Game 19 - Magic the Gathering: Shandalar (PC) - 32 Hours
I wasn't able to beat the final boss because my game kept freezing. He has 400 life, so I think the game just isn't able to handle such a long duel. Might keep trying to see if I can actually beat him before it freezes.
One of my favorite types of video games are "card game video games". That is, a video game that emulates a popular trading card game such as Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh!. I've played several of these over the years, but I'd never really gotten into what is the grandfather of all trading card games: Magic the Gathering. I decided that I would start with the 1997 PC game Magic the Gathering: Shandalar because it uses the very first couple of sets of Magic, and seemed like a good place to start as any.
Don't let the age or relative obscurity of this game fool you: MtG Shandalar is easily the best single player experience for any trading card game out there. While other games in this style might have a meager story, or no story to speak of, Shandalar features a richly inhabited world full of towns, shops, quests, dungeons, random encounters, special powers to acquire, secrets, and treasures. The music is fantastic, there's a lot of lore to the world to explore, and the game has an actual narrative that gives meaning to your quest.
In addition to being a great aesthetic experience, Shandalar is also just a good way to play some old-school Magic. Everything flows together really well, with only a couple glitches and hiccups. Deckbuilding is very easy to do, and the AI is challenging and rewarding to face, especially on the harder difficulty settings. It's just a phenomenal experience.
All that being said, there are a couple of things I didn't like. One of which is the ante system. Yes, old school Magic had antes built into it's game design. However, antes are mandatory in this game, and they ramp up the frustration way too much for my liking. No matter how good your deck is built, you can still get flooded out or draw nothing but creatures and lose a duel, especially with the game's very restrictive mulligan rules. And just like that, you permanently lose a card from your deck, of which there may be only one of in the entire game. I'm not ashamed to say that I did some save-scumming when that happened, because I just couldn't be bothered.
For all my love of the game's story, I'm not the biggest fan of it's overall progression. Essentially, you are fighting against five evil Wizards who each represent one color in Magic. They send their minions to attack towns and you have to defend them before they are taken over. If any one wizard takes over 5 towns, you lose the game. Simple, right? What happens is that these Wizards eventually get more and more frequent with their attacks, so frequent that you won't be able to fend them all off. You are eventually forced to beat them all just to keep yourself from losing your game permanently. Then, when you beat the last Wizard, you are instantly thrust into the final battle, and whether you win or lose, the game quits to the desktop and you're done.
Boiled down, the game basically puts you on a 30 hour clock. You have to beat the game within that time, which means you don't have the luxury of completing your card collection or experimenting with different decks. I found that on the hardest difficulty I had no time to experiment with different strategies because you simply don't have the time to make more than maybe 2 different decks, especially with the aforementioned ante system. It's just a design element that I really wasn't a fan of, since I like to try out lots of different decks and collect as many cards as possible. I was playing on the hardest difficulty though, so maybe it's a little more forgiving if you play on normal. I just wish you could have an endgame state where you can take your time and challenge the final boss whenever you're ready. Alas. Still a really fun game though, definitely recommended.