Pokémon TCG Pocket Pulsing Aura fixed the game's most annoying problems

Earlier this week, Pokémon Trading Card Game Pocket got a new update, which added the Lucario-focused Pulsing Aura booster pack to the card-collecting game. (And also Hole Bonsly.) It was a fairly routine refresh for a mobile game that hasn’t made many drastic changes since launching over a year ago. But for players who have been keeping up with it since day one, the update brings some very small, but very welcome changes: Multiple long-running pet peeves have been fixed in one go.

Though Pokémon TCG Pocket is a fairly compact mobile game that isn’t loaded with features, it has amassed a stack of minor inconveniences through its various updates. Logging in to open one of your daily booster packs can be weirdly time-consuming thanks to constant menu-management, some long animations, and other quality of life annoyances that have bugged fans since day one. The new update makes a few key changes that make play sessions a little less tedious, though they may seem like small potatoes if you’re not an avid player.

Image: Creatures, DeNA/The Pokémon Company via Polygon

The biggest change is that you no longer have to open up card packs that appear in their gifts tab individually. When you click Claim All, you can now rip up to 20 packs at once. That’s especially impactful during promo card events. Previously, you could only open single-pack cards one at a time. That meant going through a long opening animation for each pack, turning something that should take seconds into one that takes minutes. That has been one of the community's major pet peeves since launch, and fans are celebrating what sounds like a minor tweak.

Other changes have similarly reduced how much time you need to spend in the app. The new update overhauls how you obtain emblems in a way that requires less time in menus. Previously, you would have to earn a currency by completing Dex and Themed Collection quests for each booster pack. When you completed a mission, you’d need to go into the mission menu, claim your rewards, head to the shop, and purchase the emblem. Now, you simply unlock the emblem automatically after getting enough cards in the set. It’s functionally the same as the old flow, except you no longer need to rifle through menus.

Addressing a personal nitpick, the update also makes Wonder Picks a little quicker too. At launch, you would simply tap a card from one of five options and reveal it. That was changed in a later update that added an animation where you had to watch all five cards flip individually. Wonder Picks have been reverted back to how they worked at launch, making the process quick and snappy again.

All of this might sound laughably miniscule, but the saved seconds add up in a casual mobile game that wants you to log in at least twice a day. Pokémon TCG Pocket has gradually turned into an engagement time trap since its launch, finding more ways to keep players in the app through extra clicks. For example, one noteworthy update added more Themed Collection missions to chase per set. Rather than giving players more rewards, the usual rewards were spread out across more missions. You left spending more time in menus ticking off boxes for the same reward. (The additional themed missions weren't all that exciting either.) When you’re playing twice a day every day, you start to notice those minutes of waste.

Pokémon TCG Pocket is on a healthier track with its latest update, and it’s making my daily check-ins feel like less of a burden as a result. I can get in, open a pack, do a Wonder Pick, and log out during a bathroom break again. That’s a test that I believe all casual mobile games should be able to pass.

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