the online game to get a pack as well. Giving them perfect synergy for a somewhat adventures starter. Do keep in mind though that prices of cards are mostly based on nostalgia and emotion. Good cards can cost a fair bit.. like Tapu Lele GX running up 40 dollars back in the days it saw a lot of play. However cards like special Charizards or classic starters sell for a lot more for no other reason than populairity. Try to stay away from building around such cards as it will cost a LOT.
Option 3: I have friends who are interested in playing it with me but we wish to have fun in playing each other, not be the one who spends most wins. Way to play: You may have to omit the type advantage rule for this one (which I tend to do as well cause I play with friends). I hate this rule.. pokemon cards have a resisted type (depicted on the left lower half of the card) from which they negate 20 damage, and an advantaged type.. from which they take double damage. This rule is stupid and unbalanced as 20 damage in the current meta game is nothing and double damage basically means a win for your opponent if you play a mono type deck. Basically it forces you to remove synergy from your deck for safety and it just feels very busted. If you play with friends DO NOT use this rule, it will only result in you type countering each other. If you do not want to break any rules.. create decks that aren’t super effective or resistant against each other. With that established pick up as much world championship decks as you can . There’s usually three per year..but don’t go back more than one year. So right now 2019’s and 2018’s championship decks are still fun to pit against each other.. older than that and it would be under powered. A championship deck usually runs around 25 dollars. These decks are fast smart and fun to play unlike the starter decks.. they are how pokémon should be played and if you happen to go to a convention, people are usually willing to square of against these decks in non official tourneys even if they aren’t officially tournament legal. The art usually is pretty and you get a good time capsule of pokémon in that day and age.
Option 4: Shut up and take my money! I wanna pull cards from packs! Way to play: Do NOT buy booster boxes, elite trainer boxes or single packs. Focus on buying blister packs. The Elite Trainer Box has the worst pull rates of the entire series.. they just offer you a nice series of supplies to get started with and a great way to keep all those cards sorted neatly. Booster Boxes are oftenly the cheapest way to get packs and tend to feature a set number of good pulls. So you will never come out robbed. Downside being that in an entire set of 36 cards you will never get more than 1 rainbow rare.. sometimes 2 in a good set, and never more than X.. Gx’s cards.. averaging at about one in five point something packs being hot. The three pack blister card is king of the pulls, though these aren’t officially documented the pull rates. From what I have seem and pulled these are astronomically better. With a hot pack in something very close to one in three packs. These blisters aren’t THAT more expensive.. just somewhat limited in availability. A booster box will have a single pack cost you about 3,50 (european prices ..cheapest source) while a blister a single pack equals about 4,60. A notable difference yet when we but adding quantum discounts on more sets .. of the blisters online we can more or less purchase 10 blisters equaling 30 cards to one booster box. The 36 packs will give you 7 hits while with the blister cards you are somewhere in between 9 and 10 hits. So if you collecting is your style..go blisters.
Speaking of blisters his article has become so long I am starting to get blisters from typing. We will go deeper into the subject of the card game in the near future when I fix my PTCG online launcher and start getting back into the game now. Have you ever played the PTCG? Let me know in the comments. Next week I just might play the Pokemon TCG gameboy colour game for a review..or talk a bit about online battle simulator of pokémon showdown! Let me know which one you’d like to see more. Remember I am not weird, just very pink!
Pinkie's Paradise 