The Deck is Stacked
in Your Favor
I admit that card games don’t excite me. That is until I start playing them. Even the most inane of card games have an addiction factor, at least until you discover its shortcomings. No game is ever the same, and there are always different levels of strategic depth to keep things interesting.
Some games rely heavily on your intellect, while others rely on luck and chance. A good game will have a balance of both, with luck and chance playing a minor role; nobody wants to win or lose on the roll of the dice. Neverland Card Battle incorporates some of the best elements of classic card games and arrives at a title that is challenging, addictive, and relatively easy to play. It doesn’t stray far from the clichés of the genre, but it manages to emerge with a unique charm and style that is sure to captivate a wide range of gamers. That includes those who believe they wouldn’t be interested in such a game.
You’re going to have to spend a little time with the instruction manual but don’t despair. There’s a built-in tutorial, allowing you to play the first couple of games as a sort of test run. You may not catch everything, but, overall, the game is easy enough to learn by trial and error. Even if you know you’re losing a particular battle, the game encourages you to play to the finish, since it will reward you with new cards just for playing. Talk about great consolation prizes. The key to a card game is to build powerful decks, and the more cards you can amass, the better you’ll do in future battles.
Neverland Card Battles is more than just a strategy card game. An RPG storyline ensures that there will be a general levelling-up of sorts as you progress. More powerful cards will become available later in the game, increasing the general complexity of the gameplay with each battle. Cards will be able to summon more powerful creatures, and various elemental affiliations will also increase the powers of individual cards. Each deck will hold up to the 30 cards. You can collect three decks, but you can only use one for a particular battle. Of course, there is some luck involved in how you stack the deck. While it’s a generally accepted strategy to have a well-balanced deck, you can’t help but imagine how great it would be to use a deck specifically tailored to kick your opponent’s butt. But since you don’t know what you’re up against until you enter the battle, it would be taking a risk. But relying on chance is not entirely a bad thing, since you’ll still collect some cards for your effort, win or lose.
Thankfully, chance takes a backseat to skill and strategy in Neverland. Random card draws are the staple of card games and there are no exceptions here, but it’s only at the outset of the game where luck plays any significant role. As you begin to collect cards, it’s up to what you decide to keep and what you discard. You’ll find some cards are more useful than others, and that really applies to some of the super-powered cards that you can only use at specific times such as when you’re standing on the corresponding elemental grid. Sure, they may be capable of incredible devastation or territory appropriation, but it may be taking up valuable real estate in your deck since it’s use may be rare. Then of course, there are the totally useless cards that are just weak-sauce to begin with. That’s a good enough reason to fight each battle to the bitter end, just to see if you can improve your deck. You’re going to have to fight for your survival in this game, Neverland won’t be giving you a handout. Even when you’re down to your last card, it won’t help replenish your deck. When you’re out of cards, you’re done, so play it smart.
Speaking of smart, the A.I. is formidable. I would be more impressed if it made more human-style mistakes. It plays a pretty weak game at first, but after the honeymoon is over, it takes no prisoners. It always plays the right card at the right time, giving you very little slack. Fortunately, there are different ways to win the game, so you can change your strategy if you feel the A.I. has the upper hand in a particular area. One way you can win is to conquer or capture all the territory on the screen. The battlefield is divided into grids. The more grids that you can control, the more territory you will have. The more territory you have, the more points you’ll receive during each of your turns. These points can be used to finance your troops in battle and summon various beasts in addition to magical powers that can assist you with everything from more powerful attacks to increased resistance from attacks. Not only does your principal character move around the grid, but other characters and cards do as well. They can be assigned to move out and capture more territory.<p>
Dominators are your best friends or worst enemies. Similar to bosses in that there is one per level that you must beat, they possess more power and skills. Each is different and will require new strategies to defeat. While an accepted strategy would be to capture as much territory as possible to keep the enemy Dominator at bay, certain grids will be associated with specific elementals, which can allow for summoning from vast distances. Your Dominator is essentially the leader or general. He must be protected, because when he’s out of hit points, the battle is over.
In this fantasy realm, you are commissioned with proving yourself worthy to save the world from a demonic god-like entity known as Hellgaia. It’s a cliché story that suffers from inane dialogue and low quality cutscenes. The story is short, but it’s not important to the gameplay. There are 16 levels in the single-player mode, and some of these battles can take up to an hour. Replay value is increased with the player-versus-player mode, but keep in mind that it’s local, as there is no wireless internet mode. Technically, the game is good, however it’s not completely solid, as there is some lag each time you move over an onscreen character. It’s as though the CPU can’t store that info and has to load it each time from the disk. In the heat of battle, it gets tedious quickly. Graphically, the game is low-res all the way. The 16-bit graphics look cheap and the animation is second rate. But the cards look good. Plus, they are easy to stack and interact with. The music and sound effects are not even worth mentioning. Turn the sound off and you’ll be doing yourself a favor.
Neverland incorporates enough gameplay variety to recommend it. Those that may not be interested in the card game genre are urged to get on deck.
RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 2.4 Graphics
Low-res, 16-bit graphics. Poor animation. 4.5 Control
Card interface is exceptionally well-designed for ease of use. 2.0 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
Dialogue translation is awful. Sound is better left unheard. 4.6 Play Value
Addictive card game. Varied gameplay. Easy to understand. 4.0 Overall Rating – Great
Not an average. See Rating legend above for a final score breakdown.
Game Features: