A couple of months ago I stumbled on a booster box for a SD Gundam-themed card game that I did not recognize. I didn't jump on it at the time because of the relatively high price and lack of further information. It wasn't until a starter set surfaced - dirt-cheap at that - that I could finally check it out. The game is of the collectible type and its name rolls smoothly of the tongue as you can see in the title above. Anyway, the I reviewed the starter set back in June and decided this game had a really outlandish artistic style that I wanted to explore a bit more so I went back and swiped the old booster box I had seen before. And now your sorry eyes will have to share the experience...
At first glance this looks like your typical Japanese CCG box. if you've come across booster boxes of other games such as Gundam War, NEX-A or Chronicle the format will be recognizable to you, except that this box is a little bit thinner. There sure is a lot going on in that busy front cover... We have the year 2007 on the cover. That places it in the Gundam Cardbuilder, Gundam Chronicle and late Gundam War-era.
Here is a comparison with one of the two starter sets accompanying volume 1. The red one seen here is Hyuuga's starter and there is also a blue one that I have so far not seen. The starters have a fixed set of cards including exclusive card each; you can check out the starter set review here for more information.
The box contains 15 booster packs, each containing six cards. The packaging informs us that there are 63 cards to collect; 45 normal or common, 12 silver rare, 6 gold rare and one secret rare. The mathematically gifted reader quickly realizes that this actually totals 64 cards. Then there is the small detail that the count doesn't align with the information on the collectors card found inside each pack. The list marks 8 cards as "GR", 14 cards as "SR" and the total number of cards including the secret comes to 63, so I have no idea what is going on with that. Finally, nine cards are listed separately and for some reason do not count against the 63 card total. Clear? Clear! Let's open 'em up.
Alright, here you can see the contents of the first two booster packs pulled from the front of the box and organized in the order they were packaged. You can immediately see the weird gimmick about this game; fantasy creatures, machines and everyday objects have been fused with a random Gundam and looks more or less confusing. Among the highlights we have a Barn Swallow, a skeletal fiend of sorts, a giant octopus and a "Gun Tanker". The second pack has more fantasy creatures, I see bunny ears, a dragon hatching and a blimp.
While you cannot see it clearly in these pictures, this game appears to be of the sort that any card can be a foil. The first two cards in each pack have a foil pattern effect applied to them while the rest are plain matte finish. So, the third card in the first pack up there is a non-foil version of the card that appears as a foil in the second pack. Confused? Good, let's carry on.
Packs three and four are up. We see more character-style designs but also a wolf, a microwave from hell and Bumblebee-rip off transforming car. These two packs also introduce plain non-transformed mobile suits; we have the Wing Gundam in the first pack and the Double Zeta in the other pack. These are the cards that don't count towards the 63-card total for some reason. According to the rules they form your basic units and then you use the other cards as transformations of sorts (check out the rules in the review of the starter if you are curious).
Again the first two cards in each pack are of foil type but here we encounter different foil types. The first card in these two packs has a plain smooth foil effect while the secondaries have the same fractured pattern seen earlier. Perhaps these are extra valuable? Let's see... the fancy warrior is card H-001 - listed as a golden rare indeed. The Dinosaur-Gundam face is L-013, marked as a silver rare. I can't see any difference in quality. I went back and checked the other foils... the cards with fractured foil effects are indeed just commons in a stylish variant, I guess kind of like reverse cards in Pokemon.
The fifth pack contains a silver rare mechanic eagle and... hold on... here comes a Gundam Alex with foil pattern... apparently these cards also come with foil variants. We have more cool concepts such as a Flamingo Gundam, oddities like Medusa, a Japanese baseball pro (because of course), washing machine Gundam and... toilet Gundam. I'm sorry everyone, the toilet is a common. The eagle by the way is a "Level 2" card, whatever that means. Most cards are simply level 1. The sixth pack actually contains two regular Gundam cards but unfortunately we have already seen both of them before. The set is pretty small after all and so the duplicate count will be impressive.
Next up we have a Space Battleship Yamato derivative, a dinosaur with a Hyper Hammer for a tail and a motorbike gangster. I have to give it to the artists, these designs are really creative. It reminds me of people creating spaceships out of ordinary things. We find two new non-transformed Gundams this time, the Zeta and the A.E.U.G. Mk-II. The pose is the exact same as the Titans Gundam Mk-II Unit 02 which is the exclusive card in the red starter set. Lame. At least the background is different, the Titans mobile suit has a space backdrop.
Packs nine and then contain mostly fantasy creatures and characters that I have no idea what they are. We are still pulling new mobile suits, well at least one new machine - the Ez8. The foil-to-normal ratio continues to be steady, the first two cards in each pack are foil-types while the remaining four are regulars.
We are seeing a lot of duplicates by now but the packs still introduce new characters and ideas. I feel the set peaked with the toilet Gundam however. The torpedo Gundam is pretty novel, it reminds me of those nukes the Earth Alliance mobile armours kept sending at the Z.A.F.T. colonies in SEED. Those annoying hourglasses...
Nearing the end now and speak of the devil, we have a foil toilet at last. These two packs also introduce a beetle Gundam, a mummy and a cheetah. We also have the good ol' RX-78-2 making its appearance as a base mobile suit.
The fifteenth and last pack sports the Turn-A Gundam with cat tail, stupid pointy hat and a giant fork... twice. I assume this is some fable character I should recognize. And what do you know... see that black clawed creature rising up from what seems to be lava? It has a unique foil pattern where the rings around the arms and legs sparkle, as well as the eyes and V-fin camera. There is also a strange character face silhouette effect in the background... yep, this is N-001 - the secret rare card. I feel it is not a coincidence that it appeared in the last pack in the box, perhaps all the boxes were seeded in this fashion? I doubt we will ever know. We managed to pull all the seven basic Gundam cards too, except of course for the two exclusives from the starters.
Before we go, here are some random card backs of various cards. You can see a representation of the real world or other creature that forms the basis of the transformation. You can also see the heading "Wisdam" on the backside, while the front side says "Fusion". The mobile suits themselves, titles CORE-MS have generic black backgrounds but the fusion/wisdam cards do not so I am curious how you play this game and retain the element of surprise. I don't imagine we will ever see this game featured on a let's play...
Below you can see the (presumably) full set of Battle-Rave volume one. Each booster pack comes with a four-page mini-booklet of which three pages are the ones you see here and the fourth is a promotional blurb for you to buy something. Hope you enjoyed taking a look at this forgotten oddity of a game. :)
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