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Shadowverse: Champion's Battle


Maryokutai
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Been playing this for roughly two weeks now and nearing the 50 hour mark. Probably won't be a forum favourite but there's frustratingly little talk about this gem online so here goes.

 

This is based on an anime based on a game, which sounds like some Hollywood nonsense but it makes sense on closer inspection. The original is a f2p PC and mobile card game which got turned into an anime and the anime serves as a base for this game, which doubles as an introduction to its systems and an enjoyable little PRG-light experience on the side.

 

The general gameplay is you're running around your school and other little hub areas and play cards against different NPCs you come across. Progress is being made by beating key players, ranking up in tournamenets or just simply talking to people. So your enjoyment of a game like that obviously boils down to how much you enjoy the central card game, and I've kind of fallen in love with it. It's similar to existing games -- a bit of Hearthstone here, some Magic there, a little Fable Fortune sprinkled on top -- but there's a couple of things that set it apart, first and foremost the feature to evolve your monsters. There's a limited amount of times you can do this and it has a couple of benefits like allowing it to attack in the same turn, increasing its stats and depending on the card it might also activate a secondary effect. 

 

The other unique aspect is that there's factions you can choose from but unlike, say, the colours from Magic you can't mix and match, so when you choose to play with a Forestcraft deck, you can't put any cards from Dragoncraft in it. There are, however, some neutral cards that fit everywhere, meaning the deckbuilding process doesn't feel too limited by that aspect. The factions themselves have some unique attributes, like Shadowcraft cards getting special effects the bigger your cemetery of cards is, which adds an extra layer to the overall strategy. I can't say anything about baalnce because that's mostly PvP territory but from the decks I've come across most of them feel viable but some are quite a bit harder to use than others.

 

What I enjoy outside of the card battle is the overall vibe of it. It's a bit puerile with its saturday morning cartoon themes, but there's something very charming about how serious everyone takes the game (like the dramatic music that plays when someone mentions that his phone got stolen for example). It's not 24/7 Shadowverse dialogue though, thankfully. Unlike Pokémon these people do a bit more with their lives than just talk about the thing that is printed on the cover. During some Persona style social links you can learn a bit more about the important NPCs and I liked how one of them used the fairy cards in her deck as an inspiration to become an actress in a fantasy play. It's all very lighthearted, but as I said, very charming.

 

It's also not a run-of-the-mill cheap licensed tie-in. While it's not particularly impressive on a technical level, they really put a lot of details and quality of life features in. For example, every NPC you beat gives you his/her deck code, which means that you can simply recreate their deck with the press of a button if you happen to own the necessary cards. That takes away the (IMO) cumbersome process of coming up with entirely original decks on your own (which is still possible as an alternative). You can still change them up later and maybe work around a weakness you noticed when playing against them. On the visual side there's a lot of nice little touches, like your room filling up with medals and trophies the more you win, tons of different posters hanging around, some cutscenes being animated (specifically for the game, too, as they feature your player character), characters having different writing style when they contact you with messages etc.

 

Going back to what maf said in the hot topic thread, this is not a 10/10 and also not a perfect game. But this might be the most enjoyable game of the year so far for me and a strong contender for my personal GotY spot. In case this piques anyone's interest even a little bit, there's a very good demo available on the eShop and the save file can be transferred over the main game.

 

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