Maybe it's because I'm sick but I have put 7 hours into this in 3 days. It's not just solitaire with horses; there's suprising depth of strategy and lots of moving parts to work with here. It also looks very cute!
best game ever made
I hate using the phrase “cult-classic” but that’s the best way to describe this game. I finally understand why my grandma liked solitaire so much.
Another one of GameFreak’s games that gets overlooked because it doesn’t involve monsters of the pocket variety, Pocket Card Jockey is proof that the simplest mechanics often make the best games. An addictive combo of solitaire and horse racing with charm spilling out of its every pixel, PCJ is one of the few games I would classify as perfect. Not because it’s flawless, but because I don’t know what more you could want out of it.
I have 60 hours on this game.
That should be enough to convince you to play it.
That should be enough to convince you to play it.
this might just be a perfect video game. fantastic concept and flawless execution. game freak please i need more pocket card jockey
I'm pretty sure I'm awful at this but the charm is so high that I kept coming back to play more. It's nice to see Game Freak do something other than Pokémon as well!
The graph showing the correlation between the amount of enjoyment one gets from solitaire and the amount of enjoyment one gets from Pocket Card Jockey is a straight line.
The localization of this game is very cute.
The localization of this game is very cute.
It is an incredible game, with a lovely art style and fun gameplay. The only reason as to why I abandoned it is that I fucking suck at solitaire and I was getting tired of everyone being disappointed at me for not winning the races :(
i wish this game hadn’t slipped under the radar it’s really great and weird
An answer I'd accept for "what is the best Nintendo game of the 2010s," of which I think the only real competition is Breath of the Wild, and I'd probably take Pocket Card Jockey over BOTW at this point. See, I love solitaire. A lot. And not only is this game an absolutely fantastic version of solitaire, it also contains some of the best writing that's ever been in a Nintendo game of deeply absurd stories. Direly undersung. One day they'll put that iOS one on the Switch and I'll scream to death, come back to life, and play the shit out of it, much like my homie the Pocket Card Jockey does.
The literal only thing I knew about this game before I played was that it was solitare with horse racing. Except it wasn't even the version of solitare that I knew, so I knew nothing about this game.
The mechanics work surprisingly well for two wildly different ideas. Though they do work against each other too. The luck based game of solitaire doesn't mesh well with the need to consistently do well for the horse part (or is it luck? Is every single game of solitaire technically winnable if you're not bad like me?). Then again there's a lot of luck involved in the horse racing part too, as you could end up perfecting the card game only to be sandwiched so tight in the final sprint that you literally can't possibly win. Or there's times when I do well on the set off portion only for other horses to bump me so far out of the "comfort zone" that it's impossible to come back from. So you've really got 2 layers of RNG to deal with, which is a bit frustrating in a game where winning trophies is the goal.
But what I really don't like about the game is the age system. A horse stops growing after 10 or so races, which means you can't gain exp, thus its stats are capped. When this happens you can play some more races in "mature mode" (some of which are mandatory for even getting the credits since they only show up in this mode), but after another 10 or so races in this mode (or 3 losses), the horse is retired. You can then breed that horse in the farm, but only for a certain amount of times before it becomes unbreedable and thus useless for the rest of the game.
What this means is you'll end up raising a shit ton of horses, raising them, getting them skills and exp, only for the horse to become unusable after all that effort and you have to start fresh. Sure you can use that horse to breed other horses, for a little while, but not only is this time consuming since you'd at minimum need a good male and female horse, but it takes a full round in "growth mode" to even make a baby horse, so you have to essentially waste a round just to get that offspring for the next decent thing to use. Then it just repeats over and over, and only by constantly getting good male and female horses AND overcoming the RNG so they do well in races, is there a way to consistently climb the difficulty ceiling of the game. Because if you've have a pair of horses that can make good babbys, but the babbys do badly in races, the parents will stop love making, and you're back to square one.
And that's not even getting in to many other aspects of the breeding system, like how horses with the same "peak times" are better compatible, or how to even be able to race in certain races your horse needs to be a short or long distance runner (based on that peak type stat).
Fun game absolutely destroyed by a convoluted and grindy system. But it should be noted this is ONLY a problem if you want to complete the game, which unfortunately requires winning every race in the game at least once, bar one "bonus" race. If you're content just jumping in to the game and playing some solitare, and racing some horses until you get tired of it, you'll have a lot more fun. The whole resetting your skills every time may still be a bit annoying though.
Let me give some more praises to the game too, the game has 5 unique owners whose horses you essentially use in racing - even your own bred horses will get one of the owners attached to them. They all have unique personalities and come in to occasionally chat with your protagonist in cheap little puppet-style scenes. It can be entertaining to see these colourful characters interact, but admittedly by the end of the grind I was skipping through all the dialogue. There are also unique horse models that you can get too, like horses with fire-style hair, a horse with a cat hanging onto its back, or a horse with a dragon shaped head etc. So that's neat.
The mechanics work surprisingly well for two wildly different ideas. Though they do work against each other too. The luck based game of solitaire doesn't mesh well with the need to consistently do well for the horse part (or is it luck? Is every single game of solitaire technically winnable if you're not bad like me?). Then again there's a lot of luck involved in the horse racing part too, as you could end up perfecting the card game only to be sandwiched so tight in the final sprint that you literally can't possibly win. Or there's times when I do well on the set off portion only for other horses to bump me so far out of the "comfort zone" that it's impossible to come back from. So you've really got 2 layers of RNG to deal with, which is a bit frustrating in a game where winning trophies is the goal.
But what I really don't like about the game is the age system. A horse stops growing after 10 or so races, which means you can't gain exp, thus its stats are capped. When this happens you can play some more races in "mature mode" (some of which are mandatory for even getting the credits since they only show up in this mode), but after another 10 or so races in this mode (or 3 losses), the horse is retired. You can then breed that horse in the farm, but only for a certain amount of times before it becomes unbreedable and thus useless for the rest of the game.
What this means is you'll end up raising a shit ton of horses, raising them, getting them skills and exp, only for the horse to become unusable after all that effort and you have to start fresh. Sure you can use that horse to breed other horses, for a little while, but not only is this time consuming since you'd at minimum need a good male and female horse, but it takes a full round in "growth mode" to even make a baby horse, so you have to essentially waste a round just to get that offspring for the next decent thing to use. Then it just repeats over and over, and only by constantly getting good male and female horses AND overcoming the RNG so they do well in races, is there a way to consistently climb the difficulty ceiling of the game. Because if you've have a pair of horses that can make good babbys, but the babbys do badly in races, the parents will stop love making, and you're back to square one.
And that's not even getting in to many other aspects of the breeding system, like how horses with the same "peak times" are better compatible, or how to even be able to race in certain races your horse needs to be a short or long distance runner (based on that peak type stat).
Fun game absolutely destroyed by a convoluted and grindy system. But it should be noted this is ONLY a problem if you want to complete the game, which unfortunately requires winning every race in the game at least once, bar one "bonus" race. If you're content just jumping in to the game and playing some solitare, and racing some horses until you get tired of it, you'll have a lot more fun. The whole resetting your skills every time may still be a bit annoying though.
Let me give some more praises to the game too, the game has 5 unique owners whose horses you essentially use in racing - even your own bred horses will get one of the owners attached to them. They all have unique personalities and come in to occasionally chat with your protagonist in cheap little puppet-style scenes. It can be entertaining to see these colourful characters interact, but admittedly by the end of the grind I was skipping through all the dialogue. There are also unique horse models that you can get too, like horses with fire-style hair, a horse with a cat hanging onto its back, or a horse with a dragon shaped head etc. So that's neat.
I don't have the mental acuity necessary to comprehend how anyone can come up with such a concept, much less make it extremely fun.
The best game that GameFreak has ever made. Not even kind of kidding.
A fun distraction with a combo that works much better than you would expect. My only complaint is that the tutorial either spent too much or too little time introducing certain mechanics, resulting in some truly confusing losses in the first few hours.
A very solid and polished experience for its price. The game is adorable and Go Ichinose's music is great as usual. The gameplay has a lot of depth but sometimes I just wanted to play the solitaire portion.
It was a game that I liked as a concept, but for me, the gameplay started to get repetitive quickly. It was a game that would be opened every now and then and a few races taken. (The horse talking at the end of each race is extremely annoying)
Dril Dozer better be the best game ever made because I've played 3 non-pokemon game freak titles and they were all BORING. Many people refer to this game as being addictive but all the constant, mindless interruptions from the shortest solitaire games you'll ever play put me to sleep, and I'm one of the few people who actually give a shit about solitaire.
Freecell is the best solitaire format, btw.
Freecell is the best solitaire format, btw.
I only have 4 trophies left and probably have another 60 hours spent on getting them. I can do it. This game is so good.
Keep in mind, this review as written as I've completed most of the game's content except for the big final race.
Pocket Card Jockey is a true gem of game design. On the surface, this is a game about doing races over and over again. However, the roguelike-esque mechanic of retiring horses after a certain number of losses, combined with a calendar system that makes so you can miss out on certain races means that the stakes are always incredibly high.
This allows the player to create their own personal narratives with each horse, filled with training arcs, underdogs and redemption. It might as well be the best Pokémon game on the 3DS, as far as I'm concerned.
Pocket Card Jockey is a true gem of game design. On the surface, this is a game about doing races over and over again. However, the roguelike-esque mechanic of retiring horses after a certain number of losses, combined with a calendar system that makes so you can miss out on certain races means that the stakes are always incredibly high.
This allows the player to create their own personal narratives with each horse, filled with training arcs, underdogs and redemption. It might as well be the best Pokémon game on the 3DS, as far as I'm concerned.
Hey game freak you finally got a winning game here that isn't pokemon! Now if you could port it to something that isn't an iPhone...
of course, good for what it is, but starts to falter when you get into the weeds of it.
don't get me wrong, this game is great when you're first picking it up! but as you spend more time with it and look to improve and win races more often, you're thrown into a sea of card RNG and systems way more complex than they need to be for a 3ds solitaire game best played in 15 minute bursts. play it for the novelty for a little while but don't feel pressured to "beat" it, which from the 5-10 hours I played over the span of like 6 months seems like it would probably take years to complete at that pace lol.
don't get me wrong, this game is great when you're first picking it up! but as you spend more time with it and look to improve and win races more often, you're thrown into a sea of card RNG and systems way more complex than they need to be for a 3ds solitaire game best played in 15 minute bursts. play it for the novelty for a little while but don't feel pressured to "beat" it, which from the 5-10 hours I played over the span of like 6 months seems like it would probably take years to complete at that pace lol.
Great style, and people love to gush about this game, however the gameplay is not as deep as one would assume, and gets old incredibly fast.
Este juego es una movida, divertidísimo tener varios caballos, competir, hacerlos criar, el solitario. Es tan simple como adictivo, merece la pena cada segundo que juegues hasta cansarte, de lo mejor que ha hecho GameFreak nunca.
the fucking game ever
It’s solitaire with horse racing and power-ups, but MOSTLY solitaire and trying to beat your best times. Sometimes you fail spectacularly and other times you clutch a victory.
My greatest joy is naming the horses and seeing what names come up in the races. The speed solitaire is fun too, but more as a quick set of puzzles than a game you sit down and play for hours on end.
Fantastic game to play on a lunch break.
My greatest joy is naming the horses and seeing what names come up in the races. The speed solitaire is fun too, but more as a quick set of puzzles than a game you sit down and play for hours on end.
Fantastic game to play on a lunch break.
i never got dsware gift cards as a kid so i only ever played the demo of this. i would play the demo the 45 times i was allowed, and then i would redownload the demo. truly deeply great
Definitely, a unique combination that can be fun in short spurts, but I wouldn't spend an afternoon binging it.
From my experience, this is a secretly a game about failure and disappointment- not just to yourself, but failing others specifically. I never really managed to get over the initial difficulty curve and win more than a couple of races, and the ones I did win were probably, technically, part of the tutorial, so who knows. It's fun, I think! Imagine a Soulsian "tough love" approach to game design, but there's a tragically well-written cutscene after every death where all your friends and benefactors thinly mask their disappointment in you. I couldn't hack it. Gave up and switched back to pic-a-pix or something.
Fun low price game. Horse riding + solitaire is a weird fusion but it works so well. It feels like the kind of game I'll binge for a few hours, stop playing for a long time, and then randomly come back one day to binge again.