Eye of Judgement: Legends is the PSP version of the PS3 virtual card game. However, unlike the PS3 version, this doesn’t require any external hardware at all, just your PSP. The game contains a large number of cards, including all the ones from the PS3 version plus quite a few more. The cards are split up into five main types, plus magic cards; Fire, Water, Wood, Earth and Biolith, which correspond to each of the species living on the world. There are also magic cards which do various things to help you in the duels, such as adding health or a double attack. The board is a 3 x 3 grid with each square representing a different one of the five types mentioned above. When playing a card on a square of its own type it gains 2 hit points while placing it on a type it’s weak against, for example placing a ‘Fire’ type on a ‘Water’ square, will make it lose 2 hit points. The tutorial at the beginning covers the basics and the duelling system is very easy to pick up, but for advanced techniques and tactics you’ll need to look in the library section for extra tips. The duels consist of turn-based gameplay, where in each turn you draw a card and can then place monsters on the field to attack your opponents or use magic cards. The winner is the first to have five monsters on the field at once.
The game has a variety of modes; story mode, battle arena, deck builder, network, card shop and library. Story mode is just that, it’s the campaign mode for the game, with card duels split up with cut scenes to tell the story of you trying to save the land from Scion, the evil ruler of the Bioliths. The story is quite hard to follow, seems to start in the middle and didn't make a lot of sense. You don’t need to understand it completely to enjoy the game as the story mode consists mostly of card duels. The cut scenes are still pictures put together into a comic-like effect which I felt added to the confusing storyline. Each part of the story involved you fighting an enemy boss of some sort. Once you beat them they disappeared and you gained more money, which is useful in other sections of the game, and a few new cards from their deck, which allows you to customise the deck you started with or create your own. This is followed by another cutscene, moving you to a different area and continuing with the story. This does become slightly repetitive after a while but the huge number of variations of cards and the increasing difficulty of the duels means it always keeps you engaged.
Battle arena is the area for you to practice your duelling skills against previous enemies you've defeated or against a virtual wizard with rules you set up. It also contains the tutorial in case you need reminding on how to play or want to learn any advanced ways to play. The deck builder section allows you to edit your current deck and to create new ones using the cards you collect over the story mode and from the shop. A deck consists of 30 cards with no limit on the number of each type, allowing you free range over the decks you create. You can either create an entirely new deck for use in all the other game modes or you can easily edit an existing deck, swapping one card for another until you've created the perfect deck.
Network is where you can duel your friends over both infrastructure and Ad-hoc. These duels are very similar to the story mode ones, with the same rules. It also allows you to trade cards with friends, helping you to get those rare cards. The card shop is just that; it’s the place to go when you want to buy new cards for your deck using your hard-earned money from the other modes. The cards are sorted into the various types or you can browse through them all in one long list. Pressing triangle shows the information on the card, just like it does during duels, allowing you to see if the card will fit your strategy. The prices of cards vary quite a lot, with the cheapest cards being 500 gold, something you can easily afford, and the most expensive ones being around 13,000 gold, which is around 3-4 winning duels worth of money.
Finally the library is the place to go for information, whether it is the history of the world or various advanced techniques for playing the game. Documents are unlocked as you play the game and help to fill you in slightly on the confusing storyline.
Overall this is a fairly good game, the gameplay is polished and plays well and isn’t too difficult to understand. It’s let down by the confusing story mode and the lack of variety in the duels, with each one feeling very similar but slightly harder. For those of you who enjoyed the PS3 version then this is worth getting, but for others who haven’t it may not really be worth it if you’re not into card games.
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