Posted in: Board Games, Games, Review | Tagged: game review, oni press, Renegade Game Studios, Renegade Games, scott pilgrim, Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Card Game

Discovering the Power of Cards: We Review Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Card Game

Once upon a time… in Toronto, Canada… Scot Pilgrim got his own board game. For months in 2017, people were psyched that the Oni Comics property of Scott Pilgrim was getting a deck building game produced by Renegade Game Studio. Up to this point, the franchise had only received video game adaptations and a ton of merchandise, so seeing a board game version was an absolute treat. But can Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Card Game hold up to the cult-like standing of the comic book?

As we already mentioned, Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Card Game is a deck building game for two to four players. Each person takes on the role of one of the main good guys in the series. Your choices are Scott Pilgrim, Ramona Flowers, Stephen Stills, Kim Pine, Wallace Wells, and Knives Chau. Each character comes with their own set of skills and abilities, as well as what specific cards work for those players. Depending on the number of players and difficulty you choose for yourselves, you'll be able to face off against 10 different enemies, which includes all of the Evil Ex's, Envy Adams, Julie Powers, and Gideon Graves.

Each character has a set of cards they start out with, along with a certain number of points they can spend to get new cards. Like any deck building game, half of the game is in the setup to do what you need to do by purchasing cards of value that can help you out later in the game and allow you to do what needs to be done against the foe you've chosen. Every card has two sides: one with the potential power or value to help you out, and the other with a side effect or trait that comes with using it. Through a combination of gaining cards in your potential hand, you'll be able to build what you need and eventually deal with the boss and drama.

Drama is a key element in the game as there are cards that just create "drama" and force you to take cards that literally say "drama" and add them to your pile. Unless you have a character who can use drama to their advantage, these are totally worthless and can't help you at all. As you collect cards you'll utilize them to buy more cards to add to your pile and enter into the battle phase against the boss you chose. As you can see below, each one comes with specific guidelines for the battle. Matthew Patel comes with two Demon Hipster Chicks that you have to defeat first before you get to Matthew, and after defeating each one you get whatever added bonus or ability is on the back of their card.

Each character, as you'll see from Knives below, has special abilities on the back of their card that utilize a button-combo system. On the green card to her left, you'll see a right-button symbol in the lower left corner. Using the cards in your hand, you'll combined cards to create combos and use against your opponents, along with any special ability cards you may be able to play. Each move does a special amount of damage. In the case do Double Daggers, it does 3 points of damage. Matthew takes 8 points to defeat, so you'll need to rack up enough cards in your hand to take him down and earn the three victory points he is worth.

You can make the game harder by taking on two enemies at once and working as a team to defeat them, but ultimately the points fall to a single character (whoever deals the final blow). At the end of the game, you'll tally up all the points earned, as well as any that hurt your progress as a player, and determine a winner. So while the game is partially reliant on everyone busting their ass to work together and bring down all the bosses, there's still an element of competition as to who will come out on top at the end. It makes the game super challenging for anyone who believes they are the best just because they have the best cards, and gives hope to anyone who may not have the best hand at the start of the game.

Overall. I enjoyed Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Card Game. Keith Baker did a great job of incorporating the theme of Scott Pilgrim and it's universe into a card game, while also utilizing panels from the colorized edition of the comic to bring the game to life and add some humor. I enjoyed running into cards like "Down Time" with me playing a Game Boy, or the Vegan Police. Like a lot of Renegade titles, some people may find the instructions a bit confusing at first, as there's a lot to digest in the game that comes up on occasion or situations that need to be dealt with on the fly, but once you get the hang of it you'll be kicking ass like none other.

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