By Remko Molenaar (Proxzor)

Last month we saw the launch of a new iCCG out of Japan, and I took my time to find out what the game is all about. Shikihime Garden is a unique browser based hybrid game of gardening and deck-building combined and made into a MMORPG. A strange mixture at first sight but its art style and gameplay elements meld so well together. These characters that mostly consist of female cards and random animals would alone be enough to warrant a decent competitive title, but the gardening features and world exploration add that extra element that sets it slightly above the pack.

These cards are called Shikihime, a typical Japanese name and a really difficult name to pronounce for a westerner like me. When you start playing this browser game you are given a couple cards to establish your first deck with. You are taught that these cards aren’t just simple cards with a lady or monster printed on them, these are actual characters that you can put into your garden, but more about that later. All of the cards have a special uniqueness to them. They are specialized in different types of weapons or abilities. Most of the cards are considered offensive cards, they use their special weapon to hurt the enemies, but there are also support type cards that help buff your own cards, and in some cases can even heal them during a fight.

The battle system is in my eyes lackluster, really boring and nothing special at all. When you have your cards in front of you and are about to fight the enemies, there isn’t really anything special to it. While fighting you will see simple animations that you are indeed hitting the enemies, but besides seeing their health bar lower you will not see a lot. I personally would’ve loved to see more happening during a battle, because after all it is a card game and it is probably the biggest feature or part of the game. Shikihime instead chooses to focus more on the gardening than combat, and the results show.

The gardening feature is a bit different than most housing features you can find in an MMORPG. I must admit that I haven’t seen it done before in this style. Once your cards are brought to life in your garden, there are numerous ways to interact with them. Here you can let them rest up for the next battle, but you can also place specific stands and items on the ground for the characters. Almost straight away you are given a rice ball stand that makes rice balls for your Shikihime. These rice balls will bring their health up and make them more satisfied with you. Later you are also given other types of stands offering improved recovery. But besides resting in the garden your Shikihime can also train there; you can let them spar with each other or spar with sparring objectives. You will also find the Shikihime interacting with each other from time to time, with normal chatting and emotes. It really feels like your own set of cards are alive and this gives you an extra meaning and attachment to your deck.

In a card game the biggest objective, or rather the best part of progressing through the game is updating your deck with better cards or making your current deck stronger. While following quests, searching through areas and battling other cards, you will find more decks. You can also find more gardening tools ranging from simple stones to actual stands when fighting these monsters. The cards that you get by defeating others can be used in a few ways. You can combine these cards to make one strong card. Or you can offer them all to one of your other characters, and give him an extra experience boost to level him up faster. You can also use or buy summon cards to get new and better Shikihime, but this mostly requires you to have a coin of some sort or Power.

Power is the real money currency in Shikihime Garden. If you spend your real money buying this then you are able to get a lot further and stronger than anyone that doesn’t spend a dime on the game. With spending Power you can straight away summon stronger cards to help you out, or buy more gardening tools and stands to give your team advantages in that aspect.

 

Conclusion: Fair

Shikihime Garden starts out really slow. Everything plays out at its own pace and a few features seem implemented specifically to artificially slow progress. Don’t expect to play this game all day since it is simply not possible. There are a few features that require you to buy Power, and if you do not do that the game simply comes to an end for that day until you wait and regain all the required resources. However, the gardening feature is quite impressive. Nothing else in the genre captures this fun housing spirit quite like Shikihime Garden does. The combat itself lacks the fun spirit of the rest of the game, and sadly lackluster simple animations are probably the best this title will ever see. If you are a big fan of card games, I wouldn’t really recommend you to play this game because it is not per se the usual card game you will see. The game is heavily focused on the cards, yet the card fighting is boring and automated. If you’re more casual and just want to see your deck and cards evolve over time though, this is one of the better options on the market for it.

By Ojogo, Mobile Guru
So we’re back in the waters of Lightmare Studio’s animated TCG, Infinity Wars, after nearly a year out from ApocaRUFF’s first look at the game. It seems that Lightmare Studios kept the game’s development tight over those twelve months, providing a noticeably more polished, balanced, and developed game than what we remember.

 

A Brief Look at the Past

So, to those who haven’t heard of the game or just stumbled into this review, here’s a brief rundown of what makes up Infinity Wars and how the game is played.

Infinity Wars follows the traditional TCG playstyle where you create decks from the game’s seven factions which are the Flame Dawn, Genesis Industries, The Warpath, The Cult of Verore, Descendants of the Dragon, Sleepers of the Avarrach and the Exiles. Being added to this is the Klingon and Federation as part of the Star Trek partnership that’s just recently been revealed. The field where you will be playing is segregated into zones which are namely the Defense, Attack, Support and Command Zones.

You start off with one resource at the beginning of the match that you can use. After each turn from there you’ll have your resources replenished while it increases 1 per turn. You’ll be using this resource to summon units from either your hand to the support field or from the commander field to either the attack or defense zones.

The defense and attack zones are the areas where your units will be actively participating in battles while the support and command zone contains your inactive units that you can place later in the field. Units you summon from your hand have to sit a turn out in the support zone unless they have a specific ability that says otherwise. However units from the commander zone can be put immediately either to the defense or attack zones without going through the support zone. The commander zone is almost the most defended and hard to impact zone on the playing field, making your choice of commander cards all the more important.

 

The commander zone cards are the special cards in the field that you can choose before any match. This allows you to choose those ace cards in your deck immediately without gambling in the hope that you draw them early.

The game’s win condition is if the opposing player’s morale (a number reduced each time cards are destroyed) or HP is taken down to 0.

 

 

How About Now?

As I mentioned earlier, Infinity Wars looks better than ever. Lightmare Studios basically had the gameplay skeleton done in our earlier look into the game. The artwork is superb and constantly improving, and it’s pretty amusing to see the units come alive with in-game animation.

I loved the fluidity of the game’s GUI where no frame is wasted and no choppy transitions occur whenever my cursor rolls over to my field or my opponent’s. Much can be said however to the game’s interface in the main menu since there are moments when I transition between resolutions that the interface just blows up.

 

I love that Infinity Wars has a campaign mode included now since it allows you to acquire faction specific cards without shelling out a dime. I loved the fact that the game has this equilibrium between those who are playing for free and those who have kept on purchasing booster packs. You can in fact go toe-to-toe against players who have purchased booster packs even with the cards you get for free.

This “equilibrium” of sorts emphasizes on player skill/strategy over how much money one has invested in their cards. Since the free cards have pretty decent abilities to begin with, you won’t feel that you’ve been short-changed after coming away a battle where you faced an opponent packing a rare deck.
Given the somewhat hardcore tactics of the game, I applaud their decision to require newbies to go through the process of learning game mechanics while being rewarded with starter cards. This safe haven period helped me familiarize myself enough that my first PvP matches weren’t total blowouts. I’m sure veterans are grateful as well to have fewer “farming fodder” players filling the queues as well. Of course I really couldn’t discount that there are just dumb players out there, since no game can really find an effective measure to eliminate those kinds of players ever.

 

 

Campaign

Beyond offering a location for players to freely acquire cards from a specific faction, the Campaign mode also offers an ideal setting to ease yourself into the tactics each faction specializes in. If you take proper notes of the cards frequently used in each campaign, you can ascertain the gameplay mechanics of each faction in-game without having to suffer repeated defeats while working out viable counters.

Each campaign stage provides you with a pre-constructed deck so you won’t have to go through the hoops of going to read every single, faction specific card out there to actually see them in action. This allows players to learn gameplay mechanics actively rather than via boring tutorials, again while preserving your PvP record.

 

 

Deck Building

What eTCG game (or TCG game for the matter) is worth its salt if it doesn’t offer a comprehensive and smooth deck building feature? In Infinity Wars, deck building is fun, fast and easy, and I’m not even referring to the interface just yet. Your deck’s factions are determined by the commanders you’ll be choosing so you have the option to either go solo, duo or tri-faction in the game.

The game also has non-faction units that you can add into your decks to catch your opponents off guard from time to time.

The Deck building interface on the other hand is pretty streamlined. Anyone with common sense can pick it up immediately. Creating a deck is easy enough using the game’s interface. The game also helps out in your deck balancing responsibilities by providing an overview of your cards, including how many character versus spell cards you have and the resource cost distribution of the deck as a whole.

 

Final Word? Excellent.

Overall, I would have to say that I pretty much enjoyed Infinity War as much as ApocaRUFF. As someone who has been grinding through countless TCG titles this year, Infinity Wars certainly makes the grade.

It’s easy to jump into but hard to master. Add the fact that you can enjoy the game without investing in needed starter decks is just icing on the cake.
I also like the fact that you can play the game across different platforms. You can play on both PC and Mac machines using the same account and having the same experience on both platforms. Meanwhile Lightmare is also busy at work with the iOS and Android versions of the game, both of which will be connected to your account and providing the same experience the PC/Mac versions would bring. Also, don’t worry, your cards are connected to your account so whatever you get via PC/Mac/iOS/Android/etc will be passed on to one another so you can play the game both on the dekstop/laptop or while on the go.
And to me, that’s the best icing in Infinity War’s cake since there are times that I prefer playing the game on my ipad than my PC. So try it and I’m sure you’ll definitely have fun!

 

Catch our interview with one of the co-creators now on MMOHuts!