Note: BattleCON Online is a Free to Play game that I have acted as a playtester for over the past many months. I received a Steam copy early to help playtest the Steam release.

The Short of It
+ Engaging gameplay
+ Replicates the feel of a 2D fighting game without worrying about the intricacies or the dexterity requirement
+ Chess-like perfect information
+ Already a bunch of characters and more to come
+ Vs. AI mode for practice
+ Very high skill ceiling

- Doesn't have my favorite characters yet
- Still has bugs that have to get ironed out, with more seeming to creep up with every character release
- Some daily quests just really suck and take hours to do
- No ranked mode yet
- AI is kind of complete garbage
- Very steep learning curve



For the past two years, I have played Level 99's BattleCON board game. It first came onto my radar around 2012, when I originally came across Level 99's Pixel Tactics card game (also likely to end up on Steam at some point.) At first, I questioned how good a card game fighting game could be, and I avoided playing the game for a while due to my preconcieved notions of what it would be.

So, fast forward to 2016, when I came across BattleCON on Tabletop Simulator and learned to play it with a friend. Since that point, I joined what was then the official Discord server for Level 99 and began playing in Organized Play events and tournaments, and eventually became one of the top players of the game. I've been playtesting for Level 99 since then, and I've enjoyed most of it.

As far as BattleCON is concerned, it's a board game. Let's get that out of the way now. It's a board game that replicates 2D fighting games like Street Fighter, though the inspiration behind it was Guilty Gear mixed with crossover games. What this means is that, instead of inputting Shoryukens, you'll be doing a lot of reading and figuring out what cards to put together so that your attack comes out at the right time to counter your opponent's attack.

If you can get past the fact that this isn't an action game, BattleCON becomes a very rewarding experience where it's entirely about your mental dexterity and reasoning, rather than your physical dexterity and reaction time (and reasoning, there's a surprisingly huge amount of logic and strategy in standard fighting games.) Knowing when to play a Strike or a Drive, knowing how to avoid jumping in when it would leave you open to counter-attack, knowing the correct times to block or dodge and counterattack, that's all the game is about. It's not quite Magic: The Gathering, it's not quite Tekken, but it's a nice amalgamation of everything that makes those games fun.

At the moment, not a whole lot of the universal lore is in the game, but all of the characters come from Level 99's Indines universe, a fantasy world where the majority of the major characters are fantastic creatures, and where technology is absurdly advanced. I'm not sure if/when story modes will be added in, but it's a wonderful universe to explore across BattleCON, Pixel Tactics, Argent: The Consortium, and Empyreal: Spells and Steam.

At the moment, there's about 20 characters in the game, whereas the physical board game currently has about 80 tournament-legal characters, with over a dozen more planned. Two of the characters in BCO were made specifically for the game, so it's not as if we're ever going to run out of material for new characters. Unfortunately, the more interesting ones will likely have to wait until the development team figures out how to bend the game engine to make them work. The existing ones have been reworked for both better functionality within the game engine and better game balance, with the character tier lists seemingly shifting with the meta.

In all, it's an enjoyable game, hopefully the F2P situation doesn't automatically mean that new players are stuck with just the free rotation characters, hopefully Ranked gets added at some point in the near future, and hopefully more people will put up guides to help beginners learn how to play BattleCON better. Also probably hopefully, the playerbase expands beyond how it has been over the past few months. It's pretty bad when the lead designer of BCO is thrilled when 30 people are simulataneously online out of the 1200+ people who have had access to the game for the past couple months.

[b]Note: BattleCON Online is a Free to Play game that I have acted as a playtester for over the past many months. I received a Steam copy early to help playtest the Steam release.[/b] [u][b]The Short of It[/b][/u] + Engaging gameplay + Replicates the feel of a 2D fighting game without worrying about the intricacies or the dexterity requirement + Chess-like perfect information + Already a bunch of characters and more to come + Vs. AI mode for practice + Very high skill ceiling - Doesn't have my favorite characters yet - Still has bugs that have to get ironed out, with more seeming to creep up with every character release - Some daily quests just really suck and take hours to do - No ranked mode yet - AI is kind of complete garbage - Very steep learning curve For the past two years, I have played Level 99's BattleCON board game. It first came onto my radar around 2012, when I originally came across Level 99's Pixel Tactics card game (also likely to end up on Steam at some point.) At first, I questioned how good a card game fighting game could be, and I avoided playing the game for a while due to my preconcieved notions of what it would be. So, fast forward to 2016, when I came across BattleCON on Tabletop Simulator and learned to play it with a friend. Since that point, I joined what was then the official Discord server for Level 99 and began playing in Organized Play events and tournaments, and eventually became one of the top players of the game. I've been playtesting for Level 99 since then, and I've enjoyed most of it. As far as BattleCON is concerned, it's a board game. Let's get that out of the way now. It's a board game that replicates 2D fighting games like Street Fighter, though the inspiration behind it was Guilty Gear mixed with crossover games. What this means is that, instead of inputting Shoryukens, you'll be doing a lot of reading and figuring out what cards to put together so that your attack comes out at the right time to counter your opponent's attack. If you can get past the fact that this isn't an action game, BattleCON becomes a very rewarding experience where it's entirely about your mental dexterity and reasoning, rather than your physical dexterity and reaction time (and reasoning, there's a surprisingly huge amount of logic and strategy in standard fighting games.) Knowing when to play a Strike or a Drive, knowing how to avoid jumping in when it would leave you open to counter-attack, knowing the correct times to block or dodge and counterattack, that's all the game is about. It's not quite Magic: The Gathering, it's not quite Tekken, but it's a nice amalgamation of everything that makes those games fun. At the moment, not a whole lot of the universal lore is in the game, but all of the characters come from Level 99's Indines universe, a fantasy world where the majority of the major characters are fantastic creatures, and where technology is absurdly advanced. I'm not sure if/when story modes will be added in, but it's a wonderful universe to explore across BattleCON, Pixel Tactics, Argent: The Consortium, and Empyreal: Spells and Steam. At the moment, there's about 20 characters in the game, whereas the physical board game currently has about 80 tournament-legal characters, with over a dozen more planned. Two of the characters in BCO were made specifically for the game, so it's not as if we're ever going to run out of material for new characters. Unfortunately, the more interesting ones will likely have to wait until the development team figures out how to bend the game engine to make them work. The existing ones have been reworked for both better functionality within the game engine and better game balance, with the character tier lists seemingly shifting with the meta. In all, it's an enjoyable game, hopefully the F2P situation doesn't automatically mean that new players are stuck with just the free rotation characters, hopefully Ranked gets added at some point in the near future, and hopefully more people will put up guides to help beginners learn how to play BattleCON better. Also probably hopefully, the playerbase expands beyond how it has been over the past few months. It's pretty bad when the lead designer of BCO is thrilled when 30 people are simulataneously online out of the 1200+ people who have had access to the game for the past couple months.