Shadowverse Review

A lot of cute girls, funny or annoying guys, ugly, awesome, and/or sickening monsters, and a lot of crazy moments that make you feel like a total boss or like a pathetic slave. It's a rollercoaster of a game, and the experience seems to change drastically with every new card set that comes out.

One of the most interesting things they do is they use the same 'hero power' for every class, and instead give each class their own trait. Personally, I have some misgivings about some of the design decisions they've made for the various classes, but it's undeniable that each class feels very different from the others.

Draw RNG is a big deal in this game, the decks have to be small, not quite as small as in Hearthstone, but considering that you can include up to 3 copies of each card that you want in your deck, it can arguably feel like your decks are even smaller than a Hearthstone deck when it comes to the decision of which cards to use when making a deck.

Fortunately, it's not incredibly difficult to get some wins in this game, you can find yourself and others failing hard due to being flabbergasted by unfamiliar cards. Many cards perform much differently than how you would expect them to, which leaves a lot of room for exploration of the mechanics of the game as well as the flow of power. They are introducing new stuff pretty much all the time, similarly to how Wizards of the Coast does things, and surprisingly they love to make crazy cards that challenge the way you think about the game. Unfortunately, much like for Hearthstone, it can be difficult at times to acquire the cards you need to be competitive.

I actually feel satisfied with the comeback mechanic of first player vs second player compared to Hearthstone for example...the player going second gets to hero power one turn earlier than the player going first, and on top of that gets to do it one extra time per game. Your deck type will largely determine whether going first or second is preferred, or if it matters little to not at all...and some cards can even manipulate the number of times you use it. This 'hero power' is actually known as evolving your followers in this game. They get the +2/+2 or whatever modified stat boost if they are some special card, and sometimes some special effect while evolving...and they will not be affected by summoning sickness...but still won't have haste/storm. It's essentially the same as having rush, but they don't call it having rush for some reason. They actually call haste/charge storm, and storm followers can go for the leader(player's life/health) right away while rush followers can only attack other followers.

Arena mode is pretty interesting since the game gives you arena tickets at times so you can try out the various cards. Also, if you are dedicated enough, you can complete more daily quests in this game than in Hearthstone...they are perhaps as difficult to complete at times as the Magic Duels quests, and other times they are easier if you just happen to be lucky.

The multiplayer experience could use some loving, particularly in the animations blocking out the turn time area. Shortened animations option in the menu only seems to apply to leaders, and not to followers, and followers have a habit of being show-hogs. It has a ways to go to match Hearthstone in sheer gaming functionality, but it's straight up far more playable than Magic Duels.