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For starters, this is a card game. Y'all can go, if that's not your thing.
For seconds, this is a digital card game based on a physical product. It's not a CCG as there's no collecting (but there are an AWFUL lot of expansion packs), and each "hero", "villain" and "location" is a premade, no-variations deck to itself. From what I understand in the physical version each person picks a hero deck, a villain and location deck get chosen (somehow? game master, maybe?) and it's multiplayer co-op against the somewhat deterministic bad guys.
Here in PC land, you can play all 3-5 heroes yourself. (I assume you can do the same in the tabletop but it might get overly complex, handling 5 heroes + a villain + the locale. On the PC much of the bookkeeping is done for you in ways I very much appreciate.)
ANYWAY, I'd been eyeballing this thing for a while and my fascination and ongoing love affair with City of Heroes led me to shrug and pick up the base game, which is often on sale for like three bucks. After playing that a little, I quickly returned to the store and grabbed the more expensive first season pass, and after playing THAT a while I'm eyeballing season pass 2.
Previously, I had sneered at this, because while the base game is often $3, the season passes add up to $55 when they're not on sale, and why the hell would anyone spend $60 or more on a digital card game?
Well, because there's a TON of cards here and the "flow" of the game manages not only to be an exciting and interesting tactical card game (it put me to mind of dearly beloved heavily-defunct flash game X-Assault) but also one that "feels" like a comic book.
Example:
My team is fighting a lunatic who wants to pull the moon into the Earth and destroy it. We're fighting it out in the old west (1883) for reasons that are surely important in the metaplot but not right now. The location deck pulls a water trough, which provides cover for gunslingers and (because it's leaky) adds +1 to all lightning damage. One of my characters is a master of eclectic kung-fu styles, and the one in play lets him choose what damage type is outgoing.
In game, he chooses the "electric" damage type and plays a card to charge in and do damage.
In my head, there's a dramatic panel where he side-eyes the leaking trough and judo-flips the evil scientist into a pool of water before supercharging his EEG and palmstriking the water pool, shocking the evil baron out. But wait! As they turn away in victory, the baron summons his power armor through the time stream, it's ROUND 2...
The game manages to keep that smooth, comic-booky flow to the fight arcs across an amazing number of different characters. And if you keep up on comics, you're going to go "Oh man it's" at a lot of these dudes.
That flying tank leading your squad? Basically Captain Ameri-Superman. The lady with all the guns? Domino. That weird fish alien you're fighting is a combination of Kang the Conqueror and the second Black Swan, he came back in time to destroy the world to save it, don't you believe him? The martial artist I was playing with was a combo of Daredevil and Iron Fist, that psychic lady is Jean Grey, complete with the ability to make her go Dark Phoenix if certain conditions are fulfilled, and hey there's wacky funster NotDeadpool with very meta-referential cards.
So you can mentally reskin this to a Marvel cardfighter easy enough if you want.
I've been considering picking up Season 2 in part because it includes a "Villains Team Up" mode, in part because it includes several villains-turned-heroes (including that KangSwan I mentioned), and in part because it includes the Big Finale Boss Battle that's totally not Onslaught Crossed With Galactus we swear.
So... I dunno, man.
I don't usually do card games.
I came for the superheroes and expected to be out three bucks to play around for a while, but this is -really frigging good- to a level I'm shocked by. I want to beat all the villains in all the places with all the heroes. I want to read the lore and find out why that dude who's a musical Adam Warlock is archenemies with The Goddess of Destruction.
This thing is FUN and I've got no regrets at all about popping for the complete package, and I regret EVERYTHING I do.
(Also if you lose to Plague Rat you get a really transformation-y Game Over and I miiiight be into that a little.)
For seconds, this is a digital card game based on a physical product. It's not a CCG as there's no collecting (but there are an AWFUL lot of expansion packs), and each "hero", "villain" and "location" is a premade, no-variations deck to itself. From what I understand in the physical version each person picks a hero deck, a villain and location deck get chosen (somehow? game master, maybe?) and it's multiplayer co-op against the somewhat deterministic bad guys.
Here in PC land, you can play all 3-5 heroes yourself. (I assume you can do the same in the tabletop but it might get overly complex, handling 5 heroes + a villain + the locale. On the PC much of the bookkeeping is done for you in ways I very much appreciate.)
ANYWAY, I'd been eyeballing this thing for a while and my fascination and ongoing love affair with City of Heroes led me to shrug and pick up the base game, which is often on sale for like three bucks. After playing that a little, I quickly returned to the store and grabbed the more expensive first season pass, and after playing THAT a while I'm eyeballing season pass 2.
Previously, I had sneered at this, because while the base game is often $3, the season passes add up to $55 when they're not on sale, and why the hell would anyone spend $60 or more on a digital card game?
Well, because there's a TON of cards here and the "flow" of the game manages not only to be an exciting and interesting tactical card game (it put me to mind of dearly beloved heavily-defunct flash game X-Assault) but also one that "feels" like a comic book.
Example:
My team is fighting a lunatic who wants to pull the moon into the Earth and destroy it. We're fighting it out in the old west (1883) for reasons that are surely important in the metaplot but not right now. The location deck pulls a water trough, which provides cover for gunslingers and (because it's leaky) adds +1 to all lightning damage. One of my characters is a master of eclectic kung-fu styles, and the one in play lets him choose what damage type is outgoing.
In game, he chooses the "electric" damage type and plays a card to charge in and do damage.
In my head, there's a dramatic panel where he side-eyes the leaking trough and judo-flips the evil scientist into a pool of water before supercharging his EEG and palmstriking the water pool, shocking the evil baron out. But wait! As they turn away in victory, the baron summons his power armor through the time stream, it's ROUND 2...
The game manages to keep that smooth, comic-booky flow to the fight arcs across an amazing number of different characters. And if you keep up on comics, you're going to go "Oh man it's" at a lot of these dudes.
That flying tank leading your squad? Basically Captain Ameri-Superman. The lady with all the guns? Domino. That weird fish alien you're fighting is a combination of Kang the Conqueror and the second Black Swan, he came back in time to destroy the world to save it, don't you believe him? The martial artist I was playing with was a combo of Daredevil and Iron Fist, that psychic lady is Jean Grey, complete with the ability to make her go Dark Phoenix if certain conditions are fulfilled, and hey there's wacky funster NotDeadpool with very meta-referential cards.
So you can mentally reskin this to a Marvel cardfighter easy enough if you want.
I've been considering picking up Season 2 in part because it includes a "Villains Team Up" mode, in part because it includes several villains-turned-heroes (including that KangSwan I mentioned), and in part because it includes the Big Finale Boss Battle that's totally not Onslaught Crossed With Galactus we swear.
So... I dunno, man.
I don't usually do card games.
I came for the superheroes and expected to be out three bucks to play around for a while, but this is -really frigging good- to a level I'm shocked by. I want to beat all the villains in all the places with all the heroes. I want to read the lore and find out why that dude who's a musical Adam Warlock is archenemies with The Goddess of Destruction.
This thing is FUN and I've got no regrets at all about popping for the complete package, and I regret EVERYTHING I do.
(Also if you lose to Plague Rat you get a really transformation-y Game Over and I miiiight be into that a little.)
