Pocket Card Jockey
OpenCritic Rating
Top Critic Average
Critics Recommend
Critic Reviews for Pocket Card Jockey
The difficulty curve is too steep, but the act of moving a horse through a race by playing Solitaire is a fun hook that kept me coming back
Like any horse race, your success in Pocket Card Jockey relies on luck -- a little too heavily for some players, maybe. Nevertheless, once the game sinks its big, horsey teeth into you, it won't let go for a long time.
The best part? Trying to explain why this is your new addiction to pass time when you need a break from something bigger like Persona Q or Bravely Second. It’s a time waster, one that you dare not say… NEIGH to. Get it? If I leave on a joke, I get a carrot, so there you go. [*tosses carrot* ~Ed. Nick Tan]
I never want to stop playing Pocket Card Jockey. This game hit me the same way Tetris hit millions around the world back in the 80s. In fact, I want this game to be the next Tetris. I want Pocket Card Jockey on every Nintendo system. I want it on the Wii U. I want it on the NX. I want it on the iPhone, Kindle Fire, Apple TV, Windows and TI-89 graphing calculator. I want it everywhere, just hook it to my veins. I'll admit it: I'm addicted to this game, and if you try to make me go to rehab I'll say neigh, neigh, neigh.
Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On! needed a few tweaks to make the jump from 3DS to newer platforms, but the final result is a strong thoroughbred of a game. The move to Switch gave Game Freak a chance to update some of Pocket Card Jockey's presentation, updating character models to 3D versions of their original counterparts. Outside of that and the aforementioned changes to the game's visual component, Ride On! is the same Pocket Card Jockey fun offered by the original game. Unique prize-winning ponies like this game don't come along every day, so it's nice to see a new generation on Switch get a chance to take a ride.
Make no mistake, Pocket Card Jockey is weird. The plot is ridiculous, the systems are obtuse, and the reliance on luck can be incredibly frustrating. Despite all that, though, I kept promising myself just one more race, and then another, late into the night throughout my play sessions. Its complexity can be overwhelming, but once you hit your stride, it's entertaining all the way to the home stretch.
Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On! does not come to Switch with a swathe of bells and whistles or make a host of changes to Game Freak's weirdest mash-up. It's a simple port of the Apple Arcade version - which, in itself, made very few changes to the 3DS original - but with a game this great, that's no bad thing. Sure, not much has changed since 2016 (even less since 2023), but this charming hybrid card-racer is absolutely worth taking for a ride wherever you can. Giddyap.
Pocket Card Jockey is a relatively impressive effort from Game Freak, with terrific presentation, an abundance of charm and hugely addictive gameplay. For some players that's enough to make it a must-have, but there is a caveat - it's also poorly balanced, delivering a video game representation of the futility of compulsive betting. You can be the best player in the world and still lose, or have a mediocre round and win a minor race anyway. It inflates prices, sets ridiculous odds and makes you sweat for every reward, with your fates often in the hands of the pocket Gods. Yet it's addictive and fun, so you might not mind - for this writer, though, it left a tinge of regret at time wasted, where effort didn't seem to be rewarded.Pocket Card Jockey is absolutely worth consideration and will hook many gamers with its irreverent and addictive gameplay, but beneath its charming veneer is a cruel world of lost bets and unfair odds.
