Review of Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On! - Secretariat-style solitaire
Our Verdict
Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On is the best card game on Apple Arcade, the best sports game on Apple Arcade, and, well, it might just be the best game on Apple Arcade. With exhilarating mechanics, hours of content, and idiosyncrasy like no other sports or card game, there’s no reason not to try your luck with the ponies.
The game Pocket Card Jokey: Ride On! is peculiar. It combines elements of animal husbandry, horse racing, and solitaire, all of which I would normally find to be quite uninteresting. like, very ordinary. similar to butterless plain bread. Nevertheless, you manage to combine these three elements, include a few oddball characters, and tighten up the gameplay to the point that Secretariat's saddle is loose, and you have a game that I just cannot put down.
To put things in perspective, the original version of this game was released in 2013 for the Nintendo 3DS by the well-known Pokémon developer Game Freak. It has now become something of a cult classic among fans of the franchise. Even yet, it seemed as if Pocket Card Jockey could soon be forgotten because the 3DS was heading into oblivion. However, now that the game is accessible on Apple Arcade, a whole new generation can experience the excitement of solitaire horse racing. There is a thrill, I assure you. No, truly.
The main idea behind Ride On is straightforward: you hire a horse from an experienced owner, you race the horse by competing in two to five rounds of solitaire, which is equivalent to a racing course, and you retire the horse and ride a new one once the animal achieves three losses at full maturity. However, horses aren't put away permanently—at least not in a spooky, tarpaulin-on-the-track sort with a loud crack of gunfire. Instead, they go to what is essentially the Pokémon daycare center in this game, where they may be coupled with mates to create a new filly wunderkind.
There is a contrast in that while Ride On's execution is less simple, it doesn't make it any less sophisticated. Before you really believe that you have a chance in racing, you need to understand a few mechanics. Each begins with a tableau of cards for a brief game of solitaire, but the action moves quickly at first. Your goal is to discover a way to climb from the bottom line to the top as quickly as you can in order to exit the gates in a favorable position. The card you pick here determines your starting position in the race, adding even more complexity. The pack of horses has three tiers of Solitaire difficulty.
Every degree of difficulty has an impact on energy and stamina, the other two major race mechanics. Energy is decided by how much of each solitaire tableau you can clear, while stamina is measured by where you race and how much effort you put in. The inside of the track is the safest area to be. Your horse will be in a happy attitude, conserving energy and running alongside the best if you can clear all the cards. If you make a mistake in the arrangement of the cards, however, your horse will get irate.
Your horse may completely lose the plot and rush to the finish line where it will run out of steam as every other horse passes you if you really screw up—I mean, truly pull a solitaire stinker with 4s, 7s, and queens left all over the board. It's frustratingly fair, but it's also infuriating since you can see where you made a mistake when you make one, and the game won't hold your hand while you admire the lovely ponies from a distance.
If you do require help, there is an in-game store where you can purchase unique items like stamina carrots, which will give your horse more endurance, as well as power-ups for solitaire, such as the ability to see every card that can be used on the tableau or a luck boost that will make it more likely that the cards you draw from the deck will match the ones on the board. However, the store isn't constantly open, which means you can't depend on the special stuff and eventually have to learn how to race the way the game wants. This might be a little frustrating if you're about to enter a large race.
At its core, Ride On also has a delightfully bizarre narrative—or at the very least, a semi-narrative—to set the scene. The game starts with you as a rookie rider hoping to win the major derby, but before that, a horse kicks you to death. After seeing an equestrian fan in the afterlife who promises to give you life if you can return and take home the grand prize, you zap back to the real world and choose your first race partner.
The narrative wanes from this point on, but the clever character banter and conversation remain, even more funny than in the first film. Since I tend to pound A through a Pokémon plot, the fact that I didn't skip much conversation suggests that this game is doing something properly.
I warned you there was a lot going on here, so that was a lot of explanation without expressing many ideas. However, let me be clear: once all of this is inside your brain, it's difficult to get anything else out. I had a lot of other things to accomplish over the weekend I took to review Ride On, but this sort of turned into "one more race" after another, eating away at my time like a famished horse eating an endless carrot.
To put it simply, the races seem fair, the mechanics are enjoyable, and the events' gradual increase in difficulty from G3, which is the simplest, to G1, which is the rarest event to win without a rare breed of horse or a little bit of luck, keeps things fresh.
The more horses you acquire—including the possibility of producing your own Red Rum level racer—the more significant breeding becomes in addition to racing and solo. Your future racing companion might be boosted by anything from a two-pair to a full house in a unique poker minigame that starts shortly after the birth of your new horse. The horses you produce are generally better than the loaner choices. Although the breeding isn't as deep as Pokémon, Ride On gains from it, so any additional difficulties seem pointless.
Retirement does need some getting accustomed to, admittedly. It's extremely upsetting the first few times the game takes a horse you're just growing attached to away because it finished second in a race it never would have won, but you soon discover that this is the way of Ride On. After retirement, your old horses can breed new thoroughbreds by passing on their skills from their parents' career.
All of it is just part of the process, and using new horses forces you to meet new horse owners. The affluent and renowned animal lenders all have a certain quality, whether it be friendliness or silliness. Though it's a horse game, some of the human characters provide a warmth that reduces the likelihood that you'll put the game down, and the lighthearted banter does help calm you down before a major race or after you've just lost one.
In terms of the essential gameplay, it's important to note that you will lose. Are you going to lose, oh boy? Ride On isn't the Game Freak of Pokémon where you can simply defeat every opponent before running over the greatest players in the country. In fact, you will lose more races than win, particularly in the first few hours, and that's okay. As I said before, you seldom feel like you've been cheated; either the horses on the field are better than you are, or you make a mistake by using too much energy or failing to complete a tableau.
A visual pleasure, Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On has undergone significant upscaling in comparison to the 3DS edition. The horses are adorable as well. Adorable. There are even some with quiffs! Additionally, there are no performance issues; every race and solitaire table segment runs flawlessly. Playing is just enjoyable (well, maybe not when you can't locate the cards you need, but that's just part of the experience).
Overall, Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On takes everything that made the previous game so wonderful and makes it just a little bit simpler to learn and more enjoyable to play. After you get used to all the mechanics, you won't want to put it down. It takes some time to get used to. Thus, jockey, ride on!