Elemental Masters

Genre: Collectable Card Game

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local Alternating)

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Review:

Elemental Masters is a Collectable Card Game released on the Nintendo DSi via the DSiWare service in 2010 and then grandfathered into the Nintendo 3DS eShop when that system was released. This game has players in a medieval fantasy-themed world taking part in one-on-one battles with opponents by strategically placing cards down on a 3×3 grid. If you’ve played the JRPG Final Fantasy VIII, you will likely recognize this card game as being extremely similar to that game’s minigame, Triple Triad.

The presentation here is fairly minimal. The game’s single-player story campaign starts with a bit of world-building through written exposition, followed by a brief introduction to the character you selected (out of three), but this story is largely uninspiring, and littered with grammatical errors. The rest of the game is merely still artwork (that’s nothing special) backed by a cinematic-style instrumental soundtrack. Clearly, the main focus here is on the card battling gameplay.

The game unfortunately doesn’t have any sort of tutorial, so players will need to figure out the rules for themselves. Thankfully, the core rules here are fairly simple – players take turns placing cards on the aforementioned 3×3 grid, with all four sides of each card having a numerical value. Place a card with a side whose numerical value is larger than value on the opponent’s card’s adjacent side, and you flip that card to your color. When the board is filled, the side with the most cards still in their color wins the match, and generally gets to claim one or more cards from the opponent.

There are more things going on here that add a bit of depth too. Cards often have an elemental affinity that interacts with the symbols on the game board – place a card on a symbol matching its affinity and it gains a +1 bonus to all its stats, but placing another card could cause it to take a -1 penalty instead. The three different characters each have a class-based skill they can use once in battle to turn the tides, and as they progress they’ll gain access to more.

Finally, players wanting a quick fix can opt to forego the game’s campaign mode and simply hop into a quick “skirmish” battle, or players can alternately challenge a friend in a game via “pass-and-play” alternating play. These are nice features that are welcome here.

All in all, Elemental Masters is a solid Collectable Card Game, but it never quite becomes a truly great one. The lackluster presentation likely plays a part in that, as well as the lack of a tutorial. This is, for all intents and purposes, a Nintendo 3DS version of Final Fantasy VIII’s Triple Triad, but without the catchy music and great card artwork. Still, for $8 this is a solid addition to your Nintendo 3DS library if you enjoy this sort of game.

tl;dr – Elemental Masters is a Collectable Card Game that plays similarly to Final Fantasy VIII’s Triple Triad minigame, with players placing cards on a 3×3 grid to try to overpower and flip opponents’ cards. The core gameplay here is decent, and there’s some nice mechanics that add depth as well as some decent features. However, the lackluster presentation and lack of a tutorial make it hard to get too enthusiastic about this one. Regardless, if you enjoy Collectable Card Games, this may still be worth a look.

Grade: C+

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