KARDS – The WWII Card Game

7.5/10
To be honest, although there are many card games on the market, I'm afraid that the theme of World War II is only a handful. And in this, more excellent and can have a more stable number of players, I am afraid that only KARDS.
Both interesting mechanisms and considerable gameplay, but also the history have enough research and description, for players who love the World War II theme of the game is certainly not to be missed. The front-line mechanism and the card action point sets are the biggest differences from other card games, which also make players need to consider more factors, and the atmosphere of the game is quite good.
Although I could understand the difficulties of the KARDS development team, this game, which has been operating for almost three years or so, still has its share of problems. The overly simple game interface and the various game errors that often occur make the player's experience quite bad, and the excessive pursuit of the unique ability of cards makes some countries' cards too powerful. The balance also has a lot of old players criticism of the place, at the same time, the game's novice period is too long, high rarity cards are also very difficult to obtain, and players who refuse In-App Purchases have difficulty in quickly gaining enough enjoyment of the game.
Overall, KARDS as a card game has enough features and charm to attract players to try it. It is recommended for players who love card games and World War II themes, and they can decide whether to play it for a long time after trying it.

First of all, let's clear the "pay to win" excuse for most of the negative reviews. This game is NOT pay to win, period.
I have not paid a single penny for in-app purchases and I was able to reach the highest rank doing minimum crafting and without playing a single meta deck or following any advice or tutorial. I did buy the 3 DLCs on Steam at a 90% discount but I did it for the purpose of owning them and they had no impact on the way I played the game.
Sure, those who want to pay real money to get a chance at unlocking powerful cards fast can do so, but that is totally optional and doesn't guarantee your win nor is it needed to advance your progress.
Again: This game is not pay to win, it does have some problems but this is not one of them.
Now that we got the money thing aside, let's talk about Kards.
The first time I ran this, it was obvious that it is a labor of love and I was honestly waiting for the Steam awards so I can nominate it and write this review (not that it matters, but it felt suitable). The attention to detail that it has cannot be done by anyone unless they are passionate about card games and WWII.
Aesthetics: From the first match I was blown away by how this game nails the visuals and sounds. The cards are so beautiful and easy to distinguish from each other, each nation from the currently available 8 has it's own card design style and you can view each card and read about its historical relevance, see the real picture that inspired its design and even see the name of the artist and the source. Every now and then, I find myself just looking at the cards and reading about them, They are mostly inspired by WWII propaganda posters or patriotic drawings and I'm seriously considering getting some posters of these drawings or print them on T-shirts or so, the visual beauty also extends to the tables, the menu and icons. It also nails the sounds which is not expected for such game, each unit type makes a unique sound when it gets deployed, move or attack and the sound even differs depending on the unit itself. I can literally make my whole review about the aesthetics because it is that good.
Gameplay: Much more simpler and easier to understand than any other multiplayer card game that I have played before. The cards have simple effects that you can read in a few seconds and there are no complex synergies so hard matches end up being about mind games, prioritization and luck more than anything else. This can be off putting for players who are looking for more complex mechanics or more draw control but I believe the game is more fun this way.
What most players complain about is the meta, the higher you level up the more you face opponents who use the same decks that has a relatively high win ratio which in return makes you have less fun the more you rank up. This is correct but the truth is that every multiplayer game has its own meta and there are no easy solution for such problem, the devs do release balance changes and the meta keeps shifting and I don't consider that a big negative for the game.
Another thing that some free to play players complain about is how slow it is to unlock new cards once you get past a certain point of the game (about 20 hours), I say Kards is designed to be a slow game and that's part of its appeal. It doesn't bother you with systems that encourage to get addicted, it has only 7 daily login rewards and you don't even have to log in everyday in order to claim them, after that you get one mission a day that you can finish in a couple matches. Still you can unlock every card in the game for free and grind free, it'll just take hundreds of hours. On the other hand, I see some players who have been playing for years complaining about unlocking most cards in the game and that they don't have much to do with their in-game currency. For me, the economy system in the game is more than fair for a free to play game (although a bit unclear for beginners) and if you tie your fun to unlocking new cards then you're missing the whole point of playing it.
Deck building: The game has an easy import thing where you can copy/paste decks but I have never tried it. Other than that, manually building a deck is a time consuming hassle because the filtering system is basic so you can't view just the cards that you need to include in your deck so you'll spend a lot of time scrolling through pages of cards in order to see the card you need. Still it's not a huge deal but after years of the game being released, I think a better filtering tools should already be part of the game.
Summary: I wanted to write more about Kards but since it's a free to play game, the best way to experience it is by playing it and I surely would have played it the day it was released if I knew it would be this good. Kards gets most things right and the few things that aren't are nothing but minor inconveniences, it is a beautiful, entertaining and mature game that respects itself and its players and I love it and I want to keep playing it in the future and I encourage anyone who's even mildly interested to give it a try. It's also worth mentioning that they hold a tournament every month where the best players compete against each other and the live stream is very entertaining to watch.

step 1: play during off hours
step 2: play ranked against AI
step 3: gain a false sense of accomplishment

why is a card game 5 gigabytes

Been playing this game a long time and I show no signs of stopping. Tried other card games, some prettier, some basic but none have the quality of game play I find in Kards. I love this game and after playing it forever I bought one of the packs to add card but more because I want to support this game than because I felt I needed to in any way. This game is fun, easy to learn but hard to master. You can play training missions against the ai to learn the game and then get into pvp against other players to see how much you have learned. It's fun building decks with the new cards you get with in game gold you earn. You don't have to spend any money and you can compete in pvp once you learn the game. If you're into any card games, you should try this one out and see what you think.

I personally had not had any previous experience with card games in general, nor had I expressed any interest in them in the past and yet I found KARDS to be a very enjoyable game. Everything from the WWII theme, animations, sounds, gameplay and the fact that it is not a pay to win game, in my opinion makes things great. Despite having encountered a glitch where the game would display the "defeat" screen even though I had won the match, more than a few times (it must be stated that the game still rewarded the amount of xp points one would get in the event of a win despite it saying I had lost the match), I still view the game in a positive light and am looking forward to future develpoments.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☑ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☑ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☑ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☑ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☑ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
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☐ 10