Review: Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On ensures Game Freak’s cult favourite won’t go to pasture

videogameschronicle.com:

The original Pocket Card Jockey is one of those hidden gems that not a lot of people have played, but those who have are in love with it.

In just a couple of months the 3DS eShop exclusive, like every other game on the handheld’s digital store, will no longer be available to purchase. It’s a good job, then, that Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On has arrived on Apple Arcade.

Ride On is less a sequel and more an enhanced re-release of Pocket Card Jockey – one that looks notably better than its 3DS predecessor, but doesn’t add anything so revolutionary that it completely changes the way the previous game was played.

For those unfamiliar with the series, the concept sounds bizarre on paper – it’s an unexpected mash-up of horse racing and solitaire – but the execution is handled so well that it feels like a natural combination in practice.

The idea is that each race is split into a series of sections, and during each section the player has to play a game of Solitaire, specifically the Golf variation (otherwise known to some as Tri-Peaks).

This is a simpler version of Solitaire in which you’re presented with a grid of cards all lying face-up and you have to clear them by removing cards in a numerical sequence – for example, you could remove a 3, then a 4, then 5, 6, 7, 6, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 8, as long as each of those cards is available to you.

If your sequence ends, you pull another card from your stack, which marks the start of a new sequence. Once you either clear the grid or run out of cards, the round is over.

Your performance in these card-based rounds has a direct impact on your horse’s mood, stamina and enthusiasm, which in turn has an effect on its positioning in the race.

“Your performance in these card-based rounds has a direct