Shiba Eternity Review: Does Shiba Inu’s Card Game Live Up to the Hype?

Shiba Eternity lets gamers construct customized decks from over 500 distinctive playing cards and gather 10,000 completely different Shiboshi heroes. 

What Is Shiba Eternity?

Shiba Eternity is a brand new Shiba Inu-themed collectible card sport from Playside Studios. The sport units gamers towards one another in a traditional one-vs.-one card sport duel, with the primary to cut back their opponent’s life factors to zero declared the winner. Gamers use one among 10,000 Shiboshi heroes to name the photographs, and use spells, objects, and varied fighters to battle on their behalf. 

The sport was first introduced on the peak of Shiba Inu mania in November 2021, because the SHIB cryptocurrency soared in worth and reached an all-time excessive market capitalization of over $40 billion. After nearly a yr of growth, the sport’s full launch went stay on October 6. 

Shiba Eternity’s growth is led by William Volk, a gaming business veteran with over 25 years of expertise at top-tier corporations like Activision and ROKiT Video games. With such an esteemed determine placing his identify behind the Shiba Inu model, expectations for the sport amongst Shiba Inu followers had been excessive. 

Crypto Briefing took Shiba Eternity for a spin to see if the sport lives as much as the hype. We’ve judged it in 5 key areas: accessibility, graphics and artwork, gameplay, story and lore, and any crypto components current. Right here’s what we thought. 

Accessibility: 4 out of 5

Shiba Eternity may be very straightforward to get began with. The sport runs on smartphones and tablets, so simply head over to the Play Retailer (Android) or App Retailer (iOS) and comply with the directions to obtain it. And at 417 MB in measurement, the sport isn’t going to take up a lot house in your gadget, both. 

Nonetheless, as with many cellular video games, how straightforward Shiba Eternity is to play will differ relying on the scale of your telephone display screen and fingers. The sport wants a good bit of dexterity to click on playing cards, and it will possibly turn into a bit fiddly on smaller screens. Utilizing a pill is beneficial for the most effective expertise. 

Though the sport is free, Shiba Eternity monetizes itself by in-app purchases. Gamers can earn playing cards and characters by taking part in or alternatively purchase them on the sport’s retailer. Along with shopping for unlocks, gamers also can pay for beauty enhancements, resembling customized card backs, and expertise boosts to degree up quicker. The costs for these boons fall broadly in keeping with different free-to-play video games and are pointless in case you’re keen to place some effort and time into unlocking the playing cards your self. 

Graphics and Artwork: 4 out of 5

Shiba Eternity’s graphics are arguably the most effective a part of the sport. Many of the in-game property look polished {and professional}, and the background photographs additionally do an important job of setting the scene and offering depth. The 3D renderings and customized animations for the Shiboshis heroes convey the lovable canines to life and break up the gameplay. 

Whereas the general high quality is excessive, there’s nonetheless room for enchancment. The cardboard graphics focus closely on Shiba Inu characters and turn into repetitive the extra you play. Since there’s little variation between playing cards, it will possibly turn into troublesome to inform which of them you’ve gotten on the sector or in your hand at a look simply by trying on the artwork.  

Nonetheless, the tutorial character Ryoshi (named after the pseudonymous Shiba Inu founder), who guides new gamers by the tutorial, doesn’t give off an important first impression. Regardless of sporting a refined and erudite voice worthy of any dojo grasp, the character’s sprite doesn’t match his look or the sport’s general aesthetic in any respect. 

Gameplay: 2 out of 5

Video games begin with the gamers deciding on their 4 beginning playing cards and tossing a coin to determine who will go first. On a participant’s flip, they’ll summon fighter playing cards to the sector (however should wait a flip earlier than attacking with them), play spell playing cards, connect equip playing cards to their Shiboshi, and assault their opponent. Solely weak playing cards with one or two “bark energy” may be performed firstly of the sport. Nonetheless, gamers’ bark energy will increase after each flip, letting them use extra highly effective playing cards as the sport progresses. 

Every fighter card has an assault and armor score. When a card assaults, its assault energy is subtracted from the defending card’s armor. If the attacking card’s assault worth exceeds the defending card’s armor, the latter is defeated and leaves the sector. When no energetic character playing cards are on the sector, gamers can assault their opponent’s Shiboshi immediately. Gamers win the sport in the event that they cut back the opposing Shiboshi’s well being from 30 to zero.  

In case you’ve performed collectible card video games like Hearthstone or Magic: The Gathering, you’ll seemingly acknowledge a number of gameplay mechanics that Shiba Eternity has borrowed. Nonetheless, whereas a few of these mechanics have turn into a common customary and make Shiba Eternity extra fast-paced and intuitive, others look minimize and pasted from extra profitable video games.

As an alternative of making a novel sport that stands out from the abundance of collectible card video games available on the market, Shiba Eternity copied a lot of what made different video games profitable and solely added a Shiba Inu-themed facade to try to camouflage that reality. In case you’re a hardcore gamer searching for a brand new card sport to dig your enamel into, Shiba Eternity will in all probability go away you dissatisfied. Nonetheless, the sport might discover a higher match with a extra informal viewers. The gameplay is fast and pretty intuitive whereas nonetheless leaving room for some strategic decision-making.

Whatever the type of gamer Shiba Eternity appeals to, there are some unfavourable points of its gameplay that can not be ignored. Gamers already appear bored with “overpowered” decks controlling the meta. Quickly after its launch, posts on the sport’s official subreddit began reporting that the Frostfire Blast deck, because it’s generally referred to, has turn into more and more in style amongst high-level gamers as a result of how sturdy it’s. The imbalance has elicited such a response from the Shiba Eternity participant base that the dialogue of Frostfire Blast makes up most of its subreddit’s posts. 

Elsewhere, the sport’s quest system, designed to present gamers a continuing sense of accomplishment as they play, can be proving detrimental to the gameplay. The hunt system assigns gamers in-game duties like utilizing an “epic” rarity card ten occasions, rewarding them with expertise and the kibble tokens wanted to unlock new Shiboshis. Nonetheless, as some gamers have famous, to meet these necessities, there’s an incentive to carry opponents hostage in video games, leaving them on a single level of life and persevering with to play playing cards to satisfy the necessities for varied quests. This incentive construction results in a foul gaming expertise for a lot of gamers.

Whereas builders could repair these points with time, the longer they persist, the much less seemingly it’s that gamers will stick round. Total, the Shiba Eternity gameplay leaves rather a lot to be desired.

Story and Lore: 1 out of 5

Though the predominant theme in Shiba Eternity is martial arts, its backstory is a cataclysmic sci-fi romp coping with an array of themes from battles with alien “Greys” to Shiba Inu-inhabited planets caught in a supernova occasion. 

The essential gist is that following the 1951 UFO crash in Roswell, New Mexico, humanity found know-how from the “Shib Universe,” together with capturing a “Gray” alien who shared this info with the governments of the world. After reverse engineering the know-how, humanity “harnessed the ability of the Shibarium” and launched a spaceship referred to as the SS Virgil to journey to one among ten inhabited Shiba galaxy planets.

Upon arriving within the Shiba galaxy, battle breaks out between the alien Greys (now referred to as “shadowcats” for some motive) and the native Shiba Inu. After two wars, it’s revealed that when the SS Virgil traveled to the Shiba galaxy, it triggered a dimensional tear that put two native stars on a collision course with one another. Now, the human crew of the SS Virgil, together with all Shiba-kind and a brand new character referred to as “Queen Andromeda” (as a result of why not), should staff as much as cease this extinction-level occasion from occurring. 

It’s not precisely clear how this lore intersects with the sport. The central conceit appears to be that the Shiba Inus are sufficiently proficient in martial arts to fight the shadowcats within the battle.

To be frank, the Shiba Eternity lore is chaotic at greatest. The weblog put up outlining the story is a convoluted, poorly-written narrative that does little core worldbuilding. Whereas there’s, admittedly, a subjective ingredient to the story surrounding the Shiba Inu ecosystem that is likely to be misplaced on some folks (resembling myself), quite a few factors nonetheless fall flat. 

Like the cardboard sport, the story behind it’s suffering from dog-themed puns and Shiba Inu references. Every thing essential within the lore begins with the prefix “Shiba,” making it needlessly troublesome to comply with what’s occurring and revealing the author’s marked lack of creativeness. Whereas the story is actually formidable, it fails so as to add context and coloration to the sport and can seemingly go away the reader extra confused than once they began. 

Crypto Ingredient: 1 out of 5

There’s not a lot to say in regards to the crypto ingredient in Shiba Eternity, because it’s non-existent within the present model of the sport. Nonetheless, in keeping with the sport’s builders, there are plans for a blockchain model of the Shiba Eternity that can enable gamers to make use of NFTs from the ten,000 Shiboshis assortment within the sport to earn token rewards (It’s additionally price noting that the Shiboshis that gamers can “create” within the free model of the sport are all copies of Shiboshis from the NFT assortment). Numerous weblog posts outlining the Shiba Inu ecosystem have referenced a reward token referred to as TREAT, which can seemingly play a job in Shiba Eternity sooner or later.

The shortage of a blockchain ingredient has been a disappointment for a lot of onlookers and Shiba Inu followers alike. Many had assumed that gamers would be capable of use SHIB for in-game transactions, a comparatively easy characteristic that continues to be absent in the interim. Whereas there are hints that the long run model of the sport will assist tie collectively disparate components of the Shiba Inu ecosystem, such because the deliberate Shibarium Layer 2 chain, Shiba Inu Metaverse venture, and Shiba Inu-backed stablecoin, there isn’t any concrete roadmap detailing if, and when this may occur. 

Closing Ideas

Regardless of its faults, Shiba Eternity’s launch is a landmark second for each the SHIB cryptocurrency and the broader Shiba Inu ecosystem. What began as a meme coin, launched to capitalize on the Dogecoin hype previous it, has remodeled right into a fully-fledged model with the ability to draw main sport builders. Though this primary try is missing in sure areas, the truth that it occurred in any respect ought to trigger even essentially the most vocal Shiba skeptics to suppose twice earlier than writing it off as a joke venture.

Nonetheless, if Shiba Eternity and the Shiba Inu model wish to go additional, they have to tighten up their operations. Clear, skilled communication and model technique are a should going ahead, as is consolidating the assorted tasks created beneath the Shiba Inu banner. At its coronary heart, Shiba Inu is a crypto venture, and something that makes use of its mental property ought to comply with this instance.

Disclosure: On the time of penning this evaluate, the creator owned ETH and several other different cryptocurrencies.