I’ve been a fan of Level 99 Games for a while now. From Millennium Blades toBullet❤️, and all of its expansions, I really dig how unique every game of theirs I’ve played has been. So when I saw Argent: The Consortium in a math trade earlier this year, I hopped on it, and was delighted to receive it. While I am a big fan of the early 90’s anime and video game theme from Millennium Blades, and adore the anime aesthetic that all of Level 99 Games, my friends in my game group are less enthusiastic, which is one of the reasons it took so long for me to get Argent: The Consortium to my table.
The other reason it took so long for Argent to come out, is that it looks incredibly dense. Twice I opened the rulebook, started reading the rules, and immediately felt too tired and packed the game away again. I don’t know what it is about Argent, but the rulebook does not feel welcoming.
For our first game, we stuck with the “recommended beginner’s setup,” since it was our first go, but even with training wheels on, Argent: The Consortium showed off its teeth.
A 3 player game has 8 locations for you to put your workers, with each of those locations having between 3 and 5 spots. On your turn, you can take a fast action if you wish, then take one main action, which can consist of placing a mage on a spot, casting a spell, or using a supporter or treasure. If you don’t want to do any of those, there are also some bell tower cards you can take instead, which act as the timer for the round. The moment the last bell tower card is taken, the round ends.
On the surface, Argent is just a worker placement game. You put your mages (workers) out on various locations to gather resources, gain spells, or position yourself for the endgame scoring. Pretty standard stuff. Except, there’s a lot of interaction, and not even just the standard worker placement of interaction that comes from taking the spot that someone else really wanted. Argent: The Consortium has a lot of direct player interaction as players cast spells to blast opposing mages off the board, and even some that let you shift your opponents workers around after they’ve been placed. That one twist, being able to knock, vanquish, or blast someone else’s carefully placed worker, isn’t just cute. It’s the heartbeat of the whole design. The worker placement here isn’t just about action efficiency; it’s about tempo, timing, and disruption.
There are 5 different types of mages you can recruit, each with its own ability. The red mages can wound other mages, kicking them out and taking their spot, and sending them to the infirmary, giving its owner a paltry benefit. The green mages are immune to wounds, the purple mages can be placed as a fast action, the black mages can be placed after you cast a non-fast spell, and so on. Each of these effects seem pretty simple on their own, but when your turn comes around, you’ll find yourself going down a flowchart in your head of which worker to place first. Perhaps you place a defensive one down to lock the spot you need the most, or you hold back your offensive mages so you can punish one of your foolhardy opponents. Not only picking a location is a tough choice, but trying to figure out which worker to use compounds that decision.
The goal of the game, is to accrue the most votes of the Consortium, a group of administrators, each valuing something different. 2 are open information to the whole table, but the other 10 are face down. While each player does get to peek at one each at the start, you’ll be blind as to what resource the other 9 each value. At the end of the game, each of those cards are flipped up, and whomever has the most of whatever criteria they ask for, wins their vote. The player with the most votes, wins the whole game.
Of course, there are ways to earn more marks, letting you peek at more cards. Knowledge is power, and focusing your efforts into the actions that will ultimately earn you a vote is the way to win the game. Sometimes you can glean from your opponents as they stockpile a specific resource, what they might know, but you can’t always be sure. And even if you do follow them, now they have a head start on you.
Argent: The Consortium is flush with variability, even in just the base game. 18 council votes mix up the end game, 6 double-sided player boards, each with their own player ability. 30 spell cards vary the abilities you can accrue, 15 double-sided university tiles ensure the actions you take are different in every game. But with all this variability, comes table bloat. As you can see in the pictures, it’s a massive table hog. The board is just a modular cluster of cardboard tiles, but each player needs to have room for their player board, and room off to the side to hold their spells, vault cards, and supporters. Argent has an almost comical abundance of “stuff”, and that’s not even counting any of the content that comes in the expansions.
Which kind of brings me to my main thought of this review. Argent: The Consortium is just a worker placement game. There’s no flashy gimmicks or crazy twists to the mechanism. It’s not mixing other mechanics to make a game that feels wholly unique. There’s no flash or pizzazz, and it isn’t the kind of game that stands out on a table that makes people stop and ask “what’s THAT game!?”. But this game obviously has legs. It has replayability out the ying-yang, and that’s something that a lot of modern games seem to lack. If you’re tired of modern games dazzling you with their fancy pants productions and really exciting and interesting first play, but lack of replayability, well then I hold up Argent as the solution to those woes.
Is Argent: The Consortium perfect? No. A few things may rub players the wrong way. For one, despite all the flashy magic theming, Argent is still fundamentally a Euro about collecting and converting resources. If you came here for wild spell-slinging battles, you’ll find yourself instead managing mana crystals and counting up influence points. For another, some people will find the overabundance of options paralyzing. On your turn, you may have up to 20 options to choose from. Some will balk at how mean and interactive it can be, since one well-timed action can completely upend your plans. All those paralyzing options mean that the game can feel slow to play, especially with new or AP prone players.
But at it’s best, Argent is a dazzling mess of interaction and tension. It’s a Euro with resource management at its core, yet it smuggles in drama and intrigue that most Euros can only dream about. Every game feels distinct, every set up is a whole new puzzle. It’s the kind of game where you might feel like you’re dead last, but in a dramatic reveal at the end, scrape together just enough votes to edge out the victory.
Argent: The Consortium is a gem. It’s one of the most interesting, interactive, and clever worker placement games I’ve played in a very long time. It’s not the easiest thing to get on the table or convince normies to play, but it’s worth the effort every time. If you love worker placement, love interactive games, and don’t mind a bit of magical cruelty, Argent: The Consortium, despite being 10 years old, might end up being your new favourite too.
Continuing on from last week, I’m going to look at the characters and bosses that come in Bullet: Palette and share my experiences as I played them! For playing these characters as heroines, I’m going to pit them against Hyper Mode from Bullet🍊, as I find she is the most vanilla boss to run up against. Her quirk is really just “Dump 20 bullets into your bag every round. Good luck!”. As for tackling the bosses, I’ll try to overcome them as Mariel Martin from Bullet❤️, as she’s one of my favourite characters to play as!
Bullet: Palette features four new characters that need to be mixed into a base game to play. The theme for this set is art, as the heroines fight with drawings, paint, sound, and… dice? I’m curious to see how Precursor Die fits into the theme here, but theme isn’t particularly important here. What I care about is how fun and interesting each of these characters are, so without further ado, here we go!!
Bridget Glenn
Right off the bat, a heroine after my own heart. Bridget Glenn is an author, with verdant green eyes and ink spilling over her pages as she writes characters to life. Each of the quotes on her patterns are wonderfully evocative of classic literature. Her quirk is that she can swap which column each colour falls into, and bullets can be moved to any space in a column matching its colour, giving a great amount of flexibility to how bullets can be moved.
I feel like Bridget would be more useful in the competitive mode where (if you have a keen eye and watch your opponent), you’ll have a much better idea of what colours are coming into your sight, otherwise her ability to move which column is getting bullets is not helpful defensively. Offensively, it’s awesome. For 2 energy you can swap column colours, then move a bullet of that colour from anywhere in your sight to anywhere in its column, allowing you to set up your patterns for maximum effectiveness.
I actually feel like Hyper Mode isn’t a great match-up for Bridget Glenn, as she excels at being able to move a bullet to any open spot on the board for just 2 AP, and that’s not really a power you need when you’re getting flooded with Hyper Mode’s bullets
Bridget Glenn cleared Hyper Mode on her second try.
Precursor Die
You know what you need more of in a push your luck game? More chance. If you find yourself agreeing with that statement, Precursor Die has you covered. At the start of each option phase, you roll a die. Some of Precursor’s actions are affected by the number you roll. Precursor’s actions are fairly weak, in that it costs 2 action points to move a bullet a single space, but one of those AP are refunded if you had managed to roll a 4, 5, or 6. Similarly, for 2 AP you can draw another pattern, or draw two and discard one if your die is on the higher side. For a single AP you can re-roll the die, and bringing the precursor part of the name into play, for one AP you reveal as many bullets from your bag as your die number, then return them to the bag, letting you know what’s on the horizon for you.
Precursor Die was much more difficult to use than Bridget Glenn, almost unfairly so. A lot of Precursor Die’s patters were 3 or 4 across, making it extra difficult to clear the edges of her sight. At least Precursor has the ability to move a bullet up, which is uncommon, but not rare, so it’s no consolation. Precursor Die is uninteresting and un-fun to play. I expected more with the die, like being able to better control bullets that match the number, or something. After 3 attempts that just made me feel frustrated, I doubt I’ll ever play as her again.
Shout★
I’m only tangentially aware of idol culture, as much as any anime fan can be without ever having engaged in that side of the fandom, mostly just from seeing Hatsune Miku’s face in ads, her cameos in various video games, and most recently, a Jaiden animations video detailing her obsession. Shout★’s quirk actually reminds me more of nonograms than anything else, but I digress. Each of her patterns have a ‘volume’ requirement, which just means the number of bullets in each column. This can be tricky to control, especially when your bullet bag is utterly full from Hyper Mode’s relentless onslaught. Thankfully, Shout★ has a couple of very useful abilities. One lets you have a +1 or -1 to each volume’s requirement for the next pattern, and the other lets you move every bullet in a single column, either left or right.
While tricky, and requiring careful planning, Shout★ proved her mettle and was able to clear Hyper Mode in a single try. I’m glad the battle ended when it did, though, as I don’t think Shout★ would have survived another round!
Zuri Kasango
The last of the heroines in Bullet: Palette is Zuri Kasango, the graffiti artist that looks like she was ripped straight out of Jet Set Radio Future.
I think Zuri’s whole quirk is really not ideal against an opponent like Hyper Mode. She doesn’t clear any bullets until the end of her Option phase. All of her patters are just bullet requirements. With a hand size of 1, Zuri needs to try and fufill the pattern of bullets in her sight. When she does, she discards her pattern and draws a new one. At the end of the option phase, depending on the number of patterns Zuri discarded, she gets to clear bullets from anywhere on her sight, up to a really impressive 14 bullets if you manage to fulfill 10 patterns.
When Zuri finally does get the opportunity to clear her bullets, every star she clears lets her throw another bullet into the centre, which can result in a full board clear. Zuri’s real downside is really that she just can’t clear bullets during the option phase, which means she does need to survive drawing her whole bag. If she survives, she’s devastating. But that’s a pretty big if.
I like Zuri’s glass cannon. I attempted Hyper Mode 4 time to no avail, but I’m quite keen to come back and try Zuri against other bosses!
Gamemaster Die
Unlike any boss before her, Gamemaster Die has no patterns, a single shield, but 18 shield slots. Each round in which her shield would break (which takes 5 bullets to do so), you roll the die and move the shield token along the dungeon path, and take whatever effect it lands on. Then, for the next round, the intensity is the sum of numbers on the places behind the shield token.
While the game can be over in as few as 3 rounds, provided you always roll a 6, the reality is that this is more of an endurance match than I gave it credit for. There’s no real way to rush the ending. As long as you clear 5 bullets, you’ll roll the die. Clearing more than that is just for fun. Gamemaster Die starts slowly, only adding 6 to 9 bullets in the first few rounds. But as you turn that final corner and get within striking distance of the finish line, suddenly you’re facing a barrage of 16+ bullets each round. Gamemaster Die never felt fair, all you needed to win in this scenario is just a bit of luck.
It took two attempts to clear Gamemaster Die. The first game saw Mariel kicked back to the dungeon spot 3 times before she was overwhelmed in 9 rounds, while the second game was over in the 4th round. Gamemaster Die is a fun boss to fight, if you don’t want the hassle of checking for boss patterns every round.
Shout ★ Live!
All of Shout ★ Live!’s (is that how you pularize that?) patters have the same effect. If you fail to achieve her condition, all your bullets for the next round have a +1. That can be brutal, but on the other hand, the patterns are really not that difficult to meet, at least for Mariel. Shout ★ Live! was a bit boring, with her two static quirks being all that there was to think about during the confrontation. There were no extra conditions to be aware of when a shield broke, which let Mariel dance around her conditions with relative ease.
One try is all it took to silence Shout ★ Live!
The Defacer of Tyranny
The Defacer of Tyranny is a true endurance battle. The goal is to outlast Zuri as her outlandish pattern requirements punish you by placing 5 extra bullets every time you fail to achieve them, and a shield breaks. Unlike most of the other bosses, all you need to do to defeat Tyranny is outlast her pattern deck, while completing some of the patterns and not taking a dozen bullets to the face.
On my first attempt, I failed 3 patterns in a row, which spelled disaster for my run. I was more cognizant of her tricks during the second attempt and still lost. But the third time, I… still lost. But only barely. The fourth time I stood up! Just kidding. I lost again. And again.
Mariel proved to be both helpful and absolutely useless when it came to specific patterns. Being able to leap her across the map was pivotal sometimes, but her inability to slide any bullet just a single space was crippling. I think it’s a testament to how much fun I was having losing, where I attempted this boss 8 times before I came out ahead.
The Loremaster
The Loremaster is a bit of a tricksy bag. On one hand, her patterns are relatively simple to achieve. On the other hand, she has regenerative powers, as in, if you don’t complete the pattern, she regenerates a shield. In addition, every time a shield breaks, she drops two more bullets into your sight, making a shield break just a little bit risky.
She was tricky, and once again, Mariel was both very helpful and frustratingly helpless with certain patterns, but overall, she was a great heroine to take on The Loremaster. It took three attempts to come away with a victory here.
Conclusion
Bullet: Palette features a diverse cast of quirks. From Bridgett’s ability to swap column headers, to Shout’s volume control, I thoroughly enjoyed diving into each one of the heroines, and their boss counterparts, with the exception of Precursor Die. I think Zuri was the bright spot for me in this expansion, both as a heroine and a boss. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Bullet: Palette if someone wanted to add just one of the 4 character expansions into the game. Each character felt unique and I’m more than happy to have them in my box!
Bullet Paw is one of the latest expansions to one of my favourite games of all time, Bullet❤️. While I’ve covered the original game here, and the standalone expansion, Bullet⭐, but I’ve never covered the 3 character expansions, Bullet🍊 and the freshly delivered Paw and Palette. So here I am to start to rectify this situation.
Bullet🍊, Paw, and Palette are all 4 character expansions that you can just mix in with any of the characters that you already have. And as before, every character is both a playable heroine, and a boss to overcome.
Today I’m going to look at the characters and bosses that come in Bullet: Paw and share my experiences as I played them! For playing them as heroines, I’m going to pit them against Hyper Mode from Bullet🍊, as I find she is the most vanilla boss to run up against. Her quirk is really just “Dump 20 bullets into your bag every round. Good luck!”. As for the bosses, I’ll try to overcome them as Mariel Martin from Bullet❤️, as she’s one of my favourite characters to play as!
Beethoven – Heroine
Initially, her patters look incredibly intimidating. Each one has 3 to 5 requirements of specific colours, but after some examination I noticed they’re actually quite friendly in specific ways. Like, the colours always make sense, if the pattern is 5 across, the red will always be in the first column, and the pink will be in the last. In addition, Beethoven’s patters clear 4 bullets instead of the usual 3, making her quite well suited to my specific scenario. Finally, while Beethoven’s ‘move a bullet left, right, or down one space’ costs 2 energy, she does have both ‘move a bullet once diagonally up or down’ and ‘swap two bullets on your board’ for one energy each. This swap does wonders for satisfying some of the cards to maximize the patterns’ effectiveness.
Beethoven overcame Hyper Mode on my second attempt in the 3rd round. I missed the pattern in the first round but accomplished it in rounds 2 and 3. Actually, I managed to bust 3 shields in the 3rd round for a big win.
Behemoth
I like that all of Behemoth’s patterns are references to all the other heroines from Heart and Star. With 20 patters, and very few requirements, Behemoth felt like a cakewalk compared to Beethoven. The quirk here is that Behemoth can remove patters from her discard to clear bullets either from the centre, or from her sight. If you’re sitting at the end of the round, a single bullet away from breaking that next shield, it’s an amazing tool to have in your pocket. Similarly, removing two patterns to clear any bullet from your sight, is wonderfully handy to fulfill the patters that require specific empty spaces, and you just have one annoying bullet in your way.
Behemoth cleared Hyper Mode on her first try, no problems.
Eluros
Emotions are the name of the game for Eluros. She starts every round happy, and when Edelmar is happy, every bullet is considered to be a 4. On one hand, 4’s are usually terrifying, but if EVERY bullet is a 4, then all of your bullets are going to clump up really nicely at the bottom of your sight. And leaning into that effect, Eluros’ patterns all require there to be a 2×2 clump of bullets to activate. Very handy. But when a row has 3 bullets in it, that means ANY bullet of that colour will hit you, which really highlights the push your luck nature of Eluros. You can discard a pattern at any time to change Edelmar’s emotions, which have a variety of effects. When she’s scared, getting hit by a 3 just tosses the bullet back into the centre. Angry Edelmar lets you clear a #2 bullet after using a pattern, and sad Edelmar lets you move #1 bullets to any space on the board.
Eluros fell to Hyper Mode 3 times before I chose to move on from her. I found it very difficult to effectively manage my emotions, and once the board got messy, it was much more difficult to trigger the patterns well. Not to mention, she’s constantly in a pattern deficit as you’re discarding patterns to swap emotions.
Whimsy
Alright, Whimsy is super weird. Moons, Milks, Cookies, a moon exists when a blue bullet is in the bottom row, while a cookie is a pink bullet with an even number, then the patterns are all ‘if a sun is next to a cookie, clear 3 bullets next to a cookie’, or, if milk and money have different numbers, clear 3 bullets in a diagonal line.
Wow, was that ever difficult to wrap my brain around. On the plus side, Whimsy’s ability to draw and cycle patterns was unparalleled, also, often the clear bullets’ ability was separate and distinct from the conditions on the card, so just because you used a cookie on the far left side of your board, doesn’t mean that the bullets you clear are connected to the cookie that fulfilled the condition.
Whimsy does seem powerful if you can grasp the fullness of her power, but I struggled with this heroine. Perhaps with more practise she’ll rise up my ranks.
Beethoven – Boss
Beethoven’s boss patterns are identical to her heroine, in that they are incredibly specific and challenging to overcome. Failing those patterns will deplete your AP, making the next round difficult. Also, Beethoven is dumping 15 bullets into your bag per round, almost as bad as Hyper Mode. On the plus side, you can pet the kitty, which gives you the opportunity to spend 3 AP to put 4 bullets from your current into the centre, taking the pressure off your board, but not contributing to breaking the next shield.
With only 5 health per shield, Beethoven gives you all the ammunition you need to take her down. Mariel made short work of this little kitty.
Chaos Incarnate
Following up on Whimsy’s Thingy’s, Chaos Incarnates patterns draw on the very specific bullet placements to create Milks, Cookies, Suns, Moons, and Dollars, and not having the specified Thingys in your sight causes extra bullets to be placed from into the centre. Furthermore, breaking a shield triggers all Thingys of a specific type to automatically hit you. Extra risky if you fail her pattern, as failure results in two bullets being placed in your sight with no opportunity to mitigate them.
Chaos Incarnate’s fills your bag with an increasing number of bullets every time her shield breaks, but it’s not an unmanageable number. There is a huge element of luck in satisfying her conditions, as sometimes it’s “An even number pink bullet with no star in the bottom row”, which can be really easy, if you happen to draw a pink 2. But when you pull 4 pink 1’s in a row, it’s mildly infuriating.
All that said, Mariel sorted out Chaos Incarnate on her first try. On to the next challenge!
Elurophobia
Elurophobia (fear of cats) features a ghostly silhouette from all four characters in Bullet: Paw, and all 5 of her patterns are nearly identical, with slightly different effects. First, she has a fear card that offers a restriction on a certain number every round. Afraid of Beethoven, for example, causes you to get hit every time you clear a 4, while Afraid of Whimsy makes it impossible to move 3’s for the round. Elurophobia’s patterns, on the other hand, are a boon. If you can make a 2×2 square on your board, then one of the numbers will clear an extra bullet, so long as that square of bullets persists on your board.
I think the real danger of Elurophobia is that every time one of her shields breaks, you’re forced to place an increasing number of bullets into your sight. In the final round, I broke her last two shields in one attempt, and just had to cross my fingers that I would survive the onslaught of 9 bullets getting placed in my sight. Thankfully, Elurophobia only took two tries to overcome.
Mems
And last, but not least, is the wordy Mems. Mems’ whole theme revolves around fears. Spiders, ghosts, and the like. All of her patters are utterly trivial to complete, but when they’re satisfied at the end of the round, something bad happens. And you can’t even be sure what bad thing is going to happen, because you flip over the next pattern and apply that effect instead of the one that’s face up throughout the round.
Mems slow rolls the game. With 6 shield per round, and only 7, 8, then 9 bullets coming in each round, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to shatter two shields in a single round. Thankfully, the two times I failed to avoid the pattern, the flip had something that didn’t affect me at all. I can see Mems being a challenge, but I got lucky and won on my first try.
Conclusion
Bullet: Paw adds 4 unique characters, each one special in their own way. I don’t think any of these new characters are an instant favourite, nor do I really dislike any of them (maybe Whimsy). I don’t think I’d be comfortable giving any of these characters to a new player, but that’s not why you buy an expansion to a game. I liked the unique spin each of these new characters brings to the game, but I wouldn’t say that Paw is a MUST-BUY expansion by any means. Really, if you’re a fan of the system and want to play with new toys, Bullet: Paw is a no-brainer. But if you are looking for something to breathe new life into this system, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. Paw gives players more of what they already have, which is exactly what I want out of an expansion. Double bonus points if you really like cats, I suppose!
Way back in 2003 I picked up my first manga. The Monthly Shonen Jumps just started getting stocked at the local pharmacy and while my mom was looking over the newest set of romance novels that had just come in, the bright colours and exciting cover lured me in. I was instantly hooked, and started saving up my pennies to buy it every month. This was the start of my fast descent into what would be a decades long anime and manga obsession. I was already a hopeless nerd, with my love of reading and voracious Super Nintendo habit, I was already an outcast in my tiny village, so, in for a penny in for a pound, may as well embrace the nerd-life.
Over the next few years, I managed to convert two others to my hobbies. Together we devoured the Shonen Jump every month, discovered fan translations online (that we downloaded via our pitiful dial-up internet), and spent every favour we could with the librarian of our high school to include some new manga on her yearly book orders.
Now, I’m not really here to tell you about my anime and manga roots, although it’s important for context later. Thanks to Shonen Jump’s inclusion of the Yu-Gi-Oh series, we eventually got into the de-fictionalized card game. That was a fairly special time in our lives, having a close group of friends all equally invested into a TCG as each other. We’d develop metas, craft specific strategies against certain decks, and our worlds were rocked every time someone got an awesome new card and revealed it for the very first time during a match. This special time in my life is exactly what Millennium Blades by D. Brad Talton Jr. and published by Level 99 Games seeks to replicate.
Cards, cards, glorious cards
Millennium Blades is a TCG simulator for 2–5 players. Each game takes place over 3 years, with each year containing a deck building phase and a tournament phase. During the deck building phase you’ll be dropping fat stacks of cash to buy random packs, buy and sell singles on the used market, all in an effort to create both a tournament winning deck and an impressive collection in your binder. In the Tournament phase, players take turns playing a single card from their hand, resolving the effects to earn points. At the end of the tournament, the player with the most points is the winner, and earns victory points. At the end of the third tournament phase, the player with the most victory points is the winner.
It sounds simple when I condense the game into a single paragraph like that, but like most TCGs, the basic rules of the game are fairly simple, but the devil is in all the cards effects and how they interact. First off, the stack of cards that makes up the pool of potential cards is absolutely massive. And, that’s not even all the cards that are in the base game! Prior to your first game, you’ll need to combine several sets of cards into a huge deck. Each set features a different mechanism or twist that can interact with other sets in various ways. On one hand, it’s a pain if you’re pulling apart that store deck every game. On the other hand, you can just leave it assembled for several plays, and refresh it when it’s getting stale.
The other pain point is ‘assembling’ the currency. Yes, Millennium Blades uses paper money, but it’s wads of bills taped together to give it more heft. It’s incredibly effective at evoking the feeling of throwing down entirely too much money on a coveted single, or getting a huge influx of cash from selling your rarest card. Paper money gets a bad rap in board games, so much so that I have a difficult time thinking of the games I’ve played in the last decade that use just plain paper money. The cash stacks in Millennium Blades don’t look as nice as, say, the Iron Clays from Roxley, but they’re simultaneously hefty and cheap feeling, so players have no reservations about flinging them across the table, creating a small mountain of spent currency. There’s a childlike fantasy whimsy the throughout the production, and it shows up even in the cash.
Millennium Blades, the game, is broken into two parts. The preparation phase and the tournament phase. Unfortunately, to play one, you kind of have to know how the other plays. The preparation phase is where all players build their collections and try to craft a winning deck. This phase is broken into 3 real-time chunks, where new cards and money are injected into the system. This phase lasts literally 20 minutes, and in those 20 minutes players are frantically heads down reading dozens and dozens of cards trying to figure out a combination. It’s genius that the cards that go into your collection need to share an attribute while being a different star value, and those cards are ineligible for tournament play. You’ll find yourself with the card that would be perfect in your deck, but it’s also exactly the missing value in your collection, so you choose to rework your deck with a different strategy, but then someone just sold a card into the market that could fit into your collection, so you pick it up and start rebuilding your tournament deck, only to find the combo you thought was awesome is 2 cards short, so you start looking for alternatives, and then the timer goes off.
Like many real time games, Millennium Blades gives players a frantic feeling. Playful stress in being under a time crunch that can and will force players to take actions they’ll regret. Selling a card for money only to realize its true value later. There are so many things to consider during the real time phase, and you’re constantly being barraged with new information, that it’s impossible to make a fully calculated choice on every card. Eventually you’ll just default to “Not a fire card? Then into the sell pile it goes!”
There’s real effort here to try to impart the feeling of collecting cards from a TCG. Every 6 minutes, you get new cards to mull over. If they don’t match your deck or your collection, then they effectively become money. You sell singles to the market to buy more cards. Your friends will unwittingly sell cards that would be perfect for you, so you snap it up. There is some anxiety here, when trying to decide which cards to sell and which of the many packs you should open up. There’s a rule in the book that explicitly forbids ‘take-backs’. If you make a mistake, you’re supposed to just own it and live with that regret. Anyone who’s made a bad trade, only to realize their folly later, is intimately familiar with that feeling.
The Tournament phase is comparatively simple, you selected 8 singles, 2 items, and a deck box, then players take turns playing a single card to their tournament row one after the other until they’ve filled up their card rows. Every card does something different, and can earn you points at different times. Some of the best cards only earn points at the end of the round, and goosing a single card for a boat-load of points is really just painting a target on that card’s back, as some cards can trigger clashes which results in a card being flipped face down, effectively voiding the card all together.
The Tournament phase feels short, comparatively. In the collection phase, you spend 20 real minutes just reading and preparing and reading, and sorting. Then in the tournament, you only have 8 cards to worry about, and a plan on how you want to play them. Sure, some unexpected moves from the opponents can make you pivot, but there’s only so much you can change when you’re in the thick of tournament play.
That isn’t to say that the Tournament phase isn’t important, or fun. The two halves of Millennium Blades make a whole, cohesive game. The Tournament phase gives purpose to the deck building phase, and vice versa. I love the fact that you keep your tournament deck in the subsequent rounds, and you really could just run a winning deck again, but now your opponents have seen your tricks, and will have baked in specific counters to your old deck, and you’ll find yourself ground into the dirt. Adapt or be left behind, as they say.
Millennium Blades is a fantastic game. It absolutely nails the “CCG-Simulator” game that it set out to emulate. Nostalgia is a tricky thing, and Millennium Blades hits me right where it hurts. From the dozens of on-point references to 90s anime and video games, to the actual betrayal I felt when I got targeted during a tournament. When I play Millennium Blades, for a brief evening, I’m not a 30-something year-old father of 2 kids and husband. I’m suddenly 14 again, back in my buddy’s basement, salivating over the sweet mythic he pulled from the pack he bought last Friday. Drinking soda, blasting tunes and playing game after game after game, refining our decks each match until the sun rose the next day. All my adult worries abate for an evening, and I’m just a kid playing a game again.
I’ve had so many fun moments playing Millennium Blades, and the real praise here is that it actually makes me feel something. A tall order for a board game to do, but it does. I wholeheartedly recommend Millennium Blades, especially if you have any experiences with TCG/CCGs and/or anime and video game knowledge from the 90s. To this day, I haven’t had an experience that nails the meta commentary or pulled at my nostalgia heart strings as well as this game does. Do not pass on Millennium Blades because it was published 8 year ago, this game about collectible card games and the gamers who play them, offers a timeless experience.
I’ll be honest, I’ve never been good at fighting games. I barely competent enough to beat M. Bison on easy mode while playing Street Fighter II Turbo on my Super Nintendo back in the day, but my button mashing sister still had a decent chance to beat me. I knew how to do a hadouken, but never grasped the combos of any other characters. Try as I might, executing Mortal Combat Fatalities has always eluded me.
As a teenager, my friends and I got heavily invested in some anime focused fighting games, like Naruto: Ultimate Ninja,Naruto: Clash of Ninja, or Dragon Ball Z: Budokai and Budokai 2. Fun fact, I’ve never watched or read the Dragon Ball series, but I have a pretty good grasp on the story, just from playing the myriad of video games. As an adult, my fighting game of choice has always been Super Smash Brothers. As for skill at these games, I exist in a weird state, where I’m better than my friends, but the few times I seek out other enthusiasts, I get utterly crushed.
All of this to say, I have enthusiasm for fighting games, but no expertise. It’s a genre of game that I’ve dabbled in, but never submerged myself in.
How to Play
Guilty Gear -Strive- is a two player, head-to-head fighting game featuring characters from the titular video game. Each character has their own persistent ability, and a set of 10 unique cards that are combined with 30 base cards, that makes each character deck unique.
The game board has a main track in the centre, and each player places their character card in one of the specially marked slots. During the game, players can choose to move forward and backward along the X axis, putting space between themselves and their opponent, or, closing the gap for hand-to-hand combat. That character card also shows what ability that character has, and if they move into Exceed mode, the card is flipped over showing a more powerful effect for the rest of the game.
Each basic card in the deck has two parts, an attack, and a boost. If the attack is used, the stats down the left side of the card dictate how the attack can be used (range, damage, etc). The boost prepares the card to be used on future attacks.
The game begins with the randomly determined first player drawing 5 cards, and the second player drawing 6. Then the game is ready to start. On a turn, a player takes one action, then ends their turn. If a player did not strike for any reason, they also get to draw a card. So let’s talk about what actions are available.
As a basic action, a player can choose to move any number of slots on the board. If they do, they need to generate force for every spot they wish to move. Force is generated by discarding cards from your hand, or from the gauge area. Each basic card is worth 1 force, while ultra attacks (denoted by the red banners) are worth 2 force. You also need to pay an extra force if you choose to move through your opponent. Many of the cards also have movement as part of their effect. Advance and retreat keywords will have to move toward or away from your opponent, pushing and pulling will move your opponent away from or toward you.
Striking is how you deal damage to your opponent, and ultimately, win the game. When you strike, you choose one of your cards, and place it face down. Your opponent must respond, by playing an attack of their hand, or, by choosing to ‘wild swing’, places the top card of their deck face down in response. Both players then reveal their attacks. The faster attack (higher speed) is resolved first (ties go to the attacker). Determine how much damage is being dealt (attacker’s power vs. defender’s armour), and adjust the health gauge accordingly. When any damage is dealt, you check to see if the damage done is higher than the opponent’s guard, and if it is, the opponent is stunned. A stunned character doesn’t get to counter-attack.
Any successful strike card gets placed into the gauge area, building up towards ultimate attacks. In addition to normal strikes, you can also choose to use an EX Attack, which has you play two cards of the same name face down. After the reveal, one of the cards is immediately discarded, and the remaining card gets a +1 to all its stats (except range).
Another basic action is Boosting, which allows you to play a card from your hand, to your Boost area. Boosts with lighting bolts are instant effects and are consumed immediately. Otherwise, the boost is considered ‘continuous’, and the effects of the card will buff your next attack. After the next strike where the boost is used, it’s discarded from your play area. It’s important to note that whether you hit or not, used boosts are discarded. Make your shots count!
Some boosts also give you the option to ‘cancel’, which lets you spend one card from your gauge area to take another action instead of ending your turn. You play multiple cancels in a single turn, if you have the gauge to pay for it.
All the actions I’ve talked about up to now will drain cards from your hand. The Change Cards action allows you to spend force to draw new cards. Discarding ultimate abilities, or cards from your gauge area are great ways to restock your hand. Alternatively, you can simply Prepare, which allows you to draw a card. In case you forgot, this would end your turn without striking, giving you a second card as well.
LET’S ROCK!
Review
Guilty Gear (the video game) has been slick as hell for the better part of two decades. With game after game of iconic characters, tight gameplay, and the slick visuals of the 2D/3D style, it’s the kind of game that grabbed onto a fanatical fan base and never let go.
If you’re not in the know, Guilty Gear -Strive- The Board Game is powered by Level99Games Exceed system, making this the 7th season of Exceed. I have no prior experience playing Exceed, but now that I’ve had a taste, I’m thirsting for more.
While the past seasons have adapted other fighting game staples, such as BlazBlu and the king of them all, Street Fighter, among other, less expected properties, like Shovel Knight. One thing to say for sure, if you’re a video game and anime fanatic, Level 99 Games is making products just for you.
If you’re like me and look at ‘7 seasons’ and feel a pit in your stomach, fearful of the investment that it would take to get ‘caught up’, there’s no need to fret. Cross-season play is fully compatible, and while the graphic design of each of the cards is tailor-made for the set it belongs to, they all conform to the same system. Curious if Shovel Knight could beat up Chun-Li? This is the way to find out! I don’t know if I would recommend mixing all the seasons together, however, as each season features its own twist, and the disjointed graphic design of the cards can be a bit jarring. But still, it’s nice to know that the option to do so exists.
I want to get my complaints out of the way first, which mainly have to do with the art on the cards. The portraits on the cards look like blurry screen-grabs from the video game, which don’t translate well to the printed media. The wide sweeping visual effects make sense and look slick when they’re paired with actual movement on a screen and timely sound effects, but when a wide green arc is static on a card, it just looks unimpressive. Some of the caracter models on the cards look like a blurry, muddled mess, and I feel like this is an aspect that could have really been improved on. To compare it to a completely different game, Disney’s Villainous feature cards with scenes right out of the films that those characters come from, but the art has been recreated in a dynamic style and framed appropriately for the medium of a playing card. The lacklustre character art is particularly frustrating, considering the source material is well-known for a stunning visual style.
That’s pretty much my only critique, because this game SLAPS! I’ve heard praise for the Exceed fighting system before, but I regret not getting into this game earlier. If you have a gaming partner who likes head-to-head combat games, pick up Exceed!
I wish I had a deeper knowledge of what came before Guilty Gear -Strive-, but from what I can tell this season’s twist is the cancelling, which is a mechanic I have a hard time imagining living without. The excitement of chaining actions together to do something wildly unexpected, at the expense of your gauge, is delicious. It’s exciting and visceral, harkening back to the adrenaline fuelled video game. I don’t know how Sol and Ky play on the screen, but on the table, Sol cancels into bone shattering powerful attacks, while Ky excels at dancing around his opponent. I can’t wait to explore how all the other characters interact with each other!
The gameplay of Guilty Gear -Strive- is fast and tactical. On your turn, take an action, then play passes over to the other player. Your hand will dwindle as your gauge grows, then, after a flurry of activity, players are depleted, and need to refresh their battle plans. Rarely does everything go according to plan, but when you manage to land a strong blow because your opponent was caught flat-footed with no armour cards, it feels utterly satisfying. A poorly planned Strike turns into an opportunity to punish your opponent, and stunning or taking the advantage does a lot to make you feel like you’re in control of duel of fates.
If you’re coming from the video game world, obviously some things had to be stripped out. There is no mechanic for smashing your opponents out of the ring, and air juggling is (thankfully) absent. Reducing the mechanics makes for a easier and faster game to play, one that is inviting for those who are used to only pushing buttons and letting the computer work out the timings. Level 99 Games’ Exceed system is a natural fit and has been adaped well to Guilty Gear -Strive-.
As I said above, if you have a gaming partner who enjoys head-to-head games, Guilty Gear -Strive- raises the bar for dueling games. Doubly so if you have any love or history with 2D fighting games, or the Guilty Gear franchise itself. The demo box is available for free (plus shipping) from Level 99 Games website if you want a taste of the action. I can’t wait to see what surprises each of the upcoming characters holds. Level 99 Games excels at making fun games (like Bullet❤️ or Millennium Blades), and with just this demo deck, they’ve converted me into a believer of the Exceed system. When Guilty Gear -Strive- hits my table, I put on the electric heavy rock soundtrack my hear immedately begins pumping. Win or lose, I’m always clammoring for a rematch!
