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Originality and freshness always score well with me, so I found it doubly good that my first 'Card RPG' review for this archive is also for a brand new system - the fantastic Neo Geo Pocket Color.
Card Fighters' Clash is a success in so many ways that it's quite disappointing that its audience may be rather small. For starters it's the first incarnation of a long-awaited crossover between Capcom (Street Fighter 2, Darkstalkers) and SNK (Fatal Fury, Samurai Shodown) characters. Secondly it's the closest these characters have yet come to being in an RPG. The 'RPG' in question is also the first US example of a new genre based on collecting cards that is derived from the (real world) Pokemon card game (and therefore its ancestor Magic The Gathering). The challenge is to combine cards in such a way as to make a deck strong enough to beat any type of opposing deck. Watch this genre explode when Pokemon Card is released later this year.
In card fighters you play either a girl or boy who is out to win the Card Fighters' Clash battle. To do so you must win five medals (does this sound familiar?) before being able to enter the finals. You begin with a relatively weak deck of fifty cards and to have any chance at success you're going to have to get your hands on better cards. The cards have 5 ranks of rarity, with the higher ones usually being much harder to get, and much more useful in battle. Cards will be obtained primarily by winning battles, but you can also get them by trading or winning them in slot machines. No matter how many you obtain, your deck can always be only 50 cards in size.
The cards are based on characters from the games of Capcom and SNK. The 300 cards in the game are divided into 120 Capcom characters, 120 SNK characters and 60 'action cards'. Each character card has a 'battle point' value (BP) and a 'soul point' value (SP). Battle points equal attack strength, and soul points can be thought of as magic points. Playing a card with 5 SP for instance, would increase your SP total by 5. SPs are consumed by playing 'action cards' (which each have an SP cost). Characters can also have special abilities, which can do just about anything. Battle is won by reducing your opponent's life total to zero. Since damage is caused only by unblocked attacks (or super attacks) then you have to work out ways to prevent your opponent's characters from blocking.
It sounds confusing and complicated but in reality is the exact opposite. One of the strengths of Card Fighters' Clash (and in fact, any good card game) is that the game mechanics are very simple, and yet allow for a great deal of strategy. You have to balance BP, SP, character abilities, action cards and even assignment of backup characters in a way that allows your deck to win just about any fight. The amount of combinations is mind-boggling, and every player is sure to come up with their own favourite cards.
The computer AI is fairly good. I came up with a few techniques that seemed to work every single time I was able to get the right cards. They relied a lot on weaker characters that the computer would never target for removal (probably due to their low BP). It would have been nicer if later opponents had wised up a bit but by then I was more worried about defending myself from some seriously difficult decks. It would have been nicer if the difficulty ramped more due to artificial AI cleverness than just by stocking computer decks with better cards. This is an area where I hope future games of the genre show improvement.
The graphics amazed me. My Neo Geo is a new (Christmas) acquisition, and I only have five games, but Card Fighters' Clash has easily the best graphics. Despite the lack of animation, the card artwork is fabulous. The colors are vibrant, and all the heroes are drawn in a neo- superdeformed anime style.
The guys all look handsome and the girls all look cute. And yes, Morrigan is here in all her glory (in more than one outfit as well)! Though the gameworld is very small, and predominantly amusement parks, there is a wealth of detail and color. Based on this game alone, this system seems several steps beyond Game Boy Color. (To save battery life, I often play portables with the sound turned off. I will say however, that Card Fighters' Clash features very catchy music - some familiar - and brief digitized speech that is downright amazing coming from a portable.)
The game took me about sixteen hours before I could win the finals. Even then I lucked my way through (in fact my luck was almost supernatural) and I suspect I would have needed another few hours of card gaining to have a solid chance of winning. Once you beat the finals the game isn't really over, because you will enable many secrets that I have yet to fully plumb. The game never really has to end since you can play on and collect cards forever, using them to fight with another player (on another Neo Geo pocket). I have not done this (and don't even know anyone else that owns the system) so I can't comment, but I'm sure it's even more fun than playing against the computer.
The weakest part of the game is probably the fact that the cards themselves are appreciably better as their rarity increases. Most 'A' or 'S' rank character cards are so good you will use them without question. Very good decks can easily be assembled by just collecting your highest ranked cards. In real life, certain Pokèmon or Magic decks composed of only weak or easily obtainable cards can easily defeat any deck (if the player is skilled enough). In Card Fighters' Clash, the player who has played longest and obtained the most rare cards will easily win any battle. I would have preferred it had the rare (and super rare) cards been desirable due to the character itself, rather than the immense power of the card. In general, I hope the 'Card RPG' maintains collectability in the game, but does not absolutely require it to win. It's almost like the new genres take on 'level gaining'!
Which brings to light another weakness. Ceaselessly repetitive battling in this game will be of little interest to the player who is not slightly interested in characters from the Capcom/SNK pantheon. Even though some non-fighting games (incl. Resident Evil, Breath of Fire, Metal Slug) have appearances, unless you are a 2D fighting game maven then you may wonder what the big deal is. This would be a shame since the game is great fun, and building a winning deck is very satisfying. It should be obvious that I liked this game a great deal. It's fun, it's fast, and it has great graphics and gameplay. For me, this was a wonderful introduction to a promising genre.
Note: there are 2 versions of the game, Capcom or SNK. In a fit of originality, each version contains 5 cards exclusive to it (so you can only get 295 cards without trading with the other version). I played the SNK version, and even though I much prefer Capcom this was no problem. Unless you ABSOLUTELY have to own 'Mech Zangief', it should be no problem for you either!
Review provided by RPG Critic
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