Is that a Pokemon in your pocket?

Oh no, Pikachu has me in his sights again...

Hey everyone, and welcome to another One More Turn. This week, we’re talking Pokemon, a criminally underrated game from one of the biggest studios in the world, and my big news from last week.

Truly Pocketable Monsters

You know how some people really love Pokemon? I was definitely among that group up until I was a teenager. I have so many fond memories of Pokemon Yellow and Silver, but I just sort of… stopped playing.

I’ve dipped back in and reviewed games in the series since, but foolishly gave away (for free!) my entire Pokemon card collection a few years ago. Still, as a fan of card games, I wanted to check out Pokemon TCG Pocket since I couldn’t get my appointments lined up to check it out at Gamescom this year.

For the uninitiated, it distills the joy of Pokemon cards down to its barest essentials. You crack open daily packs to build your collection, and play truncated duels against the CPU or your friends, and while I’ve not put as much time into it as I have Marvel Snap, it’s starting to get its claws in me.

A relatively generous pack economy means you get new cards each day just for logging in, and the way it streamlines battles is really conducive to playing on-the-go or between other tasks. There are definitely things to improve upon - you get barely any XP for winning PvP matches, which feels like it can be tuned nicely, and I’d love to see it get a PC version a la Marvel Snap.

Still, I’m really enjoying building a collection and it’s got me genuinely interested in learning how to play the cardboard game all over again (much to my wife’s dismay).

If you’re playing, please feel free to add me - my friend code is 0379130421645044.

Card Corner

We need to talk about Legends of Runeterra. It is, for my money, the best digital card game out there, and it’s, well, dying.

Riot Games' card battler is polished, fun, and true to the universe created by the studio, but it’s seemingly slowing down with new releases. I’ve written at length about why it’s a sensational game, with endless potential, but it feels like it never really got a chance.

At first glance, it certainly looks good, but it just never got its time in the sun. Had it been taken into players’ hearts like Hearthstone, I think we could’ve been looking at a game Riot could’ve supported alongside its other titles.

Anyway, while I’m dreaming of VALORANT crossovers and a Mac port of my favourite card game, give it a download - it’s really worth checking out, and if you have Game Pass you get a load of cards, too.

Recommended Reading

The lovely Andy Brown has taken a look at Project Arc, which is a top-down tactical shooter that sounds right up my street as someone who really enjoyed Thunder Tier One.

Cheek self-plug, too - last week I reviewed Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, putting a lot of hours into it between the stag do and my wedding. Check out what I thought at TechRadar.

End Step

You may have noticed I didn’t publish a newsletter last week, but I had a very good reason. I was off getting married to my beautiful wife. In fact, I’m on my honeymoon now, having started my new job on Thursday. Expect to be back to some sort of normality with the publishing schedule next week!