The first and last free-to-play game I have put significant time on was Hearthstone. The collectible card game (CCG) was an addictive thrilling ride. It was both easy to learn and wonderfully complex, but I was eventually turned off by the gacha mechanics.

Lo-and-behold comes Shadowverse: Champion’s Battle. Shadowverse itself is a free-to-play CCG by Cygames, but “Champion’s Battle” is a standalone retail product for the Nintendo Switch. Turns out, when a free-to-play game converts into a standalone retail product, it’s pretty darn fun.

In clichéd Anime fashion, you play as a male or female transfer student traveling to your new school. The protagonist quickly makes friends and joins the local Shadowverse club. Unfortunately, the club is on its last legs and the student council president gives an ultimatum: “Win the Shadowverse National Championship or the club will be disbanded”. The story is a silly affair and doesn’t make much sense the more thought is put in about it.

Despite not being in the Shadowverse club, everyone at school still plays Shadowverse with Shadowverse kiosks readily available in school and in the dormitory. In fact, everyone plays Shadowverse, from little kids to the elderly and even Yakuza-like brutes. In this utopia, all disputes are resolved by playing the card game and the worst possible crime committed is someone stealing others’ phones (you guessed it, by first beating them in Shadowverse).

The meat and potatoes of the game is the Shadowverse matches. There are a total of 7 class decks to choose from. Players each start with three cards they can keep or mulligan and one Point Orb. On every subsequent turn, the Point Orb increases by 1 up to 10. Point Orbs determine which cards can be played and the cards that cost more Point Orbs are more powerful. Players win by reducing the opponents defense to 0. There is also an Evolve mechanic. On the 4th and 5th turn, whether the player went second or first respectively, can evolve their cards. Evolved cards are more powerful and can attack the same turn they are played, making for an exciting comeback mechanic.

Champion’s Battle starts off as a great beginner friendly CCG. The first few chapters give players a handicap by setting the opponent’s defense to 15 instead of 20, and uses a beginner level AI. If creating a deck of 40 cards seems daunting, the game features Deck Codes which can build decks immediately provided the cards are in the protagonist’s possession. Challenging and beating opponents earns their Deck Code, cards and rubies, the in-game currency.

After the beginner-friendly introductory chapters, the difficulty in the Shadowverse matches ramps up considerably. It starts becoming more difficult to win with a single deck. Players will need to learn the concept of class match-ups and how to craft counter-decks. There is also a ton of AI rubber-banding. I have lost count how many times I lost a winning position because the AI would top-deck the perfect counter. The post-game final boss is an especially frustrating bullshit challenge, involving a lot of luck, patience and grit (the boss always starts with a special card that inhibits a lot of abilities and you have to beat the boss twice to win).

Outside of regular Shadowverse matches, there are Puzzle Quests that challenge players with figuring out how to defeat the opponent in a single turn and the Underverse Arena where special modifiers are added on to matches and special currency is earned. There are also social-link events where the protagonist can partake with his/her friends which helps flesh out their characters as well as earn their signature cards.

The presentation of Champion’s Battle is horrendous. The graphics are dated, with aliasing everywhere and frequent texture pop-in. Despite looking like a game from the GameCube era, the game runs at a sub 30 FPS with inconsistent frame pacing. The music is annoying and repetitive, with a soundtrack that feels like it came from a royalty-free website. The card art is all over the place. There are some card designs drawn in a traditional fantasy style and then there are other designs drawn in Anime style. The Anime designs in particular are very fan-servicey particularly with the underage girl designs in the Forestcraft decks. As a consolation prize, there are a few Anime cutscenes which are fairly well animated.

From a pure CCG perspective, Shadowverse: Champion’s Battle is a homerun. There are no annoying free-to-play mechanics, it is fairly easy to unlock all the cards in the game and there are 7 distinct classes to play. I wouldn’t say this game is perfect for beginners as the difficulty ramps up considerably, but there is no other CCG packed with over 70 hours worth of content as a full standalone retail product. Hearthstone might be one of the most popular free-to-play CCG, but Shadowverse: Champion’s Battle has taken the single player CCG crown.