Ever since TCG/CMG's made the leap into online play, the line that defines what we cover has become rather blurred. At its lowest level, a collectible game is a game that involves cards or miniatures, which you trade and collect and then play with. One can assume that this is the bare minimum needed to make any particular game a TCG or CMG. Now that these games have become digital, actual physical cards or figures have been removed from the mix, but digital product still counts… right?
The big draw of Online TCGs is that they can become much more complicated and innovative, as human game state maintenance is replaced by the digital online interface. However, some games take so many liberties with their game system that they lose focus of what it means to be a TCG. Online Berserk is one of these games, and in some ways, it could be considered an online collectible board game, or even a tactical strategy game before a TCG. This online game hailing from Russia, tries to offer a truly different experience from what we have come to know and love, but in doing so, it overlooks what made us enjoy TCGs in the first place.
There are still some aspects of Berserk that mimic the TCGs of old. You do have to buy or win cards and boosters, and you can trade them with other players. You even have to build a deck with a minimum of 30 and maximum of 50 cards, but the similarities end there. There is no draw step, you don't have a hand, and there is no resource management to speak of. Instead, when you start a game a game of Berserk your deck is shuffled and the top fifteen cards are drawn and the rest of your deck is now removed from the game. No, there are no cards that interact with a “removed from game” zone. The rest of your deck literally does not come into play for the rest of the game.
You now have to build your army out of these fifteen cards. Before each game begins, players agree on the amount of coins they will build their army with. Each card in Berserk has a cost in either gold or silver coins. To put a card in your army you must pay its cost with the coins you have available. Gold cards (or “elite” units) can only be paid with gold coins, whereas silver cards can be paid with gold or silver coins. Having a starting hand filled with only one type of monster gives you a bonus to your gold coins, and having one filled with many types gives you a penalty. After you have spent all of your coins or you are done selecting your army the cards you didn't select are removed from the game as well.
At this point, all similarities to a TCG disappear and the game entirely becomes a turn based strategy board game. Players now place the units they have chosen for their army on the six by five Berserk game grid, and start doing battle. Each turn players may move their cards (as dictated by a card's movement rate) and attack with their cards (as dictated by the card's damage stat) each turn. The fight is to the death and the player whose units die first loses.
Combat is relatively simple in Berserk and consists of “closing” (turning sideways) and “opening” (turning right side up) your units. To attack or use an ability, a card must close. If the card you are attacking is open, players then roll dice. The higher number wins, and the cards do damage to each other according to a dice table. Each creature card has a strong, medium, and light damage rating and which rating is used is determined by the die roll. If the defending card is closed, only the attacker rolls dice and does damage based on how high his die roll was. Allied units who are next to creatures under attack can step in the line of fire and do battle in their stead, which creates a variety of interesting defensive and offensive strategies and makes troop formation rather important. When a creature takes damage equal to or greater than their life total, they die. It's pretty much that simple.
There are two other types of cards other than creatures in Online Berserk and those are Lands and Artifacts. Lands provide permanent bonuses but cannot do battle, nor can they be destroyed. Artifacts however are like lands in that they provide permanent bonuses but they can be attacked and broken. Some cards are also “symbiotic” meaning they attach specifically to one card and buff only that card. These cards come into play attached to their “host” and nothing short of destruction can remove them until the end of the game. Unfortunately, I have yet to see a Land or Artifact that is really worth including in your deck. Remember you lose when all of your CREATURES die, and more often than not you want that extra buffer zone between you and game loss, and another attacking unit, rather than a basic strength buff. After all, an unlucky die roll can hurt a lot in this game, and sometimes one creature makes all the difference.
The deck building aspect of Berserk is also rather fun even though it seems to matter less than it does in other TCGs. It has an almost branching feel i.e. when you include one card you almost immediately know what your choices are for your next inclusion, and this continues until you eventually loop back to card 1. Your main goal is to make an army that survives no matter what, so you will find yourself taking multiple random 15 card test draws just to see if the deck will run well. Although, it's usually correct to keep your deck size small, around thirty, rather than large, around fifty to increase your chances of including your best creatures in your army.
Every card has multiple functions in Berserk and most cards have obvious synergies with each other. Ranged units can attack anywhere on the field and flying units aren't even on the field to begin with. Mages cast powerful spells and cause numerous status effects. Since each player's starting hand changes each game, you will never come up against the same army twice, which keeps the game feeling fresh. All action is simple point and click and although the interface can get a bit cludgy at times, overall it is an enjoyable experience.
One thing that's very enjoyable about Berserk is how much it feels like a board game. It brings you back to the old days of Stratego and Risk, where moving and rolling dice were the order of the day. Since the game is entirely dice driven, newbies always have a chance to beat veterans with a couple lucky rolls and a good amount of strategy, which is also an aspect of the game that other online TCGs seem to be lacking. It feels almost like a basic miniatures game really, without the pretense of role-playing layered on top. For some gamers this will come with a smile and a delightfully retro feel.
Speaking of retro feels, Berserk is pretty standard in terms of theme. You are a wizard who controls otherworldly magics and summons hoards of creatures to do your bidding. There are hobgoblins, elvish archers, trolls, and warriors all trying to slit each other's throats and the fantasy is laid on so thick some designs seem to be ripped straight out of Tolkien.
The card design in Berserk is… ok at best. All relevant information is readily available at the exact middle of the card, but the icons that represent this information are somewhat non-intuitive. You'll end up memorizing it by rote simply by playing a lot, but newcomers will get annoyed at trying to figure out whether the white diamond or the black square means attack or life.
Not so easy to understand… is it?
Lastly, we come to one of the bad parts of the game… the rules support. The instructions and tutorial are all written in slightly broken English and you really won't be able to tell what you are supposed to do until you play the game once or twice… or ten times. In addition, the game is so new that no one is ever online. Normally it's just you waiting for someone else to come in and play. Luckily, the first person who connects generally will play with you, but something tells me Online Berserk will be a lot more fun once it gets bigger.
I'm… lonely
It's a new game, and its still forming so I don't want to be too harsh, but I think that Berserk finally did cross the line from TCG to Online Strategy and as such I think there are some aspects of Berserk that make for a bad Online Strategy game. For example, if I was able to pick my units from my collection without the “random starting fifteen” thing, I think this game would have been much more fun.
The game in the end feels more like chess than like any TCG I have ever played, and in that sense, it's both good and bad. The good involves it being simple yet complex in ways that open up unlimited venues of strategy. The bad involves the fact that it's still a trading card game and players don't necessarily start the game on equal footing. So, if this was chess, you may start with several pawns while your opponent has built a deck of queens. Even if you managed to open a queen or two in your booster packs, your random selection of units might stick you with a few knights, a bishop, and that odd random checker piece you keep in your chess set to replace the rook you lost. Overall, Berserk is a nice diversion and considering that its free I guess it's worth your time to signup and give it a go.
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Presentation Rating = 6.0
The graphics are pretty low res, and the text is hard to read at times. This helps to keep the system requirements low, which is a good thing, but I think quality suffers in the end. I think the most annoying thing is that card titles don't necessarily correspond with card effects so there's no real way to remember which cards are good other than rote memorization.
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Gameplay Rating = 6.5
The turn-by-turn movement based gameplay feels like an old Avalon Hill game, which is fun but it's not what I want from a TCG. It's a good concept, but it still needs a lot of fleshing out.
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Support Rating = 5.0
The rules could use a complete rewrite to make them more legible for English players and they could be fleshed out more to help the learning curve. The game also needs to pick up a few more players so that regular events and small tourneys can begin to occur.
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Innovation Rating = 7.0
It's different, but different isn't necessarily better. Because of its simplicity, Online Berserk would make a great tabletop board game, but as an online game, it falls a bit short of its potential. The beauty of online games though is that they can be updated and who knows how this game will evolve.
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