Cardstalkers

Competitive Pokémon is a fascinating, bizarre space. I won’t try to explain it all here because there’s a ton to it, but a major component is switching. Tagging out a ‘mon for one that’s better positioned can grant a massive advantage in type weaknesses, but it’s also functionally a pass and can backfire wildly if the opponent predicts it. This is a strong foundation for a battle system and it’s frankly surprising that we don’t see more tabletop tag fighters. 

Enter Enmity Engine, which offers just that, but with a very different set of aesthetic influences. Think Poké Megami Tensei, and it looks as good as what you’re imagining. You have a massive stack of freaks and weirdos ready to do battle on your behalf, powered by the same source I use to get by in my daily life: a standard poker deck, one per player.

This immediately reminded me of Sirlin Games’ first edition of Yomi with its utilization of poker suits and numbers in its combo systems, jokers, etc. To be frank it’s a bit less intuitive here, in large part due to significant frontloading of information since the standard pack is well, standard. All of the game info has to be contained on the fighters and player aids themselves, which is helped by them being tarot sized, but that can only do so much when you’re expected to draft 3 light novels at the start of the game.

That said, the gameplay is deceptively simple. Without getting into all the phases and rules therein, you get a small action (drawing, filtering cards, and other setup things) and your main move, which is selected secretly for a simultaneous reveal. This aligns with a lot of other tabletop fighters: BattleCON/Exceed, Pocket Paragons, the aforementioned Yomi, and several others all hinge on the flip of your cards. Attacks check for speed (again, think Pokémon here) and resolve starting with whoever’s quickest, with one very notable exception.

Let’s circle back to the all-important tag. In Pokémon, swapping is as simple as selecting the option and always happens before your opponent can swing. That last part is still true here, but EE adds a layer of uncertainty as you need royals in hand to swap with the teammate on the current fighter’s left (Jack/King) or right (Queen/Ace). You may have the read on your opponent, especially if you have their current fighter dead to rights, but will they swap? What if they can’t? What if they can but not to a fighter they’d actually want to eat the hit? This may sound like a strategic negative in theory, but in practice I appreciated the introduction of a bit more uncertainty. It also rewards you for tracking your opponent’s plays and to an extent counting cards, getting a sense for how likely it is that they even have the capability of swapping one way or the other. It turns tags into a resource rather than just another move in the arsenal, and as a result matches tend to be more exciting, with big attacks landing a bit more often than other ‘mon-adjacent games I’ve tried but never being guaranteed.

Finding the game’s long term strategic potential proved somewhat challenging but I take partial responsibility for that. Full disclosure: this review took the better part of a year after the copy was sent our way, and a significant portion of that was finding opponents who were willing and/or able to get their heads around a game with 14 elemental types and interactions that are legion. EE demands a lot of its players on first blush, and arguably even more on replays. Your first few games will often feel like you’re blindly swinging at each other, vaguely trying to align positive elemental matchups, but mostly stumbling as you just try not to get blown out by a crit again. The game offers little recourse to players overtaken early, and that compounded to the point of frustration for several folks to the point where I couldn’t convince several of my regular players to give the game sufficient chances.

In hindsight its abrasiveness should not have been a shock. The rules doc opens on a short story about sacrificing insects to create particularly lethal poisons, most of the fighters are deadly horrors, and hell, the game is fucking called Enmity Engine. I was a fool for thinking this’d be just another fighting-games-the-card-game. It’s a brutal, sneaky, conniving pack of cards and it was never going to be for broad audiences, duh, of course.

It is definitely for me, though. I grew to quite appreciate this thing’s brutality because I love punching and getting punched in equal measure. Played with the right opponent, someone who can revel in a good hit no matter who deals it, EE offers considerable depth even when compared to its contemporaries. It’s also bolstered by a roster of over 50 fighters and features a strong variety of modes, including a gigantic 5v5 scrum and a solo mode if you want to hit the lab. There is a frankly bonkers amount of game on offer here, the kind of thing you’d normally see expansions for, but instead it’s all just…here!

If Yomi is tabletop Street Fighter and Exceed is (literally) Guilty Gear or Blazblue, Enmity Engine is Darkstalkers. Many will appreciate it, more will bounce off it, and the game itself will make no attempt to not frighten those players away, but fortune will favor those brave enough to plumb its depths.

8/10

Review copy provided by publisher.