I am always on the lookout for more Gundam-themed official artwork and so this quest also covers various Gundam-themed card games. The turn today has come to the multi-IP card-dueller BattleSpirits premiered by Bandai and Sunrise in 2008. More specifically, I had the opportunity to purchase the three "Operation" starters you see on display below, numbered 52, 53 and 54 respectively. This should give us a fair idea of the scope of this game, where Mobile Suit Gundam can simply be considered a bit of a guest appearance. The three starters were released in March 2020 and I have only ever encountered them this one time.
As you can see we have three distinct eras to pick from, the Cosmic Era of SEED, the Anno Domini-timeline of MSG 00 or the Universal Century in the Unicorn phase. I am really liking the artwork on display here and I was curious about what to find inside. Let's crack them open!
SD52 : Operation SEED
Starting in numerical sequence then with the Operation SEED package we find the following inside: A pre-assembled deck of 43 cards, a handful of blue tokens plus a larger five-sided one (these are cores and a soul core I am informed), a play area slash rules-sheet and a quick reference sheet showing which card classes the various cards belong to.
The play area is printed in dull greyscale and sports a turn of play-sequence on it as well as a deeper full-colour introduction of the rules on the flipside. I would wager you can find these online because it would be a bit annoying having to table-flip each time you want to reference the rules.
Here is a closer look at the different cards found in the box. It is pretty much exactly what you expect it to be. We have Athrun and Kira with a couple of the G-project mobile suits joining in. The top five card-types are full-foil while the rest have a plain finish to them. The iconography is really a mess and the card colours not entirely obvious at first glance but there you go. Judging from the card numbers the cards found in the box appear to be unique to this particular starter with the exception of the Lacus-card which seems to be pulled from a traditional random booster series of cards. A companion set of 86 different cards was released in 6-pack booster packs (released in May 2020) but I have yet to ever come across such a pack unfortunately.
SD53 : Operation 00
The contents of the 00-package mirrors the set-up seen in the previous box, although the exact configuration in regard to card types and distribution is a little bit different. Here the focus of course is on the four classic Celestial Being machines - the Exia, Dynames, Kyrios and Virtue - and their pilots. We even have a pop-up appearance of the Gundam Nadleeh.
SD54 : Operation UC
Lastly, we have the Unicorn-set which features the Unicorn pair and a surprisingly large number of mass-production type suits, making this set the most interesting out of the three in my opinion. Other aspects of the box contents mimic the previous two boxes, I assume these are fairly well balanced against each other from a gameplay point of view.
The three card lists with the different card rarities can at the time of writing be explored in greater detail on the BattleSpirits site here. Can't say I understand the whole thing about placing different rarities on cards in a fixed starter however.
A quick comparison of the BattleSpirits card-size compared to some of the similar Gundam-themed card games and collectibles out there. From left to right we have Gundam CrossWar, Cardbuilder UC, Gundam TryAge, BattleSpirits, the classic Gundam War, Gundam War NEX-A and Duel Company.
If you are interested in exploring this series further, here are some useful links to other sets released with a Gundam-theme:
[CB13] Collaboration Booster Gundam Fighters of the Universe (2020-05-30)
[CB16] Gundam Collaboration Booster Iron Flower's Battlefield (2021-02-27)
[CB25] Collaboration Booster Pack Gundam The Witch from Mercury (2022-11-26)
[CB27] Collaboration Booster Pack Gundam The Witch’s Awakening (2023-03-25)
[CB29] Collaboration Booster Pack Gundam -The Witch’s fate- (2023-12-16)
[CBX01] Collaboration Booster EX Gundam -DESTINY And FREEDOM- (2024-02-03)
All in all, I don't think it is worth the hassle for Gundam card-collectors to bother seeking out the BattleSpirits decks. Pretty much everything we see here has also been released in other games. The card designs are great though if a bit artistically hodge-podge as the basic card-aesthetic doesn't necessarily lend itself that well into the mech battle theme in my opinion. Perhaps save your money for that elusive Gundam War Dramatic Starter pack instead.
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