Review: MASSIVE-VERSE FIGHTING CARD GAME BASE SET is Phenomenal Gameplay in Disappointing Packaging

Several months ago, Solis Game Studio let me try out the Massive-Verse Fighting Card Game with the new Starter Pack. Now, the team has been kind enough to send me a copy of the base game which includes eight characters along with two health and energy trackers.

Now that I’ve been able to play with a more full roster, I wanted to share some additional thoughts. The catch is that my thoughts are less about gameplay, and more just about the product itself. After all, the gameplay is the same. It’s still a very fun 2-player game with expanded rules that I’ll cover briefly.

Inside the physical rulebook, there are two additional game modes for players to consider, Legacy Mode and Conquest Mode. In both of these modes, each player selects three characters to play as.

Then, in Legacy Mode, you switch characters when yours is defeated but they can inherit an ability from the last character. This means that you take a card from the defeated character and replace the card from the new character with the same symbol (for example, you remove the blue card from Radiant Black’s deck to add the blue card from Rogue Sun).

The last character standing wins. In Conquest Mode, you change characters when you win a game with the goal being to win with each of your three characters. The losing character can stay or change depending on your strategy.

These game modes are great if you want a longer play session or even for more tournament-style play as more strategy gets to shine through your character selection and match ups. I have nothing bad to say about the more full game modes as they only add to the experience.

Once again, Brian McKay and the team did a great job of creating unique characters each with their own playstyle. I’m sure someone’s made a tier list somewhere outlining “the best character”, but in my opinion a lot of how well you do comes down to finding a character that fits your playstyle.

For example, The Griffin banishes his cards for bonus effects, but then you lose access to those cards. It has the potential to do a lot of damage, but takes precision. Meanwhile, The Dead Lucky starts with fewer cards in her hand, but gains cards over time resulting in more of a ramp playstyle.

If you need something simpler though, look at Cataclysm who attempts to turn enemy gains into double-edged swords by dealing damage, boosting your damage, etc. I love the flavor put into each character!

Plus, I like the dials included to track health and energy. They’re simple and require some construction, but they work smoothly and look nice. It’s definitely a huge step up from the flimsy paper tokens in the Starter Pack.

Now, we get to the things that bummed me out. Keep in mind, that nothing about the game design or gameplay is bad in my opinion. It’s little things about the physical product. For starters, the box is massive! I know this is the Massive-Verse Fighting Card Game, but the box doesn’t have to be able to fit about 3-5 copies of itself inside of one box.

Now, there’s an argument to be made that it’s so massive in order to accommodate expansions which is fair and valid. However, from what I can tell, the box for the Team Up Expansion is just as big! To add on top of that, the insert is minimal and not conducive to good storage.

It’s a simple folded cardboard insert which I don’t hate, but honestly, just the addition of some foam blocks to help keep the cards from moving around would have been massive (pun intended).

Each character that comes in the base game has an oversized card to serve as a divider. This is a good addition. There are two problems though. First, the characters from the Starter Pack do not get such dividers which is just annoying.

I wish that the Starter Pack had come with these or that they were included in the base game (although that makes less sense due to being released before the Starter Pack). Now, I have neat divisions for the base game characters and then it just looks like the last character has a million cards because they have two additional decks tacked on.

The other problem is that with the cardboard insert, the dividers are just too big to actually be effective, but without the insert, the dividers are just too small. Once again, this would be alleviated by the inclusion of some foam blocks to help keep cards from sliding everywhere.

At the end of the day, I would recommend the Massive-Verse Fighting Card Game to friends who enjoy the Massive-Verse or who want a fun 2-player card game. The box and insert leave something to be desired though as they are, in my opinion, too minimalistic.

Maybe there’s something about the Team Up Expansion that helps address these gripes, but if not, I’ve got some work ahead of me designing my own insert solutions. I want to stress below that the score below is about the base game as a whole product, but the score for the Starter Pack is a better reflection on just the game design and gameplay.