By Konami
At GenCon 2008, many games were premiered, previewed, and prototyped. The world of gaming is far from dead I can assure you after seeing the number of new games coming out. One area that is still thriving is the battle to be the next Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh style collectible card game. Blue Dragon is the latest card game that will enter that market in early November. Yumi Hoashi, Vice President of Card Business for Konami, was kind enough to show me a short demo of the game at GenCon 2008.
Based on an Xbox 360 game by the same name designed by Final Fantasy series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi with characters created by Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z), Blue Dragon Role Play Card Game puts you in control of one Shadow and a maximum of three companions or Partners, setting out to destroy your opponents. Each player starts out with 20 life points and you whittle that down by attacking your opponent using your Shadow and Partner cards.
You start with a deck of 40 or more cards (though I demo’ed a half-deck of 20 cards at GenCon). The cards themselves have many of the standard collectible card game conventions – Attack, Defense, Attribute names, Card Effect and Categories. There are four types of cards – Shadow, Partner, Command and Skill cards.
Shadow Cards are your main character cards and are the cards that you can level up (more on that later). They represent your “other half” and the central character in this battle. This character, due to leveling up, can change throughout the game. Each Shadow has an attack and/or defense, an attribute name, and a level; some have effects. Typically, each side starts out with a level 1 Shadow card.
Partners assist the Shadow in battle. They have attack and defense values and play a big part in defense. They can be sacrificed to the Trash to block damage when your opponent attacks. Each Partner also has attributes and some have card effects.
Command cards have various effects that help you during the game. There are 9 different Categories of Command. Some are equipment while others are effects of different types. Some Command cards have the Accessory Icon, which means they are equipment assigned to a Partner. Skill cards are similar to Command cards except they are used during the Battle phase and can only be used once during play. Some Command and Skill cards have the Set Icon which means they must be placed in front of the player face down and used during the opponent’s phase.
There are several locations on the playing area of which the players need to be aware. Of course there is the Shadow and Partner area where you place all your participating cards. There is a limit of 3 partners that can be out at any one time. There is the Trash pile for discarded and sacrificed cards. There is also the Experience Pool, one of the key aspects of this game. This is integral to the leveling-up aspect of the game.
The game play is fairly straight forward. You start your turn by turning your Shadow face up (before play it is face down). There are four phases – Draw, Command Phase 1, Battle, and Command Phase 2. Once all four phases are complete, then you end your turn by turning your Shadow face down.
The game is simply a series of rounds where you place partners, commands and skills, make attacks, see if there is any response to those attacks (through Set cards) and then take off life points. The complexity comes in the cards and what they can do. Like in all collectible card games, as more cards come out, it is quite apparent the possibilities are endless.
The difference maker in this game is the leveling up of your Shadow and the Experience Pool. This is what they claim to be the “role playing” aspect of the game. As you play and use cards, you will place cards in your Experience Pool, which is used as resources to place other cards in the field later. The more cards you use the more experience you have. Also you may send Shadows from your hand to the Experience Pool.
Partner, Command and Skill cards along the bottom also have an Experience value; some have an Experience Used value and a Required Experience amount as well. Experience value represents the experience value if that card is placed in the Experience Pool. The Experience Used value represents an amount of experience one needs to go from Experience Pool to Trash to use it. Some cards have an Experienced Used value of zero. Required Experience is simply the minimum amount of experience you need to have in your Experience Pool to even consider placing the card out in the playing area or Field.
Shadows have a Level Up value, Change Experience cost, and also an Experience value. The Level Up value is the number of cards one has to have in his Experience Pool in order to level up your Shadow. The Change Experience cost is the number of experience you have to spend to change the Shadow to another with a different Attribute.
This basically summarizes why they call this a “Role Playing” Card game. Honestly, as a hard core role-player, I was somewhat offended by the notion that “leveling up” constituted role-playing, but I am not the type they are marketing to. Their market is a much younger crowd who probably see role-playing that way. So, you can take it for what it is worth. It is a simple mechanic, something new and unique for the collectible card game market and it does make the game somewhat dynamic.
In the Battle phase, combat obviously occurs. It is a very simple process. Partners attack individually, adding in all contributing command and skill cards, and the opponent can sacrifice partners for the defense value to absorb damage. It is a fairly common CCG mechanic. An interesting aspect of the game is when the defense value is greater than the attack value, the attacker receives their difference in damage. Therefore, there is a risk to attacks and it really forces you to pay attention to what the opponent has.
The game is fairly simple and easy to play. I only got to see the demo version at GenCon, but the variance was limited. However, I can see the entertainment value in the game. I can also see this doing well in their target market. Although I was less than thrilled with their marketing gimmick of a “role playing” card game, it is definitely a gimmick that will set them apart. I suppose we will see how well this does come November.