A buddy and I recently played *Exceed Fighting System*! It's the first tabletop game I've played in **very** long time so I figured I'd talk about it a little. I had a moment of weakness recently where I was thinking of getting into *Lorcana*. I like cards and things like that, and I liked that *Lorcana* was new compared to *Magic the Gathering*, meaning I could get into it without like, decades of history that I'd need to take into consideration as well. But I couldn't get past my big issue, which is the whole aspect of collection - buying new cards, keeping up with the meta, yadda yadda yadda. Yeah I could just stick to what I have, but given that TCGs are the original gachas, I just couldn't shake the gross feeling off. Especially because I didn't know if I'd keep playing, which would make the whole thing feel like a sunk cost. This is what drew me to *Exceed*. It isn't like that at all. ## What if a Fighting Game was a Card Game There are a lot of board games that replicate the feel of fighting games. While I haven't played those, I can say that *Exceed* is definitely a fantastic representation of the genre. It works like this: The game board has 9 spaces that are in a row, with your character being on space 3, and your opponent on space 7. Your goal is to either kill your opponent by getting their 30 life points to 0, or having them reshuffle twice. Each player picks a character, which is a 30 card deck, with 15 copies of two card types. Some of them are normal attacks, which are universal across every character. Then you have special attacks, which are the ones unique to your character. You have ultra attacks, which require a resource to play, and then a reference card that you give to your opponent so they can understand your character, reducing the need for memorization of the cast. When you land an attack, it goes into your "Gauge" area, which lets you either spend your ultra attacks, or **Exceed**, which basically installs your character into a stronger version. Attacking is where the meat of the game is, and in my opinion, what makes it so fun and FGC-like. Attacks fall into 3 categories, more or less: - Slow attacks that punish fast ones - Medium-speed attacks that punish slow ones - Fast attacks that are low on damage, but take initiative, let you move around on the board, and punish mid-speed attacks It's a very easy to pick up system for new players, in my opinion. My buddy and I had it down in about 45 minutes and soon we were duking it out across the battlefield. One of my favorite moments of the session is when I opened with a Dive normal attack, which my friend anticipated, so he threw out his own. This caused us to simply land on opposite sides of the board - the tabletop equivalent of starting a mirror match in [[Granblue Fantasy Versus - Rising (2023)|Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising]] and opening with the exact same far-Heavy move at the same time. The system makes it so that you can get an idea of what your opponent might do based on their spacing, meaning luck is barely part of the equation. In the example above my buddy saw that I was using a move from very far away, and could thus counter with his own card that moved him closer, letting him dodge the attack. But I could anticipate that myself as well! In another match, I had my Polar Knight (of *Shovel Knight* fame), do a move from very far away as well, with the ice spikes that I placed on the battlefield between my friend and I. He dived past my spikes, but I called his bluff - the move I used actually did *less* damage if it passed over the spikes, meaning my attack was extra successful. Isn't that fighting game as hell? ## CAN'T ESCAPE FROM CROSSING FATE! The other very cool aspect of *Exceed* is that it's also a crossover game! There are currently 7 seasons, with the most recent four being in active rotation, so I'll list those: **Season 4** is the *Shovel Knight* season, and the one we've started with, so I can go into it with more detail! Every season has a gimmick, except for Season 4. In exchange, *Shovel Knight* is referred to as the "Boss Fight" season of *Exceed*. Each character has a gimmick of some kind: Polar Knight has the ice spikes I mentioned which control arena space, Plague Knight gets extra explosion effects off of hit confirms, Treasure Knight has far-reaching moves that basically make him a zoner, etc. I was told this is a great season for beginners which is why I started with it, and I'd agree! **Season 5** is the *Blazblue* season. It has two season mechanics: Overdrive and Astral Heat. **Season 6** is the *Under Night* season, which has no specific season mechanics, but changes how Boosts on Normals work, plus a couple of other things. All I know about this season is that Carmine is 100% banned in the community, which is really fucking funny to me. **Season 7** is simply called *Guilty Gear: The Board Game*, but is part of *Exceed*, same as all the others. This season has a Cancel mechanic. What's cool is that *every season is compatible with each other*. So you could have Ragna from S5 fight Giovanni from S7, or have Tinker Knight from S4 fight Wagner from S6. The game's balanced around having this in mind, which is very cool to me as a concept. I've read there can be a bit of a power gap that can happen the further away two seasons are, but that only matters at the highest levels of play. This ties into what I mentioned at the beginning of this post. What I love most about *Exceed* is that it doesn't feel like a sunk-cost. I bought the Shovel Knight Shadow Box, which comes with four characters and the rulebook. I could never buy another *Exceed* set again and be perfectly fine! Everything you need is right there. Obviously getting new characters is fun and adds to the diversity of play, but I don't feel pressured to keep collecting like with other TCGs, which is nice for my consistently rotted brain. So yeah *Exceed* is fun as hell at first blush. I prefer playing games like this in physical form, but it has an unofficial-but-official tabletop simulator version that includes every season which I'm gonna use to play with friends remotely too. If you know anything about me, this is a big deal, because I find tabletop simulator very irritating and overwhelming to use, LOL. BUT *Exceed* is simply that good!