Talk about putting the card before the horse! Wait, wait! Oh god, don’t leave!

I recently spent my gaming time bouncing between two very different games developed by the same studio. On Nintendo Switch, the most forward-thinking and unique entry in the Pokémon series yet created. On 3DS, a bizarre downloadable title that mixes horse racing with card strategy. Pokémon Legends has a far greater budget and aspiration than Pocket Card Jockey, but for some crazy reason, I felt more motivated to return to the much simpler game. And return I did, again, and again, and again… With the 3DS eShop now on borrowed time, Pocket Card Jockey is definitely a title to keep your eye on for any panic-buying you might do in the near future.

You begin the game as a rookie jockey, and in the first taste of the game’s humor, you are immediately bucked off your horse and trampled to death. Fortunately, a grouchy angel grants you a second chance at life, and to make things easier, he combines racing with the jockey’s only other interest, solitaire. You are now equipped to raise a series of quirky horses, meet more wacky characters, and hopefully take home trophies along the way. The tutorial section of the game hooked me with its glib attitude. In any other game, the player character would be a driven hero with lifelong dreams of rising in the racing world. This jockey doesn’t particularly care at the start, treating racing like a half-assed hobby. I was smiling through their entire bickering session with the angel. The talking tutorial horse is also entertaining, with dialogue written in a comedic, naturalistic style. In Pokémon Legends, I was actively looking away from the screen and button-mashing whenever a story sequence started. Pocket Card Jockey’s writing is a lot more fun to read, and it gets out of the way soon enough. This game is goofy, and it’s not afraid of that.

The solitaire game in Pocket Card Jockey isn’t the same one I played as a kid. According to ten seconds of research, this is closer to a version called Freecell. Columns of cards are presented all face-up, with the goal being to clear them away. As you pull cards from the draw pile, you can remove ones that are adjacent in value. In ideal scenarios, you can bounce between big combos that go like Q-J-10-J-Q-K-A or such, and this releases a lot of dopamine. Of course, sometimes the cards are simply uncooperative. If you need a 4 or a 5, the game is often happy to mockingly serve you every other card. Situations like these can be infuriating because solitaire as a game is ultimately based on lucky guesses. It's hard to feel like you as a player made a mistake when you don’t have the information needed to make the best decisions.

However, there are ways to influence how challenging the solitaire puzzles will be. Your horse has a preference for where to run on the course, designated by three tiers of comfort zones. The closer to the sweet spot and the inside track, the more cards you have to contend with. That comes with an increased reward, however. Your horse will also generate energy at a higher rate, which determines its final speed. Clearing the board in high level comfort zones also stops your horse from losing stamina on that turn. Whatever stamina is left in the final stretch can be used for speed bursts like in Zelda. So, between each round, you can use points gained from solitaire to move your horse where you see fit, converting the remainder into energy. This is a nice risk system on paper, but to win the big races, maximizing your energy is required. You practically need to stay in those zones and risk lady luck eviscerating you.

The homestretch of each race also runs the gamut of emotions. This is the only part of the game where you control your horse semidirectly. I say “semi” because the animal is far from responsive. There are occasions where you maneuver your steed around the competition, using your stockpiled stamina to its fullest effect, and win the race in a photo finish. It’s just as exciting as any racing game out there. If you did really well, your horse will smoke the other racers in a satisfying bit of domination. But if you enter the homestretch already surrounded by other speeding piles of meat, good luck. Many times, I’ve been trapped in the horse wall with no warning, powerless to do anything to escape. There is a special card you can obtain that allows you to push through, but of course this is dependent on chance. That really grinds my salt lick, because it invalidates all the strategy and execution of the entire race in an instant. And there are times when the tutorial horse says you did literally everything right, but the other horses just had better stats. Why did I even enter the race, then?

You can improve your own horse’s stats by collecting experience cards during the race. Your leftover stamina also contributes to leveling up. A separate bar lets your horse learn skills that can give you advantages in the race, like showing potential moves. Again, picking up these cards is largely happenstance, so you can lose a race with nothing to show for it. I think at least a little guaranteed experience after every race would have helped ease the frustration. Here’s another fun fact: Pocket Card Jockey is the only game on the 3DS eShop with the tag of “Breed,” although I know for a fact there are some Fire Emblem games it could apply to. You can pair up your retired horses and race their stronger offspring. By the time I looked into this option, I was already wearing thin on patience, and the game was still giving me new unique horses. But for the folks who just can’t get enough, there’s a nice bit of replay value. Finally, there’s a shop where you can spend your winnings on cheat items to turn luck in your favor. If you keep losing, you can’t afford the means to stop losing. [Insert social commentary here] The prices start reasonably enough, but eventually balloon to such comical levels that even winning every race in a row wouldn’t be enough to afford one of them. It’s an option that’s taken away from the player at the worst time.

Since you read everything up there, you are also probably thinking “Wow, he complained about literally every aspect of Pocket Card Jockey.” And that is technically true, but I only have those complaints because I’ve played the game ad nauseum. What kept me glued to the handheld despite the more-than-occasional frustration? Flashing back to playing solitaire on the floor at the age of seven, I think I know. If you play traditional solitaire, with three-card draw like you’re supposed to, you don’t actually win very often. The odds are against you, but you persist because it’s fun to see how far you can get, and eking out the odds feels all the more exhilarating. It’s a feeling that’s baked into nearly every single-player game - as it should be, considering the game is named for being alone. Like traditional solitaire, Pocket Card Jockey is perfect for killing a few minutes. Races are just the perfect length to run while dinner cooks, during work, or before surgery. But it’s hard to stop at one, like it’s hard to stop from eating the entire bowl of popcorn in five minutes. The game is flippant, but I still felt bonds forming between me and my horses, their stats shaping personalities in a way that Pokémon could learn from.

Pocket Card Jockey is a simple game, but it hooks you for longer than it has any right to. The game is cheap on the eShop, and it even has a demo. The dual-screen form factor works perfectly for this game, but a port to Switch would also be welcome. It was apparently released on mobile platforms at some point, but I couldn’t find it on the Play Store. In other words, Pocket Card Jockey should be on your list of software to look at before the 3DS eShop goes away. As for Game Freak, playing two of their titles simultaneously like this has made me a little melancholy. I enjoyed Arceus enough, but I think there’s farther to go still in improving the series. I might save my further thoughts for another blog post. That said, we can all agree that another Pokémon generation this holiday is overkill, right? I understand that the series needs to keep on pumping, but that comes at the expense of bizarre experiments like Pocket Card Jockey, and I think that’s a shame.