Recent reviews by Beaumonde

Great game that gives you a solid dose of adrenaline and pure Democratic patriotism. It's unfortunate that the devs are caught between their angry playerbase and the stupidity of their publisher. Thankfully it seems that Sony has backed down, at least for now.

I've been playing since the very first week of December in 2022, which was the start of The Power Cosmic season. I have played almost daily since then and have managed to finish every weekly challenge AND every season pass since December. I'm a huge fan of the game and still am, however I can no longer recommend this game.

It feels like for every 1 or 2 steps Second Dinner progresses forward in terms of the economy or card acquisition in the game, they inevitably take 1 or 2 steps back not long after. The game is becoming increasingly more Gacha-like. From series drops being slowed down or ignored, such as Darkhawk, which has been in a consistently stable and good spot in the meta. Darkhawk should have been dropped down to Series 3 (and therefore much easier of a card to collect for the general population), however, Second Dinner has shown they will change the series drop schedule in order to accommodate future bundles in the store, such as the "Not Quite A Bird" Darkhawk bundle. 3X VALLUE! (which was really 3 times the amount it should've been for what was given).

They had great moves in making certain cards easier to acquire, such as the weekly spotlight for new cards, series 4/5 cards having a rotating slot and Ultimate variants moved to their own spot in the Token shop. They then made it so those who haven't finished Series 3 can acquire a free series 3 card each season. Great! and then Token amounts in Collector's Reserves were increased! (though in random amounts, still a good change). For some who lean more towards the F2P side of the game, Token acquisition amounts allowed you to get ONE series 5 card a month. At the time, all new cards were released as either series 5 or as part of the season pass. Now with the most recent update including Spotlight Caches (which btw, feels like it has a disgusting amount of FOMO behind the thought process), the ability to acquire tokens has been DRASTICALLY reduced. It will now take an average of 6 to 7 MONTHS to earn a series 5 card with tokens. This has been lessened, barely, by having (so far) 2 out of the 4 cards released every month straight into Series 4, which is half the cost of a Series 5 card.

On top of that, the ability to get Gold (premium currency) from Collector's Caches has also been removed. To be fair, I felt like Second Dinner was fairly generous with the ability for a player to earn Gold, which helped mitigate the high (and sometimes overpriced) cost of the majority of all bundles, which I feel like on average range from 30 USD on the low end up to 100 USD on the high end. Now the best way to earn gold is from reaching higher in the ranked ladder (Which I doubt even a large percentage of the player base ever reaches rank 90) and buying the season pass. Many of these bundles include Credits, which is the free currency that players use to upgrade their cards, which in turn allows us to open more Caches. Alongside the removal of Gold from Caches, the amount of Credits you can get from these caches has also been reduced which then slows down progression of the game which hinges on upgrading your cards.

Now for the most recent problem, the newly introduced Spotlight Caches. You get one every 120 collection levels, and a player who completes the Weekly Challenges should earn enough to be able to open ONE Spotlight Cache a week. Spotlight Caches offer 4 possibilities when you open it, which is the most recently released card, two specific series 4 or 5 cards, and then one random series 4/5 card. If a new card is released and you haven't hoarded Spotlight Caches, you now have a 25% chance to get the new card in under 7 days, because every week, the cards rotate out into another set of specific 3 cards, not including the random series 4/5 option. Not only does this new system basically promote hoarding, it almost necessitates it, as you need 4 Spotlight caches saved up for a specific week, which is 480 collection levels, which is ALMOST A MONTH of play to guarantee getting ONE NEW card, when a new card is released every week. You would think, hey with the random 4/5 card you can get, that should help right? NO. THERE IS NO DUPLICATE PROTECTION ON THE RANDOM SERIES 4/5 CARD IN THE SPOTLIGHT CACHE. If you open one and you happen to get the random, there is a significant chance you can get a card you already have, such as Kitty Pryde, WHICH MOST OF THE PLAYERBASE HAS GOTTEN FOR FREE. Now, this wouldn't be so bad if you were compensated in some way, right? Well, the only thing you can do is convert the already owned card into a random variant. When I say random, it is completely random. If you open Galactus (which is a permanent Series 5 card) and you already own it, it could be converted into something such as a PIXEL Hawkeye, which is a STARTER CARD. This? This is horrible.

I won't get into balance changes, which is generally on the good side of things, and Second Dinner has made a fun game from characters and comics that I love. Yet over the past 6 months my ability to enjoy and have fun in this game has felt like an emotional roller coaster with more negative experiences than there are positive ones. Progression, in a sense, feels more restrictive now than it has in previous months.

Man, this game sucks.