Porygon - Pokemon TCG

Welcome to 1990s computer graphics!

Porygon is weird.

Porygon is one of the few Pokemon known to be man-made, the Pokemon created through computer code. Just imagine Digimon. The people in charge of the project seems to be Team Rocket, who participated in the creation of another artificially made Pokemon. You can't catch in in the wild in the first game, but if you are lucky enough you can win one as a prize from the Game Corner. Porygon had one appearance in the anime, but the episode is one of several that caused seizures in young children, making its television appearances rare to nonexistent in the states. Porygon's name is a pun on the word polygon, referencing both computer graphics and the weird pronunciation thing in Japanese regarding r's and l's.

The card sucks. Really sucks. Which is a shame, because its two moves, Conversion 1 and Conversion 2, are based on moves Porygon learns in the actual game. The first Conversion works a bit differently, changing Porygon's type to the type of one of its moves (originally the opponent's type), but the spirit is still in there. Why is this card awful then? Besides the 30 HP, Porygon has no moves that deal damage. It can screw with types, but it has no way to profit from it. To use its moves, Porygon becomes a sitting duck, waiting to die so your other Pokemon can use the type switching to their advantage. Theoretically, you could get two Energy on it, use Conversion 2 to make it resistant to the active Pokemon, use Conversion 1 next turn to change the active Pokemon's weakness, and then retreat it on turn 3, but that is an awful lot of work. Plus, your opponent can simply switch to a Pokemon Porygon isn't resistant to, screwing up your plans.

While a neat concept, this card comes across as useless.

Hitmonchan - Pokemon TCG

How about a nice Hawaiian Punch?

Hitmonchan is one of several Fighting type Pokemon. In the original game, after defeating some dojo master, you are rewarded with a choice between two Pokemon; Hitmonlee, who specializes in kickboxing, and Hitmonchan, who specializes in normal boxing. Then came Gold and Silver, where a third one was introduced, Hitmontop, who specializes in, uh, break-dance fighting? Seriously, Hitmontop's gimmick was that it spun around like a top. Another new Pokemon was introduced, Tyrogue, who could evolve into any of these guys.

Game wise, look the card. It's attacks are vanilla, no special text needed. That said, Hitmonchan was a very strong player in the TCG. It had decent stats for a Basic Pokemon, and it's attacks were decent. Evolution back in the old game was very lackluster, and it was better to get a Pokemon that was good from the start than to use a crappy one and try to make it stronger later.

I like it's first attack name, Jab. The name is similarly short and sweet, and it reflects well the scale of the attack. The smaller and shorter the attack, the smaller the damage. Special Punch though is a bit lackluster. What's so special about it? It doesn't do anything extra.

Also interesting, while Hitmonchan is in the first set, it wasn't till the third one, Fossil, that they decided to add Hitmonlee.

Mewtwo - Pokemon TCG

Pokemon was what first got me into trading card games. I don't know what it was that attracted me to it, but something about Pokemon cards drew me in, before I even knew about the video games. From there I discovered the Game Boy games, the anime, and a whole new world opened up for me. Pokemon was the first card game I started to seriously collect, and while I'm a bit behind with the six plus new generations of Pokemon, something about the card and the game still calls out to me.

We're looking back at the cards that first got me into gaming, all from the first Pokemon set released in the states, the Base Set. Starting with...

The anti genetic modification Pokemon...

Mewtwo is one of the first legendary Pokemon. The backstory behind it is scientists found DNA from a Pokemon called Mew, at the time believed to be the first Pokemon to exist. Now with all the Poke-gods roaming about, that statement is severely debatable. Anyway, the scientists, taking inspiration from Jurassic Park, tried to create a clone from the existing DNA, and ended up with this fellow. Also following Jurassic Park's script, things went horribly wrong and Mewtwo escaped.

Mewtwo was the primary antagonist for the first Pokemon movie, back in the days where Pokemon films were shown at the cinemas instead of direct-to-video releases. Having seen the movie as a kid, I remember very little of it, and I had no desire to watch it a second time because it was depressing. The anime had a knack for making children cry, which is part of why I stopped watching it. In the film, Mewtwo essentially has developed a hatred for humanity because of hoe it was treated by the scientists and built a villain fortress and cloned the protagonist's Pokemon, blah, blah, blah. He turns good in the end though, because plot convenience.

That all said, take a look above. Does this card evoke "legendary Pokemon" or "something we slapped together at short notice"? Mewtwo is a marquis Pokemon yet this card doesn't do it any justice. Barrier was useless since it dealt no damage, and while it prevented damage your opponent wasn't about to go for an all out attack because they know the barrier is up. Psychic is slightly more decent, being a cheap attack that could potentially cause massive damage, but it still feels a bit lack luster an escaped genetic experiment with awesome psychic powers. This card was one of my first holo rares, but at the time nothing told me it was a powerful and legendary creature.

Shell Dome - Kaijudo

Living in a living city.

Gatling Skyterror was an instance where an awesome card from Duel Masters was made mediocre. Today's card however is the exact opposite, a mediocre Duel Masters card made more awesome. Even the name of today's card is a complete reverse of it's original name, Dome Shell.

Now a resident of the Shell Dome.

Generic bug guy with keyword ability (power attacker) made into an entire mobile city. Why the smaller bug has more power than the supposedly bigger city is beyond me. Maybe the city is really to ant-scale. Another interesting thing is when you look at the arts, Shell Dome looks a bit wider than Dome Shell does. I can't tell if it's just a trick of the eyes, but I feel like they slightly stretched the art out to make it feel bigger and more vast. It somehow works in my opinion.

Gatling Skyterror - Kaijudo

"Red Three standing by."

This guy is a vanilla creature, Magic-speak for a creature that has no abilities. If this were Yu-Gi-Oh, this would be awful, but in Magic and Duel Masters, little generic guys still can have an impact on the game. That's not why I want to talk about this guy though. Following the theme, this card's name and art are originally from a Duel Masters card. What's the difference between the two? Look.

This is based on Magic. Dragons = BIG!

This guy was a huge, double breaking, gatling shooting monster. Yes, you were likely dead by the time you could cast it, but that would be offset by the experience of playing a freakin helidragon! So what do they do for the repackage? They make it worse. Much worse. They took away its abilities and dropped it down several sizes. Looking at the art with the new stats, it feels much smaller than it used to be, I think the cropping helps a bit with that. It feels less dragon sized now and more like a drake, essentially a flying lizard. Oddly enough, the flavor text remains the same.

Gigastand - Kaijudo

Before we begin, I know it sounds like I'm complaining about Kaijudo. On the contrary, I'm happy it's here. It's like a friend you haven't seen in years has returned all grown up. That said, some of the changes Wizards made while repackaging the game just baffle me. If anyone can explain, please do so. Anyway, onto the card.

So which part is doing the gazing?

This guy is creepy. He is a chimera, which makes sense with the art. You can see bits and pieces of flesh, various mouths, horns, sockets, and hair, all clumped together into a menacing form. Here's where things get confusing though. The stats and ability all line up to a real Duel Masters card. That card though isn't Gigastand. Instead, the card was called Horrid Worm. This is what the original Gigastand was.

"I'm feeling slightly bigger today."

The original Gigastand had a recursion ability, where it returns to your hand then you discard a card. The standard black undead thing. Why not just reprint the thing as Horrid Worm? Why slap the Gigastand name and art on this thing. My guesses are they either lost the rights to the Horrid Worm art, or they can no longer find Horrid Worm's art.

Frogzooka - Kaijudo

Insert your own frog pun.

Continuing our story of Kaijudo cards that are direct reprints or that pilfer the art from other Duel Masters cards. I've calmed though over Covering Fire, but I am still unsatisfied. Well, at least the Duel Masters art is good, and was actually meant to be on cards, so I'll be fine looking at it.

So, this guy is a direct reprint, the only changes being name, race, and keywording/flavoring some abilities. Here's the original.

Oh, and it's a fish.

While I ordinarily would be annoyed at the name change, how can you get mad a card named Frogzooka. It's a freakin' Frogzooka! The one complaint I will make involves the new race, Trench Hunter. This is very generic, kind of bland really. The original was a race called the Gel Fish. And the art makes more sense for a Gel Fish, their bodies being see-through, so you can see the cannons sitting in their stomachs.

Regardless, I'm much more happier with this card than the previous repackage.

Covering Fire - Kaijudo

Story time. Once there was a game called Duel Masters. It was very fun, even though it wasn't very original, the game essentially being Magic Jr. That said, I enjoyed it, and I collected it, and played two of the GameBoy Advance games. But then they stopped printing Duel Masters, at least in the US. I don't know what caused this decision. All this time though, the game has been alive and well in Japan, and is still being printed there. Also, some of the wackier mechanics, particularly double-sided cards, appeared in Duel Masters before they appeared in Magic the Gathering.

But recently Wizards decided to give Duel Masters in the states another shot, so they repackaged the game as Kaijudo. Why they couldn't simply reprint it as Duel Masters is beyond me, maybe they were afraid if they kept the old brand name it would scare away potential new players. I bring up this history lesson because of today's card.

"I've got your back Charlie!"

This card is fairly simple, make one of your guys unblockable for a turn. In Kaijudo and Duel Masters though, instead of untapped creatures being able to block, only untapped creatures with a blocker ability can block. So its value is lessened in that respect, but still, it's a nice trick.

What really bugs me about this card is the art though. Something seems rather familiar about it, I can't put my finger on...

"Gotta go fast!"

Wizards, come on, did you have to reuse the artwork here. I'm fine with you reprinting the older cards, but did you really have to use the same art for what's supposed to be a repackaged game. On the one hand, it does strike a bit of nostalgia, but on the other it makes you seem lazy that you just grabbed whatever art you had lying around and slapped it on. And when I see this, it makes me think of what the original card did as opposed to the new one. Oh, and they reduced the cost by 2.

Nekogal #1 - Yu-Gi-Oh!

We have entered furry territory.

Say hello to Nekogal #1, better known in Japan as Cats Fairy, but called Nekogal in the US because, uh, I have no idea. This card is... disturbing, for many reasons. First you have the aforementioned caption above. She is a girl with cat ears and a tail, though admittedly the tail look like a cat's. Weird. The long fingers also say more harpie than cat woman.

Why am I looking at this card today? Look at the flavor text, very closely. Do you see it? If it's too small, here's what it says. A pussy-fairy. A pussy-fairy. I think the translator made a subconscious slip. Seriously, how did these guys, people who are quick at the draw to censor words, let this one slip by them. And no, they don't have the excuse they have for Doma, since this card wasn't printed in the starters but in the sixth Tournament Pack. They should have gotten their act together by now. It is really sad that they refuse to say the word death and for awhile black, but this, which has more disturbing connotations than either of those, gets a free pass.

What makes the vagina pixie even more disturbing is if we take a look at the original Japanese artwork. The artwork often receives a touch up to cover any provocative dress or, ahem, extra ordinary endowment. While I usually find this annoying, most cards aren't that bad and only a few are that bad (I might get to them some other time, God help me), considering the flavor, I'm glad they didn't go with the original. The Japanese art makes it very clear where the artist's mind was, and it took the American censors to have the decency to give the girl some pants.

Me-ow!

Doma the Angel of Silence - Yu-Gi-Oh!

Shhhh...

Doma is the first card I'm looking at that has actually been printed in the TCG. This card was part of the original starter decks in the TCG, and the original starter box in Japan. Art wise, Doma is awesome. All the elements come together in a sort of unnerving way, making her intimidating. She has two sets of wings on her back, the bottom being the traditional angel wings while the upper ones resembling more a demon. Then you have the creepy eye on the shoulder. Yes, in modern Yu-Gi-Oh! her stats would get her laughed out, but even in the old game they still had good art.

Now, what I really want to talk about is her name. Doma the Angel of Silence is her TCG name, and the translators took out one very important word to make the demon angel more child friendly. Her OCG name? Angel of the Silence of Death Doma. Yeah, major difference. The original flavor in the Starter Deck version actually outright said this. This fairy rules over death, and administers it when necessary. This was changed in her Metal Raiders release to This fairy rules over the end of existence. While I am annoyed at this censorship, I must admit the TCG name does a better job of reflecting her power level. It's a little ridiculous to think that in this game some guy with an axe could defeat an angel in charge of death itself.

Closing trivia. Doma is likely based on Dumah. According to my research (aka Wikipedia), Dumah is an angel from Jewish tradition, usually siding with Hell instead of Heaven. The word dumah actually comes from the Hebrew and/or Aramaic word for silence.

White Dolphin - Yu-Gi-Oh!

I'm returning back to the old old Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. Today we look at this beauty.

Flipper: The Revenge

This card annoys me a little, and by a little I mean a lot. There are some animals that I get pissed when people call them something else. Echidnas are not porcupines. Spiders and scorpions are not insects. I know you can't tell because the card is in Japanese (unless you speak Japanese in which case ignore what I just said), but the monster type for this card is "Fish". DOLPHINS ARE NOT FISH. Dolphins are mammals, they are relatives of whales. They breath air. Fish are none of these things.

Of course, the creature in this image barely resembles a dolphin. That is not a dolphin. This is a dolphin.

"So long and thanks for all the fish."

Yes, the Yu-Gi-Oh! thing has a dorsal fin, it has the elongated profile, and the teeth, while horrifying, are fairly accurate for a dolphin. As cute as they are in Sea World, dolphins are still predators, and they need some way to tear apart those fish. But if you look closely at the art, you'll notice the not-dolphin has an additional fin on its back, near the tail. As far as I'm aware, dolphins do not work like that. The flippers are also designed wrong, again more resembling a fish than it does a dolphin.

Another problem with this thing is it has some sort of horn stuck in where the blowhole is supposed to be. Blowholes help dolphins breathe. The thing in the art better not be a dolphin, otherwise it is going to drown. Oddly enough, I don't see any gills on that thing either. How does it breathe underwater?

Project Beale - Android Netrunner

Trivia time. Here's the card.

"Look at all the Android devices I can choose!"

Overall, the card is a simple agenda card that rewards you for advancing it past the requirement. Pretty straightforward. But what in heavens name is a "Beale". After an extensive internet search (aka. Wikipedia), I now know that Beale is a common last name in Britain, and that a lot of people have had the last name Beale. Given that this card belongs to NBN, the corporation in charge of the media in the Netrunner universe, I think the card is meant to be a reference to this guy.

"I'm as mad as hell..."

This is Howard Beale, a character played by Peter Finch in the movie Network. Even if you know nothing about the movie, odds are you have heard the above quote sometime in your life.

New Angeles City Hall - Android Netrunner

I chose today's card to address an issue I have with some futuristic sci-fi works. Here's the card:

Home of NCIS: New Angeles.

Some card stuff first. It seems alright, though I'm confused how city hall helps runners avoid getting tagged, and why city hall is helping runners in the first place. Maybe the building or the sheer number of people in it help mask the runner's signal, but it would be nice if the card explained that instead of giving a generic quote from the city mayor.

But onto my main issue. Why do science fiction works, in order to make a futuristic sounding city, simply take an existing city and add the word "new" to it? Are city namers so creatively bankrupt and lazy that they constantly use this formula. New Who gave us New New York. We have New Gotham, from the short lived Birds of Prey live action series and I think from Batman Beyond. Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds gave us New Domino City, and on and on. What is it about tacking the word "new" onto something that makes it more futuristic?

And, using this card as an example, what happened to the original city? What happened to Los Angeles? Was it destroyed? Was it rebuilt as New Angeles? Was New Angeles built over Los Angeles? If it was simply rebuilt, how much of Los Angeles was built over to justify the "new" status? People usually don't tack on a "New" every time their city suffers a major disaster and is rebuilt, else Nero would have dubbed Rome after the fire New Rome. Well, he still might have, but the name obviously didn't stick. Same thing with London and Chicago when they suffered disastrous fires. Why would it work in the future if it didn't work then?

My point goes to all sci-fi writers: Don't tack New onto a city for your futuristic city unless you have a really good reason or explanation for it. Otherwise it comes across as lazy, and I'm certain you can come up with better names for your cities.

Deep Thought - Android Netrunner

There is one reason I'm talking about this card today. If you happen to have read a series a science fiction books by a certain British author, you should understand why.

"The ultimate answer to the question, of life, the universe, and everything, is... 42."

 

 

 

Deep Thought is a super computer from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that was built to calculate the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. Above was his answer. I feel like/hope this was an intentional nod to the series, but other than the name there's little to support this hypothesis.

This program looks like a Buddhist monk, it even has the third eye highlighted. It's also a virus, giving you a back door into the company's R&D, aka. their deck. This seems less like the Deep Thought I think of when I see this card, but it's amusing to pretend. In the meantime, be careful what you download and what sites you visit, lest your personal information is stolen by a psychic computer monk.

Dedicated Response Team - Android Netrunner

Continuing with the new Future Proof cards, we have this:

Sir, is there any reason we're upside down?

Again, I like this if for the art alone. An elite commando squad almost straight out of Halo standing upside down on a building. Why, how, who cares if it looks cool.

We also hit on one of the sillier terms in the game, meat damage. Meat damage. Doing 2 meat damage means the player discards 2 cards from their hand. The confusion is there is also net damage, which does the exact same thing. In the game's universe, what does meat damage actually mean. Does it mean these guys show up and shoot at the hacker. If so, you'd think they'd be a bit more lethal. Maybe it breaks some universal multi-coorporation code, or the government actually has enough power to do something about corporate murder. Maybe these guys just break your thumbs for misbehaving, I don't know.

I would be find with body damage, but meat damage? What if the hacker is artificial, aka. no meat? This is a cyberpunk setting, so it's likely to come up. But yeah, in Android Netrunner, you can hire your own personal SWAT team.

Darwin - Android Netrunner

So, I've gotten tired with Yu-Gi-Oh! for the moment, so let's look at another game, Android Netrunner. The game is set in a typical cyberpunk universe, where hackers square off against corporations. It's also an LCG, a living card game, the term trademarked by Fantasy Flight. How is this different from a TCG or a CCG? Long story short, TCGs and CCGs distribute cards mostly through randomized expansions. You're not guaranteed to get certain cards. An LCG though takes out the randomized part, making it easier for players to get the cards they want. In both formats though, players can  still play with their own customized decks. While I ultimately prefer and am partial to TCGs and CCGs, I still love LCGs. Part of the reason is that they have helped keep alive certain old games, A Game of Thrones and Call of Cthulhu for example.

I partly chose to do Android Netrunner because the fine people at cardgamedb just released scans for the latest expansion, Future Proof. What goodies can we find in here? Today, we start with this.

The star of the next Syfy telemovie.

The image of this card is a freakin' orca with arms and legs (or legs and legs, I can't tell)! One thing that confuses me about Android Netrunner is the program and ICE designs. Do they actually materialize in cyberspace, like Digimon, or are these illustrations simply meant to convey an idea of what the program does, since real programs are honestly boring to look at. I feel like it's the latter, but that doesn't stop me from imagining the programs battling each other in these forms.

One minor slip up here is the name, Darwin. The whale has legs, similar to that Darwin fish logo. But orcas are not fish! They're mammals, just like all other whales. It's possible this is meant to be the reverse of the Darwin fish, land based mammals evolving into aquatic ones as opposed to aquatic animals evolving into land based ones, but it's still a bit vague. Again, this is a nitpick, the illustration is fine if a bit unclear, but then again it's meant to evoke a concept and less of a physical thing.