IdyotAko 4 months 2 weeks ago wrote:

First off... this is not the Wizard spell for RO. This is actually a new arcade card game that just came out in Japan (well... maybe a few weeks ago, our area here just got the machines recently). After giving it a dry run, I will say this... it's actually pretty good!

Lord of Vermillion homepage

I have posted some CCG arcades here before, but this one is quite different. The actual gameplay is what I would call a merge of RTS and RPG. The direction they took with this one is quite interesting, and for some reason or another... it actually works!

For a mere 500 yen (5 bucks... yeah... this is Japan, go figure), you get yourself a starter deck which includes a instruction pamphlet, a NESYS card, a player card, 4 servant cards and 6 card sleeves. The instruction pamphlet seems a bit unnecessary since the game actually gives you a tutorial when you first play. It starts off like all the other games like it. You pick which cards you want to play with along with your player card and do battle in 3 different modes: Story, Online or Local. Story mode pretty much follows a path where you fight against the CPU. Online will search for a human player in Japan that you can do battle with while Local just searches within the Prefecture (equivalent to a State back in the US) for an opponent. Each card has a particular "cost" and you can only have up to 90 points at one time to play with. Each card has different attributes like HP, attack power, defense, speed, special abilities and even what "element" it has and what it is strong and weak against. Along with this, the player card can be equipped to either increase defense, add attack power, more HP, so on and so forth. But of course, the more equipment you have on, the slower your movements become. Of course, even if your speed is maxed out, your movement on the field will be limited by the other card's speed.

There is only one basic way to win, and that is to bring your opponent's HP bar down to zero, but there are different methods of doing this. You can either destroy all 3 of the Arcane Stones both players start with, or beat the living crap out of your opponent's servants (which in turn destroys the stones as well). Each servant has a "line of sight" and can only attack when the enemy is within that area. This adds a lot of strategic element as you have total control on where you want your cards to face and where you want them to move. You can even set it up that you can surround an enemy. There is a lot more gameplay elements involved, and I'll edit this post accordingly.

What makes this game different from the others is the fact that you and your cards actually level up! Just this fact alone makes playing against other players more strategic. Just because you and your opponent has the same card doesn't mean that they will have the same powers. The higher the level, the more powerful the card is. And add the fact that the equipment you put on yourself makes a difference as well. This is a very new approach to the arcade CCG, and I must say... it looks like it works!

Again, I will be editing this post accordingly because there is a lot more to talk about in this game. I'm quite surprised that there is so much gameplay elements in this game but none of them makes the game entirely confusing. I'll be playing this game a lot (and is gonna cost me a buttload of money as well... ).

Dynewind 4 months 2 weeks ago wrote:

man they look awesome O_O

me wanna try T_T

the songs are awesome, and u got to go to a place to play em? like the machine? wow!

th1nonly 4 months 2 weeks ago wrote:

Ahh sorry can someone delete this im tryna do something... it somehow doesnt let me del. this post...

Dynewind 4 months 2 weeks ago wrote:

lol only mod can... why? welcome back!

ooh cute siggie ^-^

kalajel 4 months 2 weeks ago wrote:

Looks great. I like the graphics and the soundtrack is kickass. But me no speaky Japanese...

IdyotAko 4 months 1 week ago wrote:

I don't speak Japanese too, but it doesn't stop anyone from enjoying the game.

Funny how one of the featured artist is Todd McFarlane...

kalajel 4 months 1 week ago wrote:

How can you enjoy the game if you can't read what's written on the cards?

IdyotAko 4 months 1 week ago wrote:

It's called experimentation. I put them on the field and test their abilities. Once I figure out what the card does, then it's a no-brainer from there.

kalajel 4 months 1 week ago wrote:

Ah, so I take it this game is not tabletop then; you play it on one of the site's server... I wasn't too sure at first if the game was tabletop or not (so I avoided saying anything so as to not pass for stupid... as if...), but now with the whole "trial and error" thing it makes things much clearer.

IdyotAko 4 months 1 week ago wrote:

No... not quite there, Kal...

It's an arcade machine that reads the card you play on the horizontal screen which you then see on the screen in front of you. In turn, you manipulate the cards in addition to some basic controls to have your characters do different things.

Another thing is there are no servers... all the machines are connected all over Japan, so if you do network play, then you could face someone on another machine maybe just a block away or way across the country.

kalajel 4 months 1 week ago wrote:

Network arcade CCG game? Those Japanese really have a way of thinking outside the box! But wait, won't that mean you'll have to chuck a fortune to build your deck then have to chuck a bunch of quarters/tokens at the machine just to play with your overpriced custom deck?

IdyotAko 4 months 1 week ago wrote:

You build your deck by playing the game. For every game you play, you get a card. To begin, you pay 300 yen then 200 yen to continue. After that, you will get 2 cards.

But yeah, you will pretty much be spending some cash to get a relatively nice deck going as this is the only way you can get the cards.