Pokémon TCG’s Chaos Rising set proves the game’s biggest strength isn’t competitive gameplay — it’s stunning collectible art and illustration rares.
When I think back to the very early days of the Pokémon Trading Card Game, I have fond memories of that chubby Pikachu with short ears, standing expressionless in a dull forest with, for some odd reason, a big splash of purple in the background. Another version of that same chubster just looks like Pikachu had been cut and pasted into a generic patch of grass and weeds in the forest. All that is to say that the art used to be pretty bad in this game. But over the last 30 years, the Pokémon Company has carved out a niche as the definitive best TCG for tiny, collectible works of art.
