The Eye of Judgment! - An early review of sorts.

[Shino]

Well I finally picked it up. Long read but it will give you guys an idea of how the game works.

I have to say... I'm very impressed... from a gamer's perspective and from a CCG gamer perspective.

The game is pretty easy to set up... You just have to make sure you get the camera set up for the lighting in the room. Otherwise it will have trouble registering the cards on the row farthest from the camera.

The game is pretty simple. I'll start with the cards. Remember this guy...
(Edit: Just found this also... might help)

Let's start with the numbers.
From the top.
- The first '3' is the summon cost. This is the amount of mana used to bring the creature on to the board. When a creature is summoned, if there is something in it's attack range, it will attack automatically.

- The 2 directly next to it is the activation cost. This is the cost to make the creature attack on subsequent turns.

- The <3 3 is the creatures HP.

- The 1+ indicates it's attack power. Normally, this creatures attack is '1', the '+' signifies that there is a way to increase the attack power. There are creatures that have an attack power of "X-".

- To the right under the name, you'll see the odd tank like symbol... that's the creatures element. There are 5 elements. Fire which is opposed by Water/Ice, Earth which is opposed by Wood, and Biolith which is neutral. This creature is Biolith. The element of the creature is a HUGE strategic point to this game. Why? Each tile on the board has an element to it... if you put a creature on a tile of the same element, that creature gets a 2 HP bonus. Opposing elements get a 2HP penalty. So... yes... if you put an Earth creature on a wood tile and the creature only has 1 or 2 HP... the creature dies instantly. The exception to this is Biolith which gets no bonus or deduction when placed on a tile.

- Now that I've explained elements... the chains around the summoning and
activation costs mean that this creature is "locked." In other words, you can only place the creature on a tile of it's own element. This lock is removed when there are 4 creatures on the board. But the lock returns if the number of creatures drops below 4.

- The symbol below the element is the card rarity and set. Black is common.

- Then there's the text. I've seen all kinds of text. There are different Mechanics just like Magic. There's a "Quickness" Mechanic which is pretty much the same as "First Strike." There's also a "Dodge" Mechanic. I'm not sure how this works exactly, but there's there's the ability to make an attempt at a dodge, and there is a Mechanic called "perfect dodge." I've only played 2 games so far so I haven't had to use them. There's also things like... explaining that the creature will die if it's not on it's home element.

Now the grids
- The left grid is the creatures attack pattern. This creature can attack in any direction from where it is and it can attack 2 spaces away. On the attack grid, you can see that the arrow pointing north is red. This means that it attacks in only 1 direction at a time. There are creatures that have more than 1 red arrow. And that actually bit me in the ass in my second game. I had a creature called "Triceptaur Behemoth." It was a fire creature that attacks in front of it and on both sides of it at the same time, but the attack power goes down. There was an enemy creature in front of it and one of my creatures on the side. It attacked and did 3 damage (down from it's full power of 6) to both creatures and killed them both. A surprise to me. There are also magic attacks. Magic attacks come from above basically and are not counterable. I most cases, magic attacks can hit anything on the board, and some can hit more than one creature too.

- The right grid is the creatures defense pattern. This creature's defense pattern indicates that no matter what direction it is attacked from... it will counter attack. Some creatures have a 'B' in one or more of the squares... this indicates a "blindspot" and the attacker gets a +1 bonus to it's attack if it attacks from the blindspot.

That's the card. The game is pretty simple. You have a deck of exactly 30 cards... no more or less. There's one more symbol that may show up on the card and that is a symbol that looks like a hand of cards with a 1 in the middle. It appears right below the attack power. If the hand of cards is in grayscale, it means you can only have 1 of that creature per deck. If the hand of cards is in color, it means you can only have 1 of that RACE of creature per deck. It's a good way to balance the game. Each player draws 5. The player that goes first does not draw on their first turn.

You get 2 mana each turn and the mana rolls over.
The first player gets the advantage of putting a creature in any spot on the grid. After that, creatures can only be placed adjacent to another creature.

There are 5 phases of each turn and you can only perform actions on your turn. The phases are:
1. Draw
2. Mana charge
3. Actions
4. Summons
5. Resolution

Actions can be both action cards or action from a creature. Some of the action cards seem so simple but they make such an impact... Like "Beguiling Fog" for instance which allows you to change the direction that target creature is facing... for 0 mana! 0 MANA! This is a must have "3 of" for any deck! Not to mention "Fissure of Goghlie" which flips target tile. This can be devastating. Last night, there was an opponent wood creature, "Elven Berserker Maiden," on a wood plane. So it got a +2 HP bonus. I flipped it and the other side was earth... the opposing element to wood. So the Maidens lost a total of 4HP. Considering they only had 5, and I hit them once for 1 HP... they died.

In the summon phase, you can summon 1 and only 1 creature per turn.

Resolution determines whether the game is in check or not or if the game has been won.

To win the game, you must have 5 of your creatures on the board at the end of the turn. Just placing your 5th creature on the board does not assure your victory if it causes a battle to ensue.

The game is solid and there is a lot of strategy involved in playing it. As I said... I've only played 2 matches against the computer on beginner. I won them both.

I haven't bought any additional cards yet b/c I waiting to see if I can find them at a cheaper price. The price of the cards is the only real downside for this game so far.

From what I'm hearing though... the cards are easily copyable. And with the way they are raping customers with the price of the cards... I'm kinda glad they are.

$4 for 8 cards... 5 common, 2 uncommon, and 1 rare OR ultra rare.
That's a load of crap if you ask me.

And $15 for a theme pack of 30 cards?

I just can't justify that. Especially with the rarity distribution...
110 cards:
34 common
28 uncommon
26 rare
24 ultra rare

So ... in order to get a complete set... I have to buy at least 50 packs! Screw that!

So I'm still looking for a PDF of the cards.
In any case... the game is pretty damn good and I'm impressed with Sony and Hasbro/Wizards for their work on it.

It's not a system seller by any means, unless maybe you're a CCG freak, but if you have a PS3... it's well worth a look!

[Girkon]

Which is kinda funny considering how many Magic cards I saw ya bring home all those times. You know how many

But regardless good to know it was worth a look. With time and enough customer interest it could be the start of a whole new way to play card games.

[Shandriz]

It was -very- shiny when I was watching it this weekend. <3

[Nogrick]

I do like the idea, but yeah the boosters and Theme Decks are a little over priced for what you get. I wish something similar would come out for 360. It'd make me want to get a vision cam d the tech to do so.

[Shino]

[Aiman]

$4 a booster pack? I thought I saw them for like $1.99 or $2.99. Damn, $4 is a lot of money for 8 cards.

I thought of getting this Friday and I almost bought it like 3 times, but I held myself in check. Thursday I get Naruto and I doubt that after that I'll get this. Even though I want to soooo much.

[Ming]

[Shino]

[RivaOni]

Gonna get a go on this at the weekend at the Now Loading Christmas Meet Up (a whole 2 months early, its almost as bad as the shops!).

I also have a vision camera for my 360, its set up and people occasionally get pictures of a strange nature when I'm a bit on the drunk side.

[Shino]

Have you played any CCGs in the past Riva. I'm very interested to see what you think about it.

I wish Ming was closer so he could come by and try it out.