Super Blackjack Battle 2 Turbo Edition - The Card Warriors

When a game is called Super Blackjack Battle 2 Turbo Edition: The Card Warriors, I expect two things -- blackjack and a heavy dose of Street Fighter nostalgia. Stage Clear Studios' newest card game certainly delivers on the blackjack fun, with a whole host of likable characters and several different ways to play. Unfortunately, as an homage to Capcom's popular fighting series, this brand new multiplayer gambling game falls way short of the mark.

If you've ever watched the World Series of Blackjack on television, then you'll know what to expect from this game. You go head-to-head with a colorful cast of characters in hopes of becoming the best blackjack player in the world. These battles take place over ten rounds, and whoever has the most money at the end will be crowned the winner and move on to the next fight. It's a simple premise that anybody with a working knowledge of blackjack will instantly pick up.

Unlike poker and a lot of multiplayer-focused card games, you're not really battling the other player. This is, for all intents and purposes, a game where you play against the house and try to earn as much money as possible. The only difference here is that you have to keep track of how well the opponent is doing, that way you end up with more money by the tenth round. All standard blackjack rules apply here, so you can double down, split your hand and even opt for insurance. Fans of blackjack that are looking for version with retro visuals and silly characters find a lot to like in this iteration.

But while it gets the card aspect right, I can't help but feel like the other elements weren't as fleshed out. The game is called Super Blackjack Battle 2 Turbo Edition: The Card Warriors, which suggests to me that it will be more than just another blackjack game. Going in, I expected special moves, flashy finishers and other types of things you normally get from a Street Fighter game. But none of that is here; it's just a competitive blackjack game with pixel graphics.

I kept thinking back to Puzzle Quest, a game that took the Bejeweled theme and turned it into something bigger and better by adding role-playing elements. That's a game that managed to evolve the source material and make it unique, which is exactly what I expected when I heard the name Super Blackjack Battle 2 Turbo Edition. So while it's a perfectly solid blackjack game, I came away incredibly disappointed that it wasn't something more. The opportunity was here to take the rules of the game and do something special with them.

And it didn't even need to be as drastic as Puzzle Quest. Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo was a game that mixed Street Fighter with a Puyo Puyo-style puzzle game. And while it never veered too far from the color-matching source material, it still made each character feel unique by giving them different patterns and personalities. But, once again, there's nothing quite like that here. Sure, the ten characters look different, but they all play the same. You're basically just choosing an avatar and playing a typical game of blackjack.

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It doesn't help that the computer is the very definition of a pushover. Every character makes the same mistakes, such as constantly over-betting. I found that if I just bet conservatively I would almost never lose. The computer would bet hundreds of dollars hoping to get way out ahead, but would just as quickly lose all their money because they had no impulse control. And isn't just one or two early matches, but every single battle you get into. It gets to the point where the computer is so predictable that it's nearly impossible to lose. That's not fun.

To their credit, there are things that Stage Clear Studios gets right. I like that each character has a unique ending and a bunch of end-match quotes. I dig the look of the game and all of the detailed backgrounds. I think the multiplayer modes can be fun. These are the things that made me want to play Super Blackjack Battle 2 Turbo Edition in the first place, so I'm happy that it looks good and gets the card fundamentals right.

If all you're looking for is a competitive blackjack game that kind of looks like an old school Capcom fighter, then you could do a lot worse than Stage Clear Studios' newest game. But if you saw the name Super Blackjack Battle 2 Turbo Edition: The Card Warriors and figured it would take the concept in a new and action-packed direction, then this is going to disappoint. This is one of the biggest missed opportunities of 2017.