Bloons Card Storm preview - "Where strategy and monkeys go hand in hand and deck in deck"
A Pocket Gamer first-look exclusive!
- Bloons Card Storm requires a lot more strategy than I've seen in many other games in the franchise.
- In Bloons Card Storm. you can form a deck and play against other players online.
- Complete quests to unlock new cards and various rewards.
After defending bases and destroying heaps of enemies, it's time to turn toward other players and face off monkey to monkey (no pun intended). This time around, you will do it Yu-Gi-Oh! style, with a good ol' deck of cards and a bunch of spells that all go hand in hand.
A perfect fit with the other games in the franchise
In Bloons TD 6, you could defend your base against all sorts of unique Bloons that would swarm the sky - in Bloons Card Storm, the Bloons are still a thing, except now you can use them against other players.If there was ever an existing game that had all the elements to make it into a CCG, then Bloons had to be the one. With monkeys acting as the hero cards, each possessing unique abilities and attack patterns, various colours of Bloons being the primary attack weapon and unique "events" (if they could even be called that) acting as the spell cards, Bloons Card Storm has everything you might expect.
A lot of strategy and planning
In this game, a lot of strategising and planning will be involved. First, all the monkeys you know and love (like Quincy, Gwendolin, and Obyn Greenfoot) will act as the main hero of your deck. Based on their unique powers, you can form a deck, picking cards that have good synergy with each other and with the hero skills.You can then pick a few Bloons from a varied selection including the MOAB, Ceramic Bloon, BFB, Double Rainbow Bloon and even the ZOMG. There are a lot more, all costing different amounts of Gold, so preparing a balanced deck is the key to winning all the battles.
But the Bloons are only the first line of defence - there is also an arsenal of monkeys tasked with destroying the enemy Bloons and keeping your hero alive, which also requires some planning.
Each monkey card is more or less the equivalent of a tower from Bloons TD 6. You can deploy up to 5 monkey cards that can have various active skills. Some of them are simple farms meant to generate Gold, while others can summon Bloons or buff the team.
- We also have a Bloons TD 6 tier list if you're interested!
Let's talk gameplay
In terms of gameplay, Bloons Card Storm is what you might expect from a CCG. Of course, it looks different from Hearthstone and Legends of Runeterra, but it is a CCG alright. The main goal is to defeat your opponent by destroying their hero (meaning it has to reach 0 HP).Each player will deploy various Bloons that will go in the first field. This is the only way to deal damage to the enemy hero, and keeping them alive for the turns needed to attack is crucial.
Behind the Bloons, in the field in front of the hero, up to 5 monkeys can be deployed. The monkeys will only be able to attack the enemy Bloons, buff other monkeys or Bloons, or generate Gold. Each one plays a unique role, and finding a good balance between offence, support and farms is crucial to winning a duel.
The heroes in Bloons Card Storm are the same as in every other Bloons game, and they each have unique skills that can have good synergy with specific cards. When you build a deck, you can go about it two ways: you can either consider which cards you want to play and then pick a hero based on that, or pick the hero you want to play, and then fit some cards that can go well with it.
Ultimately, you need to have some low-cost cards to play at the beginning, as well as some more powerful and expensive cards if you want to win any battle.
Surprisingly complex for how it looks
Since Bloons Card Storm is set in the Bloons universe, the visuals follow suit. It doesn't have some fancy animations taken out of a Pixar movie, but rather simpler, 2D and 3D animations that are similar to the other games in the franchise.Despite the simpler visuals, when it comes to the actual gameplay, the game packs a punch. It is a lot more complex than it looks, and the strategies involved are nothing short of extraordinary. Even the AI bots are unforgiving, and if you don't put 100% every time, you could end up losing even in the tutorials.
So, despite its cutesy looks, the game is a thorough turn-based strategy game, where planning ahead is required. It's a delight for anyone who loves card games, and even more so for those who are a fan of the Bloons franchise.
