The original Neo-Geo Pocket SNK / Capcom Card Fighters enjoys a fine reputation among hardcore portable gamers of old. 2007's port sees the geeked-out fun dead and gone, and franchise talk has ended months ago. I won't be the first to note that SNK Playmore spared *every* expense in rushing this sleeper CCG to the green pastures of today's handheld par excellence, but it bears repeating. Console markets with sales numbers like the DS will continue to sustain and encourage hack-jobs like this one, but that doesn't mean those efforts should be forgiven.

Among the onerous difficulties apparent in the first five hours of gameplay is a localization job that actually impedes the player's understanding of individual card abilities and game concepts. For example, SNK Playmore's editors saw fit to use "ignominious" correctly in the manual, while misstating the specifics on cards and in the tutorial. Hey, at least the kids will be prepping for their PSATs! Coupled with the treachery of the in-game score and the mad-libbed inanity of the RPG "story," there's little motivation to appreciate the handsome card graphics.

A less absolute blunder involves the introduction of an underdeveloped and unbalanced "color/cost" system of playing cards akin to the CCG ideal of M:TG. This should tend to produce excellent results with smart development, but Card Fighters battles are ultimately races to establish numbers first. Even numbers matter little, however, when the AI scripts are incompetent. On paper, the color/cost system promises hours of deck tweaking that forms the bedrock of the CCG genre--but what incentive is there to delve into the potential intricacies of cost and color management when the AI handicaps itself at every turn? Independent of other attack/defense numbers-based CCGs, the Card Fighters battle system could have simply forced involved deck editing and increased the importance and combo potential of the non-creature "instants" by limiting AI inattention. You're left managing the same boring attacks in a cramped, economical battle screen, wishing for the killer combo that ain't coming in your deck. The problems render the multiplayer option a moot point.

All of this misery falls far short of the game's fatal crash that prevents you from completing 25% percent of the game. This is an unimaginable oversight that no serious developer would EVER let slip, even on a C-list game.

To rephrase the consensus outrage about the slipshod effort put into this port: you should feel no obligation to invest yourself in a console game that was commercially released with a game-crashing fatal flaw--even if the company in question replaces the cartridge after post-release debugging. Card Fighter promises a little fun to any CCG-minded gamer, but the genre demands too much involvement and time to spend your energies on a losing cause. As for me, maybe it's time to boot up Microprose's Magic: The Gathering in Windows 95 compatibility mode...

No joke, SNK Playmore had acknowledged this bug a week ago and on that date they posted on the company forums, "We're looking into it." No response since. No update. My guess is this will wind up like Sudoku on the PSP (which had a bug where if you dropped below 80% power the game would pause every 30 seconds). They just swept that under the rug and said, "Well, they can't all be winners." I am expecting we will never hear any response on this issue from SNK and it will fall on the retailer's shoulders to supply refunds.

Bad, bad idea to get this game.