Shadowverse CCG Reviews

I currently have 325 hours put into this (not including mobile). With confidence I can say Shadowverse is absolutely worth playing. It's in a league of its own when compared to it's closest rival, Hearthstone. Most of the negative reviews are people who are just spiteful aor do not fully understand the game. Pros: Very F2P friendly, you don't have to spend anything to make a few competitive decks. You get TONS of gold and free packs, while declining oly a little bit in income later. There is no paywall or super grinding after initial rewards. There is no one dominate play style. Unlike Hearthstone which caters to aggro, Shadowverse's meta is always changing and adapting due to players countering. There are very rarely any buffs or nerfs to card. Much less RNG than Hearthstone. There are very few cards that draw or do things randomly, and the cards that do, are still very particular in what they do so you can still control the outcome Steam and Mobile versions can be linked so you can play on the go Ranking rewards reset each month, however your actual rank doesnt. Cons: UI could use a rework but its functional Some of the art is very suggestive which can be a problem if you're playing in public Some of the voice acting is terrible, but rest are fine The premium currency (Crystals) seem a bit expensive, but the game is already F2P friendly enough.

Play style of this game is much similar to hearth stone. It is good and bad things both this game is having. But there are some points why Shadowverse is better than HS. I played a little initial version of MTG by single playing game version almost 10 years ago and I am experienced Yugioh for years. I played HS in open beta season and blackrock season. But I didn't played HS long time and didn't pay my money for that because it isn't worthy for that. But Shadowverse isn't. Although it is phone based game and contents are smaller than HS, basic systems are showing more completeness. 1) Optimization on battle system/sequence by "evolution" Basic battle system and aim for this game is differed by this evol point. Play time is much short and battle details are more flexible in situations. It is not the perfect answer for boring and non-flexible HS style combat system but it can be estimated as one of the simplest answer for that. Only addition of this evol system is making more various fun situations. It is good pros of this game with 2) 2) more flexible and decent special talents of cards (relatively not-restricted special rules) If you compare special abilities of cards in SV, you could feel it's texted abilities are more strong or more flexible. Yeah I agree there are also many dull cards but standard gaps between skill powers against HS are much larger. It reminds me card skilles shown in MTG. So flexibility of situations are larger than HS. It could be one of the bad point in HS, not good point of SV. But at least I think flexibility of SV is good enough to play fun. As I said in 1) and 2), rule and vision of this game is watching is much better than HS. That's right thing and it release my complains from HS. 3) SV gives more chance to get card or packs. So if you are no-pay player, you don't have to get pain from inner conflict for money. I think it's just a personal matter but you know, just try this game whatever you are gonna leave or not. But also it has various cons too. 1) Because the origin of this game is phone game base, some points of UI is not comfortable. If I want to see large size card image, I must click many times to get it from 'cards' tap. If I am playing vs match or I am in deck maker tap, I cannot see them in full size. Actually it is not critical point but bad thing is bad thing. 2) You know, I like this game and like beutiful images too but... otaku or whatever... people say like it. I wish there would be various card images covering various spectrum of artistic styles. THERE ARE TOO MANY GIRLS BRO. I AM NOT A GAY But I want more MAN images. My favorite card is Ice blade warfiend in vamp. I understand. They made idol master or other games and they had success from them. But I wish Cygames understand that sexuality is not the only sales point of this game. 3) You can get high value cards easily but gaps between high value cards vs bronze are very big. They are also good bronze cards but very many cards are useless. They are not useless only in higher rank games but also useless in initial decks for newbies. It's not that big problem and other games have similar issues too. Also difficulty to get gold or legendary in SV is not that harsh. But the bad thing is bad thing. Because there are too many useless cards in low valued bronze cards, deck making choices are very restricted. Though the game is started recently and it's initial state of the game, core/good cards and trash cards are extremely classified. This phenomenon is shown less in gold and legendary. But for core sets or cards are restricted, some leader has little option for making various decks. I think It is one of the most important issue SV is facing now. Yeah just let's see what would come in next season. 4) Though the rules are much better than HS as I said above, those are not perfect and having balance issues too. winrate between 1st turn and 2nd turn is very different in various decks and too much OP decks are hard to play against. It is also related to problem 3). If someone is having fullset of 1 tier deck and the opponent is not having key card to counter or finish enemy, it is very clear to win in match. In my country, It is called as like that "they just play game alone watching wall". If you have OTK decks or Full-defense and seraph special win decks, there is very little interactions against opponent and decision making situations. 5) Lack of national voice support. In steam version, only ENG version of text and voice sounds are supported. I wish to hear it as Jap version or KOR version because I'm korean. Those voices I can hear them in twitch streams are charming but absence of those language and voice support is very big disadvantage of steam users. I really want them all can be used. At least, I wish cygames make make available it in creative forums because there are unofficial kor version patch. I can update it not officially but if it would be possible in steam itself, it would be more helpful to me and I also want to hear Jap voices too. I think it is not that hard and wish to be done. One more I want to emphasize is the balance issue. As many people are blaming this point, some of decks are very annoying and disgusting to play against. It is not different from "difficult". 1~2 tier decks usually and strongly counter very broad spectrum of "normal" decks. Also most of high tier decks are too much strong in draw plays. Even OTK elf is very fast and have strong draw ability. Wall deck Bishop, Tempo WITCH are also drastically strong at just drawing and keeping cards. The balance problem is making this game worse and worse.

This CCG has its own cancer deck(s) of course, but it's still good enough to recommend, since my experience is: a tiny bit of frustration, which quickly goes away, and a whole bunch of fun, that you won't forget any time soon. Most of the following is very subjective, so that's an other reason to try the game, but of course reading different opinions might help you decide if the game is for you, so here we go! (I'll try to stay objective, where I can. Tl;dr: check the "OVERVIEW" part.) THE LOOKS: The animations on the cards in a lot of cases look great, even if the mostly anime style drawings are not to your liking. And even if they're not to your liking, they are mostly very well drawn. A lot of the cards are drawn in this style, but definitely not all: some of them give a "classic" fantasy vibe, so they're just pleasant to look at. The overall look of the game however can be a little bit confusing/too much at first. There can be a lot of effects on the screen at the same time, which can make the game look less appealing. THE SOUNDS: I've seen some people complain about the voice acting. While it's not the greatest, it's definitely not that bad, and I don't even think it even has to be great. This is a free card game after all, and for its "price", it delivers. I've seen (and heard) a LOT of very bad voice acting in games and movies too, and if you're experienced, you can clearly see the effort they put in the voices. The music is not horrible either, but it IS made of few minutes long loops, so if you don't like that... well, you're gonna listen to your own music anyway after a while, so in this case you'll just start sooner. Not that they're bad loops though. On the other hand one thing I really like is the voice acting of the cards (that speak). In most cases they're consistent with the creatures' personalities, sometimes even if it changes when you evolve them (Lucifer). I also love that you can make emotes clip into each other, but again, some do not like that you can spam 3 emotes/turn. I agree however, that there could be more emotes, as sometimes I feel I can't react to the opponent's emotes appropriately. GAMEPLAY: You can decide on your own, if you like the voice acting and the look of the cards (or rather, their "anime style" drawing). But don't judge it only by its looks! The game itself has some pretty good and unique mechanics, so even if the look of the game is not your favorite, it is still possible to have fun thanks to the variety of these mechanics, and the comebacks that seem to happen quite often, especially in lower ranks. There are a bunch of unique features too, like Private Play Take Two (which means that you can play arena with a friend for free). But you are constantly reminded, that not everyone has the same idea of "fun" as you do. There ARE cancerous decks with cancerous "combos" - the most recent being the Daria Runecraft deck. At lower (than Master) ranks at least half of the games I've played were against aggro decks, though it IS possible to win against them with a good enough control deck. Of course if you'd like to depend only on the free packs you receive, there's a chance you won't have all the necessary cards, so making an aggro deck in most cases will be much easier. This, however won't be as fun imo, as playing a control/midrange or a less easy combo deck. OVERVIEW: I think this game you'll just have to see for yourself. There's one very important thing to keep in mind though: you're here to have FUN. Yes, there are less balanced cards, yes, there are copy-paste netdecks. But overall the game delivers. I really enjoy most of the matches, and when I meet said netdecks, I still have fun. How? I guess I just know that this is a game. If you only care about ranking, just copy a deck and off you go, but if you care about the adventure the possibilities have to offer, try different combinations of different cards! BUT! Before you make an okay deck, and start to rank up like crazy, remember: the game becomes MUCH harder, after you reach rank C/B (depending on your deck). In lower ranks it is easier to complete your daily quests. If you want to stay in lower ranks until you have a decent enough deck, then it's a great opportunity to try "worse" decks. Let the experiments begin! In this way you'll gain experience (literally and in-game) which will be very useful, if you'd like to know your opponents AND the possible combos you can pull off with your cards that you've never used before. All in all Shadowverse is a great experience, especially if you know how to treat it (as a game). Don't be afraid to give it a chance! You can't waste your time if you're at least a little bit interested in the game. I hope this helped you in some way!

Before writting this review, I didn't realise that I have spent my times over 300 hours on this game!! I think this can explain how much fun of this game (atleast it is what I feel to this game). If you love card games and looking for one of it, I definitely recommend this "Shadowverse". The game play is easy to understand and animate cards are very charming. Give it a try and decide it by yourself. Thanks

Shadowverse is basically Hearthstone without the RNG and a more anime-esque artstyle. It's a solid CCG title that offers a lot of unique gameplays such as the Evolve system, interactive campaign mode and unique traits/abilites for each character. Personally what impressed me the most about this game is the amount of work put into the artwork of each card as every card has standard artwork and "evolved" artwork and not to mention the animated versions of both. That being said, I can no longer put up with the gameplay design direction as of the recent years. They have pushed decks which straight up ignores any interactions by your opponents and now the game has devolved to two players playing solitaire against each other and seeing who can beat the turn timer faster. You can say that this is a newbie-friendly design that doesn't require players to be able to use complex strategies, nor have in-depth knowledge about the other players' deck, but this is not the kind of gameplay for me. TLDR great CCG for its artwork and economy, but terrible gameplay design direction. 4/10

I'm a Master rank player (highest rank ingame) with several hundred hours playtime on the mobileversion, but since the Rise of Bahamut patch I simply can't recommend Shadowverse anymore. I used to love this game, but with the Rise of Bahamut patch the competitive aspect of this game went down the gutter. [u]RNG/Rock-Paper-Scissors:[/u] The game has become an RNG fest: extreme machtup based deck winrates up to 61,9+%, also winrates for the same deck that differ around 12,2+% based on whether you go first or second (Source: https://shadowverse.gamepress.gg/meta-deck-analytics-january-23-29 - set filter to Master rank). More than that - an infestation of hyper-snowballing decks like daria and cancerous insta-win cards like Seraph (draw Odin in time or lose the game) or Dimension Shift(: 1 player with 4-turns in a row "interactive and fun"). [u][b]A meta consisting of Aggro, OTK-Combo/Control and hyper-snowballing (Daria).[/b][/u] [u]Small EDIT[/u]: Some new numbers arrived - we're seeing matchup based winrates up to 78,3% when going 2nd. (Source: http://shadowlog.com/trend/2017/4/4/55 Aggro-Daria vs Swordcraft(class average!)). As somebody who achieved the highest rank in Shadowverse I just can't recommand the game (post Rise of Bahamut) anymore. RNG might not be as obvious as in Hearthstone, but Rock-Paper-Scissor-matchmatcking determines a vast majority of games. I used to love Shadowverse, but with skill becoming less and less of a factor, I - as well as other top rank players - are personally losing the fun in this game. [u]Don't trust me? Read some opinions of different master rank players:[/u] https://www.reddit.com/r/Shadowverse/comments/5p7z0n/i_hit_masters_and_im_quitting_due_to_the_state_of/?st=iy6m2nz0&sh=1aab0070 https://www.reddit.com/r/Shadowverse/comments/5ot5yk/rant_current_state_of_the_game/?st=iy6m2t5o&sh=feda58fd https://www.reddit.com/r/Shadowverse/comments/5p7shl/made_it_to_masters_meta_thoughts_and_deck/?st=iy6m2tt7&sh=0f11b20b https://www.reddit.com/r/Shadowverse/comments/5lsfz2/a_new_master_rises_memes_decklists_commentary/?st=iy6m4olr&sh=391a28a5 [u]Summary:[/U] If you're not into competitive gaming feel free to try Shadowverse as your to-go casual cardgame, it has a lot of aspects that make it more interesting than Hearthstone. From a Master rank's persepective on competitive play I just can't recommend it anymore, though. Also a warning: Avoid the Reddit Shadowverse community, it's EXTREMELY toxic and due to the average low ranks you are likely to get REALLY bad advice. [u]If you still want to try out Shadowverse use these sides for help:[/u] https://shadowverse.gamepress.gg/tier-list https://gameband.me/?game_id=14 http://xn--shadowverse-e63t796khk9bk11e.com/%E3%83%87%E3%83%83%E3%82%AD/tier-ranking-deck/ (I recommand this one, the site is japanese, though) http://game-ai.jp/12306/

Quite enjoyable aesthetically pleasing game that I put a decent amount of free time into. Art 8/10 - Enjoy the anime type art style, but due to the large amount of artists art can be very stratified and different. I personally don't mind the revealing art whatsoever, but be warned. This game most likely isn't for children 13 and under. Gameplay 9/10 - Generally follows 3 main ideas similar to another card game Hearthstone. You want to control your card advantage, board presence, and tempo. By itself the game would be pretty mediocre (one of the reasons why I quit HS), but Shadowverse introduces the evolve mechanic. Evolving creatures generally boosts stats and lets them instantly attack into another creature. I personally love the huge tempo swings experienced from evolves and that keeps me invested into the game. Developers 9/10 - Some games often dump progression into a strict meta (Such as HS pushing the aggro meta). Despite the undesirable and often unfair games, the problem isn't the meta, its the developers' responsiveness to the desires of the community. I personally feel that the developers of Shadowverse (actual players of other card games) understand what is happening to the ladder and are making a step which will benefit the most. One thing we don't need is sudden, rash decisions in designing such a large game. Shadowverses' developers have not gone to balance too many cards yet so that aspect is uncertain. What is certain, however, is that Shadowverses' developers are one of the most F2P friendly card game developers. They often give out free packs making it super easy to F2P, something I will capitalize next. Free To Play-ability 10/10 - Starting the game gets you 30-40 packs for free, which can almost always provide you with enough vials to craft a competitive deck for ladder. Free packs from promotions and tons of quick rewards only speed up the growth of your collection. As of now, Shadowverse is the most f2p friendly card game (Out of HearthStone and Magic [Haven't tried Evoker yet]). Is there any pay to win BS? Shadowverse also offers the sale of crystals, which can be used to purchase more packs and pre-built decks. Despite the initial view that spending money leads to a greater advantage, skill and knowledge often play a greater factor in determining the outcome of games than solid card quality. Therefore I would say this game is almost completely free of pay-to-win because you can still lose running a deck with terrible card quality but if you have a decently competitive deck a lot of the games come down to skill. Edit: With the new expansions coming out and releasing cards on a new level of power, I would have to modify my original statement. Card quality does matter now. Is it worth it for a new player to spend money? Shadowverse is excellent for new players as they offer the magic of pre-built decks. Pre-built decks are great because they offer a solid selection of cards and guarantee necessary legendaries for a craft. They cost 500 crystals for the first purchase (increasing to 750 for ever subsequent purchase), which is literally only 5$ during a crystal sale. I feel like they carry their value as they bring in critical legendaries (which of course can be crafted if you don't have spare change) while introducing how crafts should be played. Currently, the most valuable pre-builts are the Bloodcraft prebuilt (control blood), Forestcraft prebuilt (almost every forestcraft deck uses cards from this pre-built), and Shadowcraft prebuilt. I would definitely rate Shadowverse a solid 9/10 overall due to its defining characteristics, solid gameplay, and f2p aspects. I hope you have the same enjoyment I did while playing this game, and don't be too competitive while playing. After all, its a card game.

A very generous, deep and enjoyable F2P card battler. Tons of cards and interesting mechanics make this worth checking out for fans of the genre but give it some time to learn the systems etc before you give up on it. You will either love or hate the art style it is without a doubt 'Waifu:The Gathering' but I am not really one to be upset about drawings of large breasted women in armor (really, where would we be without Boris Vallejo or Margaret Brundage). Also slightly has a tablet game feel, but not too noticeable.Don't let any of this discourage you this is maybe the best card battler out right now.

[h1]I LOVE THE DEVELOPERS![/h1] I wasn't even online and I got a bunch of packs for 'bearing with them' as they had to delay the Bahamut release. Not many card game companies are this generous. You get so many rewards for levelling the leaders, playing the campaign, and just playing the game. Even the daily quests all 'cooldown' faster after you earn them all. The daring complexity, the fantastic mechanics, and the overall amazing style of the game manages to make a [b]very[/b] balanced and enjoyable card game to play. And there's not a whole lot of RNG everywhere (fuck you Fiery Bat) that just plagues the game for no reason. When RNG is present, it's tastefully done and a small chunk of RNG is good for card games. Easily one of the best card games and I'm glad it's finally on Steam! Linking my account to my Steam account was super easy. My only suggestion to the developers is possibly making a more fulfilling arena experience by allowing us to get higher than 5 wins. I feel as though that's one thing Hearthstone did really well.

Yes, it's a lot lilke Hearthstone, a game I enjoy immensely. BUT ... the quality of life touches in Shadowverse just make this game so much nicer to play. - Deck codes allow you to import an entire deck list instead of building it card by card. - Replay mode lets you review your last 10 games. - Story mode is more challenging and interesting than the Hearthstone tutorial. - Daily rewards just for logging in. - THREE quests every day. - Rewards for reaching milestones in Ranked play. - Special events with even more achievements and unique rewards. - Prebuilt decks available for purchase, allowing you a 100 percent chance of getting certain cards. HOWEVER ... I've now played enough of the game to see that the balance is very heavily skewed toward high-end-combo play. Most games between competitive decks are just a race to see who can get the big legendary combo off first, or to see if you can play your combo before the other guy draws the counter. All other turns are rendered trivial, so in a lot of cases it just boils down to a coin toss. I'm not going to take back my positive review because I really do admire the foundation. And I recognize that other people do like this style of gameplay; it's just not for me. So while I'm going to uninstall it after saving this revised review, I still think it's worth a try for those who like CCGs. It's free, after all, and they are pretty generous with the cards, even though you'll never get enough free cards to be competitive.