Ah, the card battler, the waster of money. Oh, they'll start you out with a competent enough deck when you first get into the game and started, but you slowly learn that the best players have the best cards, and it's all because they've plunked down the dollars to pay for them. SNK Playmore brings to the table their own card battler, this time featuring characters from their own SNK games as well as those from Capcom. So, do we have another Magic: The Gathering on our hands here?

THE STORY SO FAR
Card battling and stories don't seem to go well at all, and with SNK vs. Capcom Card Fighters DS (Card Fighters from here) that is no exception. You play as Taiki, a card battler, who finds himself as an alternate in the big tournament, tagging along with his sister. Of course, though you are the alternate and her the actual player, you seem to do all the card battling and not her. You end up at the Card Tower, a huge tower built for card battles, where a supercomputer named MAX has got it in its head to conquer the world using card battles. How do you ask? I don't know, beats me, but that is what they say. As Taiki, you'll climb up the tower, hoping to stop MAX once and for all, as you do battle with his brainwashed slaves.

There is no depth to the story and the narrative doesn't really play out at all either. You go to a new level of the tower, fight every enemy there (most of them look just like one you saw the last level or so, though will have different coloring), fight a boss, and then move on up again. You'll run across some other people like masked card battlers, but if you can't see who it is, well you need your eyes checked.

I'm not one to comment much on translation errors, frankly because you don't see them all that much, but here there are a few thanks to the bad translation effort. The last time I checked, you don't "bye" (or was it "by," either way) cards, but rather you "buy" them.

Another problem with the story mode is that there is a game ending glitch on the ninth level, where if you play a certain character twice, your game is gone and all your work with it.

SINGLE PLAYER: GAMEPLAY
The single player mode of the game is the story mode, which I just outlined for you in the story/narrative section. You go up the tower, battling other players and bosses, until you ultimately beat the game. You'll make money by winning games, which you can use to put towards new packs of cards, hopeful you'll get something you don't have yet in your deck and making it stronger because of them.

The gameplay of the card battles seems a bit daunting at first, but after just recently getting into the Magic: The Gathering online game, the combat is a lot more manageable and easier to grasp than in Magic. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean it's a better card battle game (cause it isn't – I suck, but I'd rather have the depth of chess than the comparably relative ease of checkers), but if you are looking for something to ease you into the card battling world, Card Fighters is a good choice.

Matches start with you rolling dice, and whoever gets the higher number picks if they want to attack first or go second. Once you start, you have Force (3 of the all-purpose white if you go first, 4 if you go second) that you'll use to put your cards in the ring for fighting duty. Each card has different Force costs, so in your first hand if you draw a card with a cost of one white Force, you'd be able to tap it into play in the ring, only costing you one white Force in the process. The less Force a card requires, typically the least power it has, but they still can be a force in number. Depending on their Force color preference, cards ringed in for your side will also output Force each attack round for you, so besides getting one white each time your time for attack comes again, that yellow bent Force card will output one yellow Force for you. White Force is the only color that can be anything, while all the other costs require the exact amount of one color that appears on the card.

If you find yourself without the proper amount of Force needed, one step you can do is discard ones from your deck to help you put one into play that you want and need. For instance, say you have a card that costs one white and one green Force to be put into play, but you don't have any green Force in stock. Well, if you have a green output character card, you can discard them, sacrificing them to give you one green Force in stock, and then using that now stockpiled Force to bring in the character card you couldn't before.

The cards come in the three flavors of character cards (the cards you use as troops for fighting), and action and counter cards, which are used defensively (giving your characters health points that they have lost) or upping their BP or dealing damage to enemy cards.

Once in play, each character card must wait until their next turn to start fighting. Each character card has its HP and BP listed, with the first number being how much damage that card can take before it is gone, and the BP detailing how much damage that card can do to others. The two numbers are vitally important, as most games are a quick battle of numbers, and knowing when to blitz your opponent with all your cards, and letting some hang back to counter and block whatever cards your opponent leaves untapped to attack you their next turn. Unlike Magic where cards maintain their strength from round to round, in Card Fighters once damage is done, it is permanently done from one round to the next until that card is healed or their HP reaches zero. For instance, if a 500HP/400BP takes on a 400HP/400BP card, the 500HP card will completely eliminate the 400HP card sine its BP equals that card's HP, but the 500HP won't walk away unscathed, as it will find itself with only 100HP left to its name, making it an easier target to takeout during the next round.

The idea is that you and your opponent both have 2000HP and by damaging them directly when they have no blockers or lose all their cards, you'll gradually win by ultimately taking them down to 0HP. Winners and losers are also determined by if you should run out of all of your cards – if so, you lose.

There are more complex moves like using the power of certain character cards to have different effects on the board, or fusing together two cards of the same Force type, which has the added benefit of not only possibly taking out a character card of the opponent they are going up against, but whatever combined BP doesn't go to eliminating that character card, will be passed on and hit the player too.

MULTIPLAYER: GAMEPLAY
The Wireless mode plays like the battles of the single player story mode, though you are going against your buddy. The matches also have the added weight of being able to bet CP (the monetary system in the game) on the outcome, or even betting cards or packs on who the winner will be. You can also trade cards with friends this way, should they have something you want that you don't have. Sadly though, no Nintendo Wi-Fi.

GRAPHICS
The battling board is pretty ugly, making cards appear way too small, but the art on the enlarged cards does an excellent job or portraying the SNK and Capcom characters, as the SNK cards really highlight their ample bosom female fighters, while the Capcom characters tend to learn more towards the comical, cartoony side of a Bass or Mega-man, but they've also got some Chun-Li loving going on too.

SOUND
Eh, the music repeats a little too often and will wear on your nerves more than you want, and the repeating sound effects of cards doing battle with each other aren't anything to really praise either. The sound work of the game isn't bad, it's just okay and not really worth much more explanation than that.

IN CONCLUSION
Look, the game has some big problems, such as the game ending bug you have to avoid and a horrible translation effort that expands from both the game to the manual. With that said, I still found myself having a fair time with the game, as I built my deck from past characters I've remembered playing as before, and making the ultimate deck so I could really storm my opponent with a blitzkrieg attack. For those wanting an introduction to the world of card battle games or fans of SNK, SNK vs. Capcom Card Fighters DS isn't a bad little game.

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