WHAT MAKES A GOOD TRADING CARD GAME?
From Digimon to Final Fantasy, we look at what makes a theme fit
As the Pokémon game celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, it’s clear that the Pokémon Trading Card Game is one of the franchise’s most enduring components. With the hindsight of the decades that have passed since the launch of Pokémon’s immensely popular card game, it may seem obvious now that a series focused on collecting, trading and battling cute creatures would function well as a card game considering how integral these traits are to the collectible card game experience. Even in the early years of the TCG’s tenure, Pokémon and the collectible card game format have always seemed like a match made in heaven.
Since the launch of the Pokémon TCG in 1996, there has been a broad range of attempts to replicate the same lasting successes in the form of a seemingly endless march of licensed card games based on big franchises hitting the shelves. Star Wars, Transformers, Final Fantasy, James Bond, Dragon Ball Z and many more card games with big names behind them that have come and, occasionally, gone.
With so many licensed card games attempting to make the case for themselves and so many of them failing to endure despite talented development teams and ample community support, it’s evident that some of these attempts to crossover into the realm of cardboard might not be a good idea to begin with. Whilst it could be argued that anything could be made to work with the right team, mechanics and ongoing support, the market speaks for itself: certain themes just make more a lot more sense for card game adaptation, meshing elegantly with the styles of gameplay and product release strategies that we’ve come to expect from our favourite CCGs.
We ask then, what makes a collectable card game (or trading card game) work well? How does theme, art, and source material mesh with the mechanics of a card game to pull something off that feels authentic to its heritage?
CREATING A MONSTER
The recent release of the new Digimon Card Game is a great example of a promising beginning for a new collectible card game based on a popular franchise. It’s already seen a fair amount of success in its home country of Japan and looks set to make waves with the recently launched English language version. Even with the ongoing pandemic preventing local game store launches and in-person play, the Digimon Card Game has been welcomed with open arms by a ready-made fanbase consisting of Digimon fans craving the next instalment of the Digimon experience, as well as CCG players drifting from other games in search of exciting mechanics or a fresh coat of paint.
A small part of this success seems to stem from the fact that – much like its monster-collecting counterpart Pokémon – Digimon already seems like a natural fit for a game where you collect, battle and trade. It has a wide range of aesthetically interesting characters to pull from in the process of card
creation. With access to literally thousands of characters both Digimon and human alike across the franchise’s long history, there’s unlikely to be a struggle in determining characters and settings to fit the function of certain card types or play styles. In addition, if you’re a fan of Digimon who is getting into the card game, it’s a case of ‘when’ and not ‘if’ your favourite digital monster or character will make their cardboard debut. This is something that puts the future of the game in a good position from the outset, as there’s always more that can be added that fans of the franchise might be expecting, and it’s an example of how a theme’s rich history can be beneficial to the card game format. It may seem obvious, but card games with a theme that already have a vast pool of inspirational sources to draw from essentially have a head start in the design process.
ARTISTIC INTEGRITY
The art direction of a theme can also provide a good springboard for licensed CCG success. It’s not the most important element, but imbuing rare cards with beautiful artwork is essential to establishing the economy of perceived value that can help card games foster a secondary market, which in turn increases the game’s shelf life. It’s no surprise that many of the more successful card games of our time also have a cornucopia of awe-inspiring artwork associated with them, something that can be aided by having an established art style and setting provided by a theme. Many card games have jumped onto the trend of having ‘full art’ variants: elaborate paintings that stretch behind the usual mechanical information and flavour text. This is one of the many areas where a theme can really enhance the game’s components, as the portraits on individual cards become portals into other worlds.
The Final Fantasy Trading Card Game is an example of a licensed card game that doesn’t create a lot of new art, instead making full use of existing assets. It works because Final Fantasy already contains some of the most bold and beautiful concept art and character designs in the realm of video games, which is one of a few ways its theme makes it perfect for a trading card game. In another way, the Final Fantasy Trading Card Game truly excels in successfully transferring mechanics and ideas from the popular series of role playing games into the structure of the card game itself. Plenty of these details re-emerge in the design of the game, which plays like a fast-paced and frenetic brawl between
the franchise’s legendary
characters. Crystals, the ‘job system’, elemental magic, forming parties of heroes, moogles, chocobos and almost every relevant character the series has ever produced all manage to make appearances in Final Fantasy Trading Card Game, to the point where it feels more like a celebration of Final Fantasy in card game form than just an attempt to cash in on the series’ success.
CELEBRATING THEME
This attitude of celebrating the theme can be seen in the design philosophy of many of the aforementioned card games. The Pokémon TCG retains the six Pokémon limit and many of the special moves that defined the turn based combat of the original video games. The Digimon Card Game retains the key mechanics of raising Digimon from the egg form and digivolving them to more powerful creatures. Even the unique multi-franchise card game Weiss
Schwarz somehow manages to create a format that allows many different iconic settings and characters to shine through, in a rather bizarre clash of intellectual properties from many different iconic anime and games. Somehow, Weiss Schwarz makes it work, and it’s largely down to commitment: each of their expansions (which each correspond to a different popular anime or game franchise) add a layer of mechanics that characterise a new playstyle for the added franchise’s characters – the Persona 5 cards in Weiss play very differently to the Adventure Time cards, for example.
The best licensed card games encourage a sublime union between theme and mechanics, allowing the best parts of said theme to shine through in the moment-tomoment gameplay and even in the more solitary moments of deck building or admiring new pulls from a booster pack.
Unfortunately standing the test of time in the competitive market of collectible card games can prove challenging even for the ones that manage to fully embrace their theme. The Transformers TCG is one of many examples of a card game that had many of the above qualities but just couldn’t quite keep the spark alive. There’s certainly a lot that the Transformers TCG got right in terms of adapting the series – the idea of transformation was communicated effectively in the mechanics, the art was great, and it featured all of your favourite autobots and decepticons. The gameplay had some issues like not being able to interrupt your player’s turn and lack of a wide range of options for truly unique decks, but it was certainly ‘pretty good’ as far as licensed card games go. Like many other card games, it was competing for a spot against juggernauts like Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon, and released at a time where the Transformers franchise wasn’t necessarily in the best place.
As long as collectible card games continue to be a popular tabletop game format, we’ll continue to see various franchises pop up in card game form. We’ll also see just as many retire, survived by a player base that either loved the game, the franchise the game was based on, or both. This inevitable process is a testament to the magic of a well-themed card game: when it works, it can leave a lasting impression, even if the game itself fades into obscurity.