MtG 2014/2015 Planeswalkers (Steam)

[Klokinator]

So, I'm a guy who until two years ago had never played Magic. I played Yugioh when I was younger and always wanted to try out Magic, but in my age group Yugioh was just the more popular thing in my town, so I stuck to it pretty much entirely. Two years ago, I played MtG with a roomate for the very first time, and we had a lot of fun. We played three rounds, and he won two to my one. It was fun, and that was all I played of Magic, until yesterday.

So I bought this game on steam, "Magic the Gathering 2014: Duels of the Planeswalkers" expecting to have a ridiculous amount of fun playing some magic. Reviews on youtube looked good, gameplay footage looked easy to pick up, etc. I played it, and had lots of fun... for about an hour. That was when I found out the awful truth; Magic the Gathering, in digital form, is wildly inferior to Yugioh, and for no good reason. Let me explain.

Yugioh has had, what, two dozen memorable games? I remember Duelist of the Roses being this fun and innovative addition to the series that took it from being a card game to an addictive board game as well. There were even GBA titles that perfectly replicated the gameplay of the vanilla Yugioh game on a screen of incredibly tiny size.

However, the most damning thing I remember most was that every yugioh game to date usually had a MASSIVE library of cards you unlocked while playing. Even the GBA games had 600+, while the PS2 had as many as 1200+ in a few games. They also let you have a starter deck, and you could alter any cards in the deck as you gained new ones, eventually having none of the original cards and having your own deck! And when you were done, you could play against a friend with your deck, depending on the console you were using at the time.

I bring this up, because MtG has nothing like this in their digital games. MtG 2014 has a "sealed deck" mode, where you start with a random (shitty) batch of cards (which barely change) and you can play through a campaign to get three 14 card booster packs, for a whopping total of less than 100 cards. After that, that's what you're stuck with. You can replay with a new character file and get a different set of cards (And they aren't very different) or you can keep your craptastic deck and... twiddle your dick I guess. You can play online against other players who have the same crap decks as you, but where's the fun in that?

The main campaign of the game is even worse though. You start with a 30 card starter deck, and unlock more starter decks as you play. When you beat a battle, you unlock a small number of preset cards for your deck, and you can gain a max of 30 of these preset cards, for a whopping 60 cards per deck total. That would be fine, if you could put cards from other decks into other decks. But, you cannot.

This is where I question why MtG has such a shitty gaming presence. I'm sure it has to do with some philosophy of "if we give players a fun digital game with 1200 cards then they'll never buy the real world cards oh the horror!", but that is so incorrect I could cry. Yugioh has an incredible digital presence, and even the free online multiplayer fangame, Dueling Network. There, you can literally make a deck using any card ever made, with multiple rule styles and play against other humans! If that didn't wipe out Yugioh's physical card trade, nothing will! So this can't be a good reason for no solid MtG digital games.

I'm not sure, but in any case, I would not recommend the Planeswalker digital game. I wasted my money and wasted my time. I rate it 4/10.

Edited July 19, 2014 by Kloknihater

[Tryhard]

The newer games I found to be very poor, with the whole restricted card things going on.

Such a shame that the 1997 Microprose MtG was the only decent one to my recollection. There are no restrictions on cards you can put into your deck (aside from standard rules like X amount of the same card, but a lot of the cards up to that point were in the game's deck editor)

There was also a story mode called Shandalar that was very fun and consisted of you building up your deck to fight enemy leaders. It was really fun. The world was pseudo-randomly generated every time, too (dungeons and locations always appeared, but the land mass and layout was different every time)

There was an updated version of this game with new cards inserted on slightlymagic.net and updated to run better on newer machines (though it still has issues, the extremely loud game sounds like in the above video are something that is a problem) - I consider this to be much superior to the newer Planeswalker games. I think there was at least over 2000 cards, the developers there had a problem reaching a limit of cards able to be inserted, but I believe they have subverted that and now may even have more! Edited June 27, 2014 by Tryhard

[Klokinator]

Hey that actually sounds fun! I love MtG so far, I think it's really fun, I'm just pissed at the constant money-grabs by the developers and how they refuse to give us a decent digital alternative. At least this game looks fun. I'll try and get ahold of that ASAP.

[Tryhard]

For any who are interested - this should be the topic that shows you how to download Manalink - which was the base game with the editor.

This should be the Shandalar program. They both can be a pain to install, so try searching around the site for troubleshooting etc if you're having trouble.

It's been a while since I played them, and I don't have them installed currently, so I don't know how much they have changed recently. I also can't remember if the Manalink program did include Shandalar normally and the second link was just a standalone. Actually, I think I'm interested in playing again, myself.

Edited June 27, 2014 by Tryhard

[Klokinator]

Heh, I actually already found and downloaded both but yes, that should help out others.

You should see all the negative reviews on steam. Even the positive reviews have more cons than pros. Lol

[Tryhard]

I've heard - I even played I believe it was the Planeswalker 2012 one but it's really just an annual game they produced that is of limited fun unfortunately.

Tell me if you found this version fun, though. Some of my earliest gaming memories were watching my dad play this game, he's always been a MtG nut. Even has a collector's edition Black Lotus.

[Klokinator]

http://www.destructoid.com/magic-2015-duels-of-the-planeswalkers-coming-this-summer-273335.phtml

Wait, so apparently Magic 2015 are allowing fully customizable decks? I must be reading this wrong. I purchased a year too early, apparently?

[Tryhard]

2015, the year for change, apparently.

While it is nice, it's still going to have probably the same amount of cards in the 2014 version, just from the 2015 Core Set this time. I'm wondering if they're saving one change per year to keep people buying lol i.e sealed decks in 2014 etc.

[Klokinator]

Yeah I did read "Only core decks for 2015" but maybe they'll have expansions for it. I'm going to torrent it first anyway, to make sure I'm getting my money's worth. I'll only support them if they make it worth my while.

[Magical CC]

If I remember it right, there's a fanmade MTG game that allows you to play online with all of the cards in the series.

[Klokinator]

So MTG 2015 is out, and I decided to play it. (I torrented, I didn't buy from steam since like literally every review for it was negative)

It's horrible. No wait, it's shittier than horrible. It makes horrible look good.

To say the UI is clunky is a wild understatement. You can build your own deck now though, so that's awesome!!! ... as long as you don't mind winning one card at a time after winning certain battles, also the AI cheats a fucking lot and your starting deck is shit. It took me exactly 35 tries before I beat the first enemy in campaign mode... on the lowest difficulty.

The resolution doesn't go higher than 1280x768. You can skip the tutorial but for some reason picking the "I've played a lot of fucking Magic, okay?" when you start the game doesn't auto-disable the tutorial.

Animations are even slower than the previous 2014 release, but at least now clicking rapidly will skip 99% of them.

Managing your deck is a fucking chore, and instead of sensible VERTICAL menus, the menus are horizontal and the controls are confusing when using a mouse wheel.

Don't buy this piece of shit, it's a cash grab, torrent it first if you really have to because supporting this shitty company at this point is inadvisable.

Oh and finally, they removed Two Headed Giant. I don't know what that is, but literally every steam review was angry about it. That's a thing.

[Tryhard]

Oh and finally, they removed Two Headed Giant. I don't know what that is, but literally every steam review was angry about it. That's a thing.

Two Headed Giant was a game mode where teams of two share life totals etc.

I didn't really expect anything else otherwise.