WHAT AN APPEALING COMPETITIVE PVP STRATEGY CARD GAME!
Game: Yi Xian: The Cultivation Card Game
Platform: PC
Genre: Card Battler, Strategy, PvP, Free to Play
Overview
Yi Xian has so much to offer that it makes you want to keep playing, even if you're like me and don't enjoy competitive games where you're competing to be the best player.
Even if you lose, you can only grow and bounce back stronger than ever in this auto-battling card game where you're not really building your own deck, but rather building around the cards granted by your deck across a handful of decks depending on the character chosen. Decreasing the likelihood that each game is the same.
Issues
There were a few connectivity issues, but otherwise everything was perfect. Having a connectivity error while playing the tutorial or PvE is strange, as it appears that the game can only be played online, which I haven't tested yet, but that would explain it.
Graphics & Presentation
The soundtrack, character design, and presentation of a truly gorgeous Chinese-inspired environment all know how to draw you into the game and immerse you totally in a compelling deep mental thought of strategy of what you want to do next and all the various build outcomes for future or previous games.
I'm not sure why, but I've seen a lot of people claim that this is a pay-to-play or pay-to-win game, most likely because they haven't even touched the game and see the possibility to buy jades in the shop, which are legitimately just used for cosmetics. I'm not sure how that converts into being pay to win, but no. You can play this for free with your friends and don't require anything else, which is really nice to see.
Gameplay
Battles take place in either PvE or PvP. You begin as a low level, essentially a mortal with little power, and as you progress through the game, you gradually level up and become closer to immortal status, which allows for more powerful cards and fate abilities like the ability to draw 11 cards or start every combat with more QI (Mana).
Build a strong and synergetic deck with the cards that are dealt to you. You may not receive the same cards as in prior games, particularly if you select a completely different character with an entirely different deck.
However, you can sacrifice these cards to obtain cultivation, which will advance your phase; the higher your cultivation is to your opponent lets you make the first move.
You can also exchange your cards a limited time each turn to potentially obtain cards you require, as well as match them to upgrade them to levels 2 and 3 for more powerful results, though it is sometimes preferable to use them early rather than upgrade to level 2, so consider what the benefit would be in doing either of those.
Let me give you a short example
If I wanted to play a Mu Hu Mono-Water build and had many copies of "Great Wave", as well as other nice frontline or stackable QI cards. I would want to keep them in the early phases of the game at the end of my rotation to accumulate a tremendous amount of "Force of Water," which simply means that on the first full rotation, I would have received 20-30 reflect damage for the second rotation instead of 10 upgraded.
Conclusion
Thinking about my experience with this game has me fidgeting in my seat, because I'm curious how many more powerful and unique builds there could be for each character except the few I attempted. I'm particularly interested in actual strategy, in which a game forces you to think and make decisions that you believe will result in a better conclusion, and then adapt when it doesn't work until it does. It's just a great sense of success when you win, which is difficult to find in these types of games.
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