Before you ask, the answer is no; Peter Pan does not appear in Neverland Card Battles, and neither does Michael Jackson. The "Neverland" in question, instead, is a long-running property from Idea Factory, a Japanese developer who has used Neverland's characters and world in a number of games. Fans of the franchise may have seen Neverland recently in Spectral Force 3, an Xbox 360 strategy-RPG from Atlus. Neverland Card Battles is also an SRPG, except this time, the system is the PSP, the localizer and publisher is YUKE'S Company of America, and as one might guess from the title, there are many more cards involved. YUKE'S invited us over for some hands-on time with a few hands of their upcoming PSP-SRPG-TCG, and while we never did get to scream "You activated my trap card!" a good time was still had by all.
Neverland Card Battles was originally published in Japan by Idea Factory as "Cardinal Arc" back in 2003, for the PS2. YUKE'S re-imagining of the game has left the story and gameplay intact, but also provides a thorough localization, improved visuals, and a widescreen presentation. The cutscenes have also all been dubbed with English voice acting -- though YUKE'S told me they have considered offering the original Japanese voices as DLC for Neverland purists. The game's most important new feature, however, is the addition of Ad Hoc Wireless multiplayer, allowing two PSPs to go head-to-head in card combat. As Nate Fitt, YUKE'S Marketing Manager, explained to me, "We really wanted to make sure that got put in there, just for the sheer fun of playing head-to-head against a friend." We asked if Neverland Card Battles could also be played online, and the answer was "not yet," though Nate said YUKE'S was "keeping their options open" as to adding an Infrastructure mode in the future. In the meantime, YUKE'S is confident that the Ad Hoc mode will provide plenty of hours of fun.
How, then, will those fun hours be spent? Neverland Card Battles tells a story which will seem awfully familiar to JRPG fans: The seal on a slumbering evil has been damaged; said slumbering evil intends to wipe out all life in Neverland; the fate of the world therefore rests on the broad shoulders of an exceedingly cocky youth with a sly grin, a deck of mysterious cards, and an assessment that his grim task "sounds like fun." There are unique wrinkles, of course -- the slumbering evil, "Hellgaia," really only wants to wipe out humanity because that will put a permanent end to war, which is downright charitable, when you think about it. Plus, the protagonist, "Galahad," is an obsessive gambler, so putting him in charge of a deck of powerful cards is obviously an ideal fit. In any case, this means that the player will control Galahad as he uses his growing card collection to fight off a slew of other card-wielding "dominators," making his way through 18 pitched battles in the game's single-player mode.
As attractive as the game's art and cutscenes were, the M.O. of Neverland Card Battles was starting to sound extremely familiar. We asked Mr. Fitt directly: What separates Neverland Card Battles from familiar TCG duel games like Yu-Gi-Oh!? "The main thing that's going to differentiate our title from the other ones out there is the unique game boards that the battles take place on," Nate told us. "They vary in size, and have quite a few interesting elements to them that really make them unique from eachother." The mere presence of an SRPG-style playing field, as it turned out, separates Neverland Card Battles from the standard TCG, but as our hands-on demo progressed, we were able to get a firsthand look at what Nate meant.
As with any SRPG, a match of Neverland Card Battles takes place on a large grid of squares, allowing characters to move in the four cardinal directions around various obstacles in order to reach their foes and engage in non-random, stat-based combat. The mechanics behind the battles are extremely simple: Each side has its dominator character, who can in turn place summoned units and buff-granting structures on the field. Each character on the field, both dominators and units alike, has an attack rating and a defense rating, and when they clash, each does damage to the other's hit points in a simple attack-minus-defense manner. If a unit is reduced to 0 HP, they are gone, and if that unit happens to be the dominator, that's the end of the match. The trick to winning in battle is careful movement of your units on the board, and the subsequent management of your resources.
At the start of the match, every square on the grid is neutral, but every time a dominator or his units move onto or through a square, it is claimed with his color. Each square that a dominator controls is worth another point to his "cost," which in turn can be spent to play cards from his hand, each with an associated cost drain. Basic units can be played early, at a mere 3 or 4 cost apiece, while the game's more powerful single-use spells and permanent "bases" -- which confer lasting buffs on their surrounding units -- may have costs of a dozen or more. Placed units also have an associated maintenance "cost," so players must be careful not to overextend themselves: If a dominator controls 15 squares and has three 5-point units on the board, an enemy unit needs only to walk through a few of his squares to flip their control and force one of his units out of play. Territory control, and the efficient movement and placement of one's units, is therefore vital to success, lending an intricate strategy to the game beyond the simple mathematics of the actual fighting.
The control of territory becomes even more crucial once the squares' elements are brought into play: Each square on the board, after the first battle, has a colored border, indicating an affinity towards earth, fire, and so on. A dominator can always place a unit adjacent to himself or an existing unit, but if a card also bears an elemental affinity, he can place that unit on the field on any square of the same type -- provided his opponent does not currently control it. A clever dominator can use this ability to sneak in a new unit behind the enemy, using it to sieze control of several squares of his opponent's territory for a devastating shift in power.
Nate informed us that an average match of Neverland Card Battles, whether single-player or multiplayer, can last anywhere from 20 to 60 minutes, and progressing through the game's story mode would take some 30-50 hours, depending on how many of the game's 200 unique cards a player chose to seek out. We were a little disappointed to hear that Ad Hoc players could not trade cards with one another to speed up and refine their collections -- especially since any cards and dominators are locked for multiplayer use until a player has acquired them, meaning a player will have to progress through the single-player scenarios in order to gain full functionality for the emphasized Ad Hoc mode. On the other hand, we were able to pick up the basics of Neverland Card Battles fairly quickly; Nate told us YUKE'S had engineered the game to be a very beginner/intermediate-friendly TCG, with roughly a one-hour learning curve to pick up on all its tricks. In addition, even that first hour will likely grant new players a healthy collection of cards, which are awarded at the conclusion of every battle -- even against previously beaten opponents. Before long, players can expect to be browsing several dozen possible cards for their 30-card custom deck, which is built in an easily-navigated building suite.
YUKE'S is fully aware that both TCGs and SRPGs are something of a niche, but in the end, they are hoping to make Neverland Card Battles a good introductory title to each genre. The game will also be priced at only $29.99, making it a rather attractive proposition for players who have always been curious about card battling. "It's a lot of fun at a reasonable price point," said Nate, "I think you'd get a lot of fun out of giving this one a shot, because it does have a lot of elements that an introductory player would really find interesting."
Neverland Card Battles is rated T for Teen and is scheduled to launch on October 28th, 2008.
Full disclosure: At time of publication, YUKE'S was a client of TriplePoint PR, a firm managed by Richard Kain — owner of our parent company Pantheon Labs.
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