Title SNK vs. Capcom Card Fighters DS Date 05.07.2007 Genre Fighting, Strategy Platform Nintendo DS Developer SNK Playmore USA Publisher SNK Playmore USA

Alright, I'm the first to admit I love seeing Engrish in a game. On Myspace I even have the Zero Wing intro as my main picture. This game just goes to new heights of bad translation - and the worst part is, the storyline is hardly to blame. It's the cards themselves, THE GAMEPLAY that is so flawed. With that intro, here we go:

Graphics
Your typical anime goofiness. The main character himself looks like a Pokemon-ized version of Rock from SNK's Garou/KoF series. The enemy characters are pretty varied at first, but you'll quickly realize they start repeating with color hacks. The levels are the same bland metal office interior. The cards themselves are alright for the most part - it's a decent picture of a character on a red, blue, or yellow background depending on their type. If you've played many CCGs you know how varied card art is. Some is good, some is terrible. They absolutely screwed up most of the original Street Fighter characters, making 'em look terribly strange, but it's alright. The battle animations are alright but you'll wish you could skip them later on.

Story
I assume you've seen the Yu-Gi-Oh cartoon? This is the same. Some nutjob is trying to take over the world with cards and everyone at a huge gathering is turned into crazy zombie card fighters. You, your rival, a spunky female friend, and a couple weirdos wandering the tower are unchanged. With the power of cards, of course, you can break this spell. The hell? I'll never get the Japanese. I love their fighters and shooters, but c'mon. Think of a different storyline. One cool part of the game is the amount of information you can get on a character from the Capcom/SNK universe. If you get their card, it'll give you a two-page description of the character... sometimes a little-known fact or a bit of suggestive humor, such as references to a brown costumed Ryu who's been wandering around too much, and maybe he's dirty, but that couldn't be... could it? Etc.

Gameplay
Alright, even though I hate the Engrish, the game is interesting enough. I never played the originals, heard they were better even though broken. I haven't had any real complaints with this game. You start each game with 3 colorless Force Points, but there are four other colors that you get none of: yellow, blue, green, and red. To get those other colors you must play, "freeze", or discard cards of the associated type. Some lower-power cards might use colorless Force to play, for example, but could give you one Blue force a turn, and that's how you play cards that require Blue force in its cost.

The attack phase is similar to Magic, electing characters to run at the opponent, who can then choose to block or take the damage. Games are pretty quick, sometimes lasting only two turns if you get a good hand. The worst part of the game is its translation. Sometimes I could not understand for the life of me what the hell a card's ability was. Something called the Pile, which is defined as the card's Deck, is referenced in one ability when it actually means your hand. Sometimes it actually means the deck. You just have to use context clues to get around, and with past CCG experience you might be able to make it work for you.

Sound
Most of the game sounds irritating. The battle music is decent but repetitious. The boss battle music is about the best in the game, and is actually pretty catchy - still, if you want good music on a card game for a console, check out the Marvel VS CCG for the PSP or DS. That game's music is awesome, even if maybe a tad too dramatic for a card game.

Rent or buy?
Rent if you can. Buy if you're a collector. If you're really into Capcom/SNK stuff though, I strongly suggest investing some money into the UFS CCG (not a video game). It just got the Darkstalkers license and has the Soul Calibur as well, and is just an all-around decently designed game.

Game Score

B-

Reviewed By: Contributed