Last night I passed two whole areas with little to no health and no prospects. An early boss slashed me to almost nothing, so I plunged headlong into eternal darkness thinking – four lives? This won’t last long. By contrast, I start with 300 health, which is rarely enough. But something happened. This city amazes me. I have an unlikely cyberpunk cup race. Four students in the two regions. I’m still thinking about it.
City Wars: Tokyo Reign is a game that surprised me. It kept surprising me with a roguelite run as good as last night that I almost gave up but ended up running farther than I thought. I was surprised when I saw new wrinkles in its endless stitch-removing strategy, as I found new synergies in its deck. It surprised me at first because of my raw enthusiasm for this collectible card game, which is also a roguelite – hardly a genre mashup in short supply. I am amazed that I can make its initially daunting rules my own. Urban Warfare brings CCG to life again – anyway, that’s how it is for me. I really hope you play too.
So let’s get the roguelite stuff out of the way. It’s a cyberpunk city full of alleys and midnight horror. You choose a class, and you get randomly loaded cards from your growing collection, a gun that doubles as a stat modifier, and a talisman that gives you some sort of benefit.
Okay, okay? You have to make your way through the town clearing area and their bosses, choosing a path that takes you through events – maybe a hack of chance, maybe a game of dice in a casino – various shops, healing boxes and battles. Combat is the big deal here, and we’re going to spend most of our time on it because it’s great, but it’s important to say that other things are great too. I play City Wars because of the great card battles, but I also love the chunky 3D art and its scary colors, and the neon lights on the map screen and its fun choices. I love that dice game even though I’m not good at it. I like to load randomly at the beginning.
But fight. Wow. Urban warfare is fascinating. If I had to quickly describe the fight to you, I’d say it’s like Hearthstone meets Lumines, but it’s not going to come close. In fact, urban warfare is like urban warfare.
The battle has two phases. First, you and your opponent place cards on the track to accumulate potential damage. The track has two rows – one for them and one for you – and there will be a gap or two where you can’t put cards. Once the card is set, the second stage occurs. The timeline sweeps along the track and triggers damage for each card. At the end of the round, if one is standing, they win, and if both are standing, you do it again.
But that’s just the surface. Take the placement card. There are three things to consider first when using a City Wars card. Their damage rating, accuracy and duration.
Damage rating is how much damage they will do to your enemies when they are triggered. 15 damage deals 15 damage. simple! But accuracy is just as important, as the accuracy numbers control how they play against the opponent’s cards placed opposite them. So if you have a card with 15 damage but 30 accuracy and your opponent puts a card with 10 damage but 31 accuracy on the opposite side, your card is smashed and you deal no damage , but you take 10 damage from your opponent. Accuracy is important!
But duration also matters. Because each card will actually take up multiple slots on the track, depending on its duration. So a card that deals 15 damage but has 3 durations requires 3 slots on the track to be installed, and each slot deals 5 damage – spread damage overall. This means that a 10 damage, 31 accuracy card that can be placed against it only has two durations – 5 damage is left in the last slot, so even though the other two slots have been smashed, you will still be Deal 5 damage.
It’s complicated, and I could describe it badly. Also, it takes a while to click. It took me a while to make any progress in City Wars, and for a while, the game kicked me mercilessly, even for the first fight. But when it clicked, I realized I had this nifty system in my hand, and it wasn’t just about hurting enemies, it was making sure they didn’t do me any damage. I started thinking about placing cards to block attacks and deal damage. This is how I straddle two areas with four health. In about eight fights, I managed to make sure I didn’t take any damage, by smashing all of my enemy’s cards and competing on accuracy and damage second.
“I love that I’ve talked about this card game 1,000 words and I can still type: that’s just the surface of it.”
Incredibly, this is still only the surface of it. Throw in different card types, expendable cards, cards that pull enemy cards off track, cards that trigger special stat boosts when placed in certain locations, cards with elemental attacks, healing cards.
Are you ready? This is still only the surface of it. Throw in a mini-game that triggers when you deal damage and allows you to build a temporary shield for any damage that hasn’t been blocked yet. Throw in the different enemy types and bosses that work in such crazy clever ways that I don’t want to spoil it for you.
Around the city itself, the economy fluctuates up and down based on your actions, officials can be bribed to boost your luck or suppress enemy health, and you can buy ongoing perks for traveling between games with constant cash. For a Compact gameplay – repetitive animations, limited enemy types – this game feels as expansive as a deck of cards.
The design is so elegant and its presentation is so quiet and confident. I love City Wars’ rugged look and endless moments of understanding, allowing me to find a new way to win halfway through the fight. I love that I’ve talked about this card game 1000 words and I can still type: that’s just the surface of it. What a great game. Don’t let it pass you.
