No good game has ever had a card-based fighting system. Okay, I take that back. If you like games with card-based fighting systems, I guess you might think there have been some good ones. Personally, though, I haven’t found one I’ve liked yet, and it’s ruined too many sequels for me (PSO3, KH:CoM, MGA, etc). Now… ugh.
GRAAH!
I share the sentiment. If nobody needs me I’ll just go slit my wrists now.
Ugh… here’s hoping it’s not as bad as Chain of Memories. The fact that a Lunar game is going to be on ds makes me almost want one, though with the fact that there is a new gameboy in the works which will inevitably kill the ds makes me think I’ll probably wait for an emulator.
I don’t mind Japan’s recent infatuation with card-battling, but can’t they leave it out of sequels to games we already know? Why did we need a Phantasy Star Online card battler? A Metal Gear card battler? Why do we need a Lunar card battler? Why can’t we just have real sequels to games we like?
Indeed. And half the time they use card battle as an excuse to make a very story weak game that has no real purpose but to sell games to ravenous hoards of people that somehow never tire of damned card games. In the case of the new Lunar, I would guess that it probably tells the lead up to the evacuation of the Blue Star (either that or the founding of civilization on the Silver Star), in which case I would rather like a good game that covers every thing.
Ruined Acid? I thought they incorporated the card system in Acid quite well. And Acid is <b><i>not</i></b> a sequel to the MGS series, but rather a game that takes place in a different universe than the other games (such as Ghost Babel). It took me a while to get use to it myself, and when I did I learned to appreciate it. But thats just my experience.
The only card based strategy games I have really played are Yu-gi-oh!: Duelist of the Roses and Culdcept.
Y:DR was pretty fun in that there was more strategy involved than just the “my card beats your card” method in just the Duel Monsters card game. My friend and I rented it and had fun with it for about a week.
That same friend and I still play Culdcept to this day. The best way I can explain it is a hybrid between Yu-gi-oh! and Monopoly. You go around a board and land on spaces. To claim the spaces you have to guard it with a monster. If someone lands on your land, they have to defeat your monster or pay the toll. Battles include weapons, armor, items, and special abilities so they’re not boring at all. On top of that each player can use spells. All these elements: monsters, spells, items, armor, and weapons are cards your character holds in his hand as you goes around the board. The game ends when a player accumulates enough points and returns to the castle (more or less the “Go” spot in Monopoly). I highly suggest picking Culdcept up if you can find it. It’s pretty rare these days.
Both of these games are for the PS2.
I didn’t mean sequel in the definition of “continuing story,” I meant that it’s a new entry in an existing series. I believe I said in the first post in this thread that, if you like card-based games, then you might enjoy some of them. I, however, have yet to find a card-based game that I’ve enjoyed. I gave PSOe3 a shot, I gave KH:CoM a shot, and I gave MGAc!d a shot, and I haven’t liked any of them. I just wish they’d keep their card battling out of our established series.
[edit]
BX: You liked Culdcept? I bought it some time ago upon reccomendation from others, and just couldn’t get into it. If you know anyone who needs a copy, let me know, I’m willing to part with it.
I’m with Sat on this one. Card battlers aren’t my thing. When I hear a new game in a series is coming out, I get excited since I’me expecting them to contiue what they’ve already done, but improve on it, not change it into a completely different type of game. We’re always talking about how gameplay makes or breaks a game. Well, games that we want sequels to had the gameplay. Making it a card game just tosses out most of what we liked about the previous game. It’s not like Sat is complaining about card games in general, he just doesn’t want them to be sequels to already established games, he wants them to be their own series. Yu-gi-oh or whatever works as a card game since it has always been about cards, but other games have been about other things.
EDIT: Also Cro, the MGS on the GBC was different from Acid sicne it kept the same gameplay. It may have been in a different universe and not a part of the actual story line, but it still had the same stealth gameplay.
No shit. I own it 
I was just saying how they weren’t sequels of any sort to the MGS series. And I never mentioned the gameplay.
Edit: Oh, and there’s no MG<b>S</b> on the GBC 
Actually, Metal Gear: Ghost Babel was called “Metal Gear Solid” in the US, so there technically is.
Actually, it was called Metal Gear Solid Cro, I’m looking at in a magazine right now and it isn’t an April Fools joke. I know that you didn’t mention the gameplay, that is why was mentioning it. You were saying that the games weren’t a part of the actual series and were therefore fine. What I’m saying is that the GBC was one was cool even though it wasn’t a part of the actual series because it had the same gameplay. Acid has completely different gameplay and is pretty much a completely different game except for the main character. Metal Gear Solid on GBC has the main character and the same gameplay, so it sort of pulls a Final Fantasy. It is more understandably called a MG game than Acid. With Acid, it is like they could replace the main character with someone else and it would still work the same.
Sat: I know. But that was nothing more than a marketing ploy to try and boosts its sales when it was released here. Hence I call it Ghost Babel as it is everywhere else (that and its got jack shit to do with the Solid series).
Info: Sorry. I got what you were saying the first time. And Ghost Babel is a damn good game. No argument there.
Metal Gear Ac!d’s downfall was not the card based system. It was the length of missions that made the card system painful to enjoy. I’d rather have had about 20 more missons that lasted between 5-10 minutes instead of the rediculous length of the FAR missions at the end. It was a bad choice, but the game was still entertaining and a nice try for Konami.
Grah. I got my fill of card with Magic: The Gathering. Why must it pollute everything now?
I like Lunar because it’s slightly campy. I when I played Lunar 2, I enjoyed it. It was made and translated by people who knew what they were reaching for; a mediocre game that that didn’t reach for anything but what they knew they could achieve. By doing so, it becomes more than mediocre, it becomes enjoyable.
Xenosaga Episode 1 told me that it would give me a dramatic story with over 60 hours of gameplay/cinemas. Did it deliver? Well…partially. Max Payne tells me that it will deliver a gritty game dripping with melodrama and, for me, the first exposure to the genre of “film” noir" while it allows me to direct an avatar that is awash in blood and gameplay that will allow me to revel in a torrent of bullets and style. Does it deliever? Well…somewhat.
I don’t hear much about Lunar. Unlike Max Payne or Xenosaga (which had one of the most…um, ambiguous commercials ever) it doesn’t have any commercials. It doesn’t try to make a huge fuss out of itself for the most part. It tells me what it’s going to do it, and then it makes sure that it does it well. 2D graphics, campy storyline, non-ambitious battle system and all.
I respect that. What these people are doing is laid with good intentions, but we know what a few of those paths to heck are laid with do we not? More than likely, they see the Lunar series as a stagnant creature, rather than a living one. Nothng really changes. It’s living though, living just fine the way it is. Can they pull off a card battle system? Sure. I don’t care about that though as long as it isn’t too haphazard.
What I fear is that, while their dedicating all of their sources to changin the series for the better, they’ll miss out on continuing the attributes of those games that made them so special.
I rant too much…
Cardfighters Clash got it right 6 years ago. Since then, i have not played a card battler (yes, real-life tcgs included) that has come anywhere NEAR the level of fun that simple little game was.
Magic: Shadalar was decent, but it’s ancient now and anything you could have done with it IRL is ludicrously outdated now.
Other than that, I think pretty much all card battlers are pretty much crap. So I have nothing to really say except the above comment and you’ll all probably ignore me again.
The focus of Chain of Memories was totally <i>not</i> boring card battling. It was pounding the enemies into smitherees and then hitting a button once in a while to shuffle your cards or whatever. They were kinda like Armour/Weapons, not your battling tool.
When I can run out of cards, and therefore run out of physical attacks, then there’s too much of an emphasis on cards. When I have to collect more cards just to have more physical attacks before I reshuffle, there’s too much of an emphasis on cards. I went in to that game thinking that the cards weren’t going to detract from the gameplay, because the gameplay was still action oriented. Within a few hours, I was proven wrong.