Neverland Card Battles Game Sample - PSP
0Neverland Card Battles is a strategy game released in the U.S. and Japan that's fairly similar to a virtual Trading Card Game in terms of rules and overall aesthetic, and is one of many games which revolves around the Neverland / Spectral universe presented by Idea Factory, Neverland, and other factions over the years.
IF has a track record for making somewhat iffy games (due to presentation, game mechanics and/or bugs, or inability to optimize games for various hardware) that don't sell particularly well and aren't really raved about, but I have to give them a lot of credit; despite repeated scrutiny from the mainstream media, they continue to make games in their long-running Spectral/Neverland series, which goes back as far as roughly fifteen years, to the mid/late 90s. Not only that, but the series has seen some surprising localizations overseas as of late, with games like PS2's "Bakuen Kakusei: Neverland Senki Zero" (known as Realm of the Dead in Europe... with one of the worst game boxes I've seen in recent memory), "Spectral Souls: Resurrection of the Ethereal Empires" for Android and PSP (released in the U.S. and Japan), Spectral vs. Generation for PS2 and PSP (released in Europe and Japan), Spectral Force Generation for DS, and more.
Besides owning this and some other IF games, I can say I've been fairly supportive of them over the years because of their love for the niche gaming community. While NCB doesn't possess a great story, is lacking in the audio/visual department (lovely card illustrations though), and doesn't do too much you haven't seen before if you're a fan of card-themed strategy/board games like the popular Culdcept series, Phantasy Star Online: Episode III, Gaia Master, Soul Master, or even the mini-games in Final Fantasy VIII and IX, the gameplay is quite enjoyable, executed fairly well, and is actually devoid of bugs found in some other IF games. Being closer to a budget title (released in the $20-ish dollar area, as it was a re-release of the PS2 game, "Cardinal Arc: Konton no Fuusatsu"), the game features over a dozen stages, a few game-clear challenges, and over 200 collectible cards to gather and take into battle. I don't know how much mileage you'll get out of this, but I really like these kinds of games.
The story revolves around humans and demons vying for supremacy and control of the continent of Neverland, a distraught god named Hellgaia who seeks to end all the chaos and war by destroying them, six pillar gods (5 + 1 unmentioned) who disagreed with his plans many years prior and sealed Hellgaia's powers into many cards and locked him away in an underground labyrinth known as Cardinal Arc, and a slew of characters who are teleported to the Arc to deal with Hellgaia who's powers are growing, his revivial being imminent. These people, who are skilled and powerful enough to utilize the power of the "Spectral Cards" are known as "Dominators", and the Dominator you control is a brash young man known as Galahad, who is more intelligent and daring than he appears at a glance and never refuses a bet, no matter how high the stakes. He, along with the others, are brought to the Arc by Egma, a servant of one of the pillar gods who was tasked with monitoring Hellgaia's movements, and each character has their (thin) reasoning for cooperating in gathering the cards throughout Cardinal Arc.
The gameplay isn't particularly deep for a game of this kind, but it is fun nevertheless. There are several rules, most of which can be understood by reading the manual in conjunction with the in-game help files, but there are four basic types of cards: Units, Spells, Bases, and Godseal Talismen. Cards have several stats such as HP, Attack, Defense, and Move, as well as the potential to have special skills or restrictions. There are also "attachments", which can "buff" a card's stats or other abilities. Each card has a Deploy Cost and Maintenance Cost (to keep on the field), but some cards also require "souls" to deploy or use certain skills, which are gained when allies are defeated. You can gain cost by grabbing as much territory as possible and a good strategy is to steal the enemies territory to prohibit them from using good cards or even destroy units they have on the field as they can't afford the maintenance cost. The system allows for quite a few cool strategies to be utilized and the computer is fairly competitive due to their great decks full of rare cards. You can play with Dominators you defeat in the story in Versus Mode.
The main game is fairly short, especially if you're good at these kinds of games, but it will take quite some time to gain every card and even longer to get duplicates of the rarest cards, so there's some fun to be had here if you're a completionist. The game was localized in the U.S. by Yuke's and it shows; several characters sound like they were voiced by the same folks who did "Evil Zone". This is a video of the game in action. Enjoy.