Shadowverse: Champion’s Battle Review (Switch)

It’s quite shocking considering how few card games are on the Switch today. Sure, there are quite a few deck-building roguelites that incorporate card game elements into their design, but these don’t quite manage to scratch the same itch. Fortunately, Cygames has seen fit to bring its popular mobile game Shadowverse in the form of Shadowverse: Champion’s Battle, a full-blown RPG that is entirely based on the card game. Shadowverse: Champion’s Battle is a resounding success at what it sets out to do, providing an engaging and enjoyable take on the genre that we highly recommend checking out.

Shadowverse: Champion’s Battle follows a typical narrative from the Shonen school drama about an anonymous and mute new student at Tensei Academy. In both the school and the surrounding city, a card game called the Shadowverse has completely taken over the zeitgeist, and your character, of course, has an uncanny natural ability to play the game incredibly well. One thing leads to another and your character joins the school’s mysterious Shadowverse club, which is strangely unpopular and underground considering the prevalence of the card game literally everywhere else you go. As a result of its decline, the school’s class president wants to close the club for good, but agrees to let it continue if you and your friends can win the Shadowverse world championship.

Sure, Shadowverse: Champion’s Battle doesn’t score any points for its extraordinary storytelling, but the narrative here nonetheless proves to be surprisingly strong. Your gang of fellow Shadowverse enthusiasts have quirky, well-defined personalities, and there’s a bit of character development taking place across the board as you and the crew overcome obstacles that keep you from glory. It’s the kind of story that just it feels good with your unwavering sense of optimism and hope, and you are likely to become attached to this world and its characters once you get to the end of the narrative. It feels a bit strange that Cygames has chosen to forgo all the rich tradition of the existing dark fantasy universe that the real-world Shadowverse has built in favor of this more kid-friendly anime story, but it makes sense considering that this El approach is likely to appeal to a much wider audience.

The main draw of the game here is of course the titular Shadowverse card game, which has been fully adapted without being diluted or simplified to match the friendlier aesthetic. The basic rules are a bit like a game of Hearthstone, with the main objective of reducing your opponent’s health to zero before he can do the same to you. Each player accumulates ‘game points’ with each passing turn, and these are spent to play the desired cards from his hand, and the best cards almost always have a much higher game point value. Most cards have an attack and defense stat that governs the amount of damage they can deal or take, while spell and amulet cards are used as unique items that cause some kind of effect to occur immediately.

As you would expect from a CCG, there is an absurd amount of strategy in the way you play. For example, cards often have additional effects that slightly change the rules of their use, such as how a fanfare allows a card to have a passive effect that triggers as soon as it is first placed on the board, or how Ambush avoids for a card to be put on the board. Target enemies until you act first. Additionally, you can evolve cards after a few turns, allowing you to boost a card of your choice to boost its stats and sometimes give it additional effects. There seems to be no end to the number of ways you can choose to build and run a given deck, effectively giving Shadowverse unlimited playability.

Things get a lot more interesting when you consider that there are seven different kinds of cards, each of which is played radically different from the next. Forestcraft, for example, relies on you having a swarm of low-value fairy cards in your hand. Higher-value Forestcraft cards often have powerful extra effects if a certain number of cards are played first that turn, incentivizing you to build a deck to keep your supply of fairies full so you can keep feeding your monsters.

Bloodcraft, on the other hand, encourages a riskier strategy in which the cards inherently become more powerful as your character takes more damage. Here, the cards are often focused on dealing damage to you safely so that you can reap the huge benefits that low health can offer faster.

You cannot mix cards from different classes in the same deck, which means that it is best to choose a class that best suits your play style. However, at the same time, you are expected to have at least a general understanding of how other classes work and how best to counter them. For example, if you’ve built yourself a deck that really only stands out in the late game and you’re preparing to fight a class that generally peaks early, adjusting your settings to better counter that early game could make a difference. between victory and defeat.

Suffice it to say that there is a you deep to Shadowverse. Over 600 cards spread across seven classes guarantee no two matches are the same, and the scope of this depth can be intimidating at times for newcomers. Fortunately, Shadowverse: Champion’s Battle understands that barrier to entry and begins with extensive tutorials and explanations of the finer points. Not only is he thrown into the abyss and expected to solve it; things are presented to you layer by layer and displayed in a way that anyone can understand.

This sentiment also applies to the deck building aspect. While you can of course build a deck from scratch if you know what you’re doing, winning battles often sees you getting deck codes that offer pre-made deck templates for you to use in future battles. Clearly, Cygames understands the difficulty of learning a new card game, and all of these features are a welcome inclusion. And don’t worry, the difficulty definitely it increases once you have shown that you can handle yourself.

When you’re not involved in another card battle, Shadowverse: Champion’s Battle plays out exactly like a standard JRPG, adding an interesting layer of ‘game around game’. There’s a large, gradually expanding world for you to explore, packed with treasure chests to find, NPCs to challenge, and shops to read. Collecting all the cards in the game is an important secondary objective here, and there are many ways to do it. You can spend the money earned in battles at various vendors around the world and purchase card packs, which contain a variety of randomly selected cards. Then there are some cards that you can only get by completing side quests for characters or beating particularly difficult NPCs.

Fighting with a deck based on a certain class will allow you to level up in that class, which typically rewards you with more money and rare cards that you can’t get anywhere else. Additionally, your character has an overall rank that increases as the story progresses, and higher ranks give you access to tougher opponents and better cards. There is a very clear sense of forward progression that is always present in Shadowverse: Champion’s Battle. It doesn’t matter where you go or what you do something you are leveling up or improving, which helps prevent any feelings of stagnation or boredom.

When you’ve inevitably exhausted the mountain of content that single-player offers, you’ll be pleased to know that Shadowverse: Champion’s Battle offers a full multiplayer suite with its own separate progression. Your rank here is independent of the main game, and you can only improve yourself by fighting players from all over the world and coming out on top. There is also a seasonal system, with daily and seasonal missions available that move your progress through a Battle Pass that has the typical dual track of free and paid routes. Most notably, there are Do not microtransactions as far as we know, which is a nice break from the overall design of the main game on mobile devices. You can unlock all 600 cards for a diligent and thorough game in multiplayer or single player, and while it appears that the Battle Pass will be an ongoing additional charge, the rewards on offer there are largely cosmetic in nature.

In terms of presentation, Shadowverse: Champion’s Battle absolutely stands out. The world and character design is reminiscent of Yo-Kai Watch’s visual style, with brightly colored anime images and upbeat music. In card battles, card art is adequately detailed, while neat effects when playing powerful cards help infuse the game with much-needed energy. The voice acting is top-notch across the board too, with characters from the story and each card being silly enough to keep things interesting without being too worthy of a groan.

Conclution

Shadowverse: Champion’s Battle is hands down the best card fighting RPG on Switch yet; An incredibly deep and addictive card game wrapped in heartwarming and enjoyable RPG that complements and supports the powerful core gameplay in all the right ways. Dozens of hours of single-player content, combined with full online multiplayer, ensures you’re getting a lot for your money, while the anime presentation and detailed card art and animations make it all look and feel. sounds good. Across the road. If you like card games, don’t waste time deliberating – buy this game right away. Shadowverse: Champion’s Battle is an extremely easy game to recommend, and it is absolutely worth your time.