I’ve been a big fan of TCGs and CCGs (and adjacent) since the early days in the 90s. I’m always willing to give any game in the genre a look, no matter what the theme or IP (I had an extensive Mortal Kombat Kard Game collection and some decks for Sim City: The Card Game, so clearly I have no limit when it comes to CCGs…). Neopets was not an IP I ever expected to be playing in a CCG, but here we are. Since I have a strong nostalgia streak, I decided to give it a shot.

The Neopets Battledome TCG is a trading card game from Upper Deck with Neopets duking it out until one drops. It is a game for 2 players and takes 15 to 30 minutes to play.

Gameplay Overview:

This is a mostly straightforward TCG. The main wrinkle, and most noteworthy addition, is that both players have an active Neopet at the center of their play area cards (codestones and equipment) that gets attached to that Neopet, it can be upgraded, and defeating your opponents’ Neopets is how you win. They have a phase dedicated to duking it out. They are the crux of the game.

Neopets are appropriately the heart and soul of the game, with every other card type revolving around them in some way. There are many to choose from with varied abilities and aesthetics.

The players alternate turns, and each turn is divided into four phases: Draw Phase, Training Phase, Preparation Phase, and the Battle Phase. The first and last are compulsory, while the middle two are optional. In the Draw Phase, as you might expect from the name and other TCGs, you draw 1 card from your deck. The Training Phase is optional, and it is when you level up your Neopet to make it stronger and also improve the cards that you can play. If you have any Codestones in your hand, you may attach 1 to your Neopet. Each Codestone will boost your Neopet’s attack, defense, or agility, which is important to victory, but many other cards also have a level requirement to play. Your level for that requirement will be the number of Codestones attached to your Neopet. This will come into play during the Preparation Phase.

This Preparation Phase is when you play cards (similar to your Main Phase in Magic). However, you can only play 1 card, and the card you play is limited by the level of your Neopet. If your Neopet only has 2 Codestones attached, you can’t play any card with a level requirement of 3, 4, or 5. In some cases, you may play more than 1 card per Preparation Phase. Most often this would be with Food, which are cards that fit outside the normal timing restrictions, and can be played during any phase, even not on your turn (though some may give specific triggering time conditions).

Lastly, the Battle Phase requires your Neopet to battle your opponent’s. This cannot be skipped and is how the game is eventually won (once your opponent’s Neopet has taken damage equal to their health, you win!). The game recommends a best out of 3 format, with each player selecting a new Neopet for the second and third rounds if necessary.

The starter decks come with a standard foldout playmat that makes the focus on the Neopets abundantly clear (and also is helpful learning the game!).

Game Experience:

The feeling I got from this TCG was that it was one that was trying to be both innovative and simple at the same time. At least on the simplicity front, I’m not sure it entirely succeeded. Your actions are indeed fairly limited, and the steps of the turn are easy to explain. However, in the overview, I really only scratched the surface of what card types there are. There are around a dozen different card types! Not all of them go into your deck—the Rainbow Pool Neopets, which I’ll get into below—don’t, but most do. And they all have different ways to play and resolve them. Some stay in play and have an ongoing effect on their own. Some are attached to the Neopets. Some are one-time effects (and on resolution, some go to a removed from game area, rather than discard). It can be a lot to keep in mind, and a lot to plan around.

Dice are core to the battle step, and as with any game with dice, the dice giveth and the dice taketh. But they mostly taketh.

While there is a lot to keep in mind, there are certainly things that work well. In addition to your Neopets, you have a “Rainbow Neopets Pool” which contains upgraded versions of your Neopets. These upgraded Neopets have better stats and oftentimes will have ongoing effects while they are in play. For example, there is one that allows you to discard 2 cards during your Preparation Phase to then draw 3 cards. They are typically useful, but generally not game breaking effects like that.

You access these upgraded Neopets with… paintbrushes. Each upgraded Neopet shows what color of paintbrush is required to upgrade it. You play the paintbrush during the Preparation Phase, and swap out your Neopet for the upgraded one, keeping any cards attached to the old pet attached to the new one. It’s a key way to get the upper hand over your opponent’s Neopet, but it is not the only way. The Codestones, as mentioned, increase your Neopet’s stats, but so do Equipment (while also having other effects while in play), and Petpets can add one of their stats to your Neopet every round, functioning as a more versatile Codestone or Equipment.

Apparently in Neopets you can paint your pets… as someone unfamiliar with this aspect was initially odd, but ended up being a fun part of the gameplay.

With so many card types, it would be too cumbersome to go over the rest in detail. This felt like one of the shortcomings of the game. There were so many different types of cards, and they all did something, but it was often subtly different. For example, Legends, Food, and Potions are all one-time use effects that are either discarded or removed from the game when they successfully resolve. However, Food can be played at any time outside the normal one card per Preparation Phase restriction. While the other two are largely identical, Legends also allows you to play a matching Faction card from your Rainbow Neopets Pool. It was a little easier to not remember the exact specifics of each card type with these smaller differences.

On the other hand, the core mechanic of the Neopets battling till one drops was simple and effective. Appropriately, much of what you are doing is focusing on making your Neopets better for this final phase of every turn, from buffing their stats to giving them additional abilities, to even removing damage. The battle itself did succeed at the goal of simplicity. When battling, the attacking pet rolls dice equal to its attack and the defending rolls dice equal to its defense, with successes on each die being any result that is 4, 5, or 6. Successes on defense block successes on attack (except for any results of 6, which are unblockable). The pet with the higher agility can also re-roll a number of dice equal to the difference in the pets’ agility stats. Any attack successes that remain unblocked deal 1 damage to the defender. It can be a little mathy with needing to add up the stat bonuses from Codestones, Petpets, and Equipment, but it is pretty intuitive for the most part.

Final Thoughts:

Overall, I thought the game was fun, and it was cute. I think it did have some shortcomings. It feels like it is a game that they designed for people who might not be big into TCGs. Even though technically the actions that you can carry out in a turn and the decisions you need to make are fairly limited, there is quite a bit to learn. Why is this card different than this type of card? Do I discard this or void it? Learning all these little nuances seems like it might be more of a challenge for a target audience that’s more into Neopets than TCGs. This probably isn’t helped by the fact that the design of the standard frames is pretty same-y across card types.

Factions and locations are among the myriad different card types. Be sure to keep a rulebook handy to remember what they all do. . .

In other games, you can tell immediately what type of card something is or narrow it down really fast. With this, they pretty much all look the same (other than the paintbrushes, which do stand out). I don’t think any of this is a dealbreaker, and I’ve got quite a bit of experience with the genre, so it didn’t bother me personally very much. It felt like maybe these issues could have been fixed a bit by slimming down the design a little (maybe merging some of the card types), making the graphic design on different types a little more distinct, and a bit of rulebook clean-up.

I don’t think any of this needs to detract from the enjoyment of the game. The gameplay of building up your Neopet as best you can to help it survive the battles is entertaining. And the paintbrush upgrading was one of my favorite parts, though that does come with the downside that if you don’t actually draw the paintbrushes, it never gets used, but that’s just TCG life. Luck of the draw is an element in all of them. This one does avoid draw variance a bit by limiting what you can do, both with limited card plays (aside from Food), and by not using a direct resource you need to draw. Largely, the reduced variance in these ways counteracts the variance that remains, so if you’re looking for a lower variance TCG, this would probably be it. The variance that remains is just when you get access to cards (if you do), and if you have enough Codestones attached already to be able to play a given card.

Final Score: 3 Stars – A potentially fun little TCG that gets weighed down by a little too much complexity than it seems to want.

Hits:
• The art is really very cute. I’m not sure what is going on in all of them, but it’s cute. Plus. . . hot dogs!
• Battle mechanic is simple and pushes the game towards conclusion quickly.
• Turn order is simple and easy to understand; less convoluted than many TCGs.

Misses:
• The wide variety of card types, especially with only nuances separating them, can be difficult to wrap your head around and remember.
• Gameplay is ultimately not very deep. It is fun, but your choices are often few.