- Bloons Card Storm perfectly combines fun and strategy
- If you love collectible card games, this title will definitely make you smile
- It's more than just another title in the franchise; with a little polishing, I can see it will go the distance
Now that it's finally here, Bloons Card Storm deserves a proper review. I already had the chance to try it during the beta phase, which is when I wrote my preview of Bloons Card Storm, but boy, things have changed in the meantime.
Since there's a brand new monkey joining the hero monkey lineup at launch, I'm excited to give this game the proper overhaul it needs. So fasten your seatbelts, because we're about to take off, in a hot air balloon no less.
I won't go back to what I said in my previous article, but I will add something. Even quite a bit.
There are different game modes
With the official launch there are some new game modes. There is Duel, i.e. online PvP, Adventure mode (single player) and custom game modes. This makes me think there is an eSports future for this game, since that's usually the case with CCGs (like Legends of Runeterra, Hearthstone, and Magic the Gathering).
Yes, I see that happening here. The gameplay is fantastic – it requires a lot of strategy, regardless of whether you're going up against another player or the AI, and this shows that Ninja Kiwi doesn't mess around when it comes to giving players a good challenge.
Lots of variety of decks to suit all tastes
If you are someone who likes to try new cards or heroes, as well as new strategies and wacky combinations, you have complete freedom to do so in Bloons Card Storm. The game allows you to create a deck exactly as you imagine it, without limitations. Of course, the only limit might be the number of tokens you have (the currency used to create cards), but that's not the point.
What I like is that you can go wild: use Obyn Greenfoot as your hero, pair him with all kinds of crazy card combinations like Jungle's Bounty Druid and Banana Farm, and then go all out with shields and expensive cards. Just one idea: don't come to me! I'm one of those guys who like crazy decks that put on a show or send me back to the drawing board.
I had plenty of time to test it and get my hero excited about the beta.
You have the means to acquire heroes and resources as a F2P player
The game features daily and weekly missions, which grant you 60 Monkey Money if you complete them all every day, as well as a bunch of random tokens. As for the weekly missions, you can collect a total of 450 Monkey Money every week. At least that's how it is now with the release.
For me, this is more than enough to allow you to save and purchase the heroes you want, whether it's Obyn Greenfoot or Amelia the Amazing. While Obyn costs 1000 Monkey Money, Amelia is a little more expensive, 2000. But with all these rewards accruing every day and week, you'll be able to get them all as a free-to-play player regardless.
You can complete quests to get extra monkeys and tokens
Talents are something like “Results” in other games, here they give you tokens and Monkey Money, and if you put some time into playing for a while, you can even grind enough Monkey Money to buy Amelia on your first day. I'm not even joking.
I give the game points for this because unlocking all the heroes should be something everyone has access to, and that's exactly the case in this case.
Let's talk about sound and graphics
I didn't talk much about this aspect of the game in my preview, because I wasn't sure if anything would change. Apparently that wasn't the case, so here I am giving Bloons Card Storm a big W from me, particularly for the background music.
The background music is so nice and relaxing – if I could keep my tablet on for an entire day just to listen to it, I would.
In terms of graphics, the cartoonish look might make you believe it's a simple game full of fun and balloons, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Don't let the eye-catching graphics fool you – consider yourself warned. Even AI robots are unforgiving.
And the controls?
For me, the controls are more like an 8/10. I say this because every time you try to attack an enemy Bloon with one of your Monkeys, the target isn't always right. In my opinion there could be some improvements in that area, but that doesn't detract from the quality of everything else.
I had some trouble selecting a specific enemy Bloon with my Sniper Monkey, probably because the hitbox was a few pixels away from how I saw the Bloon. This is a simple fix, and with practice, won't affect your gameplay at all.
Some features seem lacking
As someone who has spent years playing games for a living, I could tell right away that the game felt lacking in some way. For one thing, there's no friends list or leaderboard. I love sharing cool games with my friends and then playing together (or against each other), and I just can't do that here. For me, the lack of a leaderboard kind of takes away some of that competitiveness.
It could also be useful to have a few more Adventure levels, where we can see some backstories on the heroes or learn strategies.
I'll let this topic pass, though, because the game has just been released and I believe there will be many more added in the future. But as it is right now, this is where I am.
If you decide to give it a try, redeem some of the Bloons Card Storm codes because they will give you some nice rewards!