Alteil U.S. is gone and doesn't appear to be coming back. I'm still hoping my three year investment would resurface. But, in order to pass the time, I decided to look for a free to play online collectible card game (CCG) that would serve as Alteil's
I was still hoping I would find a Robotech / Macross type of CCG, but alas, there seems to be no market for it... else there would have been one already.
Sword Girls, on the other hand, appeals to the hormones of young boys. You'll understand this as you see the vivid images portrayed in the cards.
The game play is similar to Alteil where two players go head-to-head and try to destroy each other's Character, one of the three types of cards in the game (the other two are Followers and Spells). The Character is the "LIFE" representation of the player, and different Characters will have different "LIFE" sizes. Some can have 30 life (or SP for Alteil fans), while others only have 20 SP. Some Characters have abilities that affect its Followers (or Units) at the beginning of the turn. The player who goes first during turns is also randomly determined, just like Alteil.
There are five slots surrounding the Character so you can play a maximum of five cards per turn. Unfortunately, there is no Range concept in Sword Girls. But some abilities will affect certain slots, so positioning your Followers is still key. The card's Size will determine how many you can play in a turn. A player is given a maximum playable size of 10. So as long as the sum of all card sizes you are playing during the turn is less than or equal to 10, you can play all of these. (Two 5-sized cards, Three 3-sized cards and a 1-sized card, Five 2-sized cards... I hope you get the idea.)
Spells are laid out just like units, but take effect first before any unit can attack. The thing I hate is that your units randomly attack the enemies units. There seems to be no sense of focus, where you can concentrate your attacks on bringing down a single unit first. (Perhaps this changes as you get better cards in the game, but I'm only at the beginner stage.) Still, the objective of the game is to get the opponent's Character down to zero life.
And like Alteil, there are also spells which remove units from the playing field. Once the opponent's units are gone, your units or Followers are free to attack the opponent's Character.
This game is playable for "free players". It has different types of quests where you can play against the game's AI and win different cards, depending on the quest. You can use these cards, (Materials and Accessories) to create new cards, which is reminiscent of crafting in Star Ocean. (I was even able to create a Rare card after only playing the game for three days. But the game has double and triple rares and to create these, you would need to have multiple rares, uncommon, and common cards, so I don't know how long it will take to create these cards.) You can also buy tokens, which is the "gran" or money for Sword Girls. They offer booster packs and even random single cards.
So if you miss Alteil and want to play a decent CCG, then Sword Girls could be the game for you. With an iterative card crafting system and new quests being introduced every season, I think it will take a really long time for a player to reach the "plateau".
