Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On! is a better version of the 3DS classic

destructoid.com:

Apple Arcade had something of a slow year in 2022. While there were still a handful of fun and time-consuming games released for the service, nothing came down the pipe that blew away my expectations or elevated itself above the best games available on the platform. I’m still playing a few games from last year — mostly just Cooking Mama: Cuisine! and Wylde Flowers — but at the turn of the new year, I was ready to finally say goodbye to the $5-a-month subscription once and for all.

Then, just three days into 2023, we learned Pokémon developer Game Freak would be releasing a new version of its niche classic Pocket Card Jockey on the service in January. Needless to say, I was excited, and I decided to table any cancellation plans until I had a chance to try this game out for myself.

I’m really glad I did because this is already a contender for my personal Game of the Year.

If you don’t know what Pocket Card Jockey is, it’s a bit hard to explain without overexplaining and sounding like a crazy person. Case in point: my cringe-in-hindsight review of the Nintendo 3DS original. People routinely sum up the game as horse racing by way of solitaire. Each race you enter is divided up into three different segments. The solitaire segment has you trying to clear a tableau of cards by using cards that are either one above or one below it (for instance: using a 5 of Clubs to clear a 4 of Hearts).

The goal of this segment is to completely clear the board, which nets you energy for the second segment where you position your horse on the track. Each horse you race is different and they’ll have unique preferences on where they should be located in the race. The better you are at positioning your horse, the more enthusiasm they’ll gain. The