My desire to find a good trading card game (TCG) for a modern gaming system continues to burn. My past experience with Magic: The Gathering keeps me hunting for a TCG video game that will provide the same excitement I had years ago. While I’ve tried a few games recently, such as the Marvel Trading Card Games for DS & PSP and SNK Card Fighters for DS, I’m still searching for that TCG with “It.” Does Neverland Card Battles have “It” and just what is “It” that makes a good TCG video game?

Well that is really hard to explain unless you’ve played a TCG before. The excitement of winning a close battle, the allure of finding rare cards and the strategy involved in deck editing are all parts of “It.” While you’ll find plenty of TCG games that offer all of these parts the interface is a critical piece that often seems to fall apart on a TCG video game. It’s hard to replicate playing a game designed for a large table on a television screen and even harder on a portable system. While you get all of the features of the deck editing, close battles and rare card hunting, you usually get a cumbersome interface that makes you want to stop playing instead.

Neverland Card Battles is a different kind of TCG, especially when compared to Magic: The Gathering. The gameplay is a unique combination of a turn-based Strategy (TBS) game and TCG. You have a deck of cards that you can edit and you will collect new cards after each battle. More than 200 cards can be collected to use in your decks. You can have up to three different decks in your inventory that you can choose from before you start a battle. The TBS portion of the game is based up the gameplay map. The map is composed of blocks that you seize control of when you walk over them. Each block that you control lets you summon the cards in your deck.

For example, if you control four blocks on the map you can then play a card that has a casting cost of 4. Then on your next turn you can move your character to seize more blocks. The ultimate goal is to win your battle but you will need to keep moving around the map gaining control of more blocks so you can play more cards. But the game really surprised me by letting not only your character move around the map but all of the characters you summon move around the map seizing blocks for you. Each character has a certain limit in how far they can move on the map so you’ll need to prioritize where you’re moving your characters.

Another part of the TBS elements will be moving your summoned characters from your deck next to an enemy to attack. Yes, you’ve read that correctly you’re moving your “cards” around the map in order to attack. You will need to be within the attack range of your character in order to go into a battle mode with an enemy. If you lose the battle, not only will your card go back into your deck but you stand the chance of losing precious blocks on the map. You will lose a block once an enemy walks over it, if you have no creatures you control on those blocks.  So it’s a game not only about the cards but about real estate as well. The more real estate you control the more cards you can play. So the premise might be a card game but the actual gameplay is very similar to a TBS game with elements such as moving around a map and attacking within a certain range.

Now you’ve probably noticed that I’ve mentioned that you’re moving your character around the gameplay map. The deck holders in the game are called Dominators and each Dominator has a certain number of hit points and attack points just like the character cards in your deck. So once again the TBS elements are present since you can think of the Dominators as your field general or captain that needs to remain alive during combat. You can have the Dominator engage in combat if you want but you will run the risk of taking damage that can be very costly later. Once your Dominator’s hit points are reduced to zero the battle is over.

The rest of the game has your typical Japanese anime overtones we’ve seen in plenty of PSP games. You get some fantastic looking 2D artwork of the Dominators and the cards. But the actual gameplay map and battles look like an early 16-Bit title, with very bland looking sprites and very limited battle animations. This definitely isn’t a game to show off the PSP graphics to your friends. The story centers on a god called Hellgaia who wants to destroy the Neverland world simply because of the conflict between man.  It’s up to your character, called Galahad, to become a card master in hopes of banishing Hellgaia forever.  

But the biggest problem with the game is the constant caching from the UMD disc. When you’re on the battle map you will hear the disc spinning each time your cursor goes over a character. So you might want to simply move around the map to look at one specific character, but each time you go over any character the disc will spin briefly and the game will freeze for a second. This will put a big strain on the PSP’s battery life, which has never been the best part of the PSP anyway. So be prepared for constant battery charging or hope you can find an extended battery for your PSP.

Neverland Card Battles is a unique combination of a turned-based strategy game and trading card game. Unlike other games with similar goals, I’m talking about you Culdcept Saga, Neverland Card Battles doesn’t feel like a game based on pure luck. If you plot a good strategy and follow it through you should still have a great chance of winning even if you haven’t done much tweaking to your deck. If you’re a TCG junkie Neverland Card Battles will be a great addition to your collection.

Gameplay: 8.5
A great combination of turn-based strategy and trading-card game never feels too complicated or overblown to actually play.

Graphics: 6.5
The card artwork looks great on the PSP screen but the battle graphics will definitely having you wondering just which system you’re playing.

Sound: 7.0
Plenty of voice acting in Neverland Card Battles which fits in with the anime style. Just like an anime, be prepared for some decent-to-not-so-decent dialogue. The music and sound effects work well but the cancel sound effect will get old after just a few minutes.

Concept: 7.5
There seems to be a new cycle of anime-influenced trading card games coming out that are similar to each other. The turned-based elements in Neverland Card Battles help in keeping the game from falling down a bottomless pit other TCG games seem to fall into.

Difficulty: Easy/Medium
If you’ve never played a TCG before you might have some initial challenges in getting used to the concept and gameplay. For veterans of the genre you’ll be able to fit right in with no problems.

Multiplayer: 7.0
Sadly no true wireless internet gameplay is offered with Neverland Card Battles. Only the local, player versus player, Ad Hoc mode is available for multiplayer.

Overall: 7.3
The gameplay is the greatest strength of Neverland Card Battles due to turn-based and Trading Card Game elements. The gameplay maps really helps in keeping the interface from getting too cumbersome. Visually the game won’t win any awards simply because of the battle graphics. Yet I found Neverland Card Battles to be an engaging game that sucked me in with its intriguing gameplay.