BattleCON: Online

[b]Note: BattleCON Online is a Free to Play game that I have acted as a playtester for over the past many months. I received a Steam copy early to help playtest the Steam release.[/b] [u][b]The Short of It[/b][/u] + Engaging gameplay + Replicates the feel of a 2D fighting game without worrying about the intricacies or the dexterity requirement + Chess-like perfect information + Already a bunch of characters and more to come + Vs. AI mode for practice + Very high skill ceiling - Doesn't have my favorite characters yet - Still has bugs that have to get ironed out, with more seeming to creep up with every character release - Some daily quests just really suck and take hours to do - No ranked mode yet - AI is kind of complete garbage - Very steep learning curve For the past two years, I have played Level 99's BattleCON board game. It first came onto my radar around 2012, when I originally came across Level 99's Pixel Tactics card game (also likely to end up on Steam at some point.) At first, I questioned how good a card game fighting game could be, and I avoided playing the game for a while due to my preconcieved notions of what it would be. So, fast forward to 2016, when I came across BattleCON on Tabletop Simulator and learned to play it with a friend. Since that point, I joined what was then the official Discord server for Level 99 and began playing in Organized Play events and tournaments, and eventually became one of the top players of the game. I've been playtesting for Level 99 since then, and I've enjoyed most of it. As far as BattleCON is concerned, it's a board game. Let's get that out of the way now. It's a board game that replicates 2D fighting games like Street Fighter, though the inspiration behind it was Guilty Gear mixed with crossover games. What this means is that, instead of inputting Shoryukens, you'll be doing a lot of reading and figuring out what cards to put together so that your attack comes out at the right time to counter your opponent's attack. If you can get past the fact that this isn't an action game, BattleCON becomes a very rewarding experience where it's entirely about your mental dexterity and reasoning, rather than your physical dexterity and reaction time (and reasoning, there's a surprisingly huge amount of logic and strategy in standard fighting games.) Knowing when to play a Strike or a Drive, knowing how to avoid jumping in when it would leave you open to counter-attack, knowing the correct times to block or dodge and counterattack, that's all the game is about. It's not quite Magic: The Gathering, it's not quite Tekken, but it's a nice amalgamation of everything that makes those games fun. At the moment, not a whole lot of the universal lore is in the game, but all of the characters come from Level 99's Indines universe, a fantasy world where the majority of the major characters are fantastic creatures, and where technology is absurdly advanced. I'm not sure if/when story modes will be added in, but it's a wonderful universe to explore across BattleCON, Pixel Tactics, Argent: The Consortium, and Empyreal: Spells and Steam. At the moment, there's about 20 characters in the game, whereas the physical board game currently has about 80 tournament-legal characters, with over a dozen more planned. Two of the characters in BCO were made specifically for the game, so it's not as if we're ever going to run out of material for new characters. Unfortunately, the more interesting ones will likely have to wait until the development team figures out how to bend the game engine to make them work. The existing ones have been reworked for both better functionality within the game engine and better game balance, with the character tier lists seemingly shifting with the meta. In all, it's an enjoyable game, hopefully the F2P situation doesn't automatically mean that new players are stuck with just the free rotation characters, hopefully Ranked gets added at some point in the near future, and hopefully more people will put up guides to help beginners learn how to play BattleCON better. Also probably hopefully, the playerbase expands beyond how it has been over the past few months. It's pretty bad when the lead designer of BCO is thrilled when 30 people are simulataneously online out of the 1200+ people who have had access to the game for the past couple months.

[b]What type of game is this?[/b] BattleCON is, put simply, a turn-based fighting game. It is a translation of a board game into digital form. You have a hand of cards (some generic ones, and a set determined by your character), and you choose two together to create an attack (hence "battle connection"). Players reveal their attacks simultaneously. An attack has 4 important values; Power (damage done), Range (how many and which spaces it can hit), Priority (whose attack goes first), and Stun Guard (if you take damage greater than your stun guard, you skip your attack, i.e. hitstun). Most attacks have additional effects, like preventing damage or moving your character. Once both players execute their attacks (or skip them due to stun), then the two cards you used go on cooldown (two turns), and you move to the next pair. The first to 0 HP loses. There's some additional mechanics (like finisher moves), but that's the major ideas. [b]What does this game do well?[/b] This game wonderfully replicates the feel of fighting games without the need of long button combos or tight reflexes. Lots of fighting game staples like footsies and hitstun, are present in some form. The huge cast of characters all feel distinct in their style: some like to fight at long range, others like to do a single large hit, and still others prefer to avoid attacks or hit-and-run. Characters have a huge range of abilities, from draining life without fighting, to healing, to teleporting. [b]Where could this game improve?[/b] This game's greatest weakness is its difficulty. In order to play well, you need to be familiar with your own character, as well as your opponent's. While the mechanics I outlined above are fairly straightforward, every fighter has its own set of quirks and adjustments to the rules. There's resources besides cards to keep track of, bluffing and double-bluffing, and if you fail to predict your opponent well enough, your attack may simply miss. [b]How does this compare to the paper version?[/b] This is the game's greatest failing. While the animations and greater availability of players is nice, the game stumbles in the same way that many paper-to-digital translations do. Playing the game digitally is much more of a chore than playing in paper. The timers, animations, confirmations, and waiting for your opponent all eat up time. I can play a game of paper BattleCON in 10-15 minutes. A digital match takes 30. The sluggish nature of the digital game is simply not fun to play. It also lacks a decent tutorial. The board game has another player to walk you through things, explain the rules, even let you take back mistakes. The digital version lacks this. [b]In a single sentence[/b]: A fantastic translation of fighting games to a turn-based system, hampered by a sluggish digital version and high learning curve. [b]Verdict[/b]: This game is still in early access. They're continuing to add new characters and new costumes. I assume they will import other things found in the paper game; things like the dungeon-crawl mode, boss battles, and 2v2/1v2/1v3 battles etc. But the game needs more than that. Compared to the cardboard version, it is not fun to play. Clicking my way through a game feels like a sluggish chore. The timers and choices add up. There's a huge amount of dead time and all the animations feel too long. An animation/text speed slider might alleviate this somewhat, but I fear the problem lies deeper than that. I play a lot of board games, and the tabletop version of BattleCON is one of my top five board games of all time. So it hurts me a lot that I cannot recommend this. If and when the digital version feels good to play, then I will be happy to change this verdict. But until then, if this game catches your fancy, I urge you to try the paper version.

It's Battlecon!!! I don't write reviews very often but I'm pretty passionate about this game. Battlecon is one of the games that got me into regularly playing board games with my friends again, and though I find the game a bit too complex at times (which isn't a knock against the game btw, I know people love that kind of stuff) I think it's still a blast if you like fighting games or competitive card games. The basis of the game is combining Style and Base cards to form different attacks to take your opponent down on a 2D plane reminiscent of a fighting game. The big catch that differentiates it from other fighting card games is that you can also see every option your opponent has, giving you all the info you need to plan your move. Each of these cards has several properties attached to them, mainly Range, Power, Priority, and Stun Guard as well as others like movement or situational buffs to take into account. By cycling cards through your discard like a cooldown on your attacks, there's no RNG, only strategy! The amount of options you and your opponent have can be a bit overwhelming though, which is the main barrier to entry I think. The online client is very nice, though i think it might be a little bit confusing to new players (but there's 3 tutorials that cover just about everything). There's bugs here and there, but it's early access so it's expected and the devs are pretty responsive. Monetization is pretty reasonable I think, characters cost $3 (or 300 battlecoins) with skins for those characters costing $2-5. You can unlock characters in game with currency you earn from matches and quests too if you desire, but I don't have an estimate of how long it takes. There is of course a weekly rotation of 4 characters. Overall the game has a LOT of depth and translates fighting game mechanics to a board game very well. It has a fairly large cast of 19 characters right now and they're all free for this first launch week so now is the best time to give the game a try!

Do you like the mind games and intricate maneuvers of Fighting Games like Street Fighter and Skullgirls but lack the technical skill to input combos on a controller (like me) or have slow reflexes (like me)? BattleCON perfectly preserves those aspects while transitioning the format to a board game, allowing you to have perfect information and time to plan along with no execution barrier. This is an adaptation of an already-successful board game so there's already a friendly and knowledgeable community. It's free to start with a weekly rotation of unlocked characters similar to most MOBAs, so if it sounds like your cup of preferred beverage then give it a go!

I Kickstarted this game years ago, but it's been abandoned, with no explanation from the devs. BattleCon itself is amazing, but don't waste your money on this abandonware. It needs to be pulled from Steam at this point.

Great game, but seems... abandoned? Hello, developers? The last update was in November 2019, the bug reports aren't being acted upon, the interface is buggy, one of the characters literally crashes the game when selected... and yet you still can buy DLC and stuff... come on, L99, I expected better of you... really disappointing. Guess it's time to go back to Tabletop Simulator for both this game and eXceed (which I actually love more than BattleCon).

This is a pretty decent first attempt at a digitla implementation of one of the best two player board games in existence. That being said, it is far from perfect: 1) The tutorial is not very good, and even as an experienced player of Battlecon it confused me. A better job needs to be done here in order to onboard beginners. 2) The game runs very choppy at times, and loading "hitches" which gives a pretty bad impression. 3) Readability on the board can be very poor, especially when there are a lot of tokens in play. As a matter or fact, I think it would do the game a service to have the tokens represented by graphics instead of just little tiles. Wouldn't it be cool to have a small wolf visible on the board, for an example? 4) Please for the love of all that is good and pure let me paste text into the "Search for friends" text box! So, in short: It's still good, because it is BattleCon, but there is still work that needs to be done here.

developers no longer support the game. there is no weekly champ rotation. game is dead. terrible.

It was a nice adaptation of the board game: nice interface, good tutorial, easy coomands. Than came the p2win greedy patch that made all characters "cash only" to unlock (taking away previous unlocked characters with f2p value from accounts LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL). The idea was so stupid that istantly killed the playerbase, making impossibile to find a ranked game. Now there is no reason to play: no progression, no players :( don't even waste your time trying this greedy mess. I could give it another try if they'll make it f2p againt, till now goodbye.

Despite being an amazingly fun game with dozens of ways to play, this early access game was abandoned but retains all its cash shop price gouging. Do yourself a favor and play this great game some other way.