Game: Zatch Bell!

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douglasbushong — 2007-09-12T00:56:06+00:00

As a fan of the Zatch Bell CCG and Photoshop, I enjoy making my own cards. I made these using characters from other anime (FMA and Naruto). These are easily printed and slid into the spell book, and a lot of fun to play.

Thread: Re: Images turned down by the mods

douglasbushong — 2007-09-10T21:59:26+00:00

After posting that last message, I decided to do an example of what I was talking about. I posted the following 5 pictures representing each of the 5 card types in the game. They were quickly approved.

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It took about an hour and a half to get all of the cards scanned, cropped, aligned, grouped, brightness/contrast/saturation adjusted (raw scans are almost always too dark and dull for posting), and to decide on the caption. That may seem like a lot of time for only 5 geek gold, but the geek gold isn't the reason (OK, not the ONLY reason) to do it. There's the satisfaction of submitting a quality product.

If you take this approach with your submissions, I have no doubt that you will have a lot more success in the future. There are wonderful free photo editing programs out there, such as theGimp, paint.NET, Light Artist, Dogwaffle, AdvancePaint, and Artweaver.

Have fun, and good luck,

Doug

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douglasbushong — 2007-09-10T01:41:34+00:00

This is the fifth of 5 images describing the card types. The fifth card type, Majestic 12, is a new card type that was not introduced until the Gathering Storm set. MJ-12 cards have purple borders, and act as static effects in the game (similar to encha

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douglasbushong — 2007-09-10T01:40:36+00:00

This is the fourth of 5 images describing the card types. The fourth card type, EVENT, add non-combat effects to the game. Event cards have green borders, may have an "A" or "D", but generally do not have power levels. In addition, in the lower right c

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douglasbushong — 2007-09-10T01:39:44+00:00

This is the third of 5 images describing the card types. The third card type, SPELL, is used to attack and defend in the game. Spell cards have gold borders, an "A" and/or "D" representing attack and defense, and may have a power level. In addition, in

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douglasbushong — 2007-09-10T01:38:45+00:00

This is the second of 5 images describing the card types. The second card type, PARTNER, is the secondary character type of the game. Partner cards have blue borders, a corresponding mamodo card reference, and no power level. They usually have a "send

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douglasbushong — 2007-09-10T01:37:27+00:00

This is the first of 5 images describing the card types. The first card type, MAMODO, is the primary character type of the game. Mamodo cards have orange borders, a corresponding partner card reference, and a power level. In addition, in the lower righ

Thread: Re: Images turned down by the mods

Jormi_Boced — 2007-09-09T23:51:57+00:00

I would have declined do to exposure. They hurt my eyes to look at because they are so dark. A little trip to some sort of photo-editing software would work wonders.

Thread: Re: Images turned down by the mods

douglasbushong — 2007-09-09T23:31:30+00:00

I didn't mod these particular pics, but I often turn down pics of individual cards, especially when they are submitted without a particular reason in the caption.

I agree with the reasoning here. If there is no new information being provided, then a single card entry should almost never be approved.

Four of the six cards provided above were event cards in the game. They could have easily been combined into a single picture with the caption "Event cards have green borders, and allow certain non-combat interactions to take place. Here are a few examples of event cards." I can almost guarantee that such a submission would have been approved (in fact, I might make such a submission after I wrap up this post).

Consider the following submissions for Wildstorms and Zatch Bell CCGs:

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The caption: Two most Broken cards in the game. Only cards to ever be restricted in tournament.

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The caption: Plot twists enchance your characters and redirect the game. They cannot be played during combat. This is a very effective combo.

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The caption: It is common in this game to have multiple versions of the same character (this is especially true of the game's namesake: Zatch Bell). The paranthesis add to the name, and differentiate between the versions.

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The caption:Here's a little photoshoppery of the open and closed book. When you start the game, the first card in your spell book must be a Mamodo (one of the dueling creatures). In this one, it is Zatch Bell.

Notice how, in each one of these, they aren't just saying "here's a card." Rather, they are saying "here is some information about the game that you might not have otherwise known." Also, notice that some time and effort was made aligning the pictures, enhancing the color, and generally cleaning up the shot. If you take the time to clean up your shot, some people might be reasonable with a questionable submission. For example:

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The caption: Ripclaw character card. Signed by the artist at DragonCon 1997.

This is one of the only instances of a single card that I have posted. I wasn't sure if it would be approved, but I included it because I AM sure that artist-signed WildStorms cards are fairly rare. My guess is, though, that the people who may have otherwise rejected the card instead approved it because of the quality and caption.

Bottom line: for CCG picture submissions, take the time to do the following 3 things:

1. Bundle pictures of similar card groups.
2. Take the time to make sure they look good, using photoediting software (such as GIMP or Photoshop) if necessary.
3. ALWAYS provide a caption that provides information to the viewer.

You won't get as much geek gold (which I suspect is one of the reasons why 6 individual card pictures were submitted instead of a single picture), but you will increase the likelihood that your submissions will be accepted.

Thread: Re: Images turned down by the mods

MK-Ultra71 — 2007-08-12T23:51:10+00:00

I though the six a chose were the oddest I've seen. Definitely gives a perspective gamer an idea of the games art. In general when I was looking I saw too few pics of the cards to generate any idea as to the feel of the game.

Thread: Re: Images turned down by the mods

dr_canak — 2007-08-12T02:21:57+00:00

I don't know,

I "approved" them all. I thought they were fine, and I do like pics of individual cards. Obviously taking a pic of every M:TG card might be a bit obnoxious but I thought these were fine.

later,
jeff

Thread: Re: Images turned down by the mods

IcemanCU — 2007-08-12T02:06:11+00:00

I didn't mod these particular pics, but I often turn down pics of individual cards, especially when they are submitted without a particular reason in the caption.

My reasoning? Sure, I could take pics of every card of every game I own and submit them, but are they useful? Probably not.

That being said, I might have accepted these, as they're generally high quality pics, which is more than can be said for many card pics I've modded.

Thread: Images turned down by the mods

MK-Ultra71 — 2007-08-12T01:43:23+00:00

Granted they aren't the most award winning shots but the reasons for turning them down include:

1) Irrelevant to the subjet. Umm. Its a card game and this is one of the cards.

2) Too small. It fills a large portion of the viewable screen. WTF?

Its not like there are pages and pages of pics for this game either. a page and a half.

And I guess its no surprise that Lady Susan was declined for being offensive but come on. She's fully clothed.

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herman_the_german — 2007-08-01T21:43:59+00:00

Zatch Bell! - Kanchome card.

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herman_the_german — 2007-08-01T21:43:35+00:00

Zatch Bell! - Kind Kiyo card.

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herman_the_german — 2007-08-01T21:43:10+00:00

Zatch Bell! - Yellowtail card.

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herman_the_german — 2007-08-01T21:42:43+00:00

Zatch Bell! - Friendship curry card.

Thread: A decent little game, with an interesting mechanic.

douglasbushong — 2007-03-24T03:17:42+00:00

Zatch Bell is a game that is based on the hit television series of the same name. Every 1000 years, mamodos (creatures from another universe) come to Earth to do battle with each other and determine who will be king of the mamodos. Each mamodo has a spell book that gives the mamodo magical powers. The catch: they must find human partners to actually cast the spells. When a mamodo loses a battle, his/her book is destroyed and he/she is returned to the mamodo world.

In the game of Zatch Bell, you are in control of the spell book. You must summon mamodos and partners, and you must use spells and events to defeat your opponents.

For the purpose of this review, I used the 2 starter books of Zatch and Brago, although I have also purchased booster packs to improve my performance.

CARD LAYOUT

This game really deserves praise for its layout; it is quite possibly the only CCG that I have ever played that never once made me go back to the rulebook to find out "what does this number/keyword/symbol mean." The cards used a format similar to the CCG standard, i.e. Title at the top left, Cost at the top right, etc (for more on this, see http://www.misterorange.com/2005/02/ccg-card-layouts.html). There are no keywords or extra confusing numbers. A mamodo's power even has the word "POWER" on the card to prevent confusion. The only symbol on the cards is the book in the lower right corner used to denote the amount of damage taken (damage is taken by turning pages in the spell book). The layout of these cards is simple and elegant.

One other nice thing about the Zatch Bell card layout is the use of borders to denote card type. The borders for mamodo cards are orange, partners are blue, events are green, spells are golden, and MJ-12 cards (special cards introduced later in the game) are purple. I have read complaints about the use of Kanji to name the card type, and the confusion that it causes. I don't think this is an issue, though, as the borders coupled with the card numbering scheme (more on that later) make it very clear.

APPEARANCE

For the most part, the artwork was very good. Unlike many card games based on pre-existing themes (Spellfire comes to mind), Zatch Bell does not appear to reuse pre-existing artwork. I generally like Anime/Japanimation/Manga art, although I don't care for the way extreme emotions are expressed in that art. That's a nit-pick, though; on the whole, I was pleased with the artwork.

One special thing, which I will expand on below under collectibility, was that every booster pack came with one guaranteed foil card. This card might be a common, uncommon, or rare, but there would always be at least one in every booster. This added a very flashy appearance to the game, and really enhanced the aesthetics.

MECHANICS

This is something that I love about this game: you get to stack your deck before you play. Your deck must be exactly 32 cards, which make up the front and back of the 16 clear pages of your spell book. Your first card must be a mamodo, and your last card must be a spell. You may have no more than 4 of any single card (once again, CCG standard), but having varying cards of the same name bends this a little bit. The 4-card limit applies to exact duplicates of cards, not just cards of the same name.

e.g. There are 3 card numbers that have the title "Zaker": S-001, S-002, and S-020. If you have 4 of each of these, you could legally have 12 "Zaker" cards in your spell book.

You determine the order of your book, and you flip through the book to gain magic points and find the spells that you want to use. You must be careful, though, because you can never turn back (unless a card specifically allows you to) and you lose the game if you run out of pages to turn.

GAMEPLAY

Once you get used to the game mechanics, it flows very nicely. The makers of this game did an excellent job of eliminating "analysis paralysis" by limiting the number of options that you have. At the beginning of each turn, you can use the two cards that are on your opened page, or you can turn up to 3 pages to gain energy and change your options. This means that, in each turn, there are 8 cards that you could possibly play, but you can't play more than 2 of the 8 unless you have a special effect that allows you to turn pages mid-turn. This means that a lot of forethought must go into your strategy; most of the decisions are made when the deck is built, and not at the table.

In fact, this point deserves special emphasis: This is definitely a deck builder's game. Most of the moves that you make in the game will be planned from the beginning, not on the spot. You may have to think about how you are going to execute your plan, but there aren't many changes that you can make to the plan once the game has begun. If you are a player who enjoys spending time building decks that you only intend to play once or twice before moving on to something else, then this is definitely the game for you.

BALANCE

One thing that initially worried me about this game was the possibility that no randomization would mean no variation from game to game. As stated above, when testing this game, we used the original Zatch and Brago books. In those games, Brago's book (which has a Zatch Bell mamodo in it) consistently beat Zatch's book. This would likely be a turnoff to a starting player. It is possible that there is a "paper, rock, and scissors" effect with the mamodos, but unfortunately the two starter decks consist of only the rock and the scissors. The rock always wins. This, of course, would change with changes to the deck, but it would have been nice if the original starters had been more balanced.

That said, there actually was some significant variation from game to game during my testing. This may be due to the fact that we were making some sub-optimal decisions during our games. If both players make the optimal decisions with their decks, then the better deck would always win. To compensate for this, they splashed in a few coin flips to add variations into the mix. This was just the spice that was needed to keep every game from being a case of deja vu. Unlike many gamers, I do think this is a good thing (for more information on this, Richard Garfield's article here: http://www.doacentral.com/NewsContent.aspx?aid=914).

Even with the occasional coin flips, however, both decks still have to be equally powered if the players want to have any hope of competition at the table. This doesn't make the game unbalanced per se, but it does make it so that the balancing happens on the design table and not on the game table. Such balancing can be rough on the "just for fun" player, and can once again be a turn off.

Another problem with this game is the number of spells available to each mamodo. Spells are tied to the mamodos, and most of the spells in the game can only be played if the applicable mamodo is in play. This would not be much of a problem if each mamodo had 5 or 6 spells available, but they don't. In the base set, Zatch Bell has 9 spells, and Brago has 8. None of the other Mamodos have more than 3, and most have only 2. While there are some spells available to "All Mamodo," this limitation severely limits the ability of the player to come up with a competitive deck that does not have Zatch Bell or Brago. If your favorite characters were Yopopo and Robnos, your deck construction options would be severely limited. This problem may have been solved in later sets.

COLLECTIBILITY

This is where the Zatch Bell game really shines, and I hope that the standard set by Bandai here spreads into other CCG's.

Every Zatch Bell card has a number listed on the bottom that identifies the card's rarity, type, and number. For example, the three Zaker cards in the first set are:

R|S-002
U|S-020
C|S-001

These are Rare, Uncommon, and Common, respectively. There is also a fourth level of rarity, denoted by "SR" which means, "super rare." These are special foil cards in which one is included for every six packs. This system makes it extremely easy to organize and collect, and even easier to identify which cards are missing from your collection. When each new set is introduced, the numbers that are added to the previous set, i.e. if the last Mamodo of one set is M-034, then the next set begins with M-035.

As stated above, every pack comes with a foil card, and there is a corresponding foil for every common, uncommon, and rare in the game. This, coupled with the super rares and the spell books, make for 4 tiers of collectibility in this game.

*The first tier of collectors will want to get the cards that they need to make good decks, and little more. They might establish a full set.
*The second tier will definitely have a full set of basic cards, and will strive to get the super rares, too.
*The third tier will have full sets including the super rares, and will likely try to get every colored spell book in the game.
*The fourth tier (read: INSANE) will try to get a full set, every book, plus a full set of foils.

In the same game, the makers were able to accommodate everyone from the amateur collectors to the fanatics.

EASE OF ENTRY

Unfortunately, the game is no longer being published in the American market. You cannot find these in most department stores, although a few gaming shops may still have books and boosters available. That said, the game is fairly easy to get into if you have access to the web. I was able to buy 3 booster boxes, 4 starter decks, a whole plethora of spell books, and some special edition cards for under $50.

OVERALL

Zatch Bell is a nice, light game for the CCG player who wants to try something new. On the whole, I give it a 9 out of 10. I recommend treating it like a board game: buy 3 or 4 booster boxes (which will get you close to a full first set) plus several spell books from eBay. You can probably pull that off for under $30. Then, make several BALANCED decks with the cards that you have, and then put them into their own box. Pull the box out from time to time, battle it out, determine the king of the mamodos in your own little tournament, and then put them away again. It will keep it fresh and prevent burnout.

Thread: Re: Unique, to say the least...

Mortician — 2005-08-07T06:44:21+00:00

I played this with my 12 year old step son. I found this one kinda fun. Yes the gameplay is simple, but the deck building is challenging based on spell book flipping and card pairing (two cards per open page). As for the Kanji symbol for card types, I did not find this a problem as the cards are also color coded. I completely ignored the Kanji card symbols and built my spell book (deck) based on the cards bordor color.

The gameplay will get a little stale, but the draw to this game is really in the unique mechanic. The spell book building is very intriguing and in my opinion is half (if not 66%) of the game. I will buy a few boosters and call this game complete enough for my collection. The collectable aspect of CCGs just gets on my nerves.

I give it a generous

Thread: Unique, to say the least...

jtkauff — 2005-07-08T06:18:15+00:00

Zatch Bell! The Card Battle is one of the many CCGs to come out of Japan (where it has a dozen or so expansions already), but one of the few CCGs in existance to use a non-randomized deck. Yes, you read that correctly - in Zatch Bell! you set up the exact order that your deck will occur in, placing it in a custom "Spell Book" (think a small 16-page binder that can hold 2 cards, back to back, per page). The object is to deplete the other player's Spell Book using attacks, effectively "decking" them.

Based on the anime of the same name, Zatch Bell! lets players bring characters, known as "Mamodos", into play in order to do their bidding. Each player may have a maximum of three Mamodo cards in play, as well as three Partner cards, which assist Mamodos in various ways. The card types are rounded out with Spells and Events, both of which stay in the Spell Book, though the former require certain Mamodo cards in order to cast them.

Each player sets up their deck beforehand. Since the Spell Book has 16 pages that hold 2 cards each (front to back), each deck must be exactly 32 cards in size. The first card in each deck must be a Mamodo, which comes out before the game begins.

Gameplay is simple: players can turn up to 3 pages at the beginning of their turn, earning 2 MP (Magic Points) for each page turned. They then can play either (or both) of the face up cards in their Spell Book, providing that the pre-requisites are met. For the most part the spells will be attack or defense spells, which you can only use (obviously) while attacking or defending. Combat is quite simple; you declare a Mamodo that you are attacking with and the spell that they are using, and then the defender declares a defending Mamodo and spell. The players then calculate the total power (each Mamodo has a base power, and each spell tends to boost power), with the highest power winning. If the attacker wins, they deal damage to the defender equal to the amount of pages that the spell specifies to turn. Normally the defender does not do damage (though some cards permit this), and must wait for his turn to do damage back.

Players may block damage by having Mamodos take it for them; a wounded Mamodo is turned sideways, and if a wounded Mamodo is wounded again he is destroyed.

Following the attack the active player must turn one page (and gain 2 MP), and then his turn ends, with the other player now becoming the attacker.

I must say that the page-turning system is quite good. As far as CCGs go, this has the least amount of luck and randomness that I've seen in a long time. You truly have almost total control over what assets you have available to you when. However, I found the rest of the game quite lacking. Each turn you are limited to just two options, and these options usually require you to have specific Mamodos out. Combat is fairly bland and is over too quickly. Some may call this fast-paced, but to me, it was slightly dull.

The artwork, undoubtedly taken from the anime, is odd, to say the least. Many of the spell cards are quite attractive, but the others are just plain strange looking. Not having ever seen the anime, perhaps these will have more appeal to those who have, so I will leave it at that.

The card designs are average, though one huge drawback was the lack of any English card type listing. All card types are listed only in Japanese. While I understand that many anime fans can understand Japanese to a certain extent, the lack of much of anything past a single kanji left me cold. And this is coming from someone who lived in Japan for over a year. Adding kana would have been nice, but even better would have been a small unobtrusive English card type. Granted, with only four card types in the game it isn't too hard to remember, but still, this didn't help when I taught the game to my wife.

Overall, Zatch Bell! is an interesting experiment with a fixed deck CCG, but with its simple combat and slightly dull gameplay mechanics, it is hard to recommend. Fans of the anime will no doubt enjoy it, and those who like unique concepts will find their money well spent if they are able to find it a half price or less. The rest of us, however, are better off going elsewhere.