Kongai: Great Drops Lately

Huh. File this under credit where credit is due but the last few card releases have been pretty well done. Have the game's caretakers listened to some advice and given the release schedule a bit more attention than plucking names out of a hat with the advent of Re-release 2?

Hard to say. After starting off with the generic Healing Salve they finished off the R1 set with the final card, Flash Powder (And now I've got the full set. Um, yay?) followed closely by Rumiko. And then the Scroll. That's at least a few solid combinations to go with a decent card. Maybe it's stuff that the pros can scoff at but, really, these card challenges are all about getting new players into the game and giving them something to start off their decks with. The combinations don't have to be great, probably won't be anything like as good as someone who's been playing month in and month out can devise, but they do have to be something more than completely awful.

The latest card to drop is Helene. She's not as fearsome as she was in her prime but she's still a solid card. And no doubt an attractive one that might draw some new eyeballs in (Since I'm dabbling with creating my own cards, there's no denying that making them look cool is almost as important as making them play well. You want cards that people are going to think about, dream about, the sort that they really want to play with. Helene's a scantily clad blond, and I don't think that's an accident. I'd better move on before Rule 34 kicks in.).

If the next items we get are something like the ValkCharm or CritStone then something is definitely up.

Of course, having said that, we're probably just going to see another TitPlate.

Because, as much as I want to lavish praise here, I can't help but still complain. The level of the challenges is still wildy out of place. I snapped up Helene in a few minutes with the ridiculously easy and hideously unfun Microbe Kombat game. While grabbing the Scroll took me much greater investment of time in that achingly slow Samurai game – I even had to play the game twice since I managed to beat it once without slogging through the requisite number of battles. Puzzling, really.