When it comes to the world of Trading Card Games, it is very rare to see the birth of a brand new one. By that, I am talking about one that isn’t being made using a licensed property. Those born in the 80s and 90s were able to live through the birth of three of the biggest card games around. Magic the Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, and the Pokemon trading card game. These three have been juggernauts, however, a new contender is set to rise with Battle Spirits Saga. Battle Spirits Saga, or BSS, is a new game set to take off as Bandai Namco has heavily been pushing it. However, what is Battle Spirits Saga, well let’s talk about it.
What is Battle Spirits Saga:
Battle Spirits Saga is a new card game from Bandai Namco under the design of prolific creator Mike Elliot. He was a designer and developer for many of Magic’s expansions and some of their core systems added later on. He also helped design and develop other games like, Quarriors, Thunderstone, and the Shadowrun card game.
It is acting as a successor to their Battle Spirits card game. Which was released in Japan and is hugely popular, but now exclusive to Asia and only in Japanese. It had made an attempt to come to the US, however, due to translation errors and lack of publicity it never gained traction. Now with Battle Spirits Saga, they plan to make this a global version of the game.
About the World of BSS:
In the World of Battle Spirits Saga, players act as Summoners, who summon spirits to battle against each other. Using the power of “cores” they use different types of spirits and magic from six different realms. This core system is the basis of what sets BSS apart from other card games.
In the world of BSS, there are six distinct continents or realms with their own cores. The Land of Flames, Gloom, Radience, Frost, Water, and Forests. These six lands are each distinct colors for each type of card and style. Bandai even created a lore video to talk more about the lands and the wars they fought.
With the tagline, “The cores decide our fate,” it’s kind of hard not to see the scale of the story that is going on. While putting much more of the lore on the cards themselves helps to build a unique world.
How To Play BSS:
So now that we know what Battle Spirits Saga is and more about the world. The major question is how do we play the game? Luckily there is quite a bit out there to help with this. First off that on Bandai’s Official trading card channel on YouTube, they made an actual tutorial on how to play. Along with that, they have provided a quick step-by-step guide on the official BSS website.
The game focuses on the core concept for all focuses of the game. Cores are your health and what you will spend to summon spirits to your field. However, Spirits and special land cards called, Nexuses, also may require cores on them to be powered up. As each spirit and nexus offers different levels of strength and bonus power.
Turn order:
At the beginning of each turn, players will draw a core to add to their reserves, except for the first player to go. After that, they will draw a card and begin their turn. Here is where a lot of strategy with cores comes into play. During the main phase, the player is freely able to move cores around. So if they had more cores on a spirit and need some for a new one they can move those over. Along with utilizing a special Soul core, a large red one, that can be used for special abilities for some cards.
After this, it starts a player’s attack and defense phase. The player attacking can declare an attack and exhaust their card, allowing the other player to choose whether they want to defend. Giving the power of choice helps to balance out a risk factor. Because if you use a card to attack it cannot defend unless it has a special ability allowing so.
This allows a lot of flexibility and strategy as you build on that focus. Especially since, in BSS, when you lose health from your hit points, that core actually gets added to your reserves. Helping to give players who may be down, a chance to make a comeback.
If the tutorial video wasn’t able to help much, the team also made a play with the dev’s video. In the video, two members of the development team on the game actually walk through a match and help to show the game in motion.
Overall thoughts
The game has a lot of potential for fans wanting to get into a new TCG. For those who may not be interested in Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh, or Pokemon. And if they are not diehard fans of series like Dragonball Z, One Piece, or Naruto card games. Especially, if they are not that interested in a game like Weiss which is a single-card system. However, it has many different licensed franchises to make different minigames within. With offering sets like Kobayashi Dragon Maid, the Quintessential Quintuplets, Attack On Titan, and even the Disney 100 special.
As well as I mentioned before Bandai Namco is all in on this game. They had a promotion with everyone’s favorite Candian Sk8rgirl rock princess, Avril Lavigne. As well as, voice actor and popular YouTuber, SungWon Cho, better known as ProZD. So much so that Sungwon having been a huge ambassador for the game, will actually be their first influencer collaboration card. These will be prizes for tournaments starting in the summer.
Right now, Battle Spirits Saga is getting a heavy push and has much potential. Can this new game truly stand out and stand the test is the question. Right now, I feel very confident in it and cannot wait to see more. I even made a short video talking a bit about the game and doing an opening of the cards included in the demo decks.
So let us know down below if you are interested in the game at all. Have you heard about it before now or will you be playing it? I know I will be playing it and if you guys wanna see more on the game, let us know in the comments below.
-Jess (Bloodieknux)
Hey everyone hope you enjoyed my thoughts and breakdowns in the article above. You can keep up with my thoughts & shenanigans by following me on all my social media: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch, & Youtube.
