Funny things happen when you apply for a review item. In short, this was supposed to be a playtest review, but due to some
warped railroad tracks in my train of thought, I can only make this a capsule review. Why, you ask? Quite simple.
There were two Sailor Moon CCG items on the review queue, a starterdeck and an expansion deck. In my unending wisdom,
I chose to apply for both, stating that I believed I could deliver an unbiased review based on the fact that I had no
knowledge of Sailor Moon whatsoever and was pretty neutral towards CCGs. Unfortunately things went a bit different than I
thought and I ended up getting only one of the items, the expansion. *sigh*
That'll teach me I suppose.
You were able to read the review for the starterdeck some weeks ago and now I present my ramblings on the Sailor Moon
CCG: Tuxedo Mask 60 Card Characterdeck.
I'll give you an impression of the production values first, before moving on to the rules.
Production values
For your money you get 60 sturdy full-color cards with art that I assume comes from the comic of
Sailor Moon, a slightly larger than normal rulebook with clear, legible instructions and a small selection of glass damage counters.
The cards are of good quality and take more abuse than most cards I have seen. The art seems to come directly from the
comic. A danger with rehashed art is of course that lines may blur, coloring may go off and things clearly look as if
they were ripped from somewhere else. Not so in the Sailor Moon CCG. The illustrations are crisp and clear with a
large amount of tongue-in-cheek humor for fans and ignorants (i.e. me) alike.
The cards contain instructions for both the basic game (clearly and boldly printed at the bottom of the card) and the
standard and advanced game, following the classic CCG route: (from the top) Art, Rules, Flavor Text, Copyright Notice.
The only thing different is the fact that the basic rules come below the Flavor Text.
The rulebook is also in full-color and contains an overview of the Sailor Moon setting (nice for people who have no idea what
they're looking at, like me), a handy table of contents, an introduction to the game (explaining the cardtypes and
what you need to play), the basic rules for beginners, the standard and advanced rules, a glossary of common game terms,
more detail on discarding cards and determining damage, hints and tips on designing your own decks and a complete list of
all Sailor Moon CCG cards (something I scorned WotC for not doing in the good ol' days). For a more indepth look at the
content of the rulebook, I refer you to the section on the clarity of the rules below.
The glass damage counters are used in the game to track damage on cards (surprise!). They are quite small, since they have to
fit inside the box with all the other contents, but then again, most CCGs don't include them so I shouldn't complain.
On the other hand, players could easily find their own damage counters without much difficulty, so they're mostly luxury.
One very small peeve: the bag they come in has to be ripped apart with teeth or scissors before the beads come out. A
ziplock bag would have easier and could be used to store them again after the game.
A personal bonus for me is that the Fantays LARP I play in uses these types of beads as currency, so I am suddenly a very
rich man. *grin*
All in all the production values of the Sailor Moon CCG Character Decks seem to be excellent. The cards are vibrant and
sturdy and the rulebook is legible and well-designed.
Rules
As mentioned before the rulebook contains two sets of rules: basic and standard & advanced. This makes sure the youngest
player can enjoy a game of Sailor Moon CCG while a veteran of the CCG wars can also get his kicks from the naval uniform
clad schoolgirls of Sailor Moon.
Basic Rules
The basic rules truly live up to their designation. Most of the instructions on the cards are ignored and this makes for
an entirely different game than the standard or advanced game.
The goal of the game is to defeat all monsters your opponent has in play (4 when playing with a 30-card deck and 6 when
playing with a 60-card deck). In this basic game, both players flip over a card at the same time
from their deck and depending on what type (that's right, it does not matter what the exact card is) they drew, they perform
an action, like for example attacking one of the opponent's monsters, placing an ally on the table or powering up their
Scout/Knight (basically your hero on the table - Tuxedo Mask in this character deck, but there are others).
Special rules apply when both players draw the same type of card. The first to defeat all his opponent's monsters with his
Scout/Knight wins. The rules for this basic game are repeated at the bottom of each card, so 5 year olds can play this
game without much difficulty.
The rules are written with the younger audience in mind, but never become consdescending or childish. Older players
will probably like this game as well.
Standard / Advanced Rules
The goal of the standard and advanced game is to amass a given number of Victory Points (4, 5 or 6 depending on how long you
wish the game to last) by defeating villains and monsters. You are out of the game if your last Scout/Knight card is defeated
and moved off the table. Advanced rules or clearly marked in red so there could be no confusion as to what rules do or do not
apply.
The game follows a more traditional course of play in standard or advanced mode, with players taking turns to perform their
actions, trying to strenghten their Scout/Knight cards and attacking the opponent's monsters. The rules are clearly described
and should not take a lot of time to comprehend, even when playing an advanced game. A slightly odd addition to the
game is the sometimes required Jan-Ken-Pon to determine who goes first and resolve the effects of certain cards and/or
attacks. Jan-Ken-Pon is described as similar to Paper-Rock-Scissors, but is actually identical. Personally I feel silly
doing it when playing Mind's Eye Theatre, and I doubt I would feel otherwise when playing Sailor Moon, but hey.
Overall impression
Without knowing anything about Sailor Moon, I'd say this could be a fun little game. Maybe not the next craze in kiddyland,
but definitely enjoyable to both the fans and those that just want a bit of fun out of their cardgame.
Go to forum!
(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)