It’s time to D-D-D-Dual Force! If nobody got that joke then I am way too old to be playing Yugioh. DC Dual Force developed by CCG Lab, Inc and published by YUKE’s is the newest card game to enter the market. Last year’s Marvel Snap probably had something to do with it, as DC is looking to get in on where the success is at. Dual Force lets you create decks with your favorite DC Heroes and Villains to fight against other players as well as fight the battles from past DC comics.
Dual Force is a deck builder that just happens to have DC characters in it. Battles revolve around doing enough damage to your opponent’s leader card to take out its health. Decks are built around Recruits, Actions and the Leaders that I mentioned. Recruits are characters that you can call into the field with attack power and health. Like typical card games, they usually can’t attack the turn they are placed unless they have an ability that lets them bypass this. Think of actions like spells, they do something, and it comes with a cost. Actions will either do damage, have an effect that buffs your own recruits and other gameplay affecting affects. Leader cards are special, you don’t draw them. They are your health bar in every dual and also have special abilities that happen when they are “charged up”. Charging up can occur in different ways, doing damage, a recruit dying, or just by number of turns.
All of these cards and affects I mentioned aren’t free to use at any point, as like most card games there is a resource system in place to keep it in balance. You start the game with a bronze charge, then two. These get upgraded to silver and then gold as the battles keep going. You can use a bronze card while charged with gold and you’ll see it drop down to a silver, so it’s not a use all situation, none of it carries over though so spend it as needed.
Once the fight starts you play the card game vs the enemy. The deck you use will be themed around the chosen comic and character with its own special field affects that fit the comic. The player vs player side is just purely deck building and strategy, you can create your own theme or mix it up with multiple leader combinations and cards.
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. This is being marketed as a free to play game, we’ve all seen these around the block before. They hook you in with the shiny new thing and then in most cases you are getting beaten down by little Timmy down the block because his mom decided he could spend his allowance on the early start package or some bonus packs and then you end up caving and buying “just a few packs”.
Well, I hate to admit it, but this isn’t quite as bad as that. Yes, there is definitely an early access pack that you can purchase as well as a subscription that will cost $9.99 a month that will give you access to all the comics aka battles every week as well as a battle pass system that rewards you for logging in daily.
There are of course two currencies in the game as well. Dual coins are earned by winning and even losing fights and at 2000 you can unlock a new pack from the store. Gems are the typical premium tier currency with the most expensive at $100 but that will buy you just about every single pack and bundle currently available. Do you need to spend any money at all in Dual Force? No, you really don’t. The fact that you get coins for losing fights means you don’t have to be great at the game to progress, you just need to try. Is it better to win? Yeah, but if you spend money to do so then the dual coins lose their value as what you could have bought for free, you paid for.
Is DC Dual Force worth downloading and playing is what it comes down to, currently its PC and Mobile only with its own launcher so you have to create an account with them. There are plans for releases on consoles down the line from what I could find but I feel like console shouldn’t be the play here and they should focus on PC and Mobile but that’s just my opinion. It came out slightly buggy and with some unbalanced cards but ultimately, yes, it’s worth giving it a download and trying it out. They have done well with the feedback and have done a good job with patching out the unbalanced and buggy items. The DC Comic take on it is cool enough with it following the comic stories and having you play out the battles using themed decks. DC Dual Force released on October 17th on PC and coming soon to mobile devices.
