Like it says on the tin.
http://www.pokemontcg.com/
Yes, it is official, and in beta.
Yes, it is a flash game, but it is also a very well done flash client.
Yes, it is ugly, but you can dress up your duder.
Yes, if you buy a deck in real life you get to use it. No, the deck builder option doesn't work yet.
Yes, the full version is coming out later this month.
Posts
You get grass, water and fire decks to begin with and unlock cards for it as you play. Buying physical cards looks like it will let you unlock the digital versions.
Also the grass deck is the bestest deck.
[EDIT] I was mad into Pokemon cards when I was a kid. I wonder if I can remember my old decks so I can recreate them.
Man, I loved the Pokemon TCG when I was a kid, I actually made a decent deck out of the random booster packs/starter decks/presents, although I think it got thrown out
So, how far back does/will the card selection go?
It has a list of stages you go through step by step and will tell you "hey, you still haven't played an energy card/have an evolvable pokemon/attacked yet this turn."
And hey, it's free. There's a difficulty select too.
I'd suggest the grass deck to start with just because the starter pokemon gain health back or put the other side to sleep. Except Caterpie. And there are like four in there, except they get traded out later for Wigglytuffs I think. Just watch out for the second dude, he's a nightmare to beat even with the water deck.
I'm not sure how old the cards are, I only ever owned the original set of cards when I was a kid but the free decks have Gold/Silver and Ruby/Sapphire starters in there.
I had a devil of a time against the first guy's chanseys, but other than that, it was pretty smooth sailing except for the people with fighting decks hard hitting mahikutas and onixes
That still does not excuse the fact that no one made a thread about it.
Pokémon TCG is stupidly addictive. It's got the best parts of Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh rolled into one, and it tends to go faster than either.
The only genuine complaint I can level on it is that it is extremely chance orientated. Coin flips can own you.
I just collected them
I got a starter deck for free with a NP subscription and only bought a few packs after that. I did get a Charizard in my third pack ever and sold it for an extreme amount of money.
The actual cards I played, but it was more of a "oh man I dig Blastoise and other different pokemans, I'm going to use those" rather than that one dude at school who would beat you five or six turns in.
Then it got banned because the school had to contact that kid's parents because he got busted stealing someone's shiny charizard.
They seem to have reset all the progress from when I played it earlier. I'd made it to the second league and now I'm back to the beginning again.
It's an amazing piece of marketing though, since it's got the free decks to get kids hooked then when they want something new the parents go out and get the cards so they can play with friends or the online game since you get the digital versions.
You're practically losing money if you don't buy them!
Anyway grass deck in this was pretty useful. I did the first 3 battles with it. The computer got super unlucky with sleep and I actually won the first round with just my starting Jigglypuff. He never broke out of sleep until it was too late.
Upon further inspection it does in fact have a tutorial.
It's pretty bare-bones though. Like it only mentions stadium cards but doesn't actually have you use one. Stuff like that. You get tokens or something for doing them, but the one for status effect explanation is broken. It acts like it's supposed to keep going after confusion but it isn't.
I swear though the real hard mode when the game is launched should be the beta version with no deck builder.
Some of those decks would be much, much better without the forced displacement of certain cards.
And can you play against other people or just the computer?
I played two matches with the fire deck and it seems pretty ok. I remember buying a starter deck during first edition once and that was it until now.
Still, oddly fun and addicting. I love the checklist they give you. I'm a notorious scatterbrain, forgetting I can do this and that in a turn, so it's great they keep track.
And... looks like the site went down. Pity, I was on a roll.
I was just getting into it
Well that's the nature of card games. I think 60 cards was the limit in Pokemon and you start with....seven? I haven't really payed attention.
If you're constructing the deck you can at least tinker with it to increase your chances of drawing the cards you want, adding in Bills other cards that let you draw more additional cards. Once the deck builder is up and running you could cut some of the more less beneficial cards out.
I think the water deck has a trainer card that lets you discard an energy card to draw four, which is super good.
I'm pretty proud that I was actually one of 3 kids at my school who started the weekly Pokémon TCG afterschool activity before its eventual ban. I believe ours was banned because of too much unsportsmanlike play. Lots of accusations of cheating.
Though nothing beats the time I got accused of kicking my opponent (who was probably 5 years younger than myself) at the local mall tournament.
God, this is bringing back some memories. Not related to TCG, but I'm also reminded of a Pokémon video game mall tournament where I nearly beat a kid who had a hacked team of all Mews. Apparently they weren't checking peoples' game carts prior to tournament entry, but at least they let me enter again afterwards, and I believe he was kicked from the tournament.
That was also the same tournament that I made the worst card trade of my life. Traded off a mint Ancient Mew (the super rare japanese ones before all those new ones came out) for 6 promo Jigglypuffs to a guy who was running the event and had a stack of hundreds of those Jigglies. God I was a dumb kid. The Mew was going for $100+ on ebay at the time. ::facepalm::
It was like a friggin black market.
When I lived in Chicago it was Star Wars TCG. An organization I originally rose through the ranks to become a high ranking member of.
Then I moved to Texas and had to make the transition into Pokemon TCG. A quick mall trip with my parents turned me into the absolute kingpin, and at one point I was selling cards for cash.
It was like the crack days.
edit: I had thousands of cards, in english and Japanese. I didn't even know how the damn game worked.
If only I had saved the money I'd probably be rich today. Instead I was the most ballinous 12 year old around.
Resident 8bitdo expert.
Resident hybrid/flap cover expert.
Also, this game is made even better while having old GB Pokemon TCG music on while playing it.
PS2
FF X replay
PS3
God of War 1&2 HD
Rachet and Clank Future
MGS 4
Prince of Persia
360
Bayonetta
Fable 3
DS
FF: 4 heroes of light